Page 40 of Empire of Dark
I laughed. “I’ll stick with the crumbly bottom.”
She looked crestfallen.
I grinned. “And maybe the chocolate chip one as well, if you would do the honors.”
She nearly jumped in place with excitement as she picked up the chocolate chip muffin and took a bite—still from the nice crusty top, but only a quarter of it.
“Oh, and I suppose the drinks need to be tested as well.”
Josie proceeded to take a small sip out of the three glasses on the tray. Tea, water, and orange juice.
All things I drank in the morning and nothing I didn’t.
Someone had been paying attention and my stomach twisted at the thought that the someone was Damen.
Josie left the room and I ate, though everything that hit my stomach sat there like a rock. I couldn’t stop my mind fromreplaying that kiss again and again in my head. My part in it. My willingness to fall into it.
Disgusting.
Today I just needed to make myself scarce, so after showering and pulling myself together, I wandered about the grounds, hoping some of the crisp air would make its way into my head to clear my mind and set my focus onto where it should properly be.
Where I needed it to be.
A fortress of resistance. Not to be breached.
I found myself finally diving into the labyrinth on the grounds and wandered about for an hour, trying to find the middle. But this thing was a devil’s lair. Twisting and turning in so many directions that I couldn’t find my bearings within the tall evergreen hedges. My only clues were the mountaintop and the top spires of the castle that helped me to at least orientate my direction.
At least it was a warm day, the rays of sun baking into the evergreen needles and sending a heady scent into the air around me. A good day to be lost.
Crunch.
Granite gravel crushed under a footstep and I cocked my ear.
That had to have come from the center of the maze. Either that, or I was close to an outer edge, but I didn’t think I was.
I moved forward, to my left and around two turns, then paused at an intersection forking off in three directions. It took walking through another three corridors with the heady scent of toasting evergreens in my nose—and there. An opening. The center.
Venetia sat in the middle of the labyrinth on a stone bench with roaring lions chiseled into the stone of the two fat legs. Dressed in a long sleeve black tee and black leggings, she dugthe toes of her tennis shoes into the grey gravel that covered the center circle, her head bowed as she looked at her phone.
Her face popped up as I emerged from the evergreen hedges.
“You finally made it into the middle.” The bangs of her dark hair hung past her eyebrows, threading in through her eyelashes as she blinked at me. Broody or disinterested with me, I wasn’t sure.
But I’d had lots of experience with angsty teens.
“You heard me?”
A smirk came to her face. “I’ve been waiting a half hour for you to appear.”
I chuckled, walking over to her. “Apparently, no one ever taught me how to navigate a maze like this.”
She shrugged, the smirk disappearing and somberness returning to her face. “It’s easy once you know the route. And then you get to sit in the middle and wonder why people stumble about and have so much trouble with it.”
So she just thought I was an idiot. I could deal with that.
I laughed and pointed to the empty spot on the bench next to her. “Do you mind if I join you?”
She shrugged and I took that as an invitation. Peeling my arms out of the thin spandex turquoise workout jacket I’d layered on, I sat. “It’s warmer out here than I thought it would be.”