My heart sinks in my chest and I let out a long, slow breath.

"What?" Anne asks spitefully. "What's the answer, then?"

"Tomorrow," Avis explains. "Tomorrow never was, and is always to be. No one ever sees it, nor ever will. And yet Tomorrow is the confidence of all, to live and breath on this terrestrial ball."

I let out a frustrated groan, leaning back against the newly-formed wall behind us and putting my head in my hands. "What now, then?"

Avis draws herself up to her full height, arching her neck and looking down on us. "Three of you are free to go on. You may pass me and continue on your quest to find the Amulet. But you must leave someone behind."

"What will happen to the person we leave behind?" Chase asks.

"The person left behind will go in a different direction than the others. They will attempt to find the rest of the group, but by themselves their chances of survival are greatly diminished."

I let out a sigh of relief. No one will die, not right now.

"You may choose which member of the team to leave behind, but just know, once you choose, I will not permit you to change your minds."

Chase nods at her, turning to the rest of us. "What are we going to do now, then?"

Anne looks at him incredulously. "It's simple; we choose. I'm guessing that the odds of survival alone are greater than the odds of winning against the Sphinx in a fight. Someone must stay behind."

I stare at my feet, unwilling to believe that we have to split up once again. We can't. Not after the group's already been divided.

"There's no other way?" Kara asks, dejected.

Chase sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I don't think so. Avis is still a Mage, despite how she appears. And I'm sure she's a pretty damn powerful one, too, or she wouldn't be guarding the Amulet. We have to choose."

"But who's going to stay behind?" I ask. My question is met with silence. No one wants to be left alone.

Finally Chase sighs. "It should be me, I know." He looks closes his eyes, resigned. "Anne will be needed by you two if there's another trap."

"No!" I shout, horror filling me instantly. Not Chase. Anyone but Chase. Instantly I realize my outburst and backtrack. "I mean, no. We need you. Your casting limit and ability is important. Send me instead. I'm expendable."

"I won't! You. . . You don't have the same abilities, Haven. I'm the best person to go."

"Are you saying that I'm weak? I should have the ability to volunteer if I want to! And you didn't even consider Kara! Why are you so eager to throw your life away?! I don't-"

"Because Kara has a family!" He shouts at me, furious. "Kara has a mother and a father who are waiting for her to come back to them! And your dad is with them as well. I couldn't live with myself if. . . If I had to tell him I let his daughter go off alone and die in my place. I'm the really expendable one here. My family is dead!"

I take a step back, sensing that Chase is near his breaking point. His slipping level of control is alarming.

Instantly, the fight drains out of him and he backs away from me. "I'm sorry, I. . . I'm going, okay? It's my decision."

I collect my thoughts, staring at the boy with desperation and anger. He stares right back at me, unflinching and determined. I can tell that he won't give in; he's resigned to take his chances alone. There's nothing I can do, and I know it.

"Damn you," I spit, spinning around and marching over to the opposite wall. No. I don't want him to leave, for my sake, as much as his, although it hurts to admit it. My reasoning is selfish. His is logical. But I don't want him to leave, and that's all I can think about, him alone, fighting for his life. What if he doesn't make it? What if he gets killed trying to reach the Amulet? What if-

"Hey," a low voice says from behind me. A strong pair of arms snake around my torso, locking at my waist and holding me tight. I refuse to respond to his touch, keeping my arms crossed, but his nearness has set off an electric spark in my body, making me alert and hyperaware.

He rests his forehead on my shoulder, rocking side to side slightly. "Please don't hate me, Haven. I'm not leaving you by choice."

"Yes you are," I counter, naturally leaning back towards him, even as I speak.

"I have to do this," he whispers. "And I'm so sorry. Everyone around me gets hurt anyways. This way I can choose when they leave me. Everyone. It'll be okay, Haven."

"But you don't know that. Not everything will happen how you want it to just because you promise. It doesn't work like that."

He sighs, amused. "I know. Believe me, I know. But I will promise you this." He turns me around, putting his hands on my shoulders and tilting his head down to look at me. We're only six short inches apart, and I don't want the gap to ever widen. "I will never stop fighting. I will find a way to survive, no matter the cost to me. I can't promise that we'll find each other, but I can promise to try as hard as I can."

