Chapter 26 · The Prince in the Cage

"Move or we both die here."

Vex didn't answer. His weight dragged against my shoulder, dead enough that I had to check his pulse again. Still there. Barely.

The maze around us was bleeding. Not blood—worse. The walls rippled like something alive was pushing through from the other side. Every surface I'd died against in the last nineteen loops, every trap I'd triggered, every mistake I'd burned into muscle memory—it was all collapsing inward.

"Vex." I shook him. "I need you awake."

His head lolled. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

Fine. I shifted his arm across both shoulders and started dragging him forward. The corridor ahead split three ways. I knew the left path. Took it on loop fourteen. Made it sixty feet before the floor gave out and I fell onto spikes that punched through both lungs.

I went right.

The walls groaned. Somewhere behind us, stone cracked loud enough to make my teeth ache. I didn't look back. Looking back in this place got you killed. I learned that on loop two.

"Kira." Vex's voice came out wet. "Leave me."

"Shut up."

"You can reset. I can't."

"I said shut up.