by Theresa Kay
But I don’t have much of a choice at this point.
I opted out of all my final exams because I was doing the tournament instead. There’s no way I’d pass any of my classes if I back out now.
Isobel keeps glancing at me worriedly as we get ready and then make our way outside to the sizable area out by the lake where the tournament is being held. As we draw closer, what appears to be a large green wall comes into view.
I glance at Isobel from the corner of my eye as we approach. “The tournament takes place in a hedge maze? Really?”
She chuckles. “It is a cliché for a reason. Plants are easier to manipulate with spells than building material. OSA probably had a few witches here working overnight to build it up, and they can take it down as soon as everyone’s done rather than having a big old empty building or arena sitting out here.”
I suppose she has a point . . .
A group of twenty or so students is lined up by the opening in the greenery that’s the entrance to the maze, and the OSA agent standing at the front looks pointedly at her watch as Isobel and I draw closer.
“You’ve just made it,” she says. “Another minute and you’d have to forfeit.”
I wince. That’s my fault for staying up so late worrying about everything.
Isobel grabs my arm and says under her breath, “Don’t worry about it. We’re fine.”
The OSA agent claps her hands to get everyone’s attention. “As you know, this is a timed course with staggered start times to avoid any backups at the obstacles. There are many different possible routes through the maze, all of them with their own set of challenges. Some may be harder and shorter, and some may be easier and longer. It is up to you to decide how you want to progress. You can choose to work together or separately, but everyone must pass at least one obstacle without help from anyone else.”
I swallow and glance at Isobel.
“We’ll figure it out,” she whispers.
The OSA agent continues, “The obstacles increase in difficulty as you progress and will test all aspects of your powers. Once you enter the maze, the only way out is through the exit. You are not allowed to backtrack, and there are spells in place to prevent cheating.” She holds up a silver band. “You will each wear one of these talismans throughout your time in the course. It serves as your identification and tracking. If you remove it, you will be disqualified. If you lose it, you will be disqualified. If you exit the maze without it, you will be disqualified. If you cheat, you will be expelled. Understand?”
Everyone nods.
“You will be scored in three areas. The first and most important is speed, but you will also get points for skill and creativity, meaning how you traverse the obstacles can sometimes be more important than how quickly you do it.” She pauses, her gaze moving over our faces. “When you are ready, please come up and get your band. Your time will not start until you have entered the maze.”
The other students accept their bands and enter the maze one by one. Isobel and I are the last ones in line and the only ones side by side.
The OSA agent looks at us with interest. “Working together?”
“Yes,” says Isobel.
The agent’s lips quirk into a small smile. “Good. Sometimes they award points for teamwork, but we want people to decide to work together before we share that information.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“But you will still each need to complete one obstacle on your own.” The agent fastens one of the bands on each of our wrists and then claps me on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
Isobel and I pass in between the opening in the hedge and enter the maze. I look from side to side. The other students have already disappeared so completely that I can’t even hear them, and the silence is eerie as hell.
“Sound dampening spell,” says Isobel. “So everyone has to find their own way instead of following someone else.”
“Then I’m even more glad we decided to go through this together. I don’t like this place. At all.”
“We can do this,” says Isobel.
I pull my shoulders back. She’s right. We can.
Don’t people say the best way to get through a maze is to always turn left? Or maybe it was right? I glance in either direction. They both look exactly the same.
“Left?” I ask. Might as well go with my first instinct.
Isobel shrugs. “Sure. Let’s go.”
And the two of us head off down the first long pathway. After two full minutes of walking and seeing nothing, not even a turnoff, we glance at each other uncertainly.
“This doesn’t seem right,” I say. “Do you think this never-ending corridor is meant to be an obstacle?”
Isobel bites at her lower lip as she thinks. “An illusion spell maybe? To hide any turn offs?”
I nod. “Sounds feasible.”
“So, that makes the first task breaking a spell. Easy enough.” She cracks her knuckles and closes her eyes.
Isobel’s brow furrows, and then she makes a chopping motion with one arm, and the illusion spell shatters to reveal multiple turnoffs from the path we’re on.
We share a look, and I tilt my chin toward her. “You pick this time.”
She nods and trots off to the closest turnoff, peering down, then shakes her head. The next turnoff gets the same treatment, but at the third one, she points. “Let’s go this way.”
This time finding the next obstacle is easy. A large pit comes into view directly in our path. The pit isn’t particularly wide, but I can’t see the bottom, so going down and climbing up the other side isn’t an option.
“I should be able to spell our shoes so we can jump it,” says Isobel as she eyes the pit.
“Should be?” I peer over the edge. Things like this must be why the tournament is considered dangerous. If someone doesn’t know what they’re doing, this obstacle could be deadly. “It might be a long way down if you can’t.”
She bites at her lip.
“You can spell your own shoes just fine, right? It’s the added exertion of spelling mine that makes you unsure?”
She nods. “We could go back and try another way?”
