Keepers of the Labyrinth (26 page)

46

T
he sun began its climb over the eastern side of the island. It swam the length of the tides and speckled the sea foam with pink tips before it reached shore and swept from beach to mountain. It dipped through the gorges, sneaking and peeking into caves and running fire-dappled feet up riverbeds. Finally, soaring ever higher, it tore toward the manor and soaked the walls with golden morning rays. It climbed in the window and stretched the length of the hallway that Lil walked, curled the edges of urns that hugged the corners and twinkled through the stained glass that topped the doors.

The dining hall was alive with a happy hum as Lil made her way inside.

Charlie, Kat and Sydney had already taken their seats at the center of the table. The same place they had sat on the first night, but completely different, Lil thought as she took a seat beside them. Sydney was bent over her homemade GPS, a small screwdriver in her hand. She turned it and dropped a screw into her palm.

“Morning,” Lil said.

“Morning,” Sydney muttered, looking over the top of her glasses as she pried the back off the device.

“It's broken,” Kat said. “She's been obsessing over it for the last fifteen minutes.”

“Can't imagine how it might have broken,” Charlie said, grabbing a roll from a basket at the center of the table. She turned a fountain pen between the fingers of her other hand.

“What are you writing?” Lil asked.

“Just putting down a few observations about the conference.” Her hair was back to its original style, swooping down to her forehead and framing her bright eyes. She winked at Lil.

A moment later, Atticus and Aestos appeared in the doorway. And Lil's mouth started to water as she surveyed the yogurt, honey, breads, boiled eggs, oats and olives that occupied their trays. Atticus appeared over Lil's shoulder, extending the tray down to the tabletop.

“You're all looking well rested today,” he said quietly. “It must be those ergonomic mattresses they have in the dormitories.”

Lil smiled, and each accepted a plate except for Sydney, who continued to stare down at her device. Atticus placed a plate in front of her. “You must eat a hearty breakfast,” he said. Then he was gone, working his way down the table.

Lil lifted her spoon and raised it to her mouth, but a moment later, a large head shoved its way under her arm, upending the yogurt onto the table.

“Disgusting,” Sydney said, looking up for just a moment as it landed in the center.

Crumbsy panted and lapped her tongue toward the table as Lil attempted to push her giant head away.

“Hey, big girl, hello,” Kat said, giving her a scratch behind the ears. The dog panted happily, and Kat pulled a piece of bread from her tray, pressed an olive against it and held it out to the greedy dog's mouth. Crumbsy slurped and swallowed, covering Kat's hand with saliva.

“Sydney's right. That is disgusting,” Charlie said.

“Told you,” Sydney said, looking up from her device long enough to snatch an olive and throw it into her mouth.

Lil picked up a small pitcher of honey from the side of her plate and poured it over the rest of her yogurt. She watched it swirl, and smelled the sweet aroma.

A familiar laugh met Lil's ears, and she looked over Charlie's and Sydney's shoulders to see Vivi Lancaster striding by. She was dressed in hot-pink shorts and a tiny tank top. A sweatband pressed her hair flat to her head. She paused as she landed between Sydney and Charlie.

“Oh, so it's true! We were hoping to show you up on the trail run yesterday, but heard you wouldn't be participating due to half your team taking a tumble in the gorge.” She looked from Kat's sling to Charlie's leg. “I heard you barely made it past the entrance.” She clapped Charlie on the shoulder and Lil could see a new story starting to stitch together in Charlie's mind.

Lil stared at her and chewed, imploring her to stay silent.

“We had a rough time with it,” Charlie gulped, moving her gaze back down to her paper. Vivi peered over Sydney's shoulder. “Oh, honey, did your cell phone break? Would you like to borrow some money so you can buy a new one?”

Sydney set her device down, and Lil froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth.

“I'm sure you have more important people to bother than us,” Sydney said, setting her arm on Charlie's crutch, which rested against the table.

Vivi glared at her for a minute and then started to make her way down the aisle once more. Only midstep, she jerked awkwardly and spilled onto the ground, the crutch slamming into the table as she tripped over it.

