by Lauren Mansy
“Etta, stop,” Reid says, sounding so much like Penn that it makes me cry harder.
“Even if we break out of this cage, who knows what’s waiting for us out there?” I point at the sea caves. “I was stubborn and stupid, and I never should’ve brought us here!”
“We’ll get through this,” he says.
I roughly wipe a tear away. “You’re just like Penn, do you know that? Selfless and brave—everything I always wanted to be. He was the best person I’ve ever known, and I loved him.” Shivering, I tuck my head toward my chest as my throat closes, and I can’t bring myself to tell Reid that I feel the same way about him. I whisper, “I would’ve done anything to save your brother.”
After a few seconds, Reid draws closer and wraps his arm around me. But he’s so weak that his skin feels barely warmer than mine. “I know,” he whispers back.
My heart aches at his words. It’s not forgiveness, but it’s a start. I lean my head on his shoulder and squeeze my eyes shut as tears roll down my cheeks. But the longer we sit in silence, my fear of the Maze dissolves into fury. Because if we don’t get out of here, it isn’t just Reid I’ve failed, but Penn too.
I push away from Reid and hit the bars with my fist over and over again, refusing to believe we made it this close to Greer only to end up here.
“That’s not going to do much of anything,” says a low voice, the words echoing throughout the cavern. “Never once has someone broken out of that cage.”
Reid moves slightly in front of me as a shadow appears at the top of the stairs.
“It’s been quite a while since anyone has washed up on this shore. Care to tell me what happened to bring you here?” In our silence, he holds up something that looks like a key. “If you ever want out of there, I’ll need an answer. I know full well nobody comes here by accident. What’d you do to get thrown into Minder training, hmm?” He steps closer, but his face is still hidden by the darkness. “Most days, an enemy of those soldiers is a friend of mine, but sharing an enemy doesn’t make us allies now, does it?”
I feel my mouth drop open. His voice is deeper, but if my memory serves me right—and I have no doubt it does—it’s a Shadow who went missing long ago, presumed dead, the same as me.
Beau.
CHAPTER
19
Beau!” I scramble to my feet and clutch the bars. “Beau, is that you?”
He angles his head. “Has the tide dragged you in here before? That sea’s a tricky beast.”
“It’s Etta, I mean Jules! Julietta Lark!”
Reid jumps up to stand beside me. “Wait . . . that’s Beau? The Shadow who went missing?”
“Julietta Lark died four years ago,” Beau says, his words razor-sharp.
I loop my tangled hair into a knot out of my face. “It’s me. I swear it.”
As Beau steps into the beam of light, I finally get a good look at him. He focuses on my tattoos before switching to my face. He looks older, a scar across his left cheek he didn’t have four years ago. It’s jagged and rough across his kind face, though I’d recognize him anywhere. I’m about to rattle off the dozens of memories we made together when he throws his head back and puts his hands on his knees.
“Julietta Lark, it is you!” he cries and jams the key into a lock hidden in the cave wall.
I let out a cry of joy as the cage begins traveling down, much slower than the trip up. The steel plate clicks into a base at the bottom of the stairs and slowly, the bars rise into the darkness.
With a roar of laughter, Beau opens his arms, and I step out of the cage to hug him tightly.
“How’d you know we were here?” I ask.
“The cage is connected to a bell in the only part of the Maze we use nowadays. It rings like crazy whenever we catch someone.” Beau draws back and studies my face. “You grew up, Jules.”
I grin, sure I’m a sight with the cut on my cheek and dripping wet with seaweed in my hair. “And your dimples went away.”
Half his mouth dips into a smile. “Well, I left them in Kripen. Spent nearly two years there.”
I feel sick at the thought. Craewick isn’t exactly a safe haven, but I can’t imagine living as a prisoner of the Minders. I felt enough like one in Craewick, but I’m sure the fray would be lavish in comparison to Kripen.
“I’m so sorry, Beau,” I tell him.
“You’re not the one who locked me up.”
“But I betrayed the one who would’ve gotten you back,” I say quietly.
“You were a kid who made a choice to save your mother. That, Jules, anyone can understand. But what are you doing here? And who’s this?” He eyes Reid’s wrist. “Tattoos don’t usually drip off, my friend, so I’ve already got a good feeling about you.”
To have Beau forgive me means more than I could ever say. I introduce the two then ask, “Greer . . . is he here?”
“‘Course he’s here. But how’d you find us?”
Grinning, I clutch Beau’s arm. Greer’s so close! I quickly explain getting the map from Porter.
Beau nods. “Greer told me about the connection, but Madame told him you were dead. If we’d known you were alive, we would’ve come for—”
“It’s best you didn’t know, especially since the Maze has kept you safe.” I glance up the steps, yearning to see my father. “Take me to him, Beau.”
We follow Beau to the stone walkway through the sea caves. They’re as pretty as coral reefs, twisting and curving above us in lovely designs.
“Step only on the darker rocks,” he says, jumping onto a black boulder while carefully avoiding the colorful ones in between.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because anyone who doesn’t winds up back in the sea.” He jams his heel into a white rock and it flips on its side, revealing a hole big enough for someone to slip into the waves crashing just beneath it. “Stay close. The Maze is full of surprises.”