I close my eyes, absorbing his words and trying to soak them into my soul. This hurts. This hurts so much.

"Listen, Chase," I start. "We've only known each other for. . . Well, not that long at all. And I don't pretend to know everything, let alone my own feelings, but-"

"Wait," he stops me suddenly. "Something's happening." The hands on my shoulders slacken and fall as Chase steps away, turning towards the Sphinx.

I feel disappointment and annoyance, but turn to look anyway as the wall to our right begins to rise slowly, just like the wall that housed Avis. For a second I'm half afraid that another Sphinx will emerge from the doorway, but my fears are dismissed when all that's revealed is another endless passage displayed in front of us before turning and stretching away, out of view.

"Chase, the chosen one, will follow this path and attempt to find the maze center. You three others shall pass me, continuing on the path you started. Do you understand?" Avis asks.

"Yes," Chase says, looking back over to me. Begrudgingly, I nod.

"Very well. Proceed."

"Goodbye, Chase. Thank you," Anne says, bobbing her head towards him.

"Good luck," Kara adds, eyes filling with tears as she passes him.

I throw my arms around the boy one last time, searching for his lips and placing a chaste kiss on them before pulling back and following the others past the Sphinx.

"Just remember your promise," I order, turning to face him as I pass through the arch created by the door and the walls of the labyrinth.

"I will," he says solemnly.

Avis moves to stand in the center of the square, right where we were a second ago. She says nothing, only raises one wicked looking paw in a strange gesture. Then there is a stone scraping sound, and the entrances to both passageways begin to close, the doors inching their way back down to become walls. This is it. In a second we'll be facing just another dead end, one group member down, but otherwise like nothing had ever happened. And Chase. . . Chase will be gone. I feel a twinge of panic in my chest. He's been keeping me sane, alive, on my feet. He's wonderful and kind and broken, oh so broken. And I care about him so much. I realize that I would rather be alone with him than with the whole Anderson family. And I have to reach him. The doors are closing, though, and Avis is standing in the center. She could squash me like a bug if she wanted to. Avis is the worst threat here, or we wouldn't be splitting up. I just can't let her have the time to reach me.

Suddenly I make a mad dash for the door, ducking under the first and emerging into the square at a flat out run. I hear a loud growling sound from behind and the swish of fur against rock. Immediately I hit the floor, narrowly avoiding decapitation as I haul myself to my feet and continue my sprint for the second passage. It's closing so quickly, and being trapped in here with the Sphinx would mean certain death. Somehow, my legs find a way to move faster.

I hear yelling all around me, Kara and Anne's surprised shouts and Chase's calls of my name fill my ears, pushing me foreword. I have to reach the passage. I have to.

The Sphinx swipes at me again, this time knocking me off balance as I try to avoid her deadly claws. But I'm so close to the closing door, so unbearably close. I can see Chase crouching to peer at me in the gap between the floor and the door, yelling at me to go, go, go, because Avis was right behind me, and I had to get through the door.

I slide across the last three feet, using the door as leverage to pull myself through to the other side. I feel hands on my arms, pulling me up and out of the way as Avis's paw darts through right where I came in in order to pull me back. We stumble away, the creature pushing a second paw through and groping the empty air, trying to find flesh to claw and shred and tear. Her roars and screams of anger resonate through the cavern, both human and feline. But she can't get in. The door is closing too fast. A few seconds later, both paws are quickly retracted, and the door hits the stone floor with an audible crack.

"Very well," Avis says after a pause, her voice slightly distorted through the wall. "I admire your courage, Haven. Good luck on your journey, whatever the end."

And then, there is silence.

I fall against Chase, hugging him aggressively and letting him hug me back. My heart is beating ten times its normal rate and I feel jittery, like I could run a hundred miles on a whim.

"You scared me, Haven. Jeez, don't do that again!"

"It's fine. We're both here. Now everyone has an equal chance of making it through," I tell him.

"Okay," he says, taking a step back. "We have to go on now. At this point the faster we move to more ground we'll cover and the closer we'll get to finding the others."

