Hazel allowed herself a few hours of sleep. She had finished her work past midnight, the last creation she would ever make in this tower: a new pair of gloves, made of finely-spun gold, soft as silk, and sturdy as all Hazel's magical creations were.
This was probably not the use Gaea had intended for the straw she'd brought, but Hazel could not bring herself to care. She could not delay her leaving to wait for Gaea's permission. She needed to get out.
She would always be grateful to Gaea for what she'd done, of course. She'd raised her, taken care of her, and kept her away so she couldn't hurt anyone with her curse. But when Gaea had given her her old gloves, keeping Hazel's curse contained, Hazel had wondered if there was a point to staying out of the world. Surely being careful would be enough.
The brush of light at sunrise woke Hazel up, and it took her only a few minutes to be ready. She had stored her provisions in the bag in which Gaea had carried the straw; she had nothing else to take with her. It was summer outside, she knew, which was fortunate, since Gaea had never bothered getting her a cloak. All she had to wear was the tunic and trousers she'd worn every day for over a year now.
She walked to the window, glancing back one last time at the place that had been her entire world for twenty years, then turned her back on it. It was time to leave, to expand her world.
The golden dust was still hidden in the moat, below her: she imprinted her will on it, and one by one, specks of gold floated up to her window, and inside the tower. They congregated together, gathering in a flat surface barely wide enough for Hazel to stand on. She layered the grains on top of one another, strengthening her creation as much as she could with magic alone.
Tentatively, she laid a foot on it, waiting for it to dissolve and ruin her carefully-crafted plan. But it held on, even when she stood on it with both feet, the force of her will greater than her weight—for now, at least.
She stepped back, willed the golden platform to float outside the window, then carefully got out as well, one leg at a time, keeping her hands on the windowsill. Her creation hovered shakily, and for a moment, Hazel feared she wouldn't be able to keep her balance. She remembered something she'd read in a book, and crouched on the platform, slowly steadying herself.
When she let go of the windowsill, she felt her heart lurching in her chest, as though she was falling, but she didn't. Terror raged within her, turning her heart into a hammer and her lungs to nothing, threatening to tear her focus apart. She couldn't waste any more time: she willed the platform to float down.
The first half of her descent went smoothly; then, suddenly, wind blew at her, pushing her away from the tower, even though the building should have protected her. She felt herself sliding, willed her platform to right itself, but her momentum carried her over the edge.
She fell, her brain briefly overloaded by the feeling of weightlessness, her eyes blinded by tears as the wind roared around her. But she didn't need to see; she reached out to her platform and willed it apart, remodeling it as fast as her imagination could come up with a solution.
Her fall broke when a strand of golden dust caught her right wrist, then another secured around her left ankle. Both were connected to the remnants of the platform, and both were horrifyingly thin—she'd been forced to, or it would never have reached her in time.
The ground was still some ten meters beneath her, too far to safely land. She tried to get the platform to come down to her, but her relief at being caught—at not dying—was what had finally defeated her focus. Closing her eyes, Hazel breathed in slowly, trying to build up her concentration again—and before she could, she felt the strands of gold around her breaking apart. She didn't even have time to try and consolidate them before she was falling again.
This is it. I'm going to die. I was so foolish to even try. The tower had been designed to keep her in. Of course golden dust wouldn't have been the answer.
She never hit the ground, though. Her fall was broken as something caught her, hurling her to the side instead of down. With a cry of surprise—and a little of pain at the shock—Hazel opened her eyes, but everything around her was a blur of colors: azure blue, stone gray, moss green, and tawny brown.
She tumbled for what felt like an eternity, then the world finally stopped spinning, and something dropped her on the ground. Immediately, she rolled away, looking up at what had caught her. When she saw, her heart froze in her chest.
It was a feline, its fur a tawny brown, like a panther or a mountain lion Hazel had read about. Except there were no such things anywhere near her tower—and it was almost as tall as Hazel was, which she doubted was a regular size for such animals. It stared at Hazel almost curiously, with eyes filled with intelligence.
Hazel knew what it was. Her mother had practically raised her with stories of her tower. A labyrinth surrounded it, and a Beast roamed its corners. Gaea had made it sound like it was there for her protection, though Hazel had often wondered if it wasn't meant to keep her in. In any case, her plan had been to hover over the Labyrinth and immediately getting out in the process; and now here she was, stuck in sight of the tower—far from any possible exit—and with the Beast right there.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the creature to attack her, but nothing happened. All that came instead was a voice.
"Are you all right?"
It was a masculine, deep voice, with a hint of an accent Hazel couldn't place by lack of experience. Her eyes snapped open, but she was still alone with the Beast staring at her.
"I said, are you all right?"
The voice came from the Beast, Hazel was sure of it now. Its maw didn't move—nor did Hazel imagine that it could articulate words—but it had spoken to her. And asked her if she was all right. She let out a shocked gasp. "You can talk?"
"Why does that surprise you? You can hover on gold."
The Beast's words brought Hazel's mind back to the task at hand. She doubted it would kill her, now, so she stood up and look around. "My platform? Where is it?"
