Our resting place was a room of pillars. They didn't reach the roof. Must have once been for decoration, or represented an open-air pavilion like the dining area at Camp where I'd met my first goddess. A place that the maze had wanted as much as it wanted us now and so it'd been taken and here it had laid in the patient maze until it was forgotten.

Not forgotten now. Now we were grateful for it. It was large enough that, if we sat in the middle, we'd have plenty of warning if a demon came in. Assuming they came from the walls, of course, and that was a huge assumption. But no place is perfect.

"How bad?" I asked even as we sat down.

Mr. Bombastic waved me off and swallowed some more of his dessert-medicine before answering. "I'm fine. Well enough to move."

I sighed roughly and plopped down onto my back. "Ugh."

Overhead, soaring above the tops of the pillars, the ceiling the maze provided encased crystals. As if molasses had moved in slow, contently lapping waves across the stars and left just barely a glimmer in place of each. You couldn't see the object, but you sure could see it shine.

What beauty you found in the maze, you either were stupid enough to carve for yourself, or it kept well-hidden. Ceilings were a good place to hide things.

Not yourself, of course, the maze would never permit that. I'd tried already.

"Not too bad, kid," Mr. Bombastic eventually said. "I knew I'd be able to shape you into something worthwhile. Just took a little effort."

"Not too bad yourself. I kinda like the light," I admitted. "It kills night vision but honestly I'm just glad for any sort of change. One that we control, not the maze."

I could hear the smile in his voice. "Why do you think I do it, moron?"

"Minos," I corrected.

"Whatever. Close enough."

We shared a laugh there. It wasn't so bad, wasn't so scary, wasn't like the laughs I'd heard from kids at Camp.

It almost made me sad that we'd be parting ways soon. Because the fact that we were sharing laughs meant that we'd spent way too long together. The more people, I had come to realize pretty quick, the easier it was to be distracted.

And it only takes a moment of distraction for the maze to claim you.

We sat up and I produced another box of Pop-Tarts. We ate in patient, guarded silence, every nerve honed in to the maze's mood.

Though I could not help but wonder, once again, why I wasn't dead.

There's got to be something else out there, I decided.

But our meal was in complete peace.

Afterwards, we sat over the open box of leftovers and continued to listen. It took a long while to convince us that the maze was truly done for the moment, that we had earned at least a few minutes.

Mr. Bombastic eyed the box and lunged for it like a snake.

"Hey!" I protested, but I was too slow. He'd already hidden it in his bloodied jacket. "Those were mine! You have your share!"

Mr. Bombastic smiled. "Yeah, but I want it more. So it should be mine."

"It's my last box," I snarled. "How do you know I don't want it more?"

"Well, I wanted it enough to get it first, didn't I?"

I was so mad that he'd take more than I'd already given, but I honestly had no answer. Eventually I just spat, "Who says you get it just 'cause you want it more, huh?"

He laughed at me as if I were a child who was begging to stay up late.

I snorted and looked away. "Geez. I don't even know why I came back after stealing all that food. We're just hindrances to one another, and you're a jerk. I shouldn't have come back."

"Easy. You longed for some more of my gracious company. Even if the maze forbids it," he winked. "I'm like that."

Oh, good gods. Time to go. I stood and began playing the now-familiar game of choosing a corridor.

"…Or," he continued to muse softly, "you were mistaken and thought I still needed your help."

I glared over my shoulder. "Mistaken?"

"Hm. You were wrong but I wouldn't call it a mistake to come back for me, or to not let me die regardless how much good you actually did. Nobody's that heartless."

"Except the maze," I said quietly, not sure if I would agree but not wanting to let his kindness go unappreciated.

See, maybe that's why he was so obnoxious. Nobody ever told him how much they liked the kinder side of him.

A certain amount of pride swelled through me as I realized it sounded like something Bianca would say.

Mr. Bombastic chuckled. "Yeah. Except the maze."

There was another thing Bianca used to say. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

From the corridor I had decided to take, a low, unearthly rumble could be heard.

Mr. Bombastic stood and his hands attacked his pockets only to come up fruitless. His knife had been left behind somewhere.

I tried very hard not to let my heart sink, not to let the maze know it had succeeded in tricking us at last. I tightened my hand on my sword instead and thought about Sis, about how I still had to find her.

And that despite the trap, we weren't dead just yet.

"Go."

I jumped, but it was Mr. Bombastic who'd spoken. "…What?"

"Go. Run. Leave. Thin out our scent. I'll hold it off."

My mind still wasn't processing. "You… want me to leave?"

"Yes, moron. It's because we're together that they find us so easily. What did I tell you about following orders? Get!"

