Isaac and the others had already been running. They might have made it.

She opened her eyes. The stars looked down at her, brilliant, distant, and uncaring. The dark, torchlit bulk of several towers loomed nearby.

So I’m still in Esau’s fortress. She’d entertained a wild hope that she might wake up at home in bed; after all, that was what had happened the last time she’d nearly died, fighting the tree-sprite. But this is different. That had been a prison-book, and Geryon had been watching over her shoulder. Here, inside another Reader’s labyrinth, there was no way for the old wizard to even know she needed help.

I wish Ashes were here. The cat was never much practical use, but having him around was comforting nonetheless. Or Ending. Or even Isaac. That brought her full circle, though, to her last glimpse of scurrying figures on the collapsing bridge. I’m sure they made it. They had to. Except for Garret, who’d been directly in the monster’s path. Alice swallowed hard and blinked away tears.

If Ashes were here, he’d tell me to get up and start doing something about it. Alice sat up, rubbing at an ache in her shoulder where it had hit the stones, and looked around.

She was on another stone walkway. But if the bridges between the outer towers had been garden paths, this was more like a downtown high street, broad enough for two cars to drive side by side. Smaller spurs peeled off on both sides, stretching out to nearby towers and weaving above and below each other like a knitter’s nightmare.

And straight ahead was the dome of the central keep, lit by its ring of torches.

Okay. Torment must have brought me here. But why?

Alice fingered the pair of acorns that remained in her pocket. All around her was stillness, except for flickers of light from the endless torches. No monsters seemed to be in evidence. It was, she decided, as good a place as any to catch her breath.

Part of her burned to go rushing to the aid of Isaac and the others. But another, more logical part, pointed out that she didn’t know which direction to rush toward, and running through the labyrinth at random was not likely to help.

It had been hours since her last meal, and she’d had only a couple of swallows from Dex’s canteen in the meantime. Let’s hope this works.

She flicked the acorn to the ground, bent over to put her finger on it, and pulled on the tree-sprite thread. The life-energy packed inside the little seed burst out, sending roots burrowing through the cracks between the stones and branches shooting upward like waterspouts. Alice grabbed hold of the torrent and controlled it, carefully, leveling out the tree’s growth when it was five or six feet high and pushing it in a new direction.