“Because I expect my children to grow up?” she countered. “Go take care of her.”

He approached the first stone, stopped, and breathed deeply. He was afraid. What Patience called “safe” was not always comfortable. A cruel mother indeed—she had sent him to be human, and being human had taught him new ways to fear—but he trusted her with every tiny scrap and sliver of innocence that remained in the depths of his jaded Trickster soul. And at last, as always, his curiosity triumphed over his fear. He took a step into the labyrinth and let go.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Miranda?”

He kept his voice gentle. He knew she was awake. Already the labyrinth had shaped her, putting her body in a hospital bed, broken and still, immobilized like a trapped insect in a web, held in a complicated tension of supports, restraints, and dangling counterweights. Already her mind had shaped him, making him into a doctor, white coat and all. He fingered his stethoscope and wished he had the heart to laugh.

Her eyes were barely open. A soft noise, too faint and voiceless to be a moan, came from her lips. Absently, still intent on watching her face, he took up a fresh damp cloth from a small basin on a nearby trolley. He touched it gently to her mouth so the moisture could seep slowly into her parched skin and noted her injuries. Scrapes and deep-blooming bruises were clearly visible, and he could also sense the fractures and fault lines of pain that traced her skull—brow, cheekbone, chin, teeth, and jaw. But those were murmurs, a soft hum of woodwinds under the loud, sharp brass of cutting, digging, crunching pain that blared out from her lower back and hips.

A long spasm of pain squeezed her eyes closed, squeezed her entire body tight in a vise of trembling muscles. He put aside the cloth, hesitated, and placed his hand near her on the bed, unsure whether his touch would comfort her or add to her pain. When the spasm was over, she opened her eyes and looked directly at him. For a moment he could not tell whether there was awareness in that look, but then she brushed a finger against his hand. She tried to speak and wept instead, two scant tears that barely tipped over the corners of her eyelids. That made up his mind. It might be cheating, but he could not bear to see her suffer.