I nod once and start forward at a quick jog, knowing that I should conserve some of my energy if I want to keep this up for long. Chase follows me without a word, coming up beside me and matching my pace. I try to catch his eye, but he doesn't see, instead staring at the next turn far ahead.

There's still something bothering me about our relationship, whatever it is. I don't really know what we are, I guess. Are we friends? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Friends with benefits? The idea makes me wrinkle my nose in distaste. But really, I just want to know what we are. I mean, I definitely care about him. But how does he feel? I kissed him and he kissed me and heck, we even slept in the same bed, but we haven't really talked at all. Things keep on happening and we get interrupted. That bothers me. In fact, now that I think about it, every time we kissed there was some underlying conversation about Matthew's death. Chase was always in pain and I was always mad at him or broken for him and emotions were running high. What if. . . What if he was using me as a way to get over his brother? What if I was just some kind of distraction from his loss?

I feel my heart sink and my mouth pull into a frown. No. I can't just be a distraction to him, right? I. . . He kissed me, he asked me to stay with him, I don't. . .

I think about the past, every time anything happened between us, and realize that I might be right. He never said he cared, he never said he loved me. But wait, is that what I want? I want him to love me? But it's too early, I'm getting ahead of myself. He can't love me. I don't even know him, do I? I can't know him.

I try to banish these thoughts from my head by focusing on my running, but every so often a negative thought breaks through and I feel doubt start to plague my mind. No. He can't love me. I'm being used. It's one-sided. I mean nothing to him, nothing at all.

After a long time I ask Chase for a break, slowing down to a walk and then a stop, leaning over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath. He leans against the wall beside me, gasping for air. Everything about him. . . My thoughts trail off as he runs his hands through his hair, looking up through dark lashes to find my eyes.

"You doing okay?" He asks.

"Yeah," I tell him, shaking myself from my thoughts. "I'm fine, just. . . Tired."

He nods, looking up at the cavern roof. "Whoa! Look at that!"

I stand up, craning my neck to look at where the rock ceiling is. The ball of energy hovering there has started to turn different colors. First it's red, a deep scarlet color that reminds one of roses. After a while, though, the color begins to shift into a burnt orange hue, blending slowly from one part of the spectrum to another.

"It's like a sunset," Chase says, staring in fascination. I am enthralled as well. It's magic, I guess. This magic is beautiful.

"And Green created it, I guess. That Amulet must really have some power."

Chase nods slowly, not taking his eyes off the sky. "I've never seen anything like it. It's magnificent."

I turn to look at him, seeing his eyes wide with wonder, and I feel another pang in my chest.

*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•

We walk for a while after that. The pseudo sun fades into yellow after a while and stays there, but at this point it has started to lose light. A kind of artificial dusk has fallen over the labyrinth, and it becomes clear that some kind of darkness will fall soon. The sun seems to be getting smaller and smaller as time goes on, and after about two more hours I am sure it's not just my imagination. In a little while, it's going to go out.

My suspicions are confirmed. Soon after the sun turns yellow, deep shadows start to form at the base of the walls. I realize that I can no longer see the ceiling; it's been cast in darkness as the sun slowly gets dimmer and dimmer. A couple minutes later the light is all but gone and I can't see the turns far ahead of us. As we reach the next dead end Chase signals for us to stop.

"We should try to sleep somewhere," I suggest, staring at the darkening sky.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Once it's completely dark we might run into a trap without realizing it."

I nod, walking over to a corner made by the walls and sliding to the ground, glad for the chance to finally sit down. My feet are killing me. We've been walking for hours. I don't know if night here corresponds to night above ground. It feels like we've been here for days already.

Chase crouches down to sit next to me, one leg bent and the other straight. I wrap my arms around my knees and hug them to my chest, still looking at the fake sky. It looks exactly like the night sky up there except. . . I squint into the blackness, searching.

"Are those. . . Stars?" And they are. Or at least, Green's equivalent to stars. They come out one by one, small, white little pinpricks of light scattered all over in no particular order, much brighter than the regular stars. And as the sun finally winks out of existence, I can imagine that I'm simply laying in a field somewhere, maybe Vermont, with no big cities anywhere near to dull the sky with light pollution. This is what I imagine the night sky would look like there; like the dome of a planetarium on a school field trip.

