In the morning, Katla was gone. I woke up to an aching back (I had to stop sleeping on the ground, no matter how many people in the group were actually injured) and a dry mouth. I reached up to press at my eyes. “Does Teuthida provide fresh water?”

“She should,” said Vita, yawning. “But no one agrees on where. Just that it should be somewhere around.”

“Well, we should look,” I said. “We’re going to run out fast.”

I pushed myself up, kicked over the ashes of the fire to make sure they were out. When I rolled back to stretch, it felt like every piece of my spine cracked individually. Behind me, Duran was still dead asleep. “I know we brought in water, too, but when that runs out we’ll be in much more trouble than the food situation.”

“You’re not saying anything new. I know we need water.” Vita leaned over, grabbed for her crutches and used one of them to wake up Herminius. Apis, already awake, was midway through his morning stretches. He looked completely perky and awake. I sighed. We couldn’t get out of this temple fast enough.

If only I could summon Durandus the first through the walls. Maybe I could just set out flasks of alcohol. That had worked back in the old days, when I’d needed a paycheck.

“Well, hoping we’ll find water and just wandering aimlessly did nothing,” I snapped. “Let’s actually look for it this time. We’ve been hearing it, haven’t we?”

“Fine! As long as we have a destination.”

I squinted at Vita, suspicious. “I thought you wanted to complete the temple?”

“As long as we’re continuing with an open heart, we will complete the temple,” she said. “This is the way of Teuthida.”

Two hours later, and I decided the way of Teuthida wasn’t worth a whit. “I never want to look at rocks again,” I told Duran, from where we were leading the group. We’d spread out over most of a corridor, with Duran and I leading the train, Apis taking up the middle, and Herminius and Vita trailing.

“What about salt? Isn’t that a rock?”

He kicked one of the aforementioned rocks down a the corridor. We came to a fork. Without mentioning it, we took a right. I thought I could hear water running that way.

I also thought I might be going mad. Another statue of Teuthida stared at us.

When I got out of here, I was going to eat endless Calamari. Endless.

“Salt doesn’t count,” I told Duran. “I’m eating it. Not looking at it.”

We took another right. The sound of the water got dimmer. After a few more strides, we stopped, turned around, and then took a left.

When we passed Apis, he half-ran to catch up with us. “Elysia,” he said. “Slow down. I have-”

I stopped walking. He was clearly struggling. “What?”

“An idea,” he said. “What if we gave an offering?”

“What?”

“This is a temple.” He pointed to one of the endless statues. It wasn’t an unusual shape like the one we’d been attacked by last night (at least, I thought it had been night). It was just the usual squid-woman, unimpressed, hands out. “She’s asking for offerings. We could offer something. Maybe it might help.”

“This was your big idea?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it could help?”

When I still looked unimpressed, he pulled the bag further up on his shoulder. “Sorry. It was a foolish idea. I just…”

“No. You’re right. We might as well try. ” I watched as he brightened. “What do we have? Duran, do you have anything?”

“I have a copper!” He held it out. It was severely bent.

“I have that quarter round of cheese,” said Apis, holding it up.

I frowned at him. “You’re giving up our cheese? That’s important. What if we want to eat it?” He held it closer to me. I wrinkled my nose. “Actually, never-mind. She can keep it.” The mold had progressed from just more cheese to health hazard. Some of it was waving a little in the howling wind that seemed ever-present, emerging from the depths of the maze.

I inspected the contents of my own pocket. Two coppers, a fork- to go with the spoon I kept in my apron- and a few pieces of lint.

Well, why not. Teuthida could have it all. It would even up my score with what Andrena had stolen. Andrena, here’s your chance. Perform a miracle, and Teuthida won’t get my fork. It’s a pretty nice fork! Don’t you feel jealous?

I approached first, putting my coins and fork into one of Teuthida’s hands. Apis placed the cheese into her hand with a little too much ceremony, and Duran had to jump to put his single copper in.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Nothing happened.

Then, after a moment, there was a grinding sound. The statue’s hand lowered, as if our pittance of an offering had weighed her down.

I glanced towards Vita and Herminius, still far behind us in the tunnel. I was met with stone. Where they had previously been, the corridor had disappeared.

A wall had appeared- from where, I didn’t know. In its place were two new tunnels, branching right and left instead of straight beyond.

“This is what I get for praying!”

When we pulled the prayer objects off of the statue’s hand, it stayed weighed down. In an attempt to fix the issue, we put the prayer objects on Teuthida’s other hand. Her other hand ground down, with the right hand lifting up. When that happened, all of the corridors behind us closed- including the new ones- and the corridors in front of us branched off to reveal new paths.

No matter what we did, we couldn’t seem to force her hands back into balance.

I yanked down on one of the statue’s wrists, putting all of my body weight into it. “Come on, you fish! Can’t you understand! We were trying to be helpful!”

Apis came up behind me, wincing. “Listen,” he said. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but…”

I dropped to the ground. Teuthida gazed down at me, eyes unchanging. I kicked at one of the tentacles, then stumbled back. My foot was stinging.