“You heard what the agent said. There’s no backtracking. They probably don’t want people cherry picking the easiest obstacles.”
I glance around at the ground. We may be in the middle of a giant hedge maze, but this maze happens to also be in the woods. If I can find one good, sturdy branch . . . I spot what I need and run over to pick it up. The branch is thick enough to hold my weight and flexible enough to do what I need it to do.
“Spell your shoes,” I say to Isobel. “I’ve got this.”
I back up and take off running toward the pit with the branch held at my side. As I reach the edge, I plant the branch on the ground and use the momentum to send myself over the pit and onto the other side. I stumble forward, falling to my knees with one heel dangling over open air. I made it. I toss a grin back at Isobel.
“Impressive,” she says. “I think I’ll stick to magic though.”
A minute later Isobel has spelled her shoes and gently leaps across the pit, landing on the other side with barely a puff of dirt. Sure, her way was prettier, but mine worked all the same, and maybe that can count as me doing the obstacle by myself.
We move deeper into the maze, making short work of a string of simple ward obstacles and one that required us to use a smoke potion. As we go around the next turn, another student comes into view and, as we draw closer, I recognize Adrian. He’s looking a little bedraggled and frustrated, but his face lights up when he sees us.
“Finally,” he says with an exaggerated sigh. “I thought I was going to have to wait here forever for someone to help me with this one.”
“We live to serve,” says Isobel with an exaggerated bow.
But my smile isn’t so sure. Adrian is no slouch, and if this is an obstacle he can’t get past . . .
Adrian’s brows pull together as he studies me. “What’s
going on? You look like you swallowed a ton of rocks.”
“There’s something wrong with my magic,” I say.
His eyes about bug out of his head. “And you still walked in here? What were you thinking? Being weakened in here could get you killed.”
“That’s what I’m for,” says Isobel.
“For getting killed?” deadpans Adrian.
Isobel rolls her eyes. “No, we’re doing this as a team.”
“Well, I guess I better volunteer as a member then.” He glances around. “I’ve been stuck here for ten minutes, and I’m not sure what to do with this one.”
“With what?” I ask, waving a hand toward the empty space in front of us.
He chuckles. “About ten steps ahead there’s a barrier of some sort. You can’t see it, but it’s there. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but nothing’s worked.”
“Interesting,” says Isobel. She walks forward slowly with one hand held out in front of her and, like Adrian said, about ten steps later her palm runs into something and she can go no farther. She feels around, pressing both hands against the invisible barrier and sliding them up and down. If she was a little more exaggerated about it and dressed in black and white she’d look exactly like a mime stuck in an invisible box. After a minute or two, she shakes her head and returns to me and Adrian.
“I don’t know what it is,” she says. “It kind of feels like a ward, but it’s too solid for that. Maybe it’s a combination?” She nibbles on her lower lip. “What have you tried, Adrian?”
“The typical ward breaking methods. Probably the same ones you used getting through all the wards on the way here.”
“Any spellbreaking techniques?”
He shakes his head in reply.
“I guess that’s where we’ll start then,” says Isobel.
She runs through as many spellbreaking techniques as she knows with no luck.
“If it’s a combination, do you think one of you could do a ward break and one of you can do a spell break at the same time,” I suggest.
“Could work,” says Isobel.
So, they do. Combination after combination until they’re both sweating and exhausted.
Adrian presses his lips together. “The obstacles aren’t meant to be this difficult. At minimum we should have made some progress after all that, but nothing . . .” He plops down on the ground and rests his back against the greenery of the hedge. “I’m out of ideas.”
“Maybe it has something to do with sigils. Let me see if I can figure anything out,” I say as I approach the barrier. There’s a glimmer in the air which I assume is the barrier, and the thing is making a weird humming noise I hadn’t been able to hear from where I stood before.
I reach forward, one hand in front of me.
And pass through the barrier with no effort at all.
An almost painful shock jolts along my nerves, but the sensation is gone almost as soon as it registers. I stop walking and look over my shoulder. Isobel and Adrian are gone. There’s nothing behind me but an empty path.
What the hell?
“Isobel! Adrian!” My voice carries through the air, but there’s no response, not a single sound besides the rustling of leaves in the breeze. I spin around and make my way toward the barrier with my hands held out in front of me. My palms smack into an invisible wall. I repeat Isobel’s mime-like movements with pretty much the same results as she had. Nothing. The barrier is completely solid again; even the humming noise is gone. Somehow, I don’t think I’m getting back through.
I glance up and down the leafy corridor. For better or worse, I’m on my own now and need to make the best of it somehow.
I take a hesitant step forward then another and another, my gaze steadily moving around watching for other obstacles. There can’t be too many left. I can do this. I can make it. I can—
Everything around me goes dark. And not ‘nighttime’ dark, but ‘pitch black I can’t see my hand in front of my face’ dark. This is not good.
I pause, my feet shifting in place while I listen to the air around me. Squinting into the darkness—as if that’s going to solve my problem—I focus on the sound of the wind passing through the leaves of the hedge—the only sound I can hear.
