by Tess Adair
Just like that, they took off down the tunnel, closing the distance between Fisher and themselves in a few short seconds. Jude knew she should have wanted to drag her feet, to try to keep as much distance between them and Fisher as she could. He’d been mostly rude to her so far, and the working logical section of her brain told her to be wary. But another, larger part of her, one she didn’t quite understand, didn’t mind at all—in fact, it wanted her to move forward. It told her that they needed to stick together, all three of them, even if she wasn’t too sure about the boy. It was that part of her that propelled her feet to move, quelling her own uncertainty with every step.
The warmth of Eliana’s hand didn’t hurt.
They had barely reached him when he took off again, motioning for them to follow.
“I think I’ve figured out where the Hall of Roses is,” he called over his shoulder. “Follow me!”
Eliana squeezed Jude’s hand as she pulled her forward, after him. “What makes you think that?”
“I can smell it. Can’t you?”
Remembering the wafting scent of flowers from when she’d first stepped inside, Jude took a deep breath. There it was, clear as air. And from what she could tell, Fisher seemed to be right about the direction it was coming from.
“We’ve heard a lot about the Hall of Roses,” Eliana told her. “The story goes that it’s as old as the Order itself—in fact, it’s supposedly the place where the Order began.”
“And not everyone gets to go,” said Fisher, striding just ahead of it. “The maze decides whether or not you can see it—whether you’re worthy.”
“Oh, wow.” Jude couldn’t think of anything else to say. She got the distinct impression that Fisher’s words contained a veiled threat.
They continued down the corridor made of foliage, pretty little lights leading their way. When Jude looked up, she could still see the night sky, even though she felt as warm as if she were indoors, and she still couldn’t seem to hear anything beyond their immediate vicinity. As she assessed herself, she realized that she didn’t feel as wobbly and uncontrolled as she had when she’d first drunk from the phial. Now it felt more like she was carried along by a tide, tethered to her two companions.
Was it just her mind playing tricks, or was her hand starting to feel like it might not actually be able to let go of Eliana’s?
She leaned a little bit closer to Eliana and lowered her voice. “What was in those phials, exactly?”
Fisher heard her anyway.
“Sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll, baby.”
Eliana rolled her eyes.
“Nothing dangerous,” she replied, somewhat evasively. “Just something to get us all to relax, to help us bond.”
Still walking, Fisher turned to face them. “And to keep us totally and completely honest. Isn’t that right, Blake?”
Eliana nodded. “Correct.”
Ian’s face lit up with a perfect impression of a mischievous smile, directed right at Jude. “Why don’t you try to tell me a lie?”
Jude smirked, unimpressed by the challenge.
“Fine. Uh, right now, the stars up in the sky are—”
“No, no—not like that. Tell me—tell me what you think of me.”
“Leave her alone, Ian.”
Fisher laughed.
“Would you prefer I ask her what she thinks of you?”
“Nah—how about I knock your teeth down your throat instead?”
Still walking backwards, Fisher’s grin looked exaggerated and wolfish. “Feeling a little sensitive, are we?”
Eliana had barely opened her mouth to respond again when the boy in front of them tripped over something on the ground behind him, immediately losing his balance and tumbling hard to the earth. Jude felt something inside herself jerk forward, as if pulled along with him.
Feeling a sense of calm she wasn’t sure came from within herself, Jude stepped forward and glanced down at him.
“I think you’re kind of an asshole,” she said serenely.
Eliana stepped forward alongside her.
“What, your fancy new eyeballs can’t see through the back of your head?”
A giggle escaped Jude’s lips, though she had no idea what Eliana actually meant. As the sound faded on the air, she picked up on that flowery scent again, even stronger than before. As her head began to turn inexorably toward it, she realized that Fisher had tripped over a thick set of roots spreading over the ground ahead of them, leading them onward…
Several feet ahead of them, the hedge walls gave way to a large archway made of interlocking branches, several different types of flowers blooming throughout.
Jude felt her right hand float up to point. “Hey, uh, guys? Is that the place we’re looking for?”
Eliana and Fisher both turned their heads, though Fisher had to crane his neck to do it.
“Holy shit.” Eliana jumped over her fallen friend to move toward the mesmerizing, unearthly light streaming in from the archway. Still attached by the hand, Jude was pulled along by her movement.
The archway seemed to grow bigger and bigger as they approached, though the room beyond it remained obscured by the glow.
In no time at all, they found themselves walking under and through it. Their world went dark for the briefest moment, and then they were on the other side.
Jude didn’t bother to hold back her gasp. They weren’t in a hallway at all; they weren’t even in a room. Instead, they had just stepped out into a sweeping botanical garden, full of a million varieties of flowers in every imaginable color. As large as the maze had looked from the outside, Jude never would have guessed it contained something this size.
“How?” was all she managed to say.
“Awesome,” said Eliana beside her.
Fisher stumbled in behind them, slightly out of breath. “Congrats, newbie. You haven’t fucked it up for us yet.”
