“You’re going along with this as well?” Ellen said to Soranna. The younger girl flinched from the teenager’s gaze, eyes firmly on the floor, but she gave a tiny nod.

“No!” Alice blurted. “Listen. I wasn’t asking for anyone to help me. I don’t want your help!”

“I don’t think that’s your decision,” Isaac said.

“But . . . I can’t . . .” Alice shook her head. It was like sending Soranna out to run past the bird-things all over again. I can’t be responsible. Not for everyone.

“You’re all crazy,” Ellen said. Her eyes glittered, threatening a return to tears. “Garret was the strongest one here, and he died. Don’t you get that? If we don’t leave now, we are all going to die.” She turned to Alice. “You can’t let them do this.”

Alice looked around the circle, one face at a time, then down at her hands.

“I’m not sure I can stop them,” she said in a small voice.

“Fine,” Ellen snapped. “Wonderful. Have fun getting killed. Would you mind dropping me off before you go?”

They walked down the stairs, Dex leaning on Isaac, to the first doorway that let onto a bridge. It was easiest, Alice had found, to connect paths to similar spaces—a bridge to a bridge, a stair to a stair.

Alice gestured for the others to turn away and closed her eyes. It was definitely simpler to fold the fabric of the labyrinth while no one was looking at it. She reached out across the fortress, feeling for the long bridge they’d taken to the first tower, and pressed a path into being. When she opened her eyes, the doorway opened onto that bridge, and the small stone platform with the portal-book was only a few hundred yards away.

She touched Ellen on the shoulder. “It’s ready.”

Ellen looked out at the bridge, then down at Alice. “You’re really not coming?”

Alice shook her head.

“You must . . .” Ellen sniffed. “You all must think I’m a terrible coward.”

“That’s not it at all,” Alice said. “I’d like to leave. I just can’t.”

“You’re not telling us everything.”

Alice said nothing. Ellen shook her head, wiped her eyes one last time, and walked through the doorway without another look back.

Torment was already closing in, pulling at Alice’s path with all the glee of a boy kicking over someone else’s sandcastle. Alice gripped the fabric of the labyrinth as tight as she could. “The rest of you should go too,” she said. “I can’t hold it open for long.”

Isaac snorted and turned away. Alice looked at Dex, and finally at Soranna, who shook her head minutely.

“You were right,” the girl said in a whisper. “I . . . owe you.”