Lucas woke to pain. Not a sharp pain, more like the dull, throbbing burn of a wound he'd forgotten until it decided to remind him. He shifted on the cold marble, eyes cracking open, and his hand reaching for his neck where the pain came from.
The first thing he saw was Elizabeth, sitting cross-legged on the floor a short distance away. She looked entirely too innocent, hands folded neatly in her lap, as if she'd been there for hours just watching.
He winced and brought his fingers to his cheek. The skin there stung worse than his neck. He didn't need a mirror to know it was red. "What did you do?"
Elizabeth tilted her head, blinking wide-eyed and pure. "I did nothing." Her voice was too smooth, too polite.
Lucas frowned, prodding the sore spot again. He knew exactly what that meant.
His hand dropped to his neck next, brushing the fresh mark burned into the skin. It still felt warm, as if Pan's last act was still settling there beneath his collar, but at least the pain was disappearing.
He sat up slowly, his joints stiff, his limbs filled with lead, and he had an annoying tingling in his foot that was hanging off the slab while he was lying down. He caught Elizabeth's eyes darting to his neck, a flicker of worry that vanished when he met her gaze.
"You were leaving," he said, voice rough. "I saw you. The Labyrinth was guiding you out. Why are you here?"
Elizabeth's shoulders lifted in a half-shrug. She dropped her eyes to a broken piece of stone between them, picked it up, and started playing with it. "I was. And then I wasn't." She paused, mouth twisting into something like a smirk. "Hecate would probably put me on pet duty for eternity when she finds out I got you trapped in here, thought it was better to be imprisoned here with you than look after those monsters again."
Lucas couldn't help it; he laughed. He didn't thank her aloud. He didn't need to. She caught the look in his eyes, and that was enough.
His fingers brushed the mark on his neck again. "There's something you should know," he started, voice low. "This mark…the reason for all this-"
Elizabeth raised a palm, cutting him off clean. "No."
He blinked. "No?"
"I don't need to know." Her tone was final, an iron edge hidden beneath the calm. "Secrets are only safe when they stay secret. If I know, someone will find out even if I don't speak of it. So no."
Lucas closed his mouth. Then nodded, once.
A small smile cracked her usual flat expression. She pushed herself to her feet and offered him a hand. "Come on, Princess. We're leaving."
He took it and winced when she hauled him up a little too quickly, like she hadn't noticed he'd just been lying half-dead on stone.
"Wait, princess?"
Elizabeth didn't answer and instead turned toward the corridor she'd come from, jerking her chin at the shadows. "The way out's back this-"
She stopped mid-sentence. The hallway that had been clear behind her was now gone, replaced by a different, pale, and crooked passage winding back into the darkness.
Lucas sighed, rubbing his sore neck. "Which way?"
Elizabeth snorted. She stepped forward into the new corridor, not waiting for Lucas. "Shut up and follow me, Princess."
Lucas bit back a groan, falling in step a pace behind her. The corridor swallowed them quickly enough, with the rotunda's gentle light vanishing behind a bend of stone, replaced by the shifting half-gloom of the Labyrinth's endless ways.
They walked side by side when the corridor allowed it, single file when it narrowed to a choking throat. Elizabeth kept ahead by half a step, eyes flicking over every joint in the walls, every crack that might hide a trap.
They spoke little. Words would only echo; they learned. The Labyrinth seemed to enjoy feeding them back in strange ways, a whisper here, a soft repeat there, until it became hard to know who'd spoken first.
Their boots brushed over old sand, chips of bone, roots that cracked the stone in thin lines. Sometimes the air grew damp, tasting of moss and cave water. At other times, it went dry, rasping their throats with dust and staleness.
Neither could tell how long they had been walking at this point, following a single corridor to wherever the labyrinth wanted them to go.
Eventually, they came to a fork. The left path was a steep fall, with smooth walls that were too smooth to grip and climb back up should they desire. The right path led out of sight into a dark corridor; neither could make out what lay down it. They weren't willing to risk testing either one, as experience had shown that the labyrinth would alter the layout, meaning it was best to stick to a decision and hold no hope for the kindness of this maze.
"Left or right?" Elizabeth asked, arms folded, leaving the decision to Lucas.
Lucas tested his veil sight, regretful both that it hadn't changed since meeting Pan, and there was no indication of which path to choose. So he returned to his old method, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden drachma.
He flipped it and went to catch it, but it hit his hand and fell to the floor.
Elizabeth burst out laughing, but Lucas didn't; he understood the logic as he asked the question.
Both paths led to danger; they just had to choose which one they wanted to suffer.