"It fell to pieces after I caught you. The wind scattered them."
Hazel couldn't help but let out a whine. "Now I'll never get out of here." What could she do? Even getting back inside the tower would be impossible without a way to climb up.
"I was wondering why you were throwing gold from your window every day. It was a good idea; I'm sad it didn't work out for you."
Hazel turned her attention back on the Beast. "Aren't you supposed to be angry that I tried to escape? You're here to guard the Labyrinth, aren't you?"
There was a raspy sound, which Hazel realized was a mixture of a laugh and the Beast's natural growl. "I'm a prisoner of it as much as you are. The same witch who visits you every day put me here, a few years ago."
"The witch? You mean Mother?"
"You may call her that, but she is a witch. And I'm not just saying that because she has magic," the Beast said in a hurry. "I don't mean to insult you."
"I don't have magic—only this stupid curse."
"Again, you were hovering on gold. I think that counts as magic."
A nervous laugh escaped Hazel's lips before she could contain it. "Yeah. Well, fat lot of good it did me. Now I'm stuck here."
"I could take you to the exit, if that's what you want."
"I thought you were a prisoner here."
"The exit isn't what the witch doesn't want me to find. I can lead you there—it'll only take a couple of days, even if we walk at a human's pace."
Hazel frowned at the beast calling her mother a witch again. "How do I know you're not going to lose me on purpose to get revenge on Mother?"
"Because, as I said, you're as much her prisoner as I am. Even if you don't seem to realize it yet. So, will you follow me?"
Hazel shrugged. "All right. Lead the way."
They walked in silence for two hours at least, by Hazel's estimate. She was slowly getting used to wandering a maze with a magical, talking beast, but the silence that hung between them was more than she could bear.
"So how did you end up here?"
The Beast paused, not answering, but turning its head towards Hazel.
"It's just—you said you're a prisoner. I wonder how that happened, especially if you know the way out."
"There's something else keeping me here. After all, why would a beast like me want to roam the world?"
Hazel blinked, unable to understand the question. "Why wouldn't you?"
"How do you think most people would react to seeing me?"
The answer was obvious enough, even to someone who had never been in the outside world. "Then what did you do before you were a prisoner?"
More silence, as impenetrable as the walls surrounding them.
But Hazel wouldn't take it. "Okay. How about this: I tell you about myself, and you answer my question. Does that sound like a deal?" She didn't wait for the Beast's answer. "I've lived in that tower for as long as I can remember. Gaea—the 'witch' you told me about—raised me, fed me. She gave me everything I have, taught me everything I know." Still no reply. "The reason why I was put here is because of my curse. Everything I touch turns to gold. I can then control that gold, and other precious metals too, sometimes, but—well, no one would risk being turned to gold by their own daughter. Gaea took me in after my parents gave me up. She was like a mother to me."
"Is that what she told you? That your parents gave you up?"
"Well—of course. How else would I have ended up here?"
"What did you do of your time, in that tower?"
Hazel frowned, unsure what the Beast was getting at. "I read a lot. Did some chores, of course. Sometimes Mother—I mean, Gaea—would bring me material to try turning to gold. That's how we figured out that gloves could contain my power." She held out her gloved hands in demonstration. In spite of her rough landing, they were still mostly intact—an advantage to magical gold.
"And what did she do with all that gold?"
Hazel shrugged. "Well, she took it. It's not like I had any use for it here." She paused, catching the Beast staring at her with a look she thought was amused. "If you think she's getting rich on my back, I know that already. It's the least I can do for the safety she gave me."
"So safe you had to run away," the Beast deadpanned.
Hazel scoffed, but she couldn't retort to that. "Your turn. A deal's a deal."
She almost expected the Beast to point out that it hadn't agreed to anything, but it gave a low growl, then talked. "I was a man, before. Born with an ability—like yours."
"You're cursed too?"
The Beast made a raspy noise—the one Hazel had heard before, what passed for laughter in its throat. "I don't think your gift is a curse. Mine certainly wasn't. I could turn into animals—normal, magical, real, imaginary, anything. The witch decided I was too powerful, and locked me in here, after trapping me in this form. Which is why I can't leave this Maze."
Hazel pondered its words. "When we met, you said there was something the witch didn't want you to find in here. What was it?"
"My salvation. A way to end the curse she placed on me. Then, I could leave this place."
"I see." Hazel wasn't sure what else to say. She knew Gaea had magic—was it powerful enough to trap someone in a different shape? Hazel had no real way of knowing for sure. But she guessed the Beast had no reason to lie to her. "I'm Hazel, by the way. Since you never asked."
"I wondered if you had a name aside from 'sweetheart'," the Beast said, sardonic. Hazel frowned at it—the only way it would know about Gaea's pet name for her was if it had watched during her visits. The Beast caught her look, and laughed again. "My name is Frank."
"Frank?" She couldn't help but giggle. "A Beast named Frank. How anticlimactic."
"A man named Frank, trapped as a beast." For the first time, the Beast's voice—Frank's voice—sounded bitter.
"You're right," she said. "When you put it like that, it's suddenly quite tragic."