“Didn’t the entrance just knock you on your ass?” said Jude, blinking slowly at him. “Seems like you’re the one it doesn’t like.”
“She got you there,” said Eliana, chuckling softly.
Fisher started to say something back, then stopped himself. Instead, he scowled at the both of them and stalked off into the rose bushes without another word.
Jude could vaguely remember the feeling she’d had earlier: the certainty that they would all be safe, if only they stayed together. Yet her calm remained, though she wasn’t yet certain it was really her calm.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” she said. “He seems like he might need to be handled with care.”
“Oh, don’t worry about Ian,” Eliana replied with a shrug. Her voice was as calm as Jude felt. “He can handle a little harsh reality now and then. Come on, I want to find the floating bridges.”
With that, they were off.
Jude couldn’t quite say how long they’d been in the Hall of Roses. After the antechamber of bursting wild flowers, the rest of the garden seemed to separate itself into intersecting rows and columns, forming a looser mini-maze within the confines of the wider maze. They might have only been exploring it a few minutes, or it might have been hours.
They hadn’t seen Fisher since he’d broken off from the group. When she thought about him wandering around alone, she started to feel a dull worry poking at her perfect, complacent calm.
“Is everything all right?” asked Eliana.
Jude shook her head. “I’m not sure. Something feels odd about this place.”
“You can say that again.” Eliana nodded, then pointed over to the left. “Hey, do you think we’ve passed by here before?”
Jude followed her point and realized that she had, indeed, seen that particular shrub and those particular purple-and-yellow flowers before.
“Yeah. Are we walking around in circles?”
“I think so.”
Jude felt another ripple through her surface calm. She’d been so sure they were going in a straight line….
“Do you hear that
?” The hand that still held hers tightened.
Jude stilled, straining for the sound. There it was, somewhere in the distance. At first, it sounded like the wind. Then it sounded like a howl.
“I think it’s coming from behind us,” said Jude, her voice low.
A beat after she said the last word, it sounded again. Closer this time.
“Forward it is, then,” said Eliana.
She pushed on with deliberation, pulling Jude along for the ride. They flew through the next few rows of rose bushes, past a lovely water fountain carved with angels and a smattering of wire sculptures of trees. They went faster and faster with each step until they were running flat-out.
They might have kept on that way if they hadn’t, at that moment, found their first floating bridge. As they rounded a bend in the hedge, a pristine and lovely pond materialized before them. Eliana skidded to a halt, and Jude gratefully followed.
“What the…” Eliana trailed off, staring hard at the perfect, serene water before them.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jude.
“Nothing, it’s just—I was just thinking—but it doesn’t matter. Let’s just…let’s just check out the bridge, yeah?” She turned around briefly, surveying as much of the path they’d taken to get here as she could, which wasn’t much. “Can you hear it anymore?”
Jude turned, too, though that was unlikely to help her.
“I don’t hear it right now. But maybe it comes and goes.”
“You mean it might come back.”
She looked uncertainly at the water again. The bridge across was narrow and low, made entirely of stones that just barely breached the surface of the water, creating the impression that they hung suspended, magically impervious to applied weight. There was no railing on either side; there was nothing at all to hang on to.
In her mind’s eye, Jude could already see herself missing a step, sliding right under the dark surface of the water. She began to understand Eliana’s sudden reticence.
“We could go around it,” she offered, looking to either side of the pond. As she did, she realized that might not be true: vines and shrubbery began to amass a few feet in either direction, forming two low walls that not only rose in height, but eventually broke away from the pond, forcing the walker to pick an entirely new direction in which to travel.
Eliana shook her head.
“That’ll take too long. And what if it moves us even farther away from Fisher?”
What if going forward does that? Jude thought but didn’t say.
“Okay. Then let’s get it over with.”
Eliana gave a tight nod before letting go of Jude’s hand so she could stride forth onto the first stone platform. She stepped on with ease, and Jude saw her shoulders relax. She even tossed back a reassuring smile before she took her second step.
So, Jude followed her in.
Her first step was just as easy as it looked. Her shoes connected with the stone, and she returned to her center of balance without effort. Her next few steps were just as uneventful, though she made sure to keep her eyes glued to the bridge so she wouldn’t trip.
As she took her fourth step, she saw movement on the edge of her vision. A small ripple on the surface of the water.
She blinked, unsure if she’d really seen anything at all. But as she took another step, her eyes focused now on the water instead of the stone.
Another ripple, originating from only a few feet away. Small, but…
“Eliana?”
“I see it.”
Jude felt her heart begin to race. Now that she knew they had both perceived it, it felt a hundred times more real.
“What should we do?”
“Try to go faster. And don’t fall in.”
Jude nodded, though Eliana couldn’t see her. Ahead of her, the newly bound Order Adept sped forward, immediately gliding over the stone bridge with impossible speed and incredible grace. Jude suddenly realized how much she’d been holding herself back when they’d been joined together by their hands.
