The maze of false exits twisted the Inner Sanctum into a dizzying swirl of colors of screaming silver planes, folding horizons, and screaming air.
The Man Who Returned walked through the maze.
He didn’t hurry. He didn’t search for landmarks, consult star-charts, or check the angles of the mirrored walls. A hall folded space to fling him toward a bottomless drop into the grey ash beneath the floor. Then, he simply tilted his head. His pupil-less silver eyes tracked the tiny, rainbow-bright filaments of causality that tethered each spatial distortion to Cinder’s brass keys.
“A masterwork of evasive stonework, Cinder,” the Man said, his voice echoing from twelve different directions at once through the folded halls. “In our thirty-fifth year, we used this exact maze to escape the Inquisitorial Choir in the sunken catacombs of Oakhaven. We unlocked eighty doors in four minutes, leaving the Grand Judge to capture his own glow in the water.”
Cinder stood in the center of the dais. His boots planted was wide upon the silver glass, his knuckles bleeding as he twisted the sixteen brass keys through wild sharp-angled patterns. Sweat poured from his brow, stinging his eyes, and his breath came in ragged, tearing gasps.
