I could hear voices around me, muffled and dripping with worry, but the words themselves were impossible to catch. They warped in and out of my mind like echoes in a tunnel, always close but never clear. I tried to open my eyes, to lift myself upright, but my body wouldn’t listen. It was like I’d been pinned beneath invisible chains. Panic prickled at the edges of my chest, sharp and suffocating. Was this it? Did that poisoned dart finally kill me?

I forced the thought away, grinding it down before it could root too deeply, and tried again. My eyelids twitched against my will, heavy and stubborn, until finally—finally—they peeled back. Relief lasted only half a heartbeat before dread rushed in. All I saw was black. Not the thick blanket of unconsciousness, but the kind of suffocating dark that whispers, you are still not free.

I held myself still, resisting the urge to thrash, until shapes began to form. My vision adjusted, teasing out the faintest slivers of shadow. I wasn’t blind; the room itself was drowned in darkness. A narrow bed creaked faintly beneath me, and in the far corner, I caught the outline of someone hunched over a desk, head tilted back in sleep.

Despite being able to see now, my body still betrayed me. I couldn’t twitch a finger or part my lips. My heart thundered harder, helplessness pressing down like a vice. The only explanation I could cling to was the ghost—the necromancer who had promised I’d be fine. Maybe she really had gone for help. The idea didn’t fit the picture I’d built of ghosts, but then again, nothing about her had.

I didn’t get much longer to spiral in my thoughts, because light slashed through the dark. Harsh, sudden, merciless. I flinched even though my body hardly obeyed me. A woman strode into the room, her silhouette sharp before the light behind her softened into detail. She was striking in a way that startled me—like a polished version of Frankenstein’s bride, only without the absurd lightning-bolt hair. Her skin was pale but radiant, her frame slim and commanding.

The first thing she did wasn’t look at me—it was to slap the boy at the desk upside the head.

“Are you seriously sleeping during your detention? I told you to watch the girl.”

The boy jerked awake, muttering like he’d been pulled from the edge of a dream. “Why does it matter? She’s still asleep.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and slouched deeper into his chair. 

“Besides, it’s not like it’s my fault she went into the maze. She should’ve known better.”

The woman’s gaze cut sharper than any knife. “Actually, Ms. Grace is one of the lost. She doesn’t even know what she is yet, much less how to navigate this school.”

The boy grumbled. “And how exactly is that my problem?”

“It’s your problem,” she said crisply, “because you thought it would be clever to make Voodoo dolls of your gym teacher and force him to run laps, which landed you here—in detention. My detention. As my assistant.”

His lips curved in a smug, unrepentant smirk. “Coach Graves makes us run a mile every single day. I just thought it was time the lazy asshole experienced a taste of his own medicine. Didn’t think that was a crime.”

“Language, Mr. Liam,” she snapped, though I saw the corners of her mouth twitch as if she were suppressing a laugh.

He ignored her, dropping his head back onto folded arms in defiance, signaling the conversation was over on his end. Frustratingly, I couldn’t even glare properly, so I just followed them with my eyes, trapped as a silent observer.

When the woman turned and approached my bedside, she met my gaze, and her painted lips lifted into a knowing grin.

“I thought you said she was still asleep, Mr. Liam. She looks rather awake to me.”

“What?!” His chair screeched against the floor as he shot to his feet. “Then why didn’t she say anything?”

“The principal didn’t let me administer the second shot. Too risky when we weren’t sure she’d wake. Right now she’s paralyzed. The only thing she can move…” She leaned closer, her eyes locking with mine, “…is her eyes.”

My heart slammed as she produced a needle. The sharp gleam of its tip filled my vision. My pulse spiked, every instinct screaming don’t let it in. I squeezed my eyes shut, bargaining with myself like a child: if I don’t see it, it won’t hurt.

But the pain I braced for never came. Hesitant, I cracked my eyes open just as she withdrew, already tucking the syringe away.

“There,” she said, her tone brisk but not unkind. “Your motor control will return in a moment. From your head downward. In about two minutes, you’ll have full range again.”

She was right. I felt it ripple through me like water thawing frozen ground. First, my face twitched. Then my shoulders loosened. By the time my fingers curled into fists, relief nearly made me dizzy. Within moments, I was upright, the stiffness draining from my limbs.

“So… how did you find me?” My voice croaked, hoarse from disuse.

I finally let myself take in the room properly. It was a strange hybrid between a nurse’s office and something much darker. A standard desk stacked with books and supplies sat in one corner, but the counters were cluttered with jars, powders, and gleaming tools that definitely didn’t belong in your average school infirmary. The air smelled faintly of herbs and copper.

With nothing else to cling to, my eyes landed on Liam. Now that I could study him, he was even stranger than I thought. His eyes weren’t cloudy like a blind man’s—they were pure white, unmarred, as if someone had painted over the irises. It was unsettling, especially paired with his unnaturally pale skin. His brown hair fell wild, small beads and bones braided haphazardly through the strands. Somehow, though, the uniform—red and black, standard but sharp—made him look less feral, more… deliberately crafted.

The woman folded her arms and answered evenly. “When you didn’t arrive on time, a senior was sent to retrieve you. We found your bags abandoned. The Headmistress was preparing to send an entire search party into the forest when a note appeared, claiming you were in the maze and in need of medical help.”

I blinked, stunned. A note? My chest tightened as realization crept in. The ghost. She must have gotten out of the maze and written it. But how? And why wasn’t she here now? My eyes darted around again, but no trace of her lingered. The air was empty of her presence.

And for the first time since waking, the silence of her absence unnerved me more than anything else. It felt wrong. The ghost lady had been around me since the second I stepped into the maze, her voice a mix of sharp wit and unsettling calm. Now that she wasn’t here—now that I couldn’t feel her presence pressing against my senses—I felt exposed, like a rabbit that had just realized the wolf wasn’t gone, only circling.

Lost in thought, I hadn’t realized my eyes were lingering on Liam until his voice cut through the room.

“Might as well take a picture if you’re going to keep staring.”

His words snapped me out of my thoughts, and I stiffened, cheeks heating even though I hated that he had caught me off guard. My defense came out sharper than I intended.

“Just looking at those freaky eyes of yours.”

The air in the room tightened immediately. Tension rose like invisible smoke, winding itself around my throat. For a brief moment, I saw emotions flash across his pale face—something raw, maybe hurt, maybe anger—before his features shut down completely, blank as stone. Without another word, he stood, chair scraping harshly against the floor, and walked out. His back was rigid, every step deliberate, as though the effort of leaving without saying anything was the only thing keeping him from snapping.

I regretted it the second the door clicked shut.

The Frankenstein’s-wife-looking nurse—her black hair streaked with gray and tied neatly, her pale skin catching in the fluorescent light—didn’t say a word. She simply went about checking me over, her hands surprisingly gentle despite the irritation still radiating off her from earlier. Her touch was cool, clinical, but not unkind. When she finished, she gestured toward the foot of the bed.

My eyes followed, landing on my two bookbags and my battered notebook. Relief swept through me so suddenly that my throat tightened. The notebook especially—I hadn’t even realized until now how much losing it would’ve broken me. Seeing it again felt like a piece of myself had been returned.

She didn’t say I was free to go, but her silence was answer enough. I slid off the bed, muscles still a little stiff, and made for the door. My hand had just touched the handle when her voice stopped me.

“I believe you should apologize to Liam,” she said, not unkindly but firmly. “Not because he might retaliate—though he could—but because you really shouldn’t have said it. Anyway, there should be a senior student waiting outside to take you to the headmaster.”