“Whoops,” Sydney said, letting go of the crutch and picking her device back up. As if oblivious to the scene unraveling behind her, she pulled out a wire and scrutinized it. “It's completely fried. Too much water damage.”

Kat, Lil and Charlie tried to keep their chuckling to a minimum as Vivi dusted herself off and huffed to the far end of the table.

After breakfast, they made their way back to Hall D. Everyone fell quiet, and Lil was afraid to ask what their decisions had been. They weren't supposed to talk about it. What if the others said they weren't going to stay? What if they had already taken the amnesiac? Lil wondered if any of them had eaten yogurt that would make them forget. Atticus had selected the bowl for Sydney. Had she opted to return home?

Lil pushed her door open and set the key on the bureau. There was something different about her room, and it took her a moment to detect it, her eyes finally landing on a red puddle of cloth on the bed. She slid the door closed and crossed to it. It was a robe. She lifted it from the mattress, soft fabric falling loosely between her fingers. The clasps were a threaded gold, the emblem on the sleeve twisted like a band of honey, marking the initials of the order:
DOA.
As the end whisked off the mattress, a small cream note card fluttered to the floor. Lil crumpled the robe in her hand as she bent to pick it up. It was a piece of paper just bigger than her hand and as thick as card stock.

Please join
us for the initiatio
n ceremony

10:00 p.m
.

Antechamber in the
west wing

Min zeis
aplos. Zeis tolmira.

A breeze fluttered in the window, and the words wavered in front of Lil's eyes.
Do not just live. L
ive boldly.
The words reassured her. She placed the note card in her back pocket, took the robe and set it aside.

She sat through three workshops and had a free study period, because Bente, the teachers explained at lunch to the entire group, was still ill and regrettably would be unable to teach her course that afternoon. Or for the duration of the conference. How easily the others accepted the lie, Lil thought.

Aestos served a dinner of stewed lamb with thyme and white wine sauce. Fresh mixed greens seemed to melt on Lil's tongue. It was all washed down with a homemade mulberry lemon soda and followed by a dessert of loquats and honey cakes.

The evening wore on, and Lil made her way to her balcony, watching the night come in. The day darkened, and the mountain around her became an inky black. She kept an eye on the balcony next door to see if Charlie would emerge, but instead, a pair of trousers just flapped in the breeze, adding a
thwap, thwap
to the punctuated beat of shutters hitting stone. Girls gathered in the common rooms below, and their giggles reached Lil's ears. She wondered at the pain and the laughter that this mountain had seen. And in a way, she felt a part of it. Like that had also been her path, and that perhaps it was natural that her path would lead her here.

Lil watched as candlelight spilled, soft-edged, from the windows of Melios Manor. Everything within began to settle. She could feel the night moving, the wind carrying a piece of history, untranslatable to the human ear as it brushed through the bay leaves and lifted the smell of lavender into the air. A heady feeling surrounded her as she got up and made her way from her balcony back to her room. She fumbled in the darkness to light her own candle, placed her robe around her shoulders and proceeded down the hall. She checked her watch. It was 9:55. She listened for a rustle in the other rooms, but only heard the ceaseless beat of shutters tapping against stone.

She secured her robe, lifted the light and made her way to the end of the hall.

47

T
he instructions on the back of the invitation included a map to Athenia's chamber that led immediately into the west wing and avoided the other dormitories. She traipsed through halls she hadn't been in before, walking slowly and steadily past large ornate doors, wondering what they held behind them. She was alone as she reached the counselors' chambers. She checked in front of her and held up the candle to see behind her as she stopped outside Athenia's door. She was sure Charlie would come. And wanting her to appear, Lil paused at the door. Took a few extra beats waiting to hear the sound of footfall or crutch upon stone. But nothing met her ears. Only silence. Lil raised her hand and knocked twice. On the second knock the door gave way on its own and swung open. She entered the dark room, looked up toward the stained-glass window, grasped the sconce and pulled it down. The picture flipped in its frame and stuck upside down in the top of the door. Pendants on the far wall shimmered in the moonlight, and a small door swung open. A sliver of golden light drew a knifelike line on the floor.

