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Chapter Text

The carriage climbed up and up the track, which was so narrow it seemed carved into the mountainside.  Stiles leaned out of the window as far as he could to try to see the way ahead, although he feared the entire carriage may overbalance and plummet to the depths below. The clip-clop of the horses seemed tiresomely slow to someone who was bursting with curiosity about his destination.

The view from the carriage window was spectacular, he supposed.  At the base of the mountains, the valley spread on as far as the eye could see, dotted with the towns they had passed through. Stiles stretched out his hand as if he could touch them, pick them up and move them around the patchwork of farmland. Even if he squinted, Stiles could no longer make out the city he had left behind, where he had lived his entire life. At any rate, the way behind him held little interest; he was more concerned with what lay ahead.

Stiles sank back into his seat with a huff.  He had barely spoken to the man who was now his patron, the mysterious Peter Hale, Lord of the Northern Mountains.  Lord Hale had presented himself at the orphanage only a few days earlier and asked for Stiles by name.  He was a wealthy and important man, the nuns had explained, given a philanthropic turn of mind since a dark tragedy in his past that had left him scarred and weakened. The nuns thought that Lord Hale probably wanted to adopt Stiles as a companion, to assist him in his infirmity, so Stiles best curb his devilish tendencies and do whatever Lord Hale asked of him.  From what the nuns had said, Stiles expected an old and frail man, and was therefore surprised when he was presented to a man around the same age that his father would have been, and tolerably handsome, though half his face was cloaked. His surprise must have been evident, given the way that Lord Hale smiled at him.  It was a strange smile that Stiles didn’t quite like, and when Stiles had shaken his hand, his touch was cold.  Lord Hale had given Mother Agnes a short nod and that had been the end to it. Things had been set in motion so quickly that Stiles had barely had time to think, a whirlpool in the stagnant pond that had hitherto been his life.

The driver of the carriage had been of no assistance in providing information about where Stiles was going or what he was to do upon his arrival. Stiles was not even sure that the curly-haired boy could speak English, they had travelled such a distance that Stiles thought they make have reached foreign soil. Even when they had stopped to rest for the night, Stiles had not heard the boy speak, merely seen him in quiet conversation with the innkeeper, who had then directed Stiles to his lodgings.  The boy seemed timid and had flinched at every question Stiles had asked, so Stiles had soon given up, deciding he could find his answers once he arrived at his destination.

However, he had begun to doubt that would ever come to pass. They had seemed to be traveling for an inordinate amount of time and he was sure they must be at the very ends of the Earth.  Just as he thought this, the way flattened out and the carriage rolled to a stop.

Tired of being cooped up in the carriage, Stiles opened the door and jumped out. He found himself in the large, stone courtyard of a castle.  He felt as if he’d stepped into a story book as he looked around at the ornately decorated buildings, lace-trimmed windows with ferocious-looking stone gargoyles peering over the eaves, towers and spires rising up and up into the clouds.  The castle seemed almost part of the mountain itself, built upon a large flat area that jutted out from the mountain’s shoulder in a trapezoidal shape.  Stone walls rose from the lip of the jut, bordering the castle on all the sides that the mountain didn’t provide a natural fortification. 

Toward the back of the courtyard where Stiles stood, the buildings gave way to garden, although the two seemed to almost meld in some places, and Stiles realized that a great deal of the castle was in ruins.  On the west and northwestern sides, where it seemed that the heart of the castle should be, the only remaining buildings were blackened, giving way to crumbling rock that the garden had begun to overtake.

At the furthest edge of the garden, a lone tower rose.  The tower was charred black and broken, and the sight of it made Stiles shiver.

While Stiles was taking in his surroundings, the driver had unloaded Stiles’ patched old bag and driven away. Stiles watched as the carriage vanished into a gap between the buildings, not sure what he was supposed to do next.

The day was near its end and the last of the light filtered across the castle grounds, casting long shadows over where Stiles stood.  None of the lights in the castle were lit and the darkened windows stared down at him like dead eyes.  The stone gargoyles seemed to bear their teeth at him. Stiles wrinkled his nose at them, slung his bag over his shoulder and bounded up the steps of the castle entranceway.

The thick wooden door creaked as Stiles pushed it open, getting his whole weight behind it before it would move.  Although lavishly designed, the foyer had an empty, disused feeling; there were no furnishings and the large chandelier that hung from the high ceiling was unlit. The intricate woodwork that edged the doorways and windows was coated in a layer of dust and Stiles noticed more than a few dead bugs on the surfaces that had not been cleaned away.

“Hello?” he called, his voice echoing in the cavernous space.

He wondered if he was in the castle alone, and wished suddenly that Scott had been allowed to make the journey with him.  They would have had such fun exploring an abandoned castle together.  The thought reminded him of his purpose in being there, and he closed the door behind him. The door made an ominous thud as it shut and Stiles was left shrouded in shadow.

“Hello,” he called out again. “Is anyone there?”

Getting no reply, he moved further into the room, toward the grand staircase opposite.  The staircase was of a dark, rich mahogany.  Stiles was sure that once it had been polished to gleaming, but now it was as everything else: faded and overtaken by shadow.  Cobwebs laced through the woodwork of the bannisters and his footsteps kicked up clouds of dust.

At the top, the staircase branched off into opposite directions, and as Stiles climbed the stairs, he noticed that the walls were hung with portraits. The only light came through a large stained glass window in the entryway behind him, falling diluted and discolored over one portrait in particular.

Stiles barely noticed the other paintings, vaguely registering the one of Lord Hale to the right, so transfixed he was by the visage before him. He walked toward it as if in a dream, his heart thumping.  The man in the painting seemed familiar to him somehow, though Stiles was sure he would remember if he had seen him before, for his countenance was the most handsome that Stiles had ever seen.  Rather, he felt as if his heart recognized the man.

Stiles moved closer to the painting, trying to see it better in the mottled light. The man — hardly more than a youth, Stiles realized — looked out of frame slightly to the left, something that wasn't quite a smile curling his lip.  The play of light and shadow across the man’s face seemed arranged to highlight the sharpness of his features in a way that made him seem almost as something wild.  He wore all black, a black doublet over black breeches and boots, even the fur on his cloak was black, though the cloak’s red and silver stitching was the only color to be seen.  The cut of the clothing was of recent enough fashion to Stiles’ untrained eye for him to surmise that this was not some long-dead ancestor of Lord Hale but of the same generation, if not younger.  The man had high cheekbones and small ears, a well-proportioned jawline and strong eyebrows, but Stiles found himself entranced by the man’s eyes.  Surely the artist had taken liberties with their creation, he thought, as nobody could truly have eyes that possessed such a range of color and possibility.

The man was the most perfectly formed being that Stiles had ever seen and he felt his heart ache to look upon him.

He raised his hand to touch the painting, to trace the curve of the man’s lip, when he heard a door in the foyer creak open.  He snatched his hand back guiltily and retreated down the stairs, feeling slightly dazed.

He was met at the bottom of the stairs by a girl with lank blonde hair and a downcast look.  She wore a dress of homespun cotton that hung from her thin frame.  Although she kept her head turned away from him, he noticed that her skin was marred with blemishes.  She neither smiled nor greeted him, merely nodded for him to follow her as she turned back toward the doorway she had entered through.

Stiles glanced back at the portrait of the man, wondering how such a fine person fit into a situation that seemed to be becoming more and more strange, then realizing the girl had vanished down a long hallway on the other side of the door, he hurried after her.

Stiles had spent almost half his life sleeping in a crowded dormitory with the other orphans.  His new quarters were quite the opposite of that, and as such, despite the exhaustion from the journey, he was entirely unable to sleep.

The girl — Erica, she had told him in a mumble when he’d asked — had led him to a tower on the northeastern side of the castle and left him without another word. He did not know where Lord Hale was, nor why the man had not been there to greet him, and it did not seem that his questions would be answered any time soon.  At the top of the tower, he had found what he assumed must be his quarters, as there had been a meal of bread and cheese laid out for him and the bed had been turned down.

The bed was soft and, Stiles thought, entirely too large for one person. The four-poster had velvet hangings and an abundance of pillows, and it could have reasonably slept at least ten orphans.  The floor was covered with lush carpet, the walls with delicate tapestries.  A large oak cupboard by the door held clothes that were tailored to Stiles’ size, though they were of such high quality and fashion that Stiles was certain they couldn’t have been made expressly for him in such a short time. The centerpiece of the room was a marble fireplace painted with small blue flowers, and Stiles was sure that the gold candlesticks on the mantle above it would feed the orphanage for a year. So much opulence made Stiles uncomfortable and he missed the sounds of the other boys, the sleepy murmurs, Scott’s ragged breathing beside him that assured Stiles he was still alive.

The only sound was that of the wind whipping around the tower. It was a fierce wind and Stiles could hear the distant tap-tap-tap of it rattling something, possibly a tree branch or a door.  There was nothing else, and Stiles felt certain suddenly that he was the only person in existence, that all other life had vanished.  He found himself listening through the silence, as if for some proof of life other than his own, but there was only the wind and the tapping.  The tapping sounded louder and at first Stiles thought it was because he had focussed on it, but as he listened the noise got louder and louder until he could not deny what he heard.

He sat bolt upright in his bed, the covers falling away and exposing him to the chill night air.  He held his breath, trying to listen over the pounding of his heart, for surely he was not mistaken and the sound was that of footsteps.  The noise increased until they seemed to be right outside his room, and then they stopped.

Unable to resist his curiosity, Stiles crept out of his bed and toward the door. He knew logically that it was probably Erica, or another servant that he had not met.  Everything at the castle seemed so strange that he could well believe that the servants conducted their duties in the dead of night, however no strip of light shone under the door from the torch a servant would surely carry.

As silently as possible, Stiles crouched down to look through the keyhole, half-expecting to see an eye staring back at him. He took a deep breath and braced himself before he looked, but he could only see shadow.  Still crouching, he pressed his ear to the door, but could hear nothing that indicated that someone had approached his quarters or was now standing outside.

Stiles felt himself becoming irritated, as he always did whenever he lacked information about something.  He stood up and eyed the door warily, as if it were the door that were keeping things from him and not Lord Hale and the inhabitants of his castle. Nodding to himself decisively, he whipped the door open, steeling himself to encounter the intruder face to face.

There was nobody there.  Moonlight shone through the tower window but there was nothing but the small landing at the top of the tower stairs, and a small supply cupboard beside the door. The supply cupboard was locked from the outside, and Stiles crossed the landing to look down the stairs but found them also empty.  Suddenly possessed with the irrational fear that his door would slam shut and lock him out, he fled back to his room.  He shut the door and leaned back against it.  He felt clammy from fear and it became hard to draw breath.  Before he could become light-headed, he thought about Scott. He always felt braver with his friend beside him, and he wondered what he would do if Scott were there.