My face warms as I consider what could’ve happened to us if Beau hadn’t shown up.
Most of the caves are open at the top, beams of sunlight splashing onto the crystal blue water below as we jump from boulder to boulder. There are a few waterfalls trickling down the smooth rock walls, and others are covered with fuchsia flowers. I pluck one off the wall before Beau slaps it out of my hands.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” he says. “They’re also poisonous. One sniff will knock you out for hours. And it’s not a peaceful sleep either, let me tell you. Whatever’s in that pollen induces nightmares.”
I steal a glance at Reid, who looks just as confused as I am. To think of my grandfather, with his serene gardens and deep love for the Aravid people, designing these kinds of mind games seems impossible to believe.
We veer down a tunnel with a roof of thick ivy and various fruits hanging off the vines. My stomach growls, loudly enough to echo off the rocky walls.
I put my hands up as Beau turns to face me. “I won’t touch anything else. I’ve learned my lesson. Nothing in the Maze is what it seems.”
“Well, you’re exactly right, Jules. Nothing is quite what it seems.” He grins before picking a berry to pop into his mouth. “If you’re hungry, eat up.”
The berries are delicious, both perfectly tart and sweet. “How’d you end up here, Beau? Did the Minders send you to the Maze?” I ask.
He glances over his shoulder. “In a way. After I woke up with a knife to my throat outside of Kripen, I spent months in a cage much like the one you found yourself in. That’s when I vowed to break every lock the Minders put on me. And the first time they made me part of their target practice, I escaped into the sea, crashed into the side of the cave like your boy Reid here, and washed up on shore.”
I stiffen, wondering how much Reid appreciates being called my boy, but he doesn’t react.
“I couldn’t recall my own name and had no idea where I’d been,” Beau says. “I was as dazed as a Hollow, if you can imagine. Didn’t remember a lick of the Shadows or Greer. It took him a while to convince me we
weren’t a couple of dead guys, but eventually my memories flooded back.”
The air cools as we round a corner into a tunnel with dozens of black holes trailing down the center.
Beau presses up against the wall and cautions us to do the same. “Sand pits,” he says, inching forward. “Nearly impossible to get out once you’ve set foot in one.”
My heart races as we tiptoe between the sand pits and come to a set of stone steps leading down to a rusted metal door.
Beau strikes a match against the wall and lights a lantern hanging beside it. Then he lifts the door handle.
I let out a laugh as the wall beside us creaks open, an entrance to a stone passageway. It’s so narrow I can’t raise my arms, and Reid has to hunch over to avoid hitting his head. I have to order myself not to panic, especially when we’re forced to turn sideways and squeeze between two boulders to get to the next tunnel.
This one is larger, but I wrinkle my nose at the stench of mold and dead fish as we up our pace. Even with Beau’s lantern, it’s so dark I can hardly see the iron doors built into the rocky walls.
Beau taps one as we pass. “Reinforced steel cells. Soundproof, impenetrable. Porter sure knew what he was doing when he designed this place. Between all the trapdoors and the twisting pathways, getting back to the surface is nearly impossible. That is, if the prisoner was unlucky enough to get out of his cell, of course.”
“The Maze is underground?” Reid asks.
“Prisoners escaped from here?” I ask at the same time.
“Above, actually,” says Beau to Reid, then looks at me. “Escaped? No. They were set loose. Most would spend a few weeks in those pitch-black boxes, only to think they’d been given freedom when the guards opened their doors. It didn’t take long to realize there are much more frightening things than darkness down here.”
A shiver runs down my spine. Porter designed the Maze to snatch whatever sanity his prisoners had left. How would it feel to be trapped inside this terrible game?
We pass through another musty tunnel of prison cells and up two more flights of steep stairs before I understand what Beau means about the Maze being above ground. There’s a shaft to our right and another to our left but ahead is a huge open archway with a patch of blue sky and wispy clouds.
I peer over the edge. It’s a long fall to the sea, down a jagged bluff. The waves crash against a cluster of boulders at the bottom.
“These heights dissuaded a lot of escapees from risking the jump to get out of here,” says Beau. “But if given the choice, I’d rather have two broken legs and a shot at freedom, thank you very much.”
I glance over the edge once more before Reid pulls me back.
“Watch your step,” Beau says, pointing out a tiny wire running across the width of the tunnel. “I know this place better than most everyone here, but Porter was quite clever in their designs. These traps are nearly impossible to see and scattered all throughout the Maze. I still trip from time to time.”
Reid and I both step over the wire before there’s a groaning sound from behind us. When I glance back, the walls have moved. Actually shifted around to where the hallway behind us is different than the one we just walked through.
“There are plates beneath our feet that sense movement through these channels. Once someone has passed through, the Maze changes. You can never go the same way twice,” Beau says.
“It’s almost poetic if it weren’t so terrifying,” I say flatly.
Beau laughs once. “Agreed.”
Up ahead is a small pond filled with fish that glow and a giant waterfall rushing into it. There’s so much water that it looks as if we’re viewing a river at the wrong angle. As Beau wades into the pond, Reid and I exchange a look before we follow after him.
