Chapter Sixty-Four

B riony

Is this death?

Am I floating somewhere in the abyss of time and space?

But no, I feel the ground beneath my body. Hard and cold.

My body!

I still feel my body. Sore and raw but no longer … no longer screaming with agony.

I flick open my eyes. At first the dim light is overwhelming, and my eyes swim with tears, but then gradually the world comes back into focus.

Madame Bardin stands just where she was. Her attention is no longer focused on me. The lightning no longer streams from her fingertips and her words are no longer directed my way.

Instead, she’s grappling with a dark wisp of shadow coiling around her body. She attempts to shake it off with her own magic, to wrestle it away. Yet, despite the faintness of the shadow, it is strong, stronger than her own magic.

She begins to panic, scrabbling, twisting her body round and round just like I’d done when those brambles had encased me.

Then her eyes land on me.

“Are you doing this?” she yells with venom. “Is this you?”

“N-n-no,” I mutter.

“Then help me, you stupid wretch. Don’t just lie there, help me!”

Is she kidding me? One minute she’s frying me to death, the next she wants my help? What – so that she can fry me some more?

I stare up at her. Even if I did want to help her – which to be clear, I do not – I can’t. My body is too weak. My muscles are not functioning as they should, my heart still skittish in my chest.

“We’ll pretend this never happened. I will promise never to bother you again,” she says with a lot less venom and a lot more desperation this time, grappling with a shadow that weaves its way around her throat. “Just let me go! Let me go!”

I don’t know what possesses me. I’m not in control of those shadows. I don’t know who the hell is – or how and why they’ve intervened. But I take my opportunity anyway.

“You swear?” I say, lifting my head from the ground to stare right at her. “You swear to leave me alone?”

“I do,” she snarls.

“Then make the promise,” I tell her. “Make me the promise.”

She scowls at me, then rests her hand over her heart, her magic pulsating around her fingers. “I promise,” she says.

To my utter astonishment, the strange shadow drifts away from her.

Despite the pain it causes me, I jerk up into a crouching position. I don’t trust Madame Bardin to keep her promises – even if she sealed that one with her magic. Fox was right. She is dangerous and crazy as hell.

However, she doesn’t come for me again; she is swishing her dark cloak around her body and melting away into the air.

I let out a noise – halfway between a sigh of relief and a self-pitying sob.

Unfortunately, I’m not out of danger yet. Seems that mystery shadow wasn’t on my side after all, because now it is drifting towards me. I scrabble backwards, desperately searching for another plan. I won’t be able to outrun this or keep it at bay. If Madame Bardin couldn’t overcome it, what chance do I have?

I collapse back down onto the grass instead and an uncontrollable laughter takes over me as the shadow inches towards my toes.

Just when I thought I was safe, just when I thought this was over, fate has to come along and spit in my eye and teach me I’m wrong? Yet again!

At least I’ll die laughing. I think Amelia would be proud of that. Fly would probably get a kick out of it too.

Except, the shadow makes no move to harm me. Instead, it dances around my body, floating close towards my skin and then darting away, as if it wants to touch me, but daren’t. I watch it. Up close I see how it glitters, swirls and shimmers. It’s almost beautiful in a deadly kind of way.

I reach out my hand to touch it myself. The shadow backs away almost immediately, like a scared little rabbit.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I won’t hurt you.”

The shadow hesitates, then creeps closer, right to my fingertip. A mere millimeter separating my flesh from the wisp of magic. I can feel its heat. I stare up into its depths utterly captivated.

“You’re really quite something, aren’t you?” I say. “Thank you. For helping me.”

I don’t know who I’m thanking or why they helped me. However, there’s no doubt in my mind that someone did help me.

The shadow floats in place for a minute longer, then glides away towards the fountain at the center of this maze. It swirls around and around the stone monument. It’s trying to tell me something.

With a lot of effort and even more pain, I stumble up onto my feet and hobble that way.

The aroma of burned hair and flesh lingers in my nostrils. What the hell must I look like? If it’s half as bad as I feel, then hideous, most definitely hideous.

The shadow floats by the trickling water of the fountain and as I inspect closer I spot a crystal spinning under the water. I understand what I have to do.

“Thank you,” I whisper a second time and then I reach out and take the cool crystal in my hand.

Immediately, the ground beneath my feet jerks away and the world around me spins and then I land with a thud on solid ground.

“Finally.”

I blink and find the second half of the gruesome twosome standing right in front of me, a pen and clipboard in his hands. We’re somewhere out in the academy grounds and the sky above us is already black with night.

“What the hell happened?” he grunts with annoyance. “Didn’t you hear my whistle? You’ve been in the maze for over two hours.”

“I-I-I have?” I say. “Shouldn’t I have been whisked out after one?”

“Exactly,” he snaps, with even more annoyance, scribbling something on his board. “Your completion of the maze won’t count. You were out of time.” He glares at me as if I might dare to challenge him. I’m not going to bother. After all, someone helped me in there. Helping others is against the rules – yet, if anyone found that out, I’m sure I’d be the one to be punished. Then again, I’m sure Madame Bardin is going to find a way to punish me anyway. I don’t trust that promise of hers one bit and I doubt she is the type of person to take kindly to being beaten like that.

“Can I go?” I say.

“Huh?” he says, still scribbling. “Yeah,” he waves his hand in my direction without looking down at me again, “if you’re injured at all, take yourself along to the clinic.”

I wrap my arms around my body and set off back to my room. The air is frigid, making my already injured muscles ache and my teeth chatter together. Every step is painful. Tears snake down my face and drip off my chin.

Yet, there’s this peculiar warmth in my stomach, one that’s urging me back to my room. I pick up my pace and hurry along.

The main campus is busy with people tonight. The ball to celebrate the completion of the first trial won’t happen for a few days yet – everybody needs time to recover. But that hasn’t stopped people from partying already. Several are out on the paths, drinking, talking, going over the trial. Some are wrapped in bandages. I can hear music wafting from the towers, more chatter and laughter too.

I have a strong desire to find Fly and Clare, swap stories and take a swig or two of Fly’s liquor. This strange sensation has other plans though and soon I’m rounding the corner to my own tower.

Rounding the corner and halting.

There are three figures lingering at the entrance.

Beaufort, Dray and Thorne.