Now it seemed her fear had broken through her restraint. Jude did her best to keep up, but she found herself sorely lacking. With every step she took, Eliana only got farther and farther ahead of her. The water rippled again. It seemed like it was getting bigger.
After a few moments, she realized something was different: it had gotten a little bit harder to see clearly.
The world had gone dark. But why? She looked up at the sky.
The stars were missing.
She heard a kind of groan coming from somewhere nearby: it sounded almost like a large machine, creaking and screeching its way to life. Almost, but not quite. She was fairly certain it came from somewhere beneath the dark surface of the pond.
Eliana sped up even more. She was now more than ten feet ahead of Jude, who struggled to make up the distance. She could see the other side of the pond, maybe thirty or forty feet ahead—
In the corner of her eye, she saw a flash. When she turned her head, something had just slipped back beneath the surface, leaving nothing but a splash of water in its wake.
She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, ran so fast she forgot to look where she was going—
The next piece of stone her foot connected with was slanted to the side, and she slipped.
She threw her arms out wildly as she went down, and while one found purchase on the stone, the other skimmed and slid, scraping up her palm as her entire arm crashed through the surface of the water.
“Jude!” Eliana screamed, now more than fifteen feet ahead of her. She spun around frantically, searching for the other girl and the source of the sound. “Jude, get up!”
She began to run back for her, but Jude was already back on her feet, doing her best to ignore the harsh cold and the dull ache in her hand.
“I’m fine, keep going!” she called back, using her other arm to flag Eliana onward. Eliana nodded and obeyed, flying off again.
Jude saw another splash out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t pause to look. Even so, she knew it was nearly upon her.
She could feel her body beginning to lag, the cold and the fear spreading through her like a paralyzing agent. Why had she agreed to any of this? And why the fuck did Sasha Ren tell me it would be fine?
Eliana was already safely to the shore, and she skidded to a halt and turned back. Jude only watched her long enough to see that she was safe, then dropped her gaze back down, terrified of another fall.
The splash again, now merely feet from her. She tried to imagine a soccer field, tried to pretend the water creature was nothing but a rival player, and she used that image to help her push through her fear, push her legs to move faster than ever—
And before she knew it, she hit solid ground. Real grass cropped up beneath her stomping feet.
As the wave of relief crashed over her, she felt her knees buckle, and she fell to the ground, rolling farther away from the edge.
She didn’t even let herself stop to think. She just bounced back up and turned back to the pond, her feet ferrying her backward.
Except…there was nothing there. Jude blinked, but the result was the same. The entire pond was gone.
“What the fuck?”
“I know.”
Jude glanced to her left. Eliana stood slightly hunched over, her hands on her knees as she surveyed the open field that now stood before them. She looked every bit as confused and out-of-breath as Jude felt.
“But…how…”
Jude glanced down at her right arm. She’d been absolutely certain that she’d felt it go into the water, but…now it was completely dry. She turned her palm over and saw that it still looked a bit scraped up, but it, too, was dry.
“We must have hit a pocket of…something,” said Eliana, giving a faint shrug. She stood up straight and shook her head, still looking nonplussed, then glanced at Jude with concern. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Jude raised her raw, red palm. “I think some of the rocks were real.�
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Eliana gazed back out at the open field. On the far side of it, the hedge wall through which they’d entered was still clearly visible, unchanged by everything that had just passed. Jude thought about how scared she’d been only a moment ago, and she felt silly.
“It’s so weird,” said Eliana, sounding almost dreamy. “Just before we turned that corner, I’d been thinking…I’d been thinking about this lake I used to go to…a long time ago.”
Her gaze softened into the middle distance as her words trailed off. Jude wanted to ask her if this lake had been terrifying in some way, but she got the impression that Eliana didn’t want any follow-up questions.
“Well, I guess everything is okay now,” said Jude uncertainly. She straightened up and dusted herself off, hoping maybe the action would quell her lingering unease. It did not.
“Yeah, I guess we should…keep going.” Eliana turned around, back toward the direction they’d been headed in, and Jude followed suit.
Before them stood an old lattice-work fence, vines and flowers growing over and through it, sprouting in every direction. Jude was starting to feel suspicious of flowers.
They strode forward, stepping right through the break in the fence, leaving the pond-field behind them. Jude glanced up at the sky again and was unsurprised to see that all the stars had returned. But were they really there? She was starting to wonder if they were actually on the roof at all. What if this whole place was just another room, full of dangerous illusions?
She recalled how reluctant Logan had been to come to the Order of Shadows, and she was starting to think she understood why. Nothing here was exactly as it seemed.
You’re being a little dramatic, she chided herself immediately. Everything was fine before you took a bunch of magic drugs.
Yeah, but I was expected to take them, wasn’t I?
She gave herself a shake. If only she could put an end to this unbalanced feeling…
Beside her, Eliana stopped walking. She put her face in her hands and sighed.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, peeking through her fingers. “Because I’m not sure I’m okay.”
