Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(80)
Leo took a deep breath and let it out, steadying his resolve. The best comfort he could give Elsa would be the safe return of her mother. He looked to Faraz. “Into the wolf’s mouth?”
Faraz grinned and replied, “May the wolf choke on us.”
And with that, Leo led the way.
*
At first the darkness made it difficult for Elsa to see much of anything in the center of her visual field, and she had to rely on peripheral vision just to place her feet without tripping. But after a minute within the labyrinth’s corridors, her eyesight adjusted to the diffuse lighting, and it became a relatively simple task to determine the difference between a shadow and a fallen fieldstone when one or the other crossed her path. She considered fetching a lantern from her laboratory worldbook, but if the light suddenly blew out, they’d all be left blind again.
Porzia was squinting at something she held in the palm of her hand. “Well, thank goodness for small blessings,” she said. “This world has a magnetic north.”
Elsa stepped closer. Porzia was holding the tracking machine’s compass. The tracking needle swung listlessly, aiming at nothing in particular, but the magnetic needle pointed straight ahead. So the entrance where they came in must be on the southernmost edge of the maze. “Interesting. I never thought we’d need it just as a regular old compass.”
Porzia said, “Between this and the curvature of the walls, we should be able to keep track of our progress relative to the center.”
“That’s good,” Leo called. He and Faraz had gone ahead and were now standing at a wall where their current corridor terminated. “Does that mean you’re going to decide: left or right?”
“Both,” Elsa called back. “Let’s evaluate our options.”
Leo and Faraz disappeared from view in opposite directions. Elsa and Porzia caught up just as Faraz came back around a bend. “The eastward corridor looks like it doubles back and heads south again.”
Porzia nodded and tucked the compass away. “So we’ll try the southwest quadrant. See where it takes us.”
They proceeded from there in much the same fashion, splitting up for a brief time at each intersection so as to make an informed decision about which path to follow. Though Elsa recognized this was probably the fastest way to find the center, it still made for slow going, and impatience burned in her gut. Damn Montaigne for this.
They wasted time pursuing two separate dead ends. Once, a slight tremor reverberated through the floor for a few seconds and they all froze until it passed, but whatever had caused it failed to make an appearance. At the third dead end, Porzia huffed, “Labyrinths are not supposed to have dead ends!” But otherwise, their exploration was proving uneventful. Elsa couldn’t help but feel it was suspiciously uneventful.
They were walking a long stretch of corridor with no turnoffs when, up ahead, something caught her attention—a flicker of darkness, like a shadow in motion. She held up a hand, drawing the group to a halt. “Did anyone else…?”
Her questioning frown elicited nothing but blank looks from her companions. She looked down the corridor, took a few cautious steps forward, scrutinizing every nook and cranny. Nothing but stones with the occasional weed pushing up through the cracks. “Strange. I thought I saw something move.”
“We’re all on edge,” Porzia assured her. “And it’s easy for your eyes to play tricks in this light.”
“Right.” That must have been it, though she could have sworn she’d seen something. An insect, maybe, she told herself.
They all began to walk again, Elsa slightly in the lead. She stepped forward, the stones of the floor looking entirely normal, and her foot landed on … nothing. Her stomach lurched as she tipped forward and began to fall. Faraz lunged, making a desperate grab for her arm, but even as his hands closed, her forward momentum slid her other foot over the edge. She dug her fingers into his forearm, clinging as her weight wrenched her shoulder joint, and the sharp-angled edge of the invisible chasm hit her hard in the ribs. She slid down as Faraz fought for purchase.
When her head dipped below floor level, the illusion vanished, and she could see the blackness gaping beneath her. The chasm yawned wide and deep, and the only wall visible through the gloom was the one pressed against her cheek.
“Give me your other hand!” Leo was screaming at her, crouched at the edge above. From the panicked, searching look on his face, it seemed they still could not see below the illusion, so all they had of her was an arm sticking up out of the floor.
Elsa flailed, trying to reach for Leo without compromising Faraz’s already tenuous hold. After three failed attempts, Leo finally caught her wrist, and the boys hauled her back up.
Elsa sat on the floor for a minute, catching her breath, before she even tried to stand. Skandar, who had taken wing during the commotion, resettled on Faraz’s shoulder and gave Elsa an accusatory glare, as if it were all her fault for displacing him.
Porzia appeared at Elsa’s elbow to help her up. “Are you all right?”
“Lucky I didn’t crack a rib on the edge,” she said, holding her hand against her sore side. For once she felt a flash of gratitude for the corset stays that had spread out the impact, though tomorrow she imagined she’d have some lovely bruises.
Leo was cautiously shuffling across the width of the corridor, dipping his toe over the edge to map the extent of the hidden chasm. “No way around—it’s as wide as the corridor. Do you think we could jump it?”