Miriam looked away, biting her lip. “He isn’t—he isn’t all bad,” she said. “He looked for you, all these years. He wanted you back.”

So what does that make you? Dea nearly asked. Instead she just hugged herself, squeezing so she could feel her ribs. Dream-bones, dream-skin. And yet: her real self. “Am I supposed to feel grateful?”

Miriam turned her eyes to Dea then: big, gray eyes, the color of a stormy sea. The eyes Dea knew best—even better than her own. “Of course not,” she said. Then, defensively: “I’m sorry, Dea. But I thought it was for the best not to tell you.”

“Yeah, well, now I know.” Dea’s voice came out more sharply than she’d intended. She had the urge to cry and blinked rapidly. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

It was as if Miriam had been waiting for Dea to ask. Suddenly, she broke. She was crying, and Dea was horrified. It occurred to her that never, not once, had she seen her mom cry. “Listen to me, Dea. I want you to be happy. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Dea knew, in that moment, that her mom wouldn’t ask her to stay. And she didn’t want to stay—of course she didn’t. But the fact that her mom wouldn’t ask her to, wouldn’t beg her to, made her feel hollow, empty, as if she’d been cored out with a knife.

“He said he won’t let me see you.” Dea was shaking so badly she could feel it all the way in her knees. “He said I can never come back.”

“Dea.” Miriam reached for Dea’s face again. “I’ll always be watching you. I’ll always look after you.”

Dea stepped away. She had nothing more to say. Now the hollow in her chest was a great bubble of grief, threatening to burst. “So that’s it?” she said. “And I never see you again?”

“I want you here, Dea,” Miriam said. Her voice cracked. “Of course I do. But I can’t . . . I’ve been selfish. You need to make your own choices.”

It was like being caught in a sudden autumn downpour: Dea felt freezing and sick and clammy. A thought occurred to her for the first time. “If I don’t walk again—what will happen to me?” She would get sick, she knew. But how sick?

And how quickly?

Miriam’s face clouded. Dea realized, in that moment, that Miriam didn’t know. “You’ll be okay,” she said, but without conviction. “I’ll make sure you’re protected.”

“Like you made sure I was protected before?” Dea said. It was petty, spiteful, but she couldn’t help it.

“Go,” Miriam said, giving Dea a little nudge. “If that’s what you truly want, then go. It will be hard.” Her eyes were welling up again. “I made a mess of things, didn’t I? And you’re so young. But I believe in you. You’ll find a way—just like I did.”

Dea had been desperate to escape this world. But now, faced with the reality of leaving, she didn’t want to. You’ll find a way—just like I did. Would she have to go on the run? Become a criminal, like her mother? Shoplift food from gas stations and deodorant from pharmacies? “No.” She shook her head. “I won’t go. I won’t leave you. I don’t want to.”

“Oh, Dea.” Miriam brought a palm to her eyes, as if she could press back her tears. “I’d like that. I’d like that so much. But you have to do what will make you happy. There will be sacrifices either way.”

Connor. Dea thought of the way his face came together like a puzzle when he smiled. She thought of Gollum, too, her wispy-wild hair and clothes that were always the wrong size. The way the sun burned through the summer haze and the snows that came in winter, turning the world to white. Little things, and everything.

“Listen.” Miriam was in control again. “You don’t have to choose this minute. Go now. Think about it.” When Dea hesitated, she said, “I’m still your mother, Dea.”

The words were so ordinary—I’m still your mother—that they might have been back in Fielding, arguing over homework or whether Dea had cleaned her room. Dea wanted to throw herself into her mom’s arms again. She wanted to stay with her mom forever, and she wanted to scream at her, to turn her back on Miriam and what she had done.

Instead, she said, “I love you.”

“Dea.” Miriam’s voice broke, and when she looked up, Dea saw she was crying again. “I’ve been a terrible mother. But I love you so much. Never forget that. I’ll be watching. I promise you.”

Dea turned and started for the door, but Miriam stopped her.

“Not that way,” she said. “This way will be quicker.” She was suddenly in charge again, piloting Dea forward, toward the window and the climbing vines.

“What are you—?” Dea started to ask, but she didn’t finish her question.

Her mother threw something out the window—petals, Dea saw, crushed by her palm into small dark folds. In the air they unfolded like origami figures, like dark wings, merging together into a floating dark shape. A door.

“What—?” Dea started to say. But then Miriam pushed, and Dea pitched forward out the open window, falling into the bright thin air and the dark mouth of a door in the sky, rising up to swallow her.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Dea came joltingly awake, shouting, choking on the feeling of darkness flooding her throat.

She was back in her tent. She had no idea how; she had no idea what had happened. She fought free of her sleeping bag and wriggled out of the tent opening, taking deep, heaving breaths.

Had she dreamed it all? The walk to the gas station, the mirror, Aeri, the king, and her mother? No. She knew she hadn’t. She never dreamed. Besides, she could still feel the pressure of her mother’s hand on her back, could still hear the edge in her father’s voice. You have twenty-four hours to decide.

It was near dawn. There was a splotchy red stain at the horizon, a smear of sun bleeding upward, dispelling the dark. It was very cold. Dea’s breath made clouds, and the ground was covered in a sheet of frost, fine as glass. When the wind lifted, it seemed to carry echoes of her mother’s voice—and a faint rustling, too, as unseen animals moved together through the maze: rats, pucker-faced moles, possums fat as dogs, with long, naked tails.

Already, Dea had accepted what Miriam had told her about her birth, about where she belonged. The shock had passed and she was left instead with the dull ache of certainty, a feeling like the erratic skip of her heartbeat, both painful and familiar.

She had always suspected she was a monster; now she knew for sure.

And yet . . .

There was also a place, a world, where she belonged: an eternal world, vast as a dream, filled with strange cities and people and rivers coiled tight like snakes. She had a powerful father, a king, who kept thousands of monsters as soldiers for his army.

A father who wanted her back.

Twenty-four hours.

If she refused his offer—if she stayed here, in this world—he had promised her freedom. The monsters would no longer come for her; she could live like anybody else. Except that she wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she couldn’t walk again.

And she wasn’t sure she could stand to leave her mother behind.

She knelt and began clumsily disassembling her tent, her fingers already stiff with cold, as the sun fought to free itself from the inky pull of the horizon. She had to move. She no longer had any choice. She’d stayed too long in one place and had no doubt that people would soon start asking questions—already, she’d been recognized by the guy in the gas station. How long before another family came to explore the maze and caught her sleeping? How long before someone called the cops, and Briggs showed up and hauled her back to the hospital? Or maybe he’d just chuck her in jail, as punishment for trying to escape.

The wind fell away abruptly, leaving a stillness that was like waiting. And suddenly, Dea felt—she knew—that something was wrong. Something was moving in the maze—not an animal. Too deliberate, too big, for an animal.