Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nathaniel

I was starting to suspect that the labyrinth used the witch's weaknesses against them. That the vines and the apartment were perfectly tailored to Roxanne.

For another witch, maybe that room would be full of loved ones who had passed, people the witch would have wanted to spend the rest of their time with, soaking up the love they so dearly missed.

And the vines, well, they really did seem to suit Roxy's innate laziness, didn't they? Any time she slowed or stopped, they grabbed her. But if she fought past her instincts to take it slow, to put in as little effort as possible, they left her alone.

It was a challenge to her instincts.

And if her most prominent instinct was toward sloth and lack of effort, each challenge was going to put that to the test.

I wondered, though, if she proved herself enough, the challenges would change.

"Ugh," Roxanne grumbled as soon as the door closed behind us.

"What is it?" I asked, wondering if she was seeing something that I wasn't.

"Look," she said, waving down at herself. The loaf pet pants and cozy sweatshirt had been replaced for the outfit she'd walked into the maze in. "And my stomach is empty," she said, lip curling. "I didn't know a spell could snatch food right out of your stomach."

"I don't think it was actually food to begin with," I told her. "It was just the illusion."

Even as I said it, I heard her stomach rumble. I felt a similar gurgling in my own gut.

Hungry.

I was hungry.

And while I would never admit it aloud, I was exhausted too. My usual stamina was gone, leaving in its place that of a normal man.

"What is this?" she asked, looking around the empty room. White walls. White floors.

There was no furniture.

No decor.

Just three piles on the floor of colored blocks. They were stacked neatly in their piles, sorted by color. Green, purple, and yellow.

As if the labyrinth had been waiting for her to ask, the piles suddenly moved, flying together, twisting around until they were nothing but a pile of mixed colors.

"Are we… supposed to sort it?" she asked, looking over at me with scrunched brows. "That's… the lamest challenge I've ever heard of," she said, taking a step forward, green eyes far away for a moment as she crafted it, then speaking the spell.

Which only managed to make the blocks break into much, much smaller blocks.

"Ah, that's… weird," she said, then tried again.

And, again, the blocks broke into smaller bricks.

"Okay. Don't do that again," I said.

If this maze was using Roxy's instincts against her, then this challenge was about not taking the shortcut. Each time she tried, the task got harder.

"We need to sort this by hand," I told her.

"What?" she asked, eyes going round. "That's got to be thousands of blocks now."

"Yeah," I agreed, shaking my head. "So we'd better get to work," I said, pulling her over to the piles.

"This is ridiculous," she called, looking at the ceiling. "I mean, really. A child could do this task. What kind of witches are you?" she asked.

I was tempted to tell her what I suspected about the spells the labyrinth had to offer. But a part of me was terrified that the maze would spit me out for giving up its secrets.

So I kept my mouth shut as we both sat down in front of the massive pile and started to sort them back into three separate piles.

The longer we sat, the more I started to ache. My back, my butt, my shoulders, my neck. My legs were long since numb.

So incredibly human.

And judging by the way Roxanne kept shifting, she was just as achy as I was. But she was refreshingly focused on her task until we were a solid halfway through the sorting.

"Ugh," she growled, dropping dramatically down on her side and letting out a whimper.

Then, right before her eyes, the unsorted pile split again. Smaller pieces. More work.

I watched as she sat back up, spine steel, face uncharacteristically serious.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's not stupid," she said, reaching for a handful of the blocks that were now the size of thumbnails. Thousands and thousands of them were now waiting for us.

"What isn't stupid?"

"The magic. I thought it was stupid and, I don't know, kind of unimaginative," she said, tossing a bunch of yellows into their pile.

"It's not?" I asked, trying not to lead but hoping she'd come to the same conclusion I had.

"No," she said, sorting faster than before. "It's using my weaknesses. Or my fears, maybe? Like fear of hard work?" she said, looking up at me. "It keeps appealing to my laziness, right? I stopped moving, the vines got me. I saw my apartment and settled in, making time—and you—slip away. I tried to make this task easy by using magic, and the spell made it harder each time. I grumbled about it, it made it harder still. It's challenging me. Not as a witch, necessarily, like we thought, but as a person."

"I think so too," I agreed, forcing my fingers to meet her new frantic pace, sorting as quickly as possible to make up for how the spell increased the task's difficulty.

"You're not going to break me," she called to the maze. "I might be lazy, but I'm stubborn as hell too," she said.

And, yeah, I guess that was fair to say. I mean, it took some real stubbornness to make her career as easy and undemanding of her as possible. She was that determined to be free to do as she pleased. Even if what pleased her was simply to eat junk food and watch mindless television.

We sorted for what had to be hours, shifting uncomfortably, but staying focused on the task.

Until, finally, there was just one handful of blocks left.

Roxanne reached for them before I could, deliberately setting each block into its rightful pile.

With the last one, she set it down slowly, then looked up at the ceiling.

"Take that," she said, lifting her chin defiantly.

The blocks disappeared as we both grumbled as we got to our feet, shaking out sleeping limbs, and rolling cricks out of our necks as we saw a new door waiting for us.

Roxanne took a slow, deep breath as she stared at it.

"Why do I get a feeling now that the rules have changed?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"They know I know about the laziness now. That it's not going to get in my way again," she added. "So the rules have to change, don't they? To keep trying to stop me?"

I was afraid she was right.

And that whatever was next would be even harder to overcome.

"Maybe," I said, holding out my hand to her.

She looked down for a second before placing her hand in mine, then twined our fingers together.

I squeezed tight.

"But we'll face it together," I said.

"Together," she agreed, reaching for the doorknob, and sliding open the door.

"Oh, no," she gasped as soon as we took a step forward.