I shiver slightly, goosebumps running up my arms. I guess when the sun went out it got one thousand times cooler, too. Chase notices. He looks at me for a second.

"Cold?" He asks.

"A little."

Wordlessly, he removes his black hoodie and passes it to me, revealing the long sleeved white tee underneath. I let the fabric pool in my lap raising my hands in protest.

"No, I can't take this, it's yours. . ."

"It's fine," he says, leaning back against the wall. "You must be cold, you're wearing a tank top."

I pull the jacket on carefully, muttering a thank you as I do so. It's too big for me, and the sleeves hang off the ends of my fingertips. I love sweaters that do that. It's warm from his body heat, and smells like him, too. I zip up the front and tuck my nose into the collar, trying to be discreet as I inhale deeply. Doesn't mean anything. I think. It's just a jacket. I'm not that pathetic. But I nestle deeper into the folds of fabric, rolling it between my fingers and inhaling again. Mmm. . .

He looks at me with a smile on his face and I clear my throat, looking away, embarrassed.

"Hey," he says softly, touching two fingertips gently under my jaw and turning it towards him. His eyes close as he leans forward, sliding his hand from my face to my neck and parting his lips.

I reach out to put my hand over his mouth, turning away to let his fingers fall from my hair. "Stop," I say, wanting anything but. However, I need to talk to him.

"Haven?" I can hear the confusion in his voice.

I drop my hand and take a deep breath, looking back up at him. "What are we?" I ask softly, staring into his dark eyes.

"Huh?"

"I mean, what are we to each other?"

He entwines our fingers, rubbing a thumb over my wrist. "Whatever you want us to be."

I pull away again. That wasn't what I wanted. "No. What do you want?"

He frowns. "I thought. . . When I kissed you I thought it was obvious."

"Tch!" I scoff. "No. It's not, Chase. I just want to know, what do you think of me? Who do you think of me as? Am I important to you? Do you. . . Like me? Or am I just a distraction? Am I just a distraction from Matthew?"

He flinches and his eyes widen. "What? A distraction?! Is that how you think of me? That I would use you, like that? You think I would do that to you?"

I sink deeper into his hoodie. "Could be anybody. . ."

I hear him move and suddenly he's standing in front of me, pacing the small space between walls. "No! I- you're- no! You think I'm that low? I. . . I care about you, Haven! I have since before the first Trial. You think I would tell you those things, things about my past and my family, without caring? Jeez!"

He sinks down beside me again, this time a little further away. "Do you remember what I said? That night when I told you about my father?"

I stay silent, feeling horrible.

"God, it was so bad. I was going to say that I never believed in love at first sight, and I still don't, really. But I feel like there's a connection between us, at least. And I don't know exactly what that means, but I think that it might mean I love you, Haven, okay?"

I look up automatically, shocked.

"And that. . . And that you would think I was the type of person to just use someone I. . . Care about, and throw them away. . . That hurts."

He looks away this time, running a hand though his hair in a nervous habit I've come to notice.

"Chase I-"

"You don't have to say anything," he tells me. "You don't need to. I'm confused, and I'm not going to force you into feelings you can't return. I. . . I don't even know mine yet."

I scoot closer to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a hug.

"No, I don't think that low of you, as you said. I just didn't think you would ever. . ." I trail off. "I mean, think I feel the same way. I feel like I love you. I mean, I've never been in love before, so I don't know. . ."

He looks at me tenderly, hope in his eyes. "Me neither."

It's my turn to kiss him this time, and after a few seconds I pull away, leaning against his shoulder and using my hands as a pillow. He slides his arms around my waist, holding me, and then rests his head gently on my hair. I keep my eyes open, staring at the fake night sky.

"The stars are beautiful," I think out loud.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Would it be so horrible if I said that you were too?"

I scoff at him, smiling. "Yeah, that's pretty horrible. Thank you."

"Haven?"

"Um hm?"

"Will you go out with me?"

"Would it be so horrible if I said yes?"

"No."

"Then yes."

We both fall asleep soon afterwards, with each of our not-quite-confessions spinning around our heads.