Lil stepped toward it and stopped. She stood in the moonlit darkness, surrounded by skeins of yarn and piles of fabric. Could she really go in alone? Who else would be there if Charlie and Sydney and Kat weren't? Who else had proven themselves over the week? What had they missed while they were deep in the labyrinth and in the healers' house?

Lil stepped forward again and hesitated again, crinkling the note card in one hand. Her candle wavered in the light, and she shivered despite the warmth of the room. Whispers tickled the air beyond the door, and Lil was drawn to the golden ray. She had no choice. A test of faith, Athenia had said, and then more would be revealed. She could go home with an answer. With a part of Mom. Lil pushed the note card into her pocket and reached for the edge of the door. Her fingers rested on the stonework.

Just then a creak echoed behind her. Lil spun to the dormitory door, peering past her candle flame and into the darkness.

“Nous s
ommes désolées,”
Charlie said. “We tried to get here earlier, but I'm not used to the time it takes to get around on these crutches. Then we took a wrong turn. Adding the robe didn't help, either.”

Lil's heart catapulted into her throat as Kat's face also appeared, just beyond Charlie's shoulder. Her hair popped from beneath the crimson hood, framing her face in layered curls.

“You came,” Lil said as they made their way across the room to her. Lil stared past them to the darkened hallway. It was empty beyond Kat.

“No Sydney, though,” she whispered.

“We didn't see her,” Kat said.

“Well,” Lil said. “I guess we go on without her from here.”

“I guess so,” Kat said.

“They're probably waiting for us,” Charlie added, jutting her chin toward the door.

“Yeah,” Lil said.

She turned to it once more, grasped the edge and pulled it open. Athenia stood a few feet from the door, where she lit a candle atop a podium.

“Enter, please, and take a seat,” she said, gesturing toward a table. Colleen and Trudy sat across from each other, closest to them. Next to Trudy was an empty seat with a single candle. And next to Colleen was another hooded figure. A fourth new initiate. She turned, and Lil's heart rose as she saw Sydney's features peering out of the shadow cast by her hood.

“Late as usual,” she said, grimacing.

“Well, no one was there to remind me,” Lil said.

Sydney rolled her eyes as Lil made her way around the table and took the seat next to her. Athenia stood, clasping her hands, and waited for everyone to quiet down. “Let's begin, shall we?”

Lil had not seen the antechamber clearly before this moment, and she took the time to look around. Alcoves ran down each wall, each one lit by a flickering candle. At the center alcove stood a sculpture and Lil saw that the figure, with the disk under her arm, was Ariadne. From there, more statues decorated the space. Then it turned to paintings, and from paintings to black-and-white photographs, and from black-and-white photographs to colored ones. It was like an alumni wall, only dating back much farther than any she had ever seen. Her eyes stopped at the picture of her mother. She smiled confidently out of the frame, her eyes on Lil. And Lil wondered if she had sat right here, in this very chair, at one time or another.

“Trudy, please retrieve the virtue boxes,” Athenia said.

Trudy got up from her seat and went over to a small cabinet near the antechamber door. She pulled out four olive-wood boxes, stacked them one on top of the other and brought them to Athenia. She placed them on the small stand beside the podium, and Athenia nodded at her.

“Before we honor the new members,” Athenia said, lifting a tall candle from the edge of the podium, “we honor those of the past. Those who have gone before us, fought, suffered and died, most recently—” Athenia paused, holding a flame sideways over a round candle with eight wicks. “Bente Formo.” She lowered the flame to the candle and it caught, casting a warm orange glow on her face. “You will always be with us, friend.”

She placed the single candle back on the edge of the podium and lifted a large book—the large book from the nebulous chamber—in front of her. As she pulled the book open to a marked page, Lil wondered what brave soul had gone in and retrieved it. She watched Athenia run her fingers along the page. Then she began to read, first in Greek, then in English.