“Ah, well, how to say it.” He scratched at his chin. “Maybe this is what we’re meant to do. I’m sure they’ll figure the rest of the temple out on their own.”

It wasn’t that I wanted to re-convene with the others in our ill-fated group. I didn’t really like them that much. Herminius never shut up about how his career depended on beating the temple first, and Vita was a little too enthusiastic about Teuthida’s teachings for any practical effort to be made.

Still. It was that by being separated from them, I was letting the temple win. Who was I? Someone who wasn’t smart enough to get around a maze? This was a construction of some cogs, gears, and stone! I was a full person! How dare it try to take over my plans!

I stepped back from the statue, sighing.

“We’ll find them another way,” I said, more to the stone Teuthida than to Apis. “This isn’t over.”

“No, definitely not,” Apis replied. “I think we should press down the original hand. That way we’ll go back towards the rest of our group. Besides- maybe those new tunnels are actually a short-cut. If we opened them up for both of us, perhaps we’ve just solved the maze.”

“I’m glad that you’re feeling optimistic,” I said, which was the best I could manage at the time.

I glanced behind me. There- at least Duran was still with us. He was attempting to scratch our names into one of the tentacles with the edge of a knife. “Stop it,” I said. “That’s not helping.”

He looked up, guilty. “But I’ve only finished the first letter of my name!”

“You’re going to dull the knife.”

I helped Apis move our offerings over to the other hand, watching the statue’s hand grind down with another horrible noise. The tunnels opened up silently. I wondered how often the cogs were greased. Were there still priestesses operating the temple? How many people worked here? Had they all gone missing, when the temple had gone closed, or was this just an elaborate vacation?

“I can hear you thinking,” said Apis.

“I’m not.” I reached forward and snatched my copper coins back. After a moment, I took back my fork, too. “Let’s go. Before I lose my patience even more.”

“At least we can move faster this time!”

Duran was bouncing with excitement. Of course he was. This was almost being heroic. “Do you think my Da’s out here?”

“I hope not. There’s no liquor. Maybe Teuthida keeps it in the center of the temple.”Apis gave me a look. I sighed. “Probably not,” I amended. “I’m sure he’s been working very hard.”

It would have been an excellent save, if Duran had been there to hear it. Unfortunately, he’d already run ahead. He had chosen our fork for us- a hard right, towards the sound of rushing water.

“Well?” I said, following him. “Any sign of our lost group?”

Duran was hunched over a stone. I was beginning to think he’d apprenticed to the wrong person.

“This a new design for the tunnels. There are less statues back here. And look!”

He pointed down. Sure enough, he was crouched on a different-looking paving stone. It was carved with a squid, just like the key-stone from before. It looked mean, like it was midway through eating someone. The sound of rushing water was louder, too, like it was just underneath his feet.

I had a bad feeling. “Duran,” I said, “Are you sure you should be-”

I wasn’t able to finish my sentence. Duran had fallen straight down, the tile pulling back underneath his feet.

“Duran!”

I leaned forward. Before I could check on him, the tile had snapped back closed. It left us in darkness. Duran had fallen with the lantern.

With a fumble and a flicker, Apis lit a match. We contemplated the squid tile in horrified silence. “Duran?” I shouted.

There was no response.

“Maybe it’s just thick stone,” said Apis. The match burned out. He lit another.

“We have to go after him,” I said. I didn’t move forward.

“Yes,” said Apis. He lit another match. He didn’t move forward either. I wondered how many matches we had.

We both stared at the squid. It was mid-battle with something horrible. It looked like a… horse?

“It’s a temple. It’s not meant to kill you.” My words sounded false even to me.

“It sounded like water down there,” said Apis. “What if he needs to swim.”

I sighed. Duran wasn’t that good in water.

By the fifth match, we had all of our cloaks off, our bags held over our heads. We clustered awkwardly together on the tile. I put a single foot on it hesitantly, then another. Apis followed.

We stood there for a long moment.

“Is anything going to… happen?”

Apis lit another match. “I hope so. We only have one box left.

The tile gave out underneath our feet. I grabbed for Apis. It felt like forever in free-fall, my guts tumbling and my shriek stretching out for ages.

Then, with a splash, we were underwater.

I emerged from the water, gasping in panic. I’d dropped the bag. Apis was dragging me out by the collar, kicking fiercely. In another few moments I’d been deposited on what felt like solid stone with a thump. I was dripping all over the place. I was wet and fiercely cold.

I reached over and put a finger to my lips. Fresh water.

“Duran?”

My voice echoed back to me.

“Madam Elysia!” Came a shout, distant. “I found the water!”

I fell back, my tunic making a wet thump. There was more stone down here. Of course there was. The back of the tunnel felt round, almost, though I couldn’t make out any detail in the pitch black.

There was a scraping, but no resulting light.

“I think the matches got wet,” said Apis. “One second.”

More fumbling, and finally something caught. We stared at each other in the flame for a moment. The match-light was tiny in the density of the tunnel, which I could now see was round and tightly cobbled- an underground aqueduct. This must be where the river was routed underneath the temple. I sighed. “If this is the solution, I want a refund. Does she actually just throw everyone down a hole?”

“I’m just glad we taught Duran to swim.”