Scott would tell him to think rationally, he decided.

He had definitely heard footsteps and they had definitely stopped outside the door.  He hadn’t heard the footsteps walk away. The tower window did not open, the stairs were clear and there was nowhere else a person could go. There were two conclusions he could make from that: the person was still standing outside his room or it was not a person at all.  He took a long, steadying breath and decided it was not something he wanted to think about in the dead of night in a strange castle.

He pushed away from the door and tiptoed across the room, toward the bed. From the corner of his eye, something caught his attention and he turned to look.  At first, he thought it was the moonlight reflecting off one of the castle windows, but then he realized he was not looking at the castle at all, but across the gardens to the broken tower, and the light was not a reflection but coming from within.

Stiles shivered, but moved toward the window.  He could not explain why, but he felt alternately drawn and repelled by the tower, as if were the sum of all the mysteries and horrors of the castle.  He settled himself in the little nook by the window, arranging the brocaded cushions comfortably as he watched the light, wondering at its source. He could not fathom the reason for it, and eventually his eyes grew heavy and he drifted into sleep, the shape of the tower following him into his dreams.

Stiles woke early, cold and stiff from sleeping in the window nook. Dawn was rising over the castle grounds, casting everything in a golden light, but the tower was dark. He felt half-starved, and quickly dressed to go find the kitchens.  The events of the previous night seemed terribly exciting in the light of day, and as he made his way out of the tower and across the courtyard, he deliberated over several different theories.

The likeliest explanation was ghosts, he decided.  The nuns at the orphanage had tried to dispel Stiles of any fantastical notions, but Stiles had little confidence in their God after he had taken both Stiles’ parents, and consequently had rarely listened to the nuns instruction. Furthermore, he thought that if any place were to be inhabited by otherworldly spirits, it would surely be a castle such as this — a mainly abandoned castle permeated with a sense of tragedy. His other theories were more outlandish: an invisible boy, a being who moved faster than the eye could see, or that Stiles’ imagination had got the best of him.  He dismissed these theories as unlikely.

Stiles found himself aimlessly wandering the hallways of the castle. Most of the doors in the main buildings were locked and the rooms that were open were empty and disused. Stiles wondered why Lord Hale bothered to keep the castle at all.  It was, however, one of the least mysterious things about the castle, and Stiles set it to the back of his mind.  Finding himself once again in the courtyard, Stiles looked around at the buildings closest to him. One of the buildings that looked older than the others had smoke spilling from a chimney, which Stiles took as a good sign and headed toward it.

His footsteps echoed on the cobblestones as he crossed the courtyard, and although the chill of dawn had gone out of the air, the morning was cold and damp, and he was pleased to get inside.  As he entered the building, he could hear voices, speaking low in a room close by.  The door to the room was open, and inside it he could see a large fire in a grate with a pot warming over it, and several pots and pans hanging above a wooden bench. Pleased to have found the right place, Stiles moved to enter, but the sound of his own name stopped him and he paused outside of the doorway to listen.

“…Far too inquisitive,” said a boy — Stiles assumed it was the carriage driver, although he had no way of knowing how many people lived and worked in the castle.  If it were the carriage driver, Stiles was offended. All those long, boring hours on the road could have been much more pleasant if they had been shared with a companion, and the boy was obviously capable of speech after all. 

“Lord Hale was adamant,” said a girl, Stiles was fairly certain it was Erica, given the hushed, hesitant tone.

“The boy should be warned,” said a third person.  His voice was sonorous and comforting in a way that made Stiles immediately want to befriend him. His heart skipped a beat when he thought that perhaps it was the man he had seen in the painting, though he reasoned that a nobleman would not likely be eating in the kitchen with the servants.

“You can’t,” the carriage driver hissed. “He would know.  He would be angry.”

“He should know the dangers, Isaac,” said the boy with the deep voice.  “We should at least tell him not to venture out of a night, to lock his doors.  To stay away from the tower.”

Erica mumbled something that Stiles could not hear, though he thought he heard the words “beast” and “moon”. 

“Lord Hale will return before then,” said Isaac.  “If you want to tell him, Boyd, that is your choice but I will have no part in it.”

There was a scraping noise as if someone was pushing their chair back from the table and, not wanting to be caught lurking outside the door, Stiles took the opportunity to enter, making as much noise as possible so as to not seem suspicious.

“Good morning,” Stiles said brightly, though his head was full of what he had heard.

The three at the table stared at him.  Isaac stood at the end of the table with a bowl in his hand. Erica ducked her head so her hair covered her face, but the other boy, Boyd, glared at Stiles. He was large and dark-skinned, with a kind face.  Although he was slightly disappointed that it was not the man from the painting, Stiles was certain that once they became acquainted they would be fast friends.

“I’ll just help myself, shall I?”  Stiles crossed the room and began filling a bowl with the thin gruel from the pot on the fire.

“Your meals are to be served in your quarters,” Boyd said, his tone firm.

Stiles shrugged and made his way to the table, taking the seat closest to the door.  “That seems terribly lonely.  Did you know I was an orphan?  I am accustomed to the company of others, and truthfully I prefer it.”  He ate a spoonful of gruel, which was well-seasoned and heartier than any he had ever eaten at the orphanage.  He glanced around the kitchen, noting that the ceiling was low and it was both poorly lit and ventilated.  “I often helped in the kitchens, if you had no objection, I could —”

“No,” said Boyd. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest.

Stiles sniffed.  “I only —”

“No,” Boyd repeated. “Until Lord Hale’s return you are not to venture from the north tower. Erica will serve your meals and bring you anything else you might require.”

Stiles affected nonchalance, shrugging his shoulders.  “Very well,” he lied.  “I would like some reading material, if I may?”

Erica nodded without looking up from her bowl.  Stiles decided to push it as far as he could.

“When might I expect Lord Hale’s return?”

“Lord Hale does not share his private affairs with his servants,” said Boyd, rising from the table.  “He will return at his earliest convenience.”

At Boyd’s movement, the other two seemed to regain the use of their limbs and also moved from the table. Stiles watched them shrewdly as they cleared away the traces of their breakfasting, noting the way that Isaac shrank away from the others, taking up the least amount of space possible, how Boyd watched Erica from the corner of his eye and when she almost dropped her bowl, he steadied her arm.  They spoke neither to Stiles nor each other until they left the room.  They broke into whispers as soon as they were through the door but Stiles could not make out what was said, and finished his breakfast alone in the silent room.

Tired from his restless night and irritated at the lack of welcome he had found at the castle, Stiles retired to his tower room shortly after breakfast. The many mysteries of the castle nettled him as he trudged up the spiral staircase to his room. What were the footsteps he had heard? What had been the reason for his adoption, and why had it been such an urgent matter when Lord Hale was not even at the castle to receive him?  Why were the staff so strange and unwelcoming?  What had Boyd wanted to warn him about, and what was the reason he had been told to stay in his quarters?  What had been the cause of the tragedy that still hung over the castle like a dark cloud?

At the center of it all was the broken tower, and Stiles felt that if he could unlock its secrets the rest of the mystery would unravel.

He finally reached the top of the staircase and crossed the landing to unlock his door.  His thoughts again returned to the man in the painting.  Reason told him that the man was dead, but Stiles’ heart could not accept the possibility. Fancy began to take him, visions of where the man might be, what he might be doing.  Perhaps he was an army general or a missionary, stranded in a dangerous foreign land, desperately trying to return home.

He stopped short as he crossed the threshold into the room.  Something seemed different.  The quality of the air had changed.  He stood frozen as he looked around the room.  His skin prickled and he held his breath.  Had someone entered the room while he had been out?  The door had been locked and he was certain that neither Boyd nor Erica nor Isaac would have had time to reach the tower ahead of him without his noticing. 

The window banged against the frame and Stiles sighed in relief, crossing the room to close it.  The day was not windy as the night had been, but Stiles thought that perhaps he had knocked the window latch in his sleep and it had later blown open.  He couldn’t help but laugh at his own agitation.  Perhaps, after all, he was merely uneasy about the dramatic change in his circumstances and as such, had started jumping at shadows.

Deciding that the best remedy was a solid rest, he turned toward the bed.  He stopped in his tracks, the hair on the back of his neck raising on end. There, on his pillow, lay a posy of small blue flowers.

Stiles placed the flowers in the small drawer of his bedside table and tried to forget about them as he lay down on the bed.  The fragrance of the flowers clung to his pillow and he expected he would be unable to sleep, given yet another mystery, and the thought that an unknown person had entered his inner sanctum, however he had barely closed his eyes when he was fast asleep.

He awoke in the afternoon, feeling refreshed.  After a brief look around the tower room to be sure everything was as it should be, he decided that despite — or perhaps because of — Boyd’s warning, he should explore the castle grounds.  He drew on his old cloak, a hand-me-down from the orphanage; although it would do little against the chill of the mountainside, he did not feel comfortable clothing himself in the finery in his cupboard.

He crossed the courtyard quickly, sticking close to the buildings so as not to be discovered.  Night fell early in the mountains and already the shadows were lengthening across the grounds although it was not yet three o’clock. Stiles shivered as he stepped into the gardens and the broken tower loomed before him.  He stood uncertain for a moment, once more torn between the allure of the tower and his fear of it.  Without realizing, he had taken a few steps toward it, but then he gathered himself and headed toward a small apple orchard.

The trees in the orchard were bare so late in the year, but the branches provided a welcome barrier between Stiles and the tower, blocking it from his view so he could lose himself in his thoughts.

He found himself once again falling into a reverie about the man in the painting. He pictured the man somewhere vaguely foreign, standing triumphant on a victory field like a king from legend, golden light falling over him.  He pictured the man working amongst the sick and the poor, pictured him shipwrecked and taken by pirates, forced into a life of slavery, taken with a fit of amnesia and wandering the slums helpless.  In all the scenarios Stiles envisioned, two things remained constant; the man was always unbearably beautiful, and he was always trying to find his way home, back to Stiles.

So taken with his daydreams, Stiles paid little heed to where he wandered and almost stumbled right upon Isaac, who was trimming the trees toward the back of the orchard. Stiles stumbled, waved his arms around wildly to regain his balance and hid behind a tree.  Peeking around to see if Isaac noticed him, he found he was safe and backed away slowly.  He turned to make a mad dash away and ran smack into a thick hedge.  The hedge was tall, almost twice his height, and seemed to run the entire border of the orchard.  Stiles had no choice but to follow it back toward the castle.

After a short way, he noticed a large opening in the hedge, around the size of a wide doorway. Never one to deny his curiosity, Stiles stepped through it and found that what he had thought was an abnormally long hedge was in fact a hedge grown into a maze.  He had read of such things but had never seen anything like it before in reality, so he decided to follow it to the left a short way.