I took two tentative steps back, caught between wondering if this was the maze's trick, if my escape was just a slick slope leading into an ambush, and confused as I could be. "…No payment for saving me?"

Where had the selflessness come from?

"I said get!" he barked.

"Will you be alright?" I demanded.

He laughed again, that harsh, sharp-edged, tooth-displaying cackle. "Of course! I've played with this maze for years. I'm not as helpless as you are. Go. And remember who saved your sorry butt again!"

It clicked then, why he was so determined to stand alone. It was so like him that I smiled, waved, and left without another word.

Because he was bent on being an idiot, and who was I to stop him from salvaging what he could of his ego after all the time we'd depended on one another?

And some part of me said that he'd be fine, anyway, especially if it was that ego on the line. That demon would probably take one look at his glowing, hellhound-sized head and run away screaming.

"Oh!" he called. "If you see a blonde guy and a bunch of demons recruiting demigods for 'a cause,' don't let 'em catch you! Their cause isn't as worthy as mine!"

oOo

It was good to have my night vision back.

It was good to worry about my own mind games and no one else's.

It was good to hear my own footsteps echoing off the jeering creaks of the maze and no one else's. To know that I was in total control of my side of the game board once more.

Not that my share of the board was of any impressive size. But it was mine.

It was even good to miss Bianca again. I had plenty to fear of the maze seeing and hearing and feeling every moment of it, but at least I didn't have to worry about the maze abandoning me for it. I was free to hurt over every little thought, and I would never be judged.

I was free to remind myself why I hadn't let the stupid maze have what it wanted.

But I wasn't free to cry or scream. So I didn't do those things. I just resumed business as normal.

When I was on the lookout for food, I thought of different options.

Father… Searching for him in dreams have proved fruitless. If I wanted to bargain with him, I'd have to get to him. And that meant traveling to LA.

The maze certainly wasn't going to take me there.

The real question, I supposed, was what actions to take when I got there. This was not something one just knew. It wasn't routine. It wasn't like getting up and brushing teeth and trying to convince your sister you brushed your hair and getting dressed and eating breakfast. You had to think, plan, engage yourself wholly into thought and effort.

Gods. Just the thought of seeing her again, let alone having her back…

That was all the city ever offered me. Food and thought. Sweet, lethally toxic thoughts.

I came across the standing demon again. The one that followed me without moving. There were no words for the fear that sprang up when I caught sight of it down a particularly wide tunnel of leveled concrete.

It had never really stopped following me, I eventually figured. It'd just fallen behind. But it wouldn't give up. It wouldn't get bored.

It would have me eventually, like the maze.

But not once did I feel that I was on the edge of panic.

As before, I made sure not to look, and kept walking calmly. By the time I next turned around I was in a narrow shaft of untamed dirt and crystal and the monster was gone.

oOo

Five days later?

Great gods I know I'm always so close to losing I know I never have a right to hope and much less to pray but please, please don't let it end. I haven't found her yet. I still don't know what to offer Father. I'll offer myself if I have to but please please please I can't do it if I don't get there alive so please if there's anyone who's interested let me last just a little longer hold back the maze just long enough please maybe you the nice little girl I met at Camp your name was Hestia if you ever were to offer me help, ever offer it to Bianca, now would be the time, just please I can't stand to lose Sis again-

Five days later I learned that prayers can't pass through the Labyrinth's walls. Like ghosts, they are trapped in the malicious and sordid corridors.

I didn't even have a name for the thing chasing me now. All I knew was that it had allies. A whole pack of them, rushing over one another and click-clacking on the concrete walls and floor and even the roof. Or maybe they'd all smelled the blood from the wound I'd gotten the day before and were racing for dinner.

Thump thump thump went my feet as the environment morphed into dirt.

Padpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpad went the demons.

They were like cockroaches. Massive, buggy-sized cockroaches with human faces smeared and splattered across the heads. Lots of them hissed as we raced.

I cursed myself for not engaging earlier. Apparently, politely walking away was not always the best move. It'd only allowed for more and more to arrive, and now I didn't stand a prayer of winning a fight. Not without something going very wrong. There was a sinking feeling in my bones to attest to that.

A deeper one whispered that I had no chance of escape, either.

The maze's shadows shifted and grew and darkened as we wound our way deeper. The groans and cries of its devoid links had grown frequent and desperate as it moved into play for the endgame. Every so many thumps but never the same number twice it would cry out, a wailing, horrifying noise.

Its battle cry.

I kept running, though, in hopes I might fall through a hole or a wall would slam shut. Anything. Maybe I'd happen by an entrance. Maybe it was another trick. So many stupid, stupid thoughts.

