“How? I tried looking, but I can’t seem to find anything in this place. You were right, it must be an active labyrinth. I don’t know how, but . . .” She caught Alice’s expression. “What?”

“Nothing. I can explain, but let’s go upstairs first.” Alice let out a long breath. “That way I only have to say it all once.”

Chapter Eighteen: Difficult Choices

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DIFFICULT CHOICES

THEY SAT IN a circle on the flagstones of the tower roof. Alice, Isaac, Soranna, Dex, and Ellen. The other four listened silently while Alice explained as best she could about her encounter with Torment and Jacob, the nature of the power the Dragon had given her, and what she knew of its limitations.

“I can’t keep the pathways open for very long,” she concluded. “And it seems to work best at a boundary of some kind, like a doorway. I really don’t know very much about it.”

“Nobody does,” Dex said. “My master, the Most Favored, has a labyrinthine, but she told me that not even the masters understand how the maze-demons’ powers truly function.”

“My master said something similar,” Ellen said. “This is the first time I’ve heard of anyone ever binding one either. I thought they were too powerful for that.”

Alice shrugged. “It’s too powerful for me to use in the normal way, that’s for certain. I think I can only use this power because it wants me to.”

“The binding isn’t supposed to work like that,” Ellen said, frowning. “The bound creature isn’t supposed to retain any volition when it hasn’t been called on.”

“We can figure out what’s going on with the Dragon later,” Isaac said. “For now you should be glad Alice has it.”

“Of course I am,” Ellen said, glaring at him. “We’d all be dead without her. Now that we’ve gotten everyone, we should be able to get out of here.”

The words hung in the air for a moment.

“Is that what we’re doing?” Isaac said. “Leaving?”

“Of course it is,” Ellen said. “What, this hasn’t been bad enough for you? If we’re in an active labyrinth, it’s a miracle we’ve made it this far. Obviously our masters didn’t have the whole story when they sent us here, and under the circumstances, the best thing we can do is try to return and report what we’ve found.”

Ellen looked around the circle, searching for support. Soranna wouldn’t meet her gaze, and Dex’s smiling expression was a mask. Isaac was scowling. Finally, she looked at Alice, and Alice took a deep breath.

“We haven’t got everyone,” she said. “There’s still Jacob.”

“Jacob,” Ellen deadpanned. “The boy we were sent here to kill.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Alice saw Isaac flinch.

Dex said, “We were meant to capture him for judgment.”