As soon as he stepped completely into the labyrinth, an unnatural silence fell. Stiles could hear no birds, nor the distant sound of Isaac gardening, not even the wind.  It was as if the entire world had abandoned him. Everything seemed darker, as if night had been hastened by his presence or he himself had brought the darkness. On the outside, the hedge had been neatly maintained, but within it grew wild, so thick and tangled that he could barely see the sky above.  Only patches seemed to still be living, the rest a mess of twisted branches that looked as though they had died while struggling together to reach the light.

One of the branches scraped against his arm, as if it recognized Stiles as its brethren and meant to keep him there, to pull him in and not let him go.

He turned and fled and did not look back.

Erica had left supper and a few books on top of the supply cupboard by Stiles’ door when he returned, and he was grateful for the distraction. There were, he noted with relief, no more strange gifts left on his pillow.  The strangeness of the castle had definitely gotten to him, he thought as he lit the lamp by his desk and settled in to eat and peruse the selection of books.  He was not sure what method Erica had used to choose the books for him, either she picked them at random or had quite eclectic tastes.  There was a book of local history, a text on botany, and what appeared to be series of rather titilating ghost tales.  Stiles browsed the history as he ate but the text was cramped and dry and he soon wearied of it.  The journey, on top of all the excitement since his arrival must have taken its toll, Stiles concluded, and perhaps after a full night of sleep he would be able to make sense of everything.

The full night of sleep was beyond his reach, however.  He woke with a start in a dark room, confused for a moment as to where he was.  The only light was a single moonbeam that fell across his bed.  Everything lay in silence, as if the castle were under a spell.

He listened trying to pinpoint what had woken him, wondering if the footsteps had returned and if he would be able to discover their cause.  After what felt like an eternity, he heard what had woken him.  Not footsteps, but the long and lonely howl of a wolf. The desolate sound sent a shiver down Stiles’ spine and he pulled the blankets tighter around himself. The howl dwindled and ended, as if the wolf were waiting for the sound to be returned by its pack, but it was not. The wolf howled again, louder this time, sounding almost as if it were right below Stiles’ window. Stiles thought to creep over to the window and look outside but the sound seemed to hold him in place as if frozen. He soon drifted back into slumber, his dreams filled with howling, echoing footsteps and eyes that glowed out of the darkness.

Over the next few days, Stiles fell into some semblence of a routine. His breakfast was now always left for him of a morning, as if to dissuade him from joining the others in the kitchen.  After he ate and washed, he would wander the castle.  Sometimes he explored, other times he would follow Isaac or Erica as they went about their daily duties to see if he could discover anything of the castle’s secrets.  Boyd rarely ventured from the kitchens, and Stiles had seen nobody apart from those three about the castle, so could only conclude they were the only other living souls in residence. Whether they were aware of Stiles’ presence, he soon realized he would find nothing useful from watching Isaac weed the garden or Erica wash sheets.

He wished he could explore the ruined sections of the castle, but could find no way to reach them without traversing the hedge maze, almost as if it had been expressly grown as a barrier to them.  He had no desire to enter the labyrinth and kept well clear of it, which limited his explorations of more than just the ruins. The tower also lay within the labyrinth, and although Stiles did not know exactly whether he wished to enter the tower or not, he knew that if he were faced with it, his curiosity would leave no question about it.

He thought of Scott often, every time he made some new discovery or had an idea.  Several times a day, he turned to speak to his friend, so used to having him by his side, and each time he did it, he felt himself grow angry at Lord Hale for sending him to such a miserable place instead of letting him remain with Scott.

When this mood struck him, he returned to the castle foyer to once again gaze upon the handsome man’s portrait.  It filled him with a sense of peace and he soon grew to think of the man as his only ally in the hostile wilderness.

He returned to his room generally in the late afternoon to eat and read. Erica left various other books for him, and he began to suspect that she herself was not literate. It surprised him that he had not thought of it sooner, a serving girl from a country village would have no need of literacy, he supposed, and most of the other boys in the orphanage had not been able to read, being bereft of the type of background that Stiles had enjoyed, if only for a short time.  On two other occasions, when he returned to his room he found gifts on his pillow: a sprig of mistletoe and a strange sort of twig.  Finding no other explanation, he decided it was someone playing tricks on him, likely Erica, as she visited his room daily.

He tended to sleep early, being woken as he usually was by some strangeness in the night: wolves or footsteps or merely the sense of disquiet that sometimes fell. Once or twice he thought he saw something flash in the corner of his room, something like two small blue lights, but dismissed it as either a reflection or a dream. 

Slowly, he began to adjust to his strange new life and the sense of unease that constantly accompanied him.

Around a week after his arrival, Stiles found what he thought must surely be the treasure of the known world.  He gaped at it through the locked glass doors, trying to find some alternate way inside. He knew, logically, that such places must exist in the world, but to see it with his own eyes was almost more than he could fathom.  The room was long, with high ceilings, and from floor to ceiling, every wall was lined with shelves and shelves of books.  There must be thousands upon thousands of books, Stiles surmised. If he could only gain access to that room, surely his thirst for knowledge might become sated, his curiosity quenched, for surely within so many books the answers to every question imaginable must lay.

He pressed his face against the glass, wondering what evil would possess someone to lock up such a room.  Surely it was only fair and just for that amount of information to be shared with the whole world.  Stiles thought about the good it would bring, if every person were able to access that amount of information. Surely people would be cleverer, less prone to violence and pettiness.  He allowed himself for a moment to imagine what a veritable utopia the world would be if only such a thing were possible, if only it were to begin with him able to enter the marvellous room.

His thoughts were broken by the sound of raised voices. For a moment he paid it no mind, such a thing was common at the orphanage, but then realized that he had not heard such an outburst since his arrival at the castle.

Loathe as he was to leave behind the precious books, his curiosity was piqued and he crept down the hallway toward the voices.  Glancing around the corner, he noticed Erica speaking heatedly with an unfamiliar man in the hallway that led to the foyer. The man looked to be a few years older than Stiles, was handsome in a fair way, and wore the robes of a religious cleric.  Erica had her back to Stiles, so he did not fear that she would notice him, and the cleric seemed too distracted by the argument to pay him any mind, so he felt free to listen in.

“It’s none of your business, Parrish,” said Erica, her voice hard in a way that surprised Stiles.  He had thought of Erica as being timid, yet she sounded anything but.

“It’s not safe here, not for any of you,” Parrish said earnestly.  “You should not stay here with that monster.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows, unconsciously moving forward in order to hear more. He remembered Erica mumbling about a beast but had brushed it off.  He wished now he had paid more attention.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Erica said.

“I do.  I know about your condition.”

Erica gave a sharp laugh.  “Of course you do. Father Finstock thinks I’m possessed. He said I was an interesting case and asked if I’d mind showing my demon for the bishop.”

“We both know that you are not the demon under this roof. Do not let yourself succumb to temptation, Erica,” Parrish said, so softly that Stiles had to strain to hear him.

“Leave me alone, Parrish,” Erica said, turning away.  “Your God does not dwell in this house.”

Stiles ducked behind a tapestry as Erica moved his way. He listened until her footsteps faded and then dashed out, wanting to catch the man before he got away.

The man had passed through the castle gates, and Stiles ran to catch up with him.

“Wait!” he called, clutching at his side.  “Brother?  Brother Parrish?”

Stiles was not certain that was indeed the man’s name or if he were in fact a brother, but the man turned around at Stiles’ call.  He raised his eyebrows in surprise at Stiles’ thunderous approach but stopped and waited nonetheless. He was more handsome up close, Stiles thought, his eyes a striking shade of green.

“Please,” said Stiles, looking up at Parrish as he bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “I need your help.”

Parrish clutched Stiles’ shoulder in alarm, pulling him upright.  “Are you in danger? Have you been harmed?”  Still holding Stiles’ shoulder, he stepped back to look Stiles over for any injury.

Stiles shook his head.  “Nothing like that,” he said. “Physically, I am quite well.”

Parrish released his hold on Stiles but did not move away, nodding seriously in a way that made Stiles feel reassured, as if he were not completely alone.

“Forgive me, it’s just that it is been a week since I came here and I have barely spoken to another living soul.” He offered Parrish a weak smile. “My friend at the orphanage, Scott, he is afflicted with an ailment of the lungs and became gravely ill, and Lord Hale said —”

“Do not call him that!” Parrish said harshly.  “That man is no lord.”

Stiles was not sure what Parrish meant by that but had more pressing concerns. “Apologies.  Only, I’ve had no word, not from… my patron, nor my friend, and I’m concerned that something terrible may have befallen them.”

Parrish, quite unfathomably, looked up at the sky.  He shook his head and then fixed Stiles with a stern look. “He will return.  You must listen to me, the moon will be full in two nights and before then he will return.  You must leave this place. Do not see him nor speak with him. There is a curse upon this place, an evil within.  You must flee from here and not look back!”

Stiles felt his shoulders slump in defeat.  “I have nowhere else to go.”

“Anywhere is better than here,” Parrish said, patting Stiles on the shoulder as he turned to leave.

Stiles watched as Parrish made his way back down the mountain trail, feeling more disheartened than ever before.

Slowly, Stiles made his way back to the castle, thinking over Parrish’s words. Rather than dissuade him from reentering the castle, Stiles found that with every step he took back toward it, his curiosity only grew. Strange and mysterious things were afoot in the castle, of that he had no doubt, and all around him seemed afraid to speak of their cause.  Stiles had never been one to rely on others, not since the untimely death of his parents, and he saw no need to begin.  He paused at the castle gates, looking around.  To his right, the thick stone walls of the castle ran to the north, toward his tower; to the left they ran south to the very edge of the mountain, where they turned to the west, then back north, remaining intact the entire perimeter of the castle.  Somewhere within those walls, Stiles thought, lay the answers to all his questions, so perhaps it was from those walls that he should seek the answers.

Glancing around to be sure he was not observed, he ducked into a small, abandoned guardroom, then quickly took the rickety staircase up to the castle battlements. From the top of the walls he could see down into the valley and foothills below, the afternoon sun giving everything a bright, gilded quality despite the chill in the air. On the inner side, the entire castle and grounds were visible, and Stiles paused for a moment to memorize the placement of the buildings and gardens.  As Stiles had noted upon his arrival, the main of the buildings were clustered around the courtyard, connected by smaller buildings or walkways. While the bulk of the buildings were built of the same dark stone from the mountain, Stiles noted that there were subtle differences in their design that showed that some had been built years, perhaps generations apart.  It made sense, considering the age of the castle, that it would need to expand with the size and prominence of the family and Stiles found it of little interest.

What he did find interesting was the apparent size and grandeur of the ruins. The buildings closest to those still in use were not as destroyed, the walls and foundations still standing. They spanned more than half again the area of the current castle and seemed to be made up of one large building and several smaller ones, arranged from the center of the grounds across to the castle walls on the western side in a way that led Stiles to believe that they had been the central living quarters of the family.  The ruins were, as he’d concluded previously, surrounded by the garden, woven into the structure of the labyrinth, and at the far edge of the labyrinth, where the castle walls met the mountain, stood the broken tower.  The buildings around the tower were nothing but rubble, but the tower itself had somehow withstood the onslaught of the fire to rise up like a warning.

