“Why me? I know why I am taking this risk. I know what I have to gain. But why are you helping me? Do you want revenge on Geryon? Or is it something else?”

There was a long silence. Alice tried to match Ending’s luminous gaze.

“What you have to understand,” Ending said eventually, “is the relationship between the Readers and the labyrinthine.”

“The labyrinthine serve the Readers, don’t they?” Alice said. “Not as bound creatures from a prison-book, but like Mr. Black or Mr. Wurms.”

“Not like them,” Ending said. “Such creatures serve because they are promised rewards, or in exchange for favors. Someday they may leave their master’s service and seek another. But we labyrinthine have served the Readers since the very beginning, and will serve them forever, if they have their way. Without us, without the labyrinths, they could not maintain their libraries. The books leak. So much magic, in such a small space, is only stable with our efforts.”

“But you said the Readers haven’t bound you,” Alice said.

“We are too strong for that,” Ending said with a hint of pride. “They must blackmail us instead. There was a creature, long ago, that threatened to destroy all labyrinthine. We could not defeat it, so in desperation we bargained with the Readers, exchanging our servitude for their help. They combined their efforts—the first and last time they have worked for a common purpose—and created the Great Binding, locking the thing away. But they still hold the key. We serve them to ensure that the creature will not be released.”

Ending’s voice had lost its usual sly, knowing tone. Alice was quiet, thinking hard.

“We all suffer, but some of us bear it better than others,” Ending said. “Torment, for example, has always been half-mad. But he is not the only one to dream of turning on his master.”

“So why haven’t you betrayed Geryon before this?” Alice said. “Like I said, why me? I’m a Reader, just like he is.”

“Because I am not mad. Torment’s fate was sealed when he slew Esau. The Readers will bind him into a prison-book, and there he will stay until the end of time.”

“Am I just a tool, then? Someone to take the blame?”

“You don’t trust me,” Ending purred.

“I don’t know.” The Dragon had warned her, before it had gone to sleep, that Ending exploited everyone around her as naturally as she walked and breathed. “But I’d like you to answer: If this works, where does it leave you? What do you want?”

There was a long pause.

“Have you thought about why we need to use the trap to capture Geryon?” Ending said.

“Because he’s too powerful for us to fight?”

“It’s not only that. Suppose we could fight him. Suppose we won, and you killed him.”