Schools of fish dart in between us, all swimming in unison as if they’re one. They knock into our legs before rushing away.
“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Beau says. “They only attack when they feel threatened.”
Reid tenses beside me, and his hand slips into mine after I almost lose my footing on the mossy stones under the water.
Beau disappears behind the waterfall, and I suck in a breath before I close my eyes and follow after him. The water soaks me to the bone. When I open my eyes on the other side, there’s nothing but darkness. The waterfall roars behind us as I blink a few times before my eyes adjust.
We’re standing on the thin, rocky ledge of another giant cavern, this one bigger than any of the ones before. But between us and the way out—a tiny beam of light which looks like a doorway on the opposite side of the cave—is a dark abyss.
“No!” I scream, reaching out as Beau walks right off the ledge.
He turns around, looking as if he’s hovering in midair, before he taps his foot on something hard. “No need to be frightened. This here is the safest part of the Maze.”
Reid and I draw closer, and I recoil as I look down, seeing nothing but darkness. I timidly take a step forward and see it’s a bridge made of glass. So crystal clear that you’d never know crossing this abyss was possible unless you tried.
My heart is still pounding when I catch up with Beau and punch his shoulder. “Warn us next time!”
He gives me a sheepish grin and pats my cheek like he used to when I was a child. “Now there’s the Jules I know.”
I can’t help but smile as I bat his hand away.
The doorway on the other side leads to a staircase that twists and curves, making it appear endless. I look up then down, but it’s impossible to see where it begins or ends. It’s also rotting away. Many steps and most of the rails are missing.
“These stairs look as fragile as a spider’s web but they’re stronger than any steel. Another one of your grandfather’s inventions,” Beau says.
The stairs are so steep that we have to practically climb to the top. I’m sweating and out of breath as we come to a landing and spill out of the last tunnel.
We’re back in the open air, the sun shining brightly upon a wall of smooth, white marble as tall as the eye can see. Built into it is what looks like the remains of a castle, with huge turrets and chiseled archways.
I spin once to take it all in as we pass through a set of tall wooden doors, which leads into the main hall. The glass in the windows is gone, the breeze flooding in through the narrow frames warm and comfortable. A sprawling marble staircase leads up to a second-floor balcony overlooking the entire hall.
“This home has been in Porter’s fam—your family—for generations.” Beau jams his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “It’s a bit different than you expected, eh?”
I can’t find the words to answer. After Porter’s gardens, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.
There are bushels of violets growing everywhere. They trail up the smooth stone walls, crisscross over the vaulted ceiling, and curl in delicate waves around the ornate banisters.
I look for Greer but don’t see him among the gardeners clipping violets. Others hold large woven baskets on their hips, gathering the flowers as soon as they’re harvested. Most of them appear frail, their hands shaking like the addicts in the asylum, but one thing’s very different. They’re attentive, alert, and their faces warm with color.
“You’re making Porter’s compound?” I ask Beau.
Nodding, he grins. “Most of these folks were like me—victims of some kind of Minder experimentation. Some were even in a coma.” Beau plucks a violet off a trellis and tucks it behind my ear. “It wasn’t until I drank this compound that I remembered anything of who I was or where I’d been. I’d never wish the memories I spent as a captive upon my worst enemy.” He touches his scar, then motions around us. “But the way I see it now, I wouldn’t care much about helping these minds heal unless I’d gone through the process myself.”
I smile, imagining my mother opening her eyes for the first time in years, but I feel a kind of sadness too. There are so many violets here, enough for everyone in the a
sylum and then some. How many could be saved if Madame didn’t stand in our way?
Walking up the stairs to the balcony, I see him, clipping violets off stems trailing over the ledge. I catch my breath when my father’s gaze meets mine. His dark hair is now speckled with gray, and there are a few more wrinkles around his blue eyes, but even from here I see the flecks of gold spread throughout them.
“Julietta?” His voice breaks halfway through, making my name sound as if he’s addressing two people, as he walks toward me. “How can this be?”
Leaving Reid and Beau, I draw closer.
My lips beg to move, to pour out four years of apologies bottled up inside me. Conversations I’d whispered night after night because I believed my father was dead and I’d lost the chance to ask for his forgiveness. A tear slips down my cheek as he touches my face.
“It’s me,” I whisper.
He wraps his arms around me. Emotions as powerful as the day I betrayed him wash over my body. I break down as he draws me closer, crying as I lean my head on his chest.
“I . . . I never meant—” I say.
“Don’t apologize for trying to save your mother’s life. There’s nothing more you could’ve done.”
“But she’s alive!” I say, pulling back to see his face when he learns the truth. “Mother is in a coma, but she’s moving. Porter says the compound can bring her back to us.”
The color seeps into Greer’s tearstained face, a growing smile upon his lips, as he glances at the flowers around us. But violets aren’t the only thing that can save her now.
As quickly as I can, I tell him about pledging to Bray and meeting with Porter. There is so much I wish to share with him, years of life that we’ve been forced to spend apart, but tomorrow is Auction Day.