The distance was too great to be certain, but it looked to Stiles as if the tower were a part of the same structure as the castle walls, and he wondered if he could thus find some way to enter the tower.  Even if he could not, he thought, he could surely get to the ruins.

The wind blustered around him as he hurried along the castle wall, his cloak whipping in the air behind him.  His skin tingled but he could not tell if it was from the harsh wind or the excitement. Finally, he thought, finally he would discover the root of the mysteries that surrounded him.

As he approached the end of the castle walls, the mountain looming over him, he saw that he had been mistaken in thinking that the tower connected to the walls.  It had been so at one point, that seemed certain, but the end part of the wall had caved in, severing it from the tower.  He slowed his pace as he got closer, noting how the wall had given way to the mountainside, a steep cliff that dropped directly down to the valley below.  Stiles tried not to look down, feeling disoriented, and leaned against the parapet on the inner wall to keep balance.  It seemed, from what he could tell, that the top part of the tower had fallen and crashed into the wall, destroying it. The top of the tower was not completely lost; one turret remained, and part of the steeple, though it was charred, ruined and completely exposed to the open air.

It was frustrating to be so close to the object of his curiosity and yet unable to reach it.  So close to the tower, Stiles found himself unable to recall why it had frightened him. Although it was undoubtedly an ominous sight, the tower was no more than bricks and mortar, and it posed no threat to him.  On the contrary, the place seemed almost welcoming to him somehow, as though it spoke to his heart and said, “I too am broken and yet still I stand.”  More than ever, Stiles wished to gain access to the tower, but even from where he stood, he could see no way to do so.

Parts of the ruins, on the other hand, seemed quite accessible. While the labyrinth began near the main castle and grew right back to the mountain, seeming to have swallowed the ruins in parts, there was a small area by the castle wall that it had not touched.  He doubled back to the guard station he had passed halfway along the western wall and took the stairs down to the ground.  He found himself in an overgrown garden amid the least damaged buildings and felt quite annoyed at himself for not thinking earlier of the castle walls as an entry point. He had been preoccupied with the idea of the labyrinth as a barrier between him and his curiosity, he supposed.

He peeked through the windows of some of the smaller buildings. They were all empty, blackened shells of what they had been, but in some of them Stiles could tell what they had been used for; one a washing room, another seemed to have been a smithery. Stiles could well imagine how the castle had used to function with complete self-sufficiency, a village within the castle walls; when he closed his eyes he could almost see the people bustling around with their duties. 

He wandered farther into the ruins, to where the destruction was more complete, until he came to the large building that he had seen from the walls. Viewing it from the side, Stiles could understand the progression of the fire; the front looked almost undamaged, but as he looked further toward the back of the building the destruction became more and more obvious until it was nothing but crumbling rock. Stiles walked alongside the building, toward the tower, but the garden soon became too overgrown for him to struggle through, and he noticed that a short way ahead rose a large hedge — what he assumed to be the beginning of the labyrinth — blocking off the back area of the building.

He decided to enter the building through the main doors at the front, and made his way around to them.  The door was off its hinges and made a loud creaking noise that echoed through the empty building as he pushed it open.

The entrance hall was mostly intact, though heavy with the smell of smoke and ash.  Furniture still stood in the room as it had before the fire, though it was charred and wholly unusable — small decorative tables and uncomfortable chairs.  The walls were hung with frames whose paintings had burned away. The whole room seemed to be holding its breath.

Through an arched door to the left, Stiles noticed a large sitting room. Again, everything remained as it had been; large armchairs that were covered in soot and seemed to be waiting for the family to return and sit in them, arranged around burned tables. In the corner, he noticed a piano forte, the cover propped open.  Unable to help himself, Stiles crossed the room and pressed down on one of the keys, surprised when it rang out with sound, muted though it was. The note seemed to hover in the air for some length of time, like a spectre.

Stiles shivered and left the room.  He made his way upstairs and down a hallway.  The rooms he looked into were all the same, everything still in place. The damage became more and more obvious the deeper into the ruins he went, some rooms containing nothing but ashes, some with the walls or ceiling caved in.  At times he had to backtrack or go completely around a section that was completely destroyed until he was quite turned around and could not have said where he was in relation to the front of the building.  Eventually, he found a section that seemed to be the living quarters of the family; the rooms contained burned out bed frames, clothes strewn across the floors as though the owners had tried to gather their things in a hurry.  Stiles felt a little sick with himself, so eager he’d been to act as a voyeur to this tragedy.  And yet he still made his way through the rooms, searching for something, though he knew not what.

The light began to fade, and Stiles decided to turn back before darkness completely fell.  He did not wish to be stuck in the ruins overnight, unable to find his way back out. As he turned to make his way back down the hall, something compelled him to look into one last room. The room was at the end of the hall, before the ceiling had completely caved in and blocked the way forward, so perhaps it was just that he did not want to leave the task unfinished, though he was not sure that was completely the reason.

Unlike most of the other rooms, the door to this room was closed, and Stiles had to use a measure of force to open it.  There was very little left of the room, the walls and ceiling completely burned away in the back half.  The furniture had been removed from the room, which intrigued Stiles enough to prompt him to step into the room further and look around.  Why, he wondered, why this room?  Every other room had contained something, even if it was unrecognizable, but this room looked as though it had been scrubbed clean, as if to erase all remnants of what had been there.

Stiles turned to leave, puzzling over the room, when something caught his eye at the edge of the wall, near where the floor dropped away. It was a painting, completely undamaged as if it had been placed there after the fire.  Unlike the paintings in the castle foyer, this was not a single portrait, but a group of people, Stiles assumed the family Hale. Testing the floor to be certain it would hold his weight, Stiles inched toward it.

The painting was large, as was the group of people it contained. Stiles, however, was only concerned with the main group.  In the very center was a tall, attractive woman with long dark hair, who held her head high and stared out of the painting with all the pride of a queen. An attractive man stood on her right, beside him were two beautiful girls who were so similar to the woman that it was obvious they were her daughters.  The eldest looked around Stiles’ age, the other much younger.  On the woman’s left, Stiles recognized the face of a much younger Lord Hale — more from his portrait in the foyer than from their meeting, so changed was the man.  In front of Lord Hale sat a blonde woman, who, while also beautiful, had a sharp and disagreeable look.   A pretty girl of around eight or nine years sat beside her.

Stiles looked on them with interest, but they all faded into the background when he noticed the man standing beside the two girls.  It was him.  The handsome man from the painting in the foyer.  He looked more relaxed in this painting, less posed, and more beautiful than ever. Stiles felt his heart swoop and then fall.  It was a joy to him to see the man again, and yet the nuns had told him that Lord Hale had no surviving relatives.  He had wanted to believe the man was no more than a distant relation, his portrait taking so prominent a place in the foyer merely for its artistry, but seeing the family so grouped together was more than he could deny.

He stepped closer to the painting, as if it could give him some sign that the man yet lived.  He felt so distraught that he did not mind his footing, and the floor creaked precariously under his weight.  There was a sharp crack as the part of the floor Stiles stood on broke away, and with no further warning, it crumbled beneath him.  Stiles reached out to the painting, the tips of his fingers brushing against the handsome man’s face, and then fell.

He landed on the ground below with a crash, winded and certain that he had broken every bone in his body.  After a moment, he realized he could move and stood up, brushing the debris from himself. There were several large pieces of stone on the ground around him, and, looking up, he saw that much of that room had caved in, and he had been quite lucky to have escaped with only a few scratches and bruises.  The area around him seemed quite dark, and looking around he realized that he was not, as he had assumed, in a part of the ground floor of the building — that part had obviously burned away, which was why the floor had been so unstable.

Large, overgrown hedges rose up around him and his heart started pounding as he realized he had fallen right into the labyrinth.

Parts of the hedge had grown into the ruins, and Stiles thought that perhaps he could find some way through and back into the building, that perhaps the hedge would give way where it met stone, but the labyrinth had completely overtaken the area and no matter how Stiles searched, how he pulled at the branches, he could not untangle the hedge enough to pass back into the building. Feeling sore from his fall, his hands scratched and bloody, he turned back toward the labyrinth.

He could not tell from where he stood, exactly where he was. He had become so turned around in the building and disoriented by his fall that he may have been at the back of the building or either one of the sides, and so he could not tell which direction would be best to find his way out. He took a deep breath and tried to fight the rising sense of panic.  He only had to think about it logically.  He could not see the sky well enough through the ruined buildings and overgrown branches above to use the setting sun as a guide, but perhaps a similar train of thought would benefit him.  He had been to the west when he had left the castle wall and there was no way out of the labyrinth in that direction, nor to the back of the building as far as he knew, so turning left would be to no purpose.  He knew if he kept his hand on the right side of the hedge, he would not become confused by the turns and dead ends in the labyrinth, and would eventually come to an exit.

The air was still inside the labyrinth, thicker, pervaded with the dank stench of rotten leaves.  The shadows took on ominous forms and Stiles felt that he was being watched, as though the labyrinth was full of hidden eyes.  As he walked, he grew more and more certain that the labyrinth was drawing him in, deeper and deeper, bound for an unknown purpose.  Each corner that he turned, he expected to see some dark figure, crouching in the shadows, waiting to pounce.

The wind picked up as night fell, making the shadows lengthen and move. The branches of the hedge whipped into his face, caught on his cloak, caressed his arms.  He quickened his pace, but stumbled over large, hidden rocks, parts of the ruins that the labyrinth had consumed.  The deeper into the labyrinth he travelled, the thicker the hedge became, almost closing completely in some places and forcing him to squeeze through, slowing his progress even further.  The labyrinth seemed to whisper in the wind, and Stiles fancied that it called his name.

A cloud moved across the moon, blocking what little light there was. A moment later, rain began to fall in such a torrent that not even the thick hedge provided any shelter. Stiles shivered, letting his hand drop from the side of the labyrinth to pull his cloak closed around him, though the rain already soaked right through to his skin.  He began to move faster, ignoring the sting of the rain on his face, the scratch of the branches, but slipped on the slimy leaves covering the labyrinth floor and fell.

He lay in the mud, alone and hopeless.  There was nobody who would care if he never got up.  He could let the labyrinth take him, let the branches of the hedge close over his head and nobody would even miss him.  His parents were dead, Scott was cared for, and Lord Hale had clearly forgotten he’d ever adopted a ward.  Nobody else would even spare him a thought.  Perhaps this was meant to happen all along, he realized.  Perhaps the labyrinth had called him, another who was as dark and tangled and unneeded, too much trouble to care for, and it was only right that they became one. Perhaps that was why he had feared to enter the labyrinth, because some part of him had known that it would show him the truth of his heart.

