To Best the Boys(67)

“Sorry,” I gasp. “Your world is too small.” I thrust against him, ramming him to the side, and plunge for the doorway where I am suddenly spit out onto the balcony overlooking the Labyrinth entrance and festival grounds in broad daylight as the sea of partiers wavers in and out of my vision.

The light is so bright I shield my eyes. The noise is deafening—but mixed in with it, I can hear the cry of seagulls and smell the port’s salty air. Until the rising tide of voices grows clear enough for me to pick out words and phrases.

They’re arguing about the fishing regulations.

I squint. Not just arguing—the festival looks half destroyed. The Upper tents have been torn down, and the Lowers have taken over the terraces.

I peer back through the doorway, but Vincent is nowhere to be seen. Only Holm, the king, and his attendees are standing back in the shadows. I want to sink back in there with them. Back to the Labyrinth and Seleni and Beryll and Lute. Especially Lute.

“Gentlepersons and friends,” the announcer’s voice bellows from somewhere. “Your attention, please.”

“Who is that?” one of the spectators yells.

My airway shrinks and I begin heaving. The antidote’s not working fast enough.

“What’s going on here?” Vincent’s father demands. “Where’s my son?”

“Friends and community.” The announcer’s words ricochet off the garden walls and echo out over the lawns with the same intensity that is ringing through my head. “I give you the winner of this year’s scholarship contest—Miss Rhen Tellur.”

The thunder in the crowd rivals the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears as I stumble forward and drop to my knees. My arms and stomach seize.

Even so, I vaguely note their shock turns to laughter. “Is this a joke? Bring out the real winner!”

“Is that Rhen? What happened to her hair?”

Until they apparently realize he’s serious, and their words become:

“What’s going on?”

“This is a boys’ sport!”

“How was she even allowed in there? How did this happen?”

“She’s from the Lower Port, that’s how!” a voice bursts out.

“One of our own Lowers won!”

“Poor girl’s still not even wearing stockings.” Mrs. Mench’s voice rings louder than the rest. “I knew it.”

I look down at the crowds of people and parasol-covered lawns. Then over to see the dean and board members of Stemwick University standing beside the announcer, whom they probably think to be Mr. Holm.

They are not cheering. They’re not doing anything at all other than frowning down their long noses.

And everything goes black.





22

At some point my body decides to settle on the fact that I am not dead. It begins to fight against the poison-fueled nightmares and ongoing sensation of falling, despite my mind saying that something’s still very wrong. As if my limbs lunged through the winner’s exit but my brain knows I haven’t really won. That there’s something more. That the key to the bigger maze is still missing and I’m walking in circles trying to decipher what that means. “Like rats in a maze.” Isn’t that what Vincent had said back in Holm’s parlor?

Except this rat keeps scratching at my skin, trying to get in. With its disease that just keeps morphing, and the vials of blood and tubes filled with live viruses that won’t stop floating through my head. Along with memories of Vincent in his better days, running tests beside me.

My blood pounds as the antidote works to clear the poison from my blood and the ghouls from my sleep. But still the rats keep scratching.

Until the day following my exit from the Labyrinth—when I peel my lids up to see the sun and Da’s face.

“Ah. Was suspecting you’d wake soon.” He smiles.

I offer a weak smile back. “What’s the verdict?”

“You’ll live.”

“I assumed. I meant the other verdict?”

“Your mum and I still love you, and we might even be rather proud of you.”

“Funny.”

He winks. “There are a few verdicts, if you want to know. The first is that you did indeed win the contest. The official statement is that while there was a final test, Holm never said exactly what it was a testing of—and there’s a whole thing about it having to do with character and all that.”

“What of the other contestants?” My mind flicks to Lute. Then Sam and Beryll and Will and Seleni.

He fetches me a cup of tea then comes to help me sit up. “Aside from the boy who ate a bloodberry, the rest are alive and have been returned home. Some a bit more beat up than when they entered. Same as every year. And Lute’s mum sent word that he woke this morning.”

I stop midsip from my cup and breathe out relief. Then frown. But how? How are they alive? How did they escape from the sirens and basilisks and ghouls? How did Holm rescue them so fast?

I don’t ask because Da won’t have an answer. Nobody ever does but Mr. Holm. What had Da said? “Same as every year.”

Maybe that’s the real magic, or horror, of the strange little man.

I’m sorry for the boy who died, though.

Da clears his throat and taps his own cup. “The second verdict is that the whole Port is waiting to see if the university will agree to let you take their exams—just like we’re waiting to hear back on the fishing industry representation. Some of them have”—he sucks his cheek in as if trying to choose the right words—“made no secret of what their reaction will be if either is denied.”