In the time I'd stayed with Cyrus at the mansion, I'd never ventured into the hedge maze. I'd see the Fangs go into it. I'd seen Dahlia run to it to escape pursuing vampires at the New Year's party. But I'd never braved it myself. Mazes have always given me the creeps. I don't like the uncertainty of not knowing where to go or how to get back. It wasn't any better tonight, when possible death was thrown into the mix.

I followed Cyrus, Nathan close behind me. A rule I'd learned about mazes as a child was "always go left." I saw now it wasn't a fail-proof rule. We twisted right and left, following angles, then curves, through narrow corridors and wide, circular spaces.

"How do you remember this?" I asked, feeling secure enough in the cloistered darkness that I raised my voice.

"Shh!" Cyrus whispered urgently. "There could be guards. This path intersects theirs several times."

"There won't be. Dahlia ate them all." I wished I hadn't said that. Thinking of people being eaten destroyed the modicum of confidence I'd built up since coming over the wall. "But how do you remember your way?"

"Practice. Also, concentration and patience. All things that I am out of," he said, distractedly. "She ate them? All of them? I rather liked a few."

It seemed too short a time before I had to leave the cover of the maze. I'd dreaded the close, confusing space but I dreaded the house at the top of the hill more.

"Okay, got the stone?"

I held out my palm. Nathan pulled a leather pouch from his pocket. Leather, for some reason, was unaffected by the charm, something we'd discovered when he, but not his watch, had disappeared when he'd handled the stone. He opened the pouch now, spilling the amulet into my hand.

"You're good to go," he said quietly. "Be careful, Carrie."

"I will." I could already feel myself vanishing. "I'm going in now."

They watched me all the way up the hill, even though they couldn't see me. I know, because I stopped halfway and looked back. There was something voyeuristic about it, watching them watching me and knowing they didn't know. They stood side by side, too visible at the opening of the maze. They should have known better, but I wasn't going to blow our cover by shouting at them. Nathan's features, sharpened by stress and the eerie shadows of the maze, showed his pain and fear more acutely than I'd ever seen them. Because he'd admitted to me, and to himself, that he loved me, he thought I was doomed.

It was the same for Cyrus. How alike they were. They both thought their love would the thing that killed me. How alike, and how self-centered.

Keep moving, sweetheart, Nathan prompted through the blood tie.