Free The Flame in the Maze by Caitlin Sweet Page A

turned and wrapped his hands around one of the cables that ran up from the ledge. Polymnia’s vision was suddenly awash in red and speckled with black dots that leapt and wriggled; Kosmas’s body warped into an impossible shape. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened to the uneven hammering of her heart for one long moment, then another.
    â€œIt won’t work,” Asterion said. “Daedalus built this place.”
    She opened her eyes. The red haze was gone. Kosmas was clutching the cable, one foot braced on the ledge, the other on the wall. He grunted and hauled himself up. Beneath them, metal whined. The cable moved and he let go of it with a grunt. He pulled himself up on it again, and this time when it moved, so did the ledge; it juddered upward and then it dipped, ending up farther down than it had been before. Polymnia cried out.
    â€œEven if you
could
get up there,” Asterion said, “what would you do? Wait for two years until the next sacrifice, then run out as they’re coming in? And what then?”
    Kosmas nodded. “You’re right. That’s not the way out.”
    â€œThere won’t
be
a way out.”
    How can they be this calm?
—but as soon as she thought this, Polymnia saw that Kosmas’s hands were wrapped so tightly around the cable that she could see the bones in them, and that Asterion’s eyes were rolling as they had when he was the bull.
    â€œAt least,” Asterion said, “there’ll be food. Somewhere. They didn’t put me in here to die. The priestesses wouldn’t let that happen.”
    â€œGood,” Kosmas said. “We look for it. At least we know how to get
down
, now. I’ll take this cable; you take that one. We’ll pull on them at the same time and let go—let’s see if it moves up and then down again.”
    â€œI can’t,” Asterion said, holding up his hands. His fingers were still fused into a shape between hand and hoof.
    Polymnia said, so softly she could hardly hear herself, “I will.”
    â€œYou?” Kosmas eyed her appraisingly, a little frown between his brows.
    â€œYes,” she said, more loudly now that she knew what to tell him. “I spent years in a slaughterhouse, butchering and hauling. I’ll be able to do this.”
I spent years after that in a big house, singing for rich people, eating well and sleeping on a soft bed
:
this, she didn’t say.
    â€œAll right, then,” he said. “With me, then. Ready and
pull
.”
    The cable cut into her palms but she pulled on it, biting her lip to stop herself from whimpering. The grinding gears sounded very far away because her blood was roaring. “Now let go!” she heard Kosmas call. She did, and the ledge dropped. She squeezed her eyes shut as hot air gusted against her skin. Sweat snaked down from her forehead; she felt it on her eyelids and nose and cheeks—everywhere on her head, front and back, because she had no hair to soak it up. None of them did, except Asterion. “Pull . . . let go!” Kosmas called. “Again! Again!” And, finally, “Stop!”
    As soon as Polymnia unclenched her hands, they began to burn.
    The platform that had carried Zenais and Theodosia down was now level with theirs. Kosmas leapt to it. He landed with a grunt and dropped to his knees between the girls.
    â€œShe’s dead,” Zenais said. Her teeth were chattering so hard that it took a moment for the words to make sense to Polymnia. “Dead. I heard her neck snap.” Zenais was sitting with her legs extended. The right one was bent strangely at the bottom, and covered in blood; when Polymnia stared at it, she saw that the skin above her ankle was jutting, as if the bones beneath had shifted.
    â€œPut your arms around my neck,” Kosmas said. “Quickly, now. Good. Hold on.”
    Zenais’s skull was streaked with scarlet. Her lips were smudged with it. She lifted her