That is, until the whispers start. They’re quiet at first, gentle brushes of air and sound, but they grow in volume until I’m surrounded by a constant hiss. The voices are woven together in a chorus of words, none of which I understand. It sounds like English . . . but a garbled version, spoken by mouths unfamiliar with how a human vocal box works.
A shudder travels down my spine.
This must be another obstacle, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Find a way around it? Break a spell? My magic still won’t respond enough for me to do a light spell, but I can’t stand here and do nothing.
Sliding my left foot along the ground, I take a hesitant step forward. I slide my right foot up to meet it and then repeat the actions a few times, my arms held out in front of me so I don’t run into anything. I just hope there aren’t any more pits because the only way I’d find one is with my foot over empty air as I fall.
My progress is, of course, extremely slow, but this isn’t a situation I should rush. With every careful, sliding step, I reach out for my magic, hoping that maybe this will be the time it answers my call so I can at least see where I’m going. Nope. Nothing. My frustration level rises along with my heartbeat and breathing. What the hell kind of obstacle even is this?
Something crashes through the bushes ahead of me, thrashing and stumbling around. A person? An animal? Something else?
“Hello?” I call out.
“Hello?” someone answers. “Who’s there?”
Wonderful. Of all the people for me to get stuck in here with, Jason Barrington is the very last one I’d choose. But, then again, he sounds just as confused as I feel, and he has no light spell pulled up. Why? Does that mean this darkness isn’t a normal obstacle?
When I don’t respond, he curses under his breath and mumbles something, light appearing in his palm.
“Hey, Jason.”
His head jerks up, and the startled look on his face morphs into one of displeasure.
My gaze flicks toward his testing talisman, glowing a steady—though muted—red, the mark of a cheater. He follows my gaze, his eyes first widening and then narrowing as he promptly extinguishes the light spell, leaving both of us in the dark again.
There’s the sound of a couple quick movements, and then I’m knocked off my feet by a wave of magic hitting my abdomen. Thankfully only an energy ball, but it stings like crazy and knocks the air out of me. As I’m kneeling on the ground, trying to catch my breath, Jason goes crashing through the bushes again, most likely cutting through hedges instead of walking the maze. Is that why his talisman lit up? No one said we weren’t allowed to cut through the plants. What if—
A loud yell comes from Jason’s direction, one that sounds a lot like his voice. I suppose that’s what he gets stumbling around like—
This time a scream breaks through the air, not one that’s merely scared or startled. This noise is one of pure fear.
I’m on my feet and making my way toward the sound, running my hand along the bushes to guide my way before I realize what I’m doing. Am I really going to run to his rescue? He hasn’t exactly been nice, and he did just shoot a damn energy ball at me.
Another scream.
Yes. I am. I can’t ignore that bone deep terror, no matter who it belongs to.
I push my way into the hedge with my arms out in front of me, batting away branches. Only a few seconds pass before I’m through to the other side. There’s a path of sorts through the bushes, broken branches, fallen leaves, and empty space that’s illuminated by something up ahead in the direction where Jason continues to scream.
I break into a run, lifting my arms to protect my face as I crash down the path Jason created through the plants. The light gets brighter and brighter until I burst through the la
st hedge and find myself in a sort of walled courtyard. The center of the maze maybe?
Jason is nowhere to be seen, but I can still hear him. Another scream rings out through the empty courtyard, echoing around me.
Could this be some kind of illusion?
Oh shit.
Could the screams be some sort of illusion? Some trick to lure me here to . . . what?
I glance around again.
Another scream.
That can’t be fake. No illusion could sound that real.
“Jason?” I call out. Maybe he’s trapped somewhere I can’t see. I take a step in the direction I think the sound came from.
The sound of whimpering reaches my ears. From behind me. I whirl around just as the air shimmers and whatever strange illusion was hiding the reality of this courtyard shatters.
“Run,” croaks Jason from his position kneeling on the ground about ten feet in front of me.
Behind Jason stands a man with long, red-gold hair, snake-like eyes, and a face made of sharp lines and perfect symmetry. The beauty of his features is incongruous with the somewhat blank expression on his face and the fact that there’s blood at the corner of his mouth. He has his head tilted to the side, a gesture that looks like inquisitiveness, as if everything around him is new and he’s trying to put all the pieces together while also jabbing a sharp—is that an actual claw?—finger into the skin near Jason’s shoulder blade. The man blinks and pushes harder into Jason’s already bleeding flesh before bringing the bloody claw to his mouth.
Just like that creature I found in Basil’s office did, except the creature barely scratched me, and at least an inch of this guy’s claw is wet with blood.
Jason screams again, the sound seeming too big for the size of the wound, but there’s something about the look on the man’s face that tells me whatever he’s doing is much more than what it appears.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“How did you break my glamour?” the man asks, ignoring my questions entirely.
“Glamour?”