Then, from directly before him, a light shone out.  He lifted his head from the mud to look up at it.  It felt to Stiles that the light shone with the single purpose of comforting him, and the sight filled him with hope.  He climbed to his feet, realizing that the source of the light was the broken tower; he could see the outline of it faintly against the mountain behind. He stumbled forward, using the light as a guide.  He kept his face raised to it, heeding neither the wind nor the rain.  The labyrinth no longer seemed such an insurmountable obstacle and his fear of it abated, and as if the labyrinth had been waiting for this very thing, it provided an exit for him, right at the base of the tower.

Stiles stumbled forward in relief, seeking the shelter of the tower, but found the door broken and barred shut with long pieces of the same type of ash wood that grew over the mountain.  He glanced around the small clearing at the base of the tower where the labyrinth opened, but there was nothing that he could either use for shelter or to gain entrance, so with no other options, he threw himself bodily against the doorway. The ash gave way more easily than expected and Stiles fell into the tower.

He picked himself up and rang out his wet cloak on the stone floor as he looked around.  There was very little light in the bottom of the tower but as far as Stiles could tell, it was empty, nothing but large stone walls that rose up and up and up, the stone a little thicker where it had once joined the castle walls.  Around the inside of the tower rose a narrow staircase that spiralled up into the darkness.  Stiles could hear nothing but the wind and the rain beating down outside, and it made him shiver, only realizing how cold he was now that he was out of the elements.

Having no intention of venturing back outside, Stiles made his way to the staircase. He placed his foot on the first step, pushing down with all his strength.  It seemed solid enough, so he began to climb.

As he climbed, he wondered what he would find at the top of the tower. He was no longer afraid, he seemed to have used up all his fear in the labyrinth and once again, his curiosity took over.  More than that, he thought, his actions seemed touched by destiny, as if every step he took had been preordained, and whether it was for good or ill, he had no choice but to move forward.

His legs grew weary and he wondered if he would ever reach the top of the tower. His damp clothes clung to his skin, further chilled by the wind that swirled through the tower from above. His boots rubbed and he could feel a tickle at the back of his throat, like the beginnings of a sickness. He did his best to ignore the discomfort and kept moving upward.  He felt somewhat as if he were walking in a dream, around and around in the darkness but getting nowhere; thus, he was surprised when after an indeterminate time, the stairs abruptly stopped and he stepped onto a small landing.

A short distance above him, the tower opened out onto the sky, and when he moved away from the tower wall, he could feel the slight sprinkle of rain that had been caught in the wind, though he was still shielded from the worst of it. A flash of lightning illuminated the landing enough for Stiles to see that he stood before a door. Beside the door, attached to the tower wall were metal rungs that formed a ladder, which Stiles assumed reached to the pinnacle of the tower, where he had seen the remaining turret; though in the darkness, he could not be sure.

He stood before the door for a moment, undecided.  He could not tell for certain where the guiding light had originated, nor had he any means to judge how far he had climbed. The logical thing to do, he thought, would be to check what lay on the other side of the door, and if he found nothing, to then proceed up the ladder for further investigation; however, he had the distinct feeling that were he to venture through that door, he would not return.

He placed his hand on the lower rung of the ladder and was about to start climbing when he hesitated.

Scott would check the room.  Scott would be convinced that who or whatever resided in the tower was in desperate need of help — they were probably trapped, probably a beautiful princess in desperate need of saving — and he would leave no part of the tower unexplored in his quest to rescue them. Stiles was not like Scott. Stiles was not brave, nor kind, nor particularly trustworthy; nevertheless, he felt he owed it to Scott to check.

Stiles stepped away from the ladder with a sigh and turned toward the door. His fingers were so cold he fumbled the door handle on the first attempt, but forced his hands to work and opened the door.  He pushed the door completely open and waited a moment before stepping in.  The room was dark, and although he told himself that the lack of light meant that this was not the place he was seeking and his search should continue, he found himself unable to move.  He could tell nothing about the room, not its shape nor its contents; darkness concealed all.

Behind him, the door slammed shut in the wind, and there was another flash of lightning.  It lit up the room from a window directly opposite Stiles, and in front of the window stood a hooded figure, watching him.

Stiles gasped and took a step backwards, his back pressed against the door. The figure started to move but room was again plunged into darkness and Stiles could not tell where they had gone. He felt around for the door handle but could not seem to find it.  His heart thundered in his chest and he feared that he might swoon.

“Hello?” he called, his voice sounding small.

Over the storm, he thought he heard something moving and he wondered if it was the figure. It sounded like metal scraping against wood and immediately his head was filled with ghastly visions: an automaton of gold who murdered innocent orphan boys in a misguided quest to become human, a madman with axes for hands, a fleshless creature who could only move with the assistance of a large wheel.  He slumped against the door with a soft moan.

To his right, a small light kindled.  Stiles blinked at it in confusion, so convinced he had been of his untimely demise.  It was not a bright light such as he had seen earlier, but, he soon realized, that of a small fire in a grate.  He watched suspiciously as the light grew brighter and the features of the room became visible.

The hooded figure sat in a large armchair by the fire and did not appear to have any immediate intention of harming Stiles.  Stiles edged his way closer.  The room was sparse, a small pallet bed on one side with a few books beside it, and not a lot else.  Certainly no axes or automatons that he could see.  Stiles felt drawn by the warmth of the fire and moved to sit beside it, trying to see under the figure’s hood to no avail.

“Do you live here?” Stiles asked conversationally, as he rubbed his hands together and held them up to the fire.  “There are plenty of empty rooms in the castle, you know.  It would surely be more comfortable for you there.”

The figure did not take Stiles’ bait and remained silent.  Stiles found it eerie and wondered if there was anything at all below the hood. He shuddered at the thought and dismissed it from his mind.  There were enough things to unsettle him about the situation without imagining more, he decided. The figure seemed to be a man, judging by the height and the breadth of shoulders, Stiles could surmise that much at least, though why anyone would live in such a cold and broken tower, he could not guess.

As his skin warmed, his damp clothes began to bother him. He unclasped his cloak and spread it out beside him, in the hope of it drying by the fire. The floor was stone, like the rest of the tower, but Stiles felt too numb to be uncomfortable sitting on it, and it seemed clean enough for his poor, battered cloak. He felt more exposed without his cloak, though no colder despite the threadbare condition of his shirt. 

The hooded figure rose from the armchair and crossed the room, moving behind Stiles.  Stiles held his breath, trying to listen to what he was doing, although the storm had grown too fierce to hear anything over it.  Something touched his shoulders and he almost jumped out of his skin, but then realized it was a thick woollen blanket.

“Thank you,” Stiles said, although he was not sure the figure could hear him. He pulled the blanket around himself and shuffled closer to the fire.  A moment later, something was placed on the floor beside him, and his heart leapt when he saw that it was a bowl of hearty stew, the same that he had been eating from the castle kitchens all week.  He cupped the bowl in his hands, feeling the warmth of the stew seep through to his skin. He had not eaten since that morning but had been too distracted to pay any mind to his hunger, and as he ate, he began to feel more like himself.  What did it mean, he wondered, that the hooded figure ate from the castle kitchens.  Surely he was not some vagrant who had happened upon the castle and taken to living there without anyone’s knowledge.  Whoever he was, he was known to them, to Boyd at least and no doubt the others.

As the figure moved back toward the armchair, a thread from his cloak glinted in the firelight, and Stiles gasped in realization.  The thread was silver entwined with red, and he had looked upon it many times.  He placed his bowl on the floor with a clatter and rose to his feet. 

“It’s you!” he said, pointing at the man. “The man from the painting!” 

Stiles was sure of it.  He had looked upon the painting enough to have memorized the angle of the man’s shoulders, the line of his posture.  Now that he had put it together, it seemed obvious.  His heart beat wildly, all his fancies of the man flashing through his mind; but after everything, the man had been in the castle all along! Stiles could barely speak for excitement.

The man sat down.

“You must be mistaken,” the man said.  Although his words were polite, his tone was gruff, but Stiles barely noticed.

“I’m not,” he said.  “You’re wearing the same cloak, and you have the same…”  He waved his hands toward the man in explanation. “It’s definitely you.”

The man did not respond and Stiles felt his enthusiasm wane. The man probably found him foolish, he supposed, reacting in such a way to someone he had never met. Stiles sat back down on the ground to finish the last of his stew.  He tried to appear composed but his mind whirred with questions about the man. Why did he lock himself away in the tower rather than living in the castle?  Why did he keep his face covered?  Even if he had been scarred in the fire as Lord Hale had, Stiles did not think it was such a cause of shame that the man would have to withdraw from all society. If he had been burned, Stiles was certain it had been during some heroic act, an attempt to rescue his family or extinguish the fire.  He wondered why nobody ever spoke of the man.

“What is your name?” Stiles asked as he scraped the bowl clean, figuring that he needed to start somewhere.

The man was silent for the longest time and Stiles began to doubt he would answer.

“Do you not know?” the man replied eventually.  When he spoke, Stiles noticed that he sounded as if something obstructed his speech, as if words did not fit properly in his mouth, somehow.

Stiles shook his head.  “I have only seen your portrait in the castle.  I thought you were dead.”

“Am I not?” the man asked quietly. 

Stiles narrowed his eyes at him.  “I’m fairly certain you’re alive.  You eat.”  He raised his bowl toward the man, and then placed it on the ground.  “You speak.  You obviously sleep and read.”   He waved toward the small pallet bed and books.  “I do not think one who were dead would have need of such things.”

Although Stiles could not see the man’s face, he had the distinct impression that the man was considering him carefully from beneath his hood.

“My name is Derek,” the man said, finally.

“Derek… Hale?”

The man nodded.

A grin broke out over Stiles’ face.  “And I am Stiles.  Well, Stilinski, my father’s name was Stilinski.  But you may call me Stiles.”

“General Stilinski of the King’s Guard?” Derek asked.

Stiles nodded, trying not to think of his noble father, who had sacrificed everything for his worthless self.  “You knew him?”

“Knew of him,” said Derek, and then added, “he seemed like a great man.”

Stiles swallowed around a lump in his throat.  “But now I am here,” he said brightly, forcing a smile. 

Derek did not respond and Stiles searched around for another topic of conversation. The storm still raged outside but in the little tower room Stiles felt more warm and sheltered than he had since he came to the castle.

“Do you like it here?  In the tower? Is that why you don’t live in the castle?”  Getting no reply from Derek, Stiles continued. “I mean, in the daylight, you must have a spectacular view.  Is that why you stay here, the view?”

“It’s not the view.”

Stiles shrugged, refusing to be dissuaded from conversation. “My room is also in a tower but on the other side of the castle.  I’ve not had the chance to ask Lord Hale if there was a particular reason he chose those living quarters as mine, as he has been absent since my arrival.”

