“Almost nothing,” he admits with a shrug. “I wasn’t exactly a soldier, as you might have guessed.”

Palamedes walks with more confidence and less care than he should, given the dangers that lurk within the twisty maze. Maybe he just feels safer with Gideon by his side—maybe he is only demonstrating how bad he is at keeping himself in one piece when Cam isn’t around.

That’s probably why he doesn’t notice the tendrils and vines snaking across the ground towards his feet. “I learned a few things from a book I found—The Necromancer’s Marriage Season, have you heard of it?—but it’s fiction, and decidedly fantastical in places, so I’m disinclined to trust—Augh!”

Pal cuts off with a cry as one of the creeping vines wraps tightly around his ankle and gives a tug, knocking him off-balance.