But I wasn't going to die yet. Not without her. I was too...

I am not scared. I'm brave.

From up ahead, a rattling howl came barreling through the corridor.

Oh, de Immortalis! I said please! What more do you want?

My life, body, and soul, apparently. A slight of big, bulky paw told me the approaching canine was pouncing. I ducked and dashed as fast as I could. A hot, reeking, massive force shot by overhead. I rolled the landing to avoid it.

Necessary, but a bad move. Scrambling to my feet let the bugs swarm over me.

Bugs are not as light as they look. They also have very sticky legs, or so one would think. The truth is that bugs don't have sticky legs. They have barbed legs. Bianca had taught me that bugs were not like us, that they were creatures that walked inside their skeletons. The outside bones - I forget the name - is what makes the barbs. Bugs also have a very bad smell, but most are too small for someone to notice.

Magic curled on my fingers again. I'd run into the belly of the beast, yes, but it had yet to end me, and while I had no right to hope or pray or to think of what I wished, I had the right to fight for her.

It was the only thing, save the jacket and sword, that I could honestly say belonged wholly to me and would stay that way.

The bugs jerked and went tumbling away, rolling and bouncing in their skeletons down the living corridor. Their barbed, prodding, heavy legs wrenched away. They left me exposed to the maze's air once more.

I got up and fired again, and again. The magic was, apparently, good friends with my sword; it took flicks of wrist and blade as orders. Black mist shot out from the arc of my sword and slashed outward into the creatures.

Thing is, though, that bugs have skeletons on the outside. Skeletons now dented but not harmed.

I swerved and shoved the sharp edge of my blade as hard as I could into the rising dog-man. I pushed until I heard a breathless whine, that little surrender, that sign of defeat. Then I broke into a sprint.

The bugs were waiting for me. The many sets of human teeth clacked eagerly with a foreboding hollow sound, bouncing up and down the walls and through my ears. I'd have to slash one and use it to jump over the others. Even if these things could jump or fly, they would never be agile. And the corridor was too small for blundering.

Bugs are also very fast.

My foot came down on a wonderful nothing and maybe if the leg wasn't wounded I'd have caught myself, but it didn't happen, not this time. Dumb of me to use the bad foot for something so crucial. A fatal mistake.

Pain shot up my leg as it collided with the dirt - no longer so soft - in a twisted way and didn't fade as the momentum sent me sprawling forward and yanked away the burden of weight. I crashed into the outside skeletons of the bugs and tumbled to the ground.

My arms writhed. My teeth grit down hard, forcing my tongue to retreat to a safe distance. Bianca was still out there somewhere.

But for all my shifting and all the cold magic on my fingers, I couldn't get up again. I was stuck. Pinned. Trampled. My fingers lashed out and I even bit the ones that came close enough but more just kept coming, a relentlessly marching forest of insect legs. My movements weren't even aimed right.

Why can't I do this?!

Something cold seemed to solidify out of nothing on the nape of my neck. "Freeze or die."

It seemed like a good idea. But you don't enter the maze, don't live past the first day, if you aren't going to give its game your all.

The shadow-magic I was so afraid of did what it does. It took the command and all its frustration, all the desperation, and sliced the offending dog-man with devastating success. I lurched up and staggered forward through the bugs as fast as I could.

My legs didn't work right. They wobbled and twisted beneath me, eventually letting me roll over my ankle and introducing the dirt and my face once more. I scrabbled up again as the bugs seemed to watch with contempt.

Blood splashed onto my clawing hands. I didn't notice but for its temperature and gawked in dazed shock. Where had that come from?

Something behind me slugged forward down the tunnel. Something big.

My blind fingers fumbled across my face, down my jaw, across my throat, to my chest - no, there, above the collar bone. A streak of deep, warm mush was pouring blood there. I couldn't even recall when I'd gotten it.

Around me, the bugs retreated, making room for the big thing drawing ever closer.

Screw it. I couldn't fix the wound even if I had time. I couldn't quite see my hands anymore but I made them move, felt the dirt slide past, and knew as long as it did I had no reason to give in-

-Knew that each frantic movement was bringing me closer to her-

Nothing moved to stop me. That was so unreal, here in the maze, that I laughed. I laughed and choked on the blood suddenly tangible in my mouth. They were gone now. Nothing in my way. Nothing between me and her. Nothing on the hunt. The Labyrinth itself had stopped moving and creaking and sneering, fallen into an icy, seizing silence.

The big thing behind me stopped coming forward. I heard it move, not a step but definitely a move, fur brushing against fur as a limb was drawn back-

And then there was nothing.