Chapter 38. The Labyrinth of Echoes

They built the labyrinth into the cliff so it could hear the river when it wanted to. The entrance was a round mouth rimmed with old script that said the sort of thing scripts like to say: none of it useful unless you were the stone it was written on.

“Rules,” Ilyra said, adjusting the leather at my wrist so the mirror shard lay flat and didn’t bite. “No one follows. No one speaks. The echoes aren’t truth; they’re direction. Pick the ones that want you to keep moving.”

“And if they all want me to stop?” I asked.

“Then you’ll know you’re close to the center,” Rhea said, cheerful. She passed me a strip of salted fruit and winked. “Sugar without the laughter.”

Syra checked the seals on the gate—silver wire, wax, a touch of chalk. “You get lost,” she said, “you’ll come out hungry, not dead. We’ve learned a thing or two since the last time we let a city eat its own best.”

The First Luna stood with the Conclave. Kael stood with the guards. Vara stood with no