Taken

The corridor ahead came to an end in a crooked door. Variam shoved it open to reveal a wide, dark space. There was a ceiling above but it was cracked and bumpy. Skeletal bushes rose before us, long dead. I led us in and mud squelched under our feet; the floor was earth, not wood or stone. “Where are we?” Luna asked quietly, glancing from side to side.

“Hedgemaze,” I said. I’d already mapped the route and led Variam and Luna through at a fast walk. “But Crystal called the whole place a ‘shadow realm.’”

Variam looked over with a frown. “We’re in a shadow realm?”

“You know what one is?”

“Yeah, but this isn’t really the time,” Variam said. “Someone else just came in, right?”

The hedgemaze must have been quite a sight once. Now it was a petrified ruin, the dead wood fading into the darkness as we wound our way towards the centre.

“Onyx,” I said. I’d been searching ahead and the futures where we ran into him were very hard to miss.

“How did he get in?” Luna said.

“From the sound of it I think he figured out how we got here and did a repeat performance.” Probably he’d shot up the house the same way Variam had. This wasn’t looking good—I’d been ready to deal with Vitus, but not Crystal and Onyx as well.

“Are we going to get to Anne first?” Variam said.

“Yeah, but not by much.” I glanced through the futures in which we turned back. Crystal was still pursuing with Lyle trailing after, Onyx was behind them both but catching up fast, and I still couldn’t pick Vitus out of the tangle. “Okay, this is going to get messy real fast. Vitus is up ahead and he wants Anne, but he’ll be going after us second. Crystal wants to silence us, make sure we don’t get out to spread the story. Lyle probably has no idea what’s going on, so he’s sticking next to Crystal. And Onyx . . . my guess is he’s here to kill everyone. Vitus, Crystal, me, and anyone who doesn’t get out of the way fast enough.”

“What’s the plan?” Luna asked.

“There isn’t one,” I said.

Luna and Variam looked at each other. I realised they were waiting for me to tell them what to do and felt a flash of frustration. Couldn’t they tell I was making this up as I went along?

But they were looking to me to lead them, and even if I didn’t know what I was doing I had to act as though I did. I tried to think of what would put Luna and Variam at the least risk. “All right,” I said. “I’ll go in and get Anne. You two hold the entrance as long as you can, then fall back. If we get separated work your way out of the maze back to the top floor of the house to the long corridor where we entered. I’ll meet you there and we can get out.”

“I’m going with—” Variam started to say.

“No,” I said instantly. “Look, if these guys all attack us at once we’re finished. Our only chance is to hold them as far away as we can. If we can keep them busy with each other, we can get away in the confusion. Crystal’s key will get us out if we can make it to the door.”

A shape loomed out of the darkness ahead of us and a moment later the skeletal bushes opened up into a clearing. Before us was a small building, its foundations sunk into the ancient mud and its upper level reaching up into the shadows. We’d reached the centre of the hedgemaze.

There was only one way in: a crosshatched metal door, stiff from long disuse. “Hold this door until you’re in danger and then get out,” I said as I got to work on it. “Try to delay Crystal long enough for Onyx to catch up, but if you can’t, or once the fighting gets serious, run.” The door scraped open and I turned to look at Luna and Variam. “Got it?”

Luna looked around nervously at the dead clearing. “Okay.”

“Fine,” Variam said. “But if you’re not back in five minutes, I’m going after—”

“If I’m not back in five minutes it probably means Anne and I are both dead. In that case, get out. There’s a second way out through the hedgemaze around the back.”

Variam scowled. Luna was watching the clearing. There was maybe thirty feet of muddy ground between the edge of the hedgemaze and the building, and the air was ominously silent. With my divination I could sense Crystal hurrying closer with Onyx on her heels. If Luna and Variam hid inside the door they’d have some cover, but not much.

“Alex?” Luna said. The clearing was quiet, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. “Hurry, okay?”

I walked into the darkness.

*  *  *

The inside of the building was cramped and decaying. Pieces of wall crunched under my feet and I had to turn sideways to squeeze through the single corridor, yet somehow as I picked my way through the debris I knew this little old building was the heart of Fountain Reach. All the space and luxury outside were just for show. The corridor bent around, then inward.