“My uncle has still not returned?”

Stiles shook his head.  “Is he usually gone for so long? I don’t mean to seem ungrateful for his patronage, but I begin to suspect he has forgotten my existence.”

“He has not forgotten,” said Derek, but although Stiles waited, he provided no further explanation for his words.

“You don’t happen to know why he bothered to adopt me?  No matter which way I look at it, I cannot fathom a reason.”

“Perhaps he felt a lack of useless chatter in his life.”

“Oh,” said Stiles, raising his eyebrows.  “Am I disturbing you?  My apologies.  I did not realize that my getting lost in a storm and almost murdered by an evil labyrinth would so disturb your busy schedule of lurking in the shadows.”

“And I did not realize that in providing you with food and shelter I would be obligated to also provide entertainment.”

“I was making conversation,” Stiles told him, his ire rising.  “It is a thing that polite people do.”

“If my lack of courtesy bothers you, please feel free to leave.”  Despite his words, Stiles thought he detected a note of amusement in Derek’s voice, and found himself also quite enjoying the exchange. He had not felt able to speak freely, nor express his irritation to anyone for entirely too long.

“Good idea,” Stiles said, though he made no move to rise.  “Perhaps I’ll wander back out into the storm, make my way through the murderous labyrinth to somehow find your death trap of a family home, and spend yet another night lying awake at all the sinister noises.  It would be far preferable to an evening in your company.”

To Stiles’ disappointment, Derek made no comeback, but rose from his chair and crossed the room. For a moment, Stiles feared that Derek would throw him from the window, or perhaps down the stairs, but then something large and soft hit him in the back of the head.  He turned, spluttering in indignation, to find that Derek had thrown his pillow at Stiles and was preparing to get into bed.

“This is no way to treat a guest,” Stiles said, clutching the pillow.  “I’ll catch my death, sleeping on a stone floor.”

“Sleep on the chair,” Derek said, lying down and turning his back to Stiles.

Stiles did have to admit that the chair looked comfortable, and he had grown rather sleepy now that he was warm and fed.  He huffed as he got to his feet.

“This is not the beginning of the illustrious friendship I had imagined when I saw your portrait,” he muttered in Derek’s direction.

He was still grumbling as he arranged himself in the chair, but no sooner had he pulled the blanket over himself and laid his head on the pillow than he was asleep.

For the first time since he arrived at the castle, his sleep remained uninterrupted until morning.

When Stiles woke, Derek was no longer in the tower room.  His neck was stiff from sleeping in the chair, and he stretched it from side to side as he looked around the room.  The room was still bare in the daylight.  Even the boys at the orphanage had possessed more worldly goods than Derek seemed to, nothing but the books Stiles had seen the previous night and a locked trunk.  There was a small shelf that held the pot of stew and an iron kettle behind where Stiles had sat by the fire.  Looking out the tower window, he could see his own tower directly before him, across the castle grounds. It seemed such an insurmountable distance but Stiles found himself wanting to be there and away from the barren room, which seemed so much emptier without Derek in it.

The storm had blown out in the night, and from the tower window the world looked washed clean, but as he once again entered the labyrinth, he knew that was just as an illusion, just as anything looked more pleasing from a distance. The labyrinth floor had turned to a boggy mud, the hedge broken and windswept.  Yet, as tiresome as it was trudging his way through, Stiles found that he could not fear the labyrinth in the morning sun the same way as he had in the stormy night.  He kept a hand on the hedge at his left side, as he had intended to the day before, and was sure to keep the broken tower at his back as much as possible.  Although the way was slow, Stiles found that with a clear head, he was able to make his way through without terrible difficulty; the labyrinth no longer seemed a thing sentient and malicious.

The spires of the main castle loomed closer and just as Stiles was certain he was nearly out of the labyrinth, he noticed a small patch of flowers growing amongst the hedge.  It should not have surprised him, he supposed; the labyrinth had obviously been grown after the fire and there would have been gardens there before its construction, but the colorful sight amongst the dull green of the hedge pleased him in a way that he could not quite explain.  On closer inspection, he noticed that it was the same type of flower that had been left on his pillow, and he wondered at its meaning, but dismissed it as unimportant.

It seemed like an age had passed when he finally made it to the top of the stairs in his tower.  To his surprise and dismay, he found Erica waiting for him.  She glanced him over and raised her eyebrows, but he offered her no explanation, as she had offered him none for the strangeness about the castle.

“Lord Hale has returned,” she told him, picking up his food tray.  “He has summoned you to luncheon with him.  You had best hurry and make yourself presentable.” A small, almost bold smile curled her lips. “It may have escaped your notice but there is a whole cupboard of clean clothing in your room. Lord Hale will expect you to be suitably attired.”

Stiles nodded and moved toward the door, but Erica stepped in his way.

“You did not eat last night,” she said.  Her voice was soft and hesitant but she narrowed her eyes at him in a way that told Stiles there was much more to her than he had at first suspected.  “Nor all of yesterday but for breaking your fast.”

“I had little appetite,” he told her.

She watched his face for a moment, then sighed.  “Very well.  I will wait for you at the bottom of the stairs to show you to Lord Hale’s quarters.  Be sure to hurry.  He does not like to be kept waiting.”

She shifted out of his way, and Stiles entered his room, closing it fast behind him to avoid Erica’s curious gaze.  He did not know why he had lied to her.  Part of it had been a spiteful need to have his own secret, he supposed, but that had not been the only reason.  He did not want to be forbidden from seeing Derek again.  Not that he would pay any heed, but without a direct command not to, Stiles felt much more at liberty to do as he pleased.  

But it was more than that also.  Derek had been rude and unpleasant, but in his presence, Stiles had felt the spark of life return to him.  His imaginings about Derek’s portrait had kept the worst of his loneliness at bay, but they were a pale shadow of the real thing.  Everything about Derek intrigued Stiles.  He wanted to spend time with him, befriend him, learn every secret of his heart.  He had never felt such a strength of feeling toward one person before.  He and Scott had fallen into a natural friendship from the first day Scott had arrived at the orphanage, and while he felt fiercely protective of Scott, it was not the type of thing he had ever given any mind to.  He had not formed strong attachments to any of the other boys, nor anyone at all bar his parents, so the force of his interest in Derek took him somewhat by surprise.

He had forgotten his cloak in the tower, and the rest of his clothing was torn and soiled from the labyrinth, so he discarded it and opened the large cupboard to find something suitable.  He had not looked through the clothing since he arrived, preferring his more simple, worn garments from the orphanage, but now that he was to actually wear them, he found he looked upon each item with much more discernment.

There were two cloaks, one of thick blue wool with a dark fur trim, the other lighter with ornate trimming.  All of the clothes were of the highest quality, well-made and of soft fabric, and not at all fitting for one such as himself. He chose the most simple doublet he could find, though there was delicate embroidery in a gold thread throughout the deep red cloth.  He paired it with some thick, loose hose and the light cloak, and as he dressed, his thoughts again turned to Derek.

He wondered what Derek was doing now.  Had he been avoiding Stiles earlier, or had he had word of Lord Hale’s return and gone to meet him? He wondered if Derek would be taking luncheon with them, and cast his eye to the looking glass to be sure he looked tolerable; he did not want Derek to think that the state of disarray he had appeared in after his torments in the labyrinth were the standard for him. Upon seeing his reflection, Stiles gasped. At the orphanage, the nuns had kept his hair shaved short to prevent lice and disease, but it had already begun to grow out much more than he expected, making him look older. The fine clothing made him seem a stranger to himself, as if a fine gentleman had possessed his body, though his face was streaked with mud from the night before.  He hurried to the washbasin to clean, then dashed out to meet Erica, pausing only long enough to lock his door.

She barely glanced at him as he came flying out of the tower, and immediately began to walk toward the large building near the castle entrance. He wanted to question her about what to expect from Lord Hale but felt suddenly awkward, as if certain behavior were expected of him in his new clothes and he was not quite sure what. Before they entered the building, she turned to face him.  She seemed agitated, her hands clenched in her skirts, and she spoke in barely a whisper. Stiles leaned in close to hear what she said.

“Try not to make him angry,” she said, then walked away so quickly that Stiles could not be sure he hadn’t imagined it.

He followed her into the south wing of the castle, up several flights of stairs and through a maze of hallways until she stopped abruptly in front of a large oak door.  She raised her hand to knock but before she could, a sharp voice called from within, “enter!” 

Erica motioned for Stiles to open the door, but he shook his head, expecting her to proceed him into the room.  Erica turned away and Stiles found himself alone, staring dumbly at the door. Now that it came to it, he found he did not want to meet Lord Hale.  A cold menace seemed to radiate from beyond the door and Stiles could not help but remember the words that the cleric had uttered.

“Enter,” the voice called again, more loudly.

Realizing he could delay no longer, Stiles took a deep breath and entered the room.

The room was long, with a marble fireplace at the far end, and large picture windows that looked down over the valley along the outer wall.  The room was lavishly furnished; thick red carpet beneath his feet, a small dining set of mahogany and edged in gold a short way from the door. Armchairs were arranged around the fireplace and they too looked of the highest quality.  Above the fireplace mantle hung twin portraits, the blonde woman and young girl that had been grouped with Lord Hale in the family portrait Stiles had seen. 

Lord Hale was alone in the room, Stiles noted with disappointment. He stood at the mantle, staring into the grate of the fireplace, although it was not lit. Outside, the sun passed behind a cloud, casting a shadow over where he stood. 

Stiles hesitated in the doorway with half a mind to flee. He could tell Erica he felt poorly and have her make excuses for his absence.  It was not a complete lie, his body felt sore from his fall the day before and all that had followed, and he probably had a fever from being caught in the storm.  He had almost convinced himself that was the best course of action, when Lord Hale turned.

“Stiles,” said Lord Hale, encompassing several conflicting nuances into his name.

“My lord,” Stiles said. He stepped further into the room with a growing sense of trepidation.

Lord Hale shook his head.  “Peter, please. We are to be family, I would not have you stand on ceremony.” He waved Stiles further into the room, to the table and chairs.  Stiles noticed he kept his head turned slightly to conceal the burns that scarred the right side of his face.

Peter seemed to have trouble walking, leaning heavily on a cane as he slowly made his way across the room.  Stiles supposed that the events surrounding the fire had left him quite weak, but despite the impairment, Peter’s back did not stoop and the cane made him appear dashing rather than infirm.

They sat at the table opposite one another.  Peter folded his hands in his lap and smiled at Stiles.

“I trust everything has been to your satisfaction?” he asked.

Stiles nodded.  “I am more than satisfied, thank you.”  He did not even sound convincing to himself, so he cleared his throat and tried to think of a truth that would be agreeable to his benefactor. “Everything is much nicer than I am accustomed to.”