“
Fotia Akloni
ti. Deste ekeinoi po
ur yposchontai edo s
e mia moira san atha
nato oso elia.
Fire unwavering, bind those who promise here to a spirit as enduring as the olive tree.

“When your name is called, you will rise and come to the table with your candle,” Athenia continued. “You will receive the four virtues. If you choose to accept them, you will use your candle to light the immortal flame and then return to your seat. Counselors will renew the bind first.”

Athenia lit a wick next to the one that had already been lit for Bente. Then Colleen and Trudy rose from their seats and each lit a wick themselves. Once the mentors had taken their seats, Athenia looked down the table.

“Lilith Bennette,” Athenia said, “please come forward.”

Lil shook as she rose from her seat. She gathered the robe as she stood, so as not to trip over it, and made her way to the front.

“Lilith Bennette, please kneel.”

Lil dropped to her knees as Athenia pulled a chain from where it nested in its box. She held up the metallic disk, and it twisted in the firelight. A modern depiction of the ancient charm that they had found in the labyrinth.

“The face of the Melios Disk on one side with the labrys on the opposite, the symbol of Ariadne. It is a thread, moreover, a clue. A key. It is the virtue of the Protector. Your sign and your seal.” Lil watched it spin like a coin, winking in the candlelight as it turned. “Let it be a reminder that your virtue is your honor and boldness. But let you be reminded, Lilith Bennette, that boldness also has an antithesis. Weakness. Weakness will lead you astray, from a path of protection to one of retribution. May you always stay to the path of the bold and never fall to retribution.” Athenia leveled her with a stare, and Lil felt her gaze slip from Athenia's and find the wall just over her shoulder.

She raised the necklace up and Lil bowed her head. Lil felt its weight as it was lowered across the back of her neck.

“Weighted with your virtue, you may accept the bind by joining the unwavering flame.”

Lil took her candle and placed the flame to the farthest unburnt wick. It lit and Lil pulled her candle away.

Athenia stared into her eyes. “This bind serves as a promise. That anything within these walls stays within the walls of your soul. And cannot be shaken—not by trickery, not by greed and not by pain. Do you make this promise?”

“I do,” Lil said.

“You may be seated.”

Lil made her way back to her seat as Sydney was called forward and the symbol of Daedalus, winged hands, which stood for both creation and destruction, was placed around her neck.

Lil held her disk. She could see the full portrait of her mother now, and stared into her mom's eyes as Athenia's voice continued in the distance.

Charlie was given the symbol of Europa, a tablet, which stood for knowledge and its antithesis, ignorance.

Lil thought about the virtues and their antitheses. They always seemed so closely tied. Wasn't the point of the Daedalus chamber that creation always led to destruction or that destruction led to creation?

Finally Kat stood and was given the symbol of Minotaur, the artist, whose crossed horns stood for empathy. “Empathy, like the horns of a bull,” Athenia said, “must be fierce and never surrender to its antithesis: apathy.”

Lil stared into her mother's eyes: she had been here and done this. Died for it. Bente, too, had given the ultimate sacrifice.

“You have taken the vows,” Athenia said.

Lil turned to see her holding up the round candle, now lit with eight flames. She made her way around the podium to the table and set the candle down before them.

“You are now initiated into the oldest sisterhood in human history. I invite the experienced Historian to close the ceremony.”

Colleen stepped to the podium, flipped to a page near the end of the book and lifted a pen. She looked up and locked eyes with Lil. “Lilith Bennette, Protector.” The pen moved as she wrote in the book and then looked to Sydney. “Sydney Bennington, Inventor.” Sydney nodded and Colleen, once again, made notations in her book. “Charlotte Babineaux, Historian.” Charlie held the tablet close and smiled. “And Katrina Andrande, Artist.” She finished inking the page and set the pen down.

“The vow you have taken here will go with you through life, and to the grave. Your blood is now bound with the blood of those who have gone before you. A blood of virtue. A blood of justice. A blood of depth and knowledge. From now until you gasp your last breath, you are the Keepers of the Labyrinth.”