Peter’s smile grew wider. He cleared his throat and looked down at the table.  “I would have returned sooner but I had to see to my estates before winter set in, and I could not return to you before I was certain that your friend was properly settled.”

Stiles sat to attention, leaning forward across the table in his eagerness. “You’ve seen Scott?  How is he?”  He could not forget how pale and drawn Scott had been the last time he had seen him, how each breath had been a struggle. Since he had left the orphanage, worry for Scott had been gnawing at the back of his mind and he half-suspected it had been much of the cause of his constant state of agitation. He could not shake the feeling that he wouldn’t see Scott again, and any news Peter could give him was more than welcome.

“He is quite well.  Relatives of my late wife govern an institution for his type of lung ailment and he has already made remarkable improvement, and seems quite taken with my niece. It was quite difficult to convince him of your safety, however.” He shared a smile with Stiles. “I located his mother to explain where I was taking Scott, but found the conditions at the hospital where she worked to be quite shocking.”  He shook his head sadly.  “Have you met her? Lovely woman.  Intelligent, beautiful… I arranged a position for her at the institution with Scott.”

A wide smile broke across Stiles’ face and tears sprang to his eyes.  “That is wonderful,” he said softly. Although he remained suspicious of Peter, he could not help but warm a little to him.  Scott’s mother had arranged for the orphanage to care for Scott so that she could work to pay for his treatment, and Stiles knew that the separation had been difficult for both of them.  “I don’t know how I can ever repay your kindness.”

Peter waved him off.  “It was but a trifle.”  He leaned back in his chair and reached into his pocket for something.  “I have a letter for you from Scott, with the promise that I will deliver your reply post-haste.”

Peter held the letter out to Stiles, but as Stiles moved to take it, he pulled it out of Stiles’ reach.  There was a cold gleam in his eye, and Stiles was struck with the distinct impression that Peter was showing him how much power he now held over Scott and Scott’s wellbeing.  Stiles’ fingers twitched, wanting to snatch the letter from him, but then he handed it over with a smile that made Stiles doubt what he had seen.  Stiles shoved the letter into his pocket to read in the privacy of his room.

There was a soft knock on the door and Erica entered with their meals. She placed the food on the table without raising her eyes and then quietly left the room.

Peter did not move to eat, but rather watched Stiles with sharp eyes and a slight twitch to his lips.  Rather than questioning the meaning behind the look, Stiles decided to focus on his food.

“I must admit, I am surprised you don’t remember me,” Peter said.

Stiles looked up from his plate in shock.  “We have met before?”

Peter nodded and began to pick at the bread on his plate. “Yes, several times.  I was quite well acquainted with your parents.  Though, I suppose I am much changed since then.”

Stiles searched his memory but was certain that he would not forget meeting one of such powerful charisma as the man in front of him.

“Your parents were good people,” Peter said, “I hope you don’t blame yourself for their passing.”

Stiles felt the words like a dagger of ice to his heart, and he could not look at Peter.  It was not a topic he could speak on with a relative stranger, so he ate in silence, though his appetite had left him. 

Once they had finished eating, Peter rose from the table and they moved to sit in the armchairs.  Lost in thoughts of his parents and the manner of their death, Stiles did not feel disposed to conversation and the silence started to become awkward.

“I suppose you have many questions,” Peter said eventually.  “As a boy, you were quite the curious one, I recall.”

Stiles offered him a small smile, but had not the will to summon the many questions that had been plaguing him.  He was certain that he would regret not availing himself of answers when they were finally presented, however, so asked the question most obvious.

“I was wondering why you had chosen me,” he said.  “There are many orphans, most of whom are better suited to adoption.”

“Ah,” said Peter. “I had thought that would be obvious, but as you did not recognize me, I suppose you would find it strange. I owed your father a rather large debt of gratitude, and thought I would never have the chance to repay him. Then, by happenstance I saw you on the street one day a few months past, running an errand.  I recognized you at once and made enquiries to your situation — I hope you don’t think me too forward?”

Stiles shook his head.  A thousand more questions came to him at Peter’s explanation but he felt that rather than asking them, it was better to let Peter keep talking.

“It must seem a strange and lonely place to one used to the city; I apologize that I cannot provide a more lively home for you.”  Peter stood and began to pace in front of the fireplace.  Stiles noticed that he no longer used the cane. “It was not always such.  There was a time that this castle was the center of all life for a hundred miles in each direction.” He paced to the window and stood looking out with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed the damage to the castle, the visible sign of what was done to my family.  It is as a graveyard to me now, this place.” His voice was somber, his head bent as if in sorrow, but in his reflection in the window, Stiles could see that he was smiling.  “I do not think to replace my family, of course.  That is not possible, but with you, Stiles, I intend to begin a new family. That is something, I hope, that you can understand?” He turned on his heel and fixed Stiles with a steely look.

Stiles nodded, though his heart was not entirely in it. He longed to ask Peter about Derek, but something told him it would not be wise.

Peter walked back toward the mantle slowly, as if either his strength had left him or he wished for it to appear as such.  “In that case, I must ask you not to wander about the castle unattended.  Many parts of it are dangerous and I could not bear for my family to be taken from me a second time.” He moved to stand in front of Stiles, looking down at him.  He placed a hand on Stiles’ neck, brushing his thumb over the pulse point.  Stiles tried not to shudder at the clammy touch.  “Mud,” he said, removing his hand and rubbing his fingers together to brush it away.  “You will need to be careful in this place.” He loomed over Stiles for a moment, his shadow seeming to fill the entire room.  “Leave me now,” he said. “I must rest.  Tomorrow is the full moon.  Stay in your tower.  Lock your door and pay no heed to anything you may see or hear.”

He turned away to lean against the mantle and Stiles found himself dismissed, the cryptic warning still echoing in his ears.  He hastened to leave the room and the strange mixture of feelings he felt in Peter’s presence: afraid and grateful and hunted.  His relief at finally reaching his room and closing the door to solitude was overwhelming. He leaned back against the door, not even attempting to process what had taken place over the last day. Deciding upon a nap, he pushed off from the door and moved toward his bed, but before he had taken a few steps he noticed that yet another gift had been left on his pillow.

This one was not a flower, nor any type of flora.  He sat down on the bed and picked it up to inspect it.  It was a large silver piece of metal of three interlocking spirals. A triskelion, he thought, having read about it in one of the books that Erica had left for him. He was not sure of the purpose of the gift.  It seemed too large and heavy to be a pendant, covering almost the entirety of the palm of Stiles’ hand. Perhaps it was a paperweight, he thought, but was not overly concerned.  Something about the weight of it in his hand, the symmetry of the circles, felt comforting to Stiles and he lay down on the bed against his pillows, turning it over in his hands. 

It seemed most probable that the gifts were from Derek.  He was the only other person aside from Erica, Isaac and Boyd that had been at the castle for the same duration as Stiles, and Stiles did not think that any of those three had interest in Stiles enough to taunt him with gifts.  Not that he imagined Derek to have any interest in him, he thought, his stomach jumping inexplicably.  Derek was merely the likeliest culprit.

Stiles was sure he had locked the door on leaving, but perhaps in his rush he had forgotten.  He could think of no reason that Derek would leave him gifts, nor for why Peter had neglected to mention Derek when speaking about his family, and Stiles felt his frustration rise that with every question he found an answer to, ten more arose. Deciding he had had enough of it, he dragged himself off the bed, carefully placing the triskelion in the drawer beside the other gifts, and resolved to find Derek and demand he explain himself.

He was halfway down the stairs before he remembered that Peter had expressly forbidden him from wandering around the castle alone, and wondered if he should turn back.  He stopped walking and considered it.  Peter had shown extreme kindness in his dealings with Scott, and as such, Stiles felt a small flicker of guilt that he had immediately set out to break his word.  For all that everyone he spoke to seemed to think Peter were the devil, Stiles wondered if perhaps he was just very lonely and the loss of his family had turned his mind.  Stiles had felt uncomfortable in his presence and normally he had very sharp instincts regarding that type of thing, but he did not know if his feelings had been influenced by hearsay, not to mention the overall unsettling nature of the castle.  There was nothing specific about Peter’s words or actions that he could find fault with, and he knew he should feel obligated to follow Peter’s wishes.

On the other hand, Stiles thought, his foot dropping down to the next step, if Peter didn’t want Stiles to explore the castle, perhaps he should not have withheld information from him.  Besides, if Peter did not discover his transgression, it would be of no matter.  He would just need to take care not to be seen.

At the bottom of the tower, he peeked out the door but the courtyard was deserted.  Moving with utmost stealth, he made his way to the gardens.  Once there, he remained cautious, unsure as to whether he could trust Isaac to keep his confidence if Stiles should happen upon him.

The sun was high in the sky, but Stiles did not want to risk getting trapped in the labyrinth again should he lose his way and night fall, so he skirted the edge to try to find a way around it. He knew from the day before that it was quite impossible to get through the hedge on the side of the ruins without entering the labyrinth, but he thought there might be a way near the back of the gardens, where the hedge met the mountain.

He found himself wandering in parts of the gardens he had not seen before. The air was slightly cold, as Stiles was becoming used to, but the sun stayed shining, and he found a simple pleasure in walking along the trimmed pathways among the fragrance of the roses. Although he kept the hedge in sight, he stayed out of its shadow more and more as the day grew older.

Finally, he reached the mountain.  Up and up and up it rose, and to his dismay, the hedge rose with it. He did not know what type of plant it was, but long tendrils of branches grew up the slope, clinging to the rock face. There was no place he could get a hand or foothold on the rock to try to climb over the hedge, and the hedge itself would not support his body weight.  He attempted the climb in several different ways before admitting defeat.

He slumped back against the rock of the mountain, staring toward the broken tower.  He had to get to it. He had to see Derek again. It was the only thought he could hold in his head.  He did not want to do it, hated the thought of entering the labyrinth, of that icy fear taking him over again, but if it was the only way he could get to the tower, he would have to do it.  With a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet and headed toward the entrance to the labyrinth.

He did not enjoy his walk back nearly as much as he had the walk there, cursing himself for spending so much time strolling through the gardens instead of allowing for the possibility he may need to enter the labyrinth with as much daylight left as possible.  He supposed he could wait until the morrow, set out early in the morning, before the rest of the castle rose, but rejected the idea immediately. Peter had seemed adamant that Stiles stay in his tower the next day in particular, for whatever reason, and Stiles had felt the strength of the warning behind his words.  He also felt that in sneaking out once, he should exhaust every avenue available to him.  There were any number of reasons, when he thought about it, that made waiting a terrible idea.

When he came to the orchard and drew near to the labyrinth entrance, he realized he could hear voices.  He crept forward, staying under the cover of the trees so as not to be noticed and tried to determine what was happening.

Boyd, Erica and Isaac were by the entrance to the labyrinth, covered in dirt and looking harried as they worked.  The entrance looked much narrower and Stiles saw that it was because they were planting large bushes across it as if in attempt to block it completely. They were more than half done, but Stiles did not think they would have it completed before nightfall. Apparently, Erica thought the same thing. She stood up, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist and staring up at the sun as if judging how long it would take to reach the horizon.

Stiles could not decide on the best course of action.  Should he wait in the orchard for them to leave, and risk being seen?  Should he return later, when there was less risk but they may have finished blocking the entrance? The bushes looked quite thick, almost as thick as the hedge, and if they finished their work before Stiles could return, he did not know if he could find a way through them. He wondered why they were doing it, why Peter would command such a thing.  He remembered back to their meeting, to Peter noting the mud on Stiles’ neck.  Could he have known that Stiles had been in the labyrinth, been to the tower and met Derek, and was trying to prevent subsequent meetings? Or was he merely being a concerned patron who did not want any injuries caused in the dangerous ruins? Stiles had been warned more than once about the approaching full moon, was it something to do with that? He considered all the alternatives as he waited for the work on the entrance to finish.

As he waited, he grew indignant.  The day was almost done and it was close to his dinner time; if he were not breaking his word and had stayed in the tower room, he would be waiting in vain for his meal. 

The thought gave him pause, and he wondered if perhaps Peter would himself come to Stiles’ tower to dine, or to invite Stiles to dine.  With one last, longing look back at the tower, Stiles hurried back toward the castle, worrying that he would be caught out already.  With Boyd, Erica and Isaac occupied, Stiles exercised less caution on his return, making it back to his tower much more quickly than he had left it.  He was out of breath by the time he reached the top of the stairs, but thankfully found his door still locked, and a tray of food left for him on the shelf.

He ate by his tower window, watching to see when Boyd, Isaac and Erica returned and he could try to enter the labyrinth, but he did not see them, even long after darkness fell.

After a restless night, Stiles slept until mid-morning, and woke with a guilty feeling, as if he had forgotten something important and been reminded of it in a dream. Wracking his mind, he realized that he had not yet read his letter from Scott, and hastened to fetch it from his pocket.  

He smiled to see his name in Scott’s untidy scrawl on the envelope and was outraged at himself that he had been so distracted it had slipped his mind.  He tucked himself into his window nook so he could keep an eye on the castle courtyard as he poured over Scott’s letter.  The bulk of the letter was about someone named Allison, daughter of Baron D’argent, and Stiles surmised that she was the niece Peter had spoken of.  Scott took great pains to describe the timbre of her voice, the shade of her hair, her rosy, dimpled cheeks.  Lady Allison was apparently not only beautiful but also wise and kind and brave, and Scott was convinced that the improvements in his health were caused directly by her healing touch, for she was surely an angel.  Stiles read through the pages and pages extolling Allison’s many virtues, and, while somewhat embarrassed for his friend, found himself cheered that Scott had regained enough strength to pen such a missive.

He reread the letter many times, feeling as though Scott were again by his side, speaking to him.  When he at last set the letter down, he found that the day had grown quite late.  He immediately wanted to respond to Scott, but there were no writing materials in his desk, so he would have to ask Erica or Peter next time he saw them if he could acquire some.

He tried to settle down to read but soon grew bored.  What was so special about the full moon, he wondered. Both Parrish and Peter had warned him, but Parrish had seemed so vehemently opposed to Peter that Stiles had thought the warning was somehow against him, but given Peter’s warning, that wouldn’t make sense.

Stiles glanced out the window.  There was still daylight left.  He could go and just try to enter the labyrinth, maybe look around the castle and see if anything seemed strange.  If he ran into anyone, he could say that he was looking for writing materials.  Peter might be angry, but Stiles could plead misunderstanding, that he thought Peter only wanted him to remain confined after dark.  At the very least, if things went wrong, he might be able to write back to Scott.  He nodded to himself, pleased with his plan, and took up the thick blue cloak from his cupboard.

Although he had thought to look around the castle a little, once out of his tower, Stiles headed directly toward the labyrinth.  He wondered if Derek would think it rude that he had left the previous morning without a word, but then decided that one with such a lack of manners would not be bothered. 

Still, Stiles thought about what may have happened had he still been in the tower when Derek returned.  Would they have breakfasted together?  Would he have been able to eventually coax Derek into speaking more than short, clipped sentences? Perhaps he might have even seen Derek without the low hood pulled over his face.  He wondered how much Derek had changed physically from his portrait. He did not know how much time had passed since the fire but would guess at around ten years, from the difference he marked in Peter’s age from the portraits he had seen.  Derek had looked barely older than Stiles in the paintings, just at the dawn of his manhood, which would put him in his prime at present.

He reached the entrance to the labyrinth without being discovered, but noticed immediately that they had finished their work the day before and it was completely blocked.  He crept closer to inspect it.  The new bushes were placed close together so that there was no way to squeeze through them, and when they grew they would be as dense and entangled as the rest of the labyrinth. He thought perhaps he could crawl under them, but they were planted low to the ground and he almost became stuck in his attempt.  He got to his feet, brushed himself off and paced back and forth in front of the entrance to try to find some weakness.  He found it at the edge of the entrance, where the original labyrinth began. He didn’t know if Boyd, Isaac and Erica had grown tired of their task, or if they had not been able to see clearly in the moonlight, but the last few rows of bushes were only planted shallowly in the ground. Stiles thought he could easily lift them free from the soil and make a small path through.

It was laborious and uninteresting, but Stiles worked methodically, removing a bush by digging away the soil with his hands, lifting it out of the ground and then placing it behind him, propped up against the other bushes so that from a distance his work would not be noticeable.  The bushes were tall and heavy, and he had little space to work within.  His muscles soon began to ache and he became covered in perspiration, though the sunlight rapidly faded and the day grew chill.  He had no way to judge how far he had until he was through into the labyrinth but knew that he had done too much work to turn back.

Finally, he lifted a bush and did not see another behind it. He did not bother to set this one behind him, but dropped it in relief and stepped over it, resolving to replant it on his return.  He groaned at the thought of all the work he would need to do to get back to the castle, but decided that if only the first few bushes were planted properly, it would save him effort the next time.

The sun had begun to set, and as he looked up at the broken tower, it seemed to glow like a beacon in the red and gold light.  He lost sight of it when the labyrinth forced him to make a turn in the other direction, and when he turned again to face it, night had fallen. He could still see its shadow, and was sure to make a steady progression toward it, using it like a talisman to keep his fear at bay. 

Staving off his fear became more difficult as it grew darker but he did not let himself succumb to it.  Then, out of the darkness rose a terrible howl.  He knew at once that it was not the howl of the same wolf that he had heard many times in the night; this howl sounded warped in some way, grotesque, as if the creature that made it were monstrous.  It was low and deep and echoed in a way that did not quite seem of this world. He reassured himself that whatever made the noise was some way off and quickened his pace, but when the howl once more began, it sounded closer, much closer.

Stiles broke into a jog.  He told himself that whatever the creature was, it would not be able to find him in the depths of the labyrinth, but that did not stop his heart from racing nor the cold sweat from dripping down his back. 

The next howl seemed closer still; Stiles thought it came from right within the labyrinth.  He realized that perhaps the creature could sense his fear and as such, had targeted him as its prey, but the thought did not help him push his fear aside.  Instead, he began to run as fast as he could.  It felt as if the beast were right behind him, on his heels, breathing down his neck, and at any moment it would pounce.  If he could but make it to the safety of the tower before the creature found him, he thought, he would never break a promise again in his life.

He rounded a corner and immediately knew that in his fear he had made a mistake; ahead of him was a dead end.  He skidded to a stop and turned around, but in that moment, he heard deep, panting breaths from somewhere close by. 

Stiles froze, trying to identify from which direction the sound came.  It seemed impossible to tell over the rushing of blood in his ears, but he thought it originated somewhere to the front of where he stood.  He knew that logically, he should try to retrace his steps and see where he had misturned, try to get out of the labyrinth, but he could not make those few steps back around the corner, certain that he would see some frightful beast stalking toward him.  Instead, he shuffled backward, his eyes on the gap between the two hedges in front of him, where at any moment, he expected the beast to appear. 

His back hit the dead end and the moment that it did, the air was once again filled with the howling, so near that Stiles’ flesh crawled with it.  It seemed that the beast must be right upon him, to sound so close, but it did not appear on the path before him.  With dawning horror, Stiles lifted his head, looking up, up, to the top of the labyrinth.

On the very top of the hedge, right above Stiles, perched the beast. It loomed large and black, silhouetted against the full moon like something from a nightmare. Its limbs were overly long and its neck seemed stretched as if its entire form were misshapen, and Stiles could see the moonlight glint off of long, sharp fangs.

He pushed back further into the hedge, hoping that it would conceal him, swallow him.  The beast turned its head toward Stiles, finding him with eyes that glowed blood red.  Stiles could do nothing but whimper.

The beast leapt from one side of the hedge to the other, then down to the ground. Stiles cast his eyes around for something he could use to fend the beast off but there was nothing on the ground but stray twigs and leaves.  Still, he tried to scramble backwards, into the hedge, but his legs slipped out from under him and he landed hard on the ground.  The beast stalked toward him on all fours, growling faintly.  Stiles crawled into the corner and cowered before the fearsome sight.  As it came closer, Stiles was horrified to see that the beast rose up to walk on two legs — like a man and yet not a man.

He felt certain that he was living out the final few moments of his life.  That it was to end there, like that, with so many regrets, made him tremble almost as much as the sight before him.  He wondered if there was any means of escape, if he could somehow duck past the beast; but even if he could, the speed with which the howling had gotten closer as he had ran through the labyrinth made him certain he could not outrun it.

Just as Stiles gave up all hope of life, a shadow darted before his eyes and suddenly there was a figure standing in front of him, between him and the beast.

It was Derek.

He stood with his back to Stiles, facing the beast.  He wore the same cloak, hood pulled low over his head, his stance strong and confident.  Rather than feeling relieved at his rescue, a second wave of fear swept over Stiles, sharper and colder than any fear he had felt for himself.  He was going to get Derek killed.  He had been repeatedly warned to stay indoors but instead had selfishly followed his own desires, and this was to be the outcome.  He climbed to his feet, standing at Derek’s back.

The beast once again dropped to all fours and paced before them, blocking off any means of escape.

“Stiles, go!” Derek growled.

Stiles had no intention of leaving Derek alone and in danger, but before he could say so, Derek leapt at the beast, pushing it into the hedge to the left.

The beast roared and clawed at Derek but Derek dodged out of the way. Derek turned to face Stiles, pushing him away from the dead end.

“Go on, you fool!” Derek yelled.  “Run!”

He shoved Stiles again, hard in the chest, making Stiles stumble backwards.

As Stiles turned and ran, the last thing he saw was the beast springing at Derek and the two of them falling to the ground.