“You spent most of the day with me, so it’s only fair that I follow you now. But can you not leave me in the dark like this?” Lily asks petulantly.

  It’s true I’ve left her there, in the darkness. The trial chamber is coated in it, a heavy black that transforms us into two shadows with an odd ladder-shaped protrusion attached to mine. I climb over the bar and set the equipment down in the middle of the room, and shadow-Lily folds her arms and gives me a look; I can tell it’s a “look” by the way she tilts her chin, like an offended princess—though any specific features have been completely subsumed.

  “But actually, Lily, this isn’t true ‘darkness’ at all.’”

  Of all the rooms in this hotel, the trial chamber was the one that had seemed the most airtight. It was impossible to find an exit even when all twelve of us had tried our hardest to escape.

  And yet, even with all the lights and screens here flicked off, I can still see the thin outline of Lily. My eye shouldn’t have adjusted to this atmosphere without any source of light, and if the electricity had been cut, it has to be sunlight that’s trickling in!

  I scrutinize the room: table edges, huge wheeled monitors, gaudy chairs, and Lily, who’s brilliant as always. But she’s not literally radiant, so I keep searching for the light’s origin.

  “Is there something inside this column?” Lily says. “The pillar sounds a little hollow, when I knock it.”

  But it doesn’t look strange—no brightness emerges there, and I’ve already conducted a full examination of the trial chamber and its four columns and walls.

  “Then where could it be…? Aha!”

  There! The domed ceiling! The constellation mural is still tinted in shades of gray, but it’s paler than the world around it.

  “That’s no painting. That’s frosted glass!!”

  I drag the stepladder underneath the skylight, and a hammer from my skirt. Don’t question how I stitched a skirt with pockets deep enough to hold such a tool; ask my brother instead, because he’s the one who did it for me as a Christmas gift.

  Were you questioning something else?

  “Yuri, why do you have a hammer?”

  “I knew it’d be a surprise tool that would help us later. Tape?”

  “Fine.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Lily passes me the bland gray spool; I roll the duct tape over the skylight, and smother the stars away. The glass will break and stick to the tape when I pound the window with the hammer; without this contrivance deadly shards would rain down around me and shower me in blood.

  I bust open the taped pane, and my hammer sinks into black wrap with a satisfying crink. More light casts itself shyly onto my face; it flares and fades based on how the wrap shifts. And shifts. And shifts. And shifts…

  I had brought the duct tape and ladder because I suspected there’d be some secret window that I’d have to break through. But I thought the window would be on the wall, not the ceiling, and while the shards manage to stick to the tape as planned, the binding slowly unpeels. This monstrous chandelier clings on for two seconds more before plummeting onto the floor.

  Crnk! Shhhh….

  Ah.

  That probably could have killed me.

  “Yuri!!! What on earth are you doing?”

  “Letting myself into heaven,” I reply, as I reach through the broken constellations and breath in fresh air.

  Sunlight beams through the jagged hole. It’s bright enough for me to witness Lily’s upset face, from her flushed cheeks to her quick-blinking eyes; I batter away the remaining shards that clutter the edges, and pad the perimeter with duct-tape sheets, covering any additional glass I might have missed.

  Then I pull myself through the gap.

  I said, and then I pull myself through the gap!!!

  But no. I’m a medical marvel, the first person to exist whose arms consist of zero percent muscle, so actually, I’m just hanging out.

  “I’m still a badass Lily, right? Right?”

  “Bad… bad… bad…” Lily stammers, looking up at me, dangling, flailing with a fluttering skirt. “Bad… butt? No, I can’t say that. But Yuri, you’re still incredible; I’ll go find the others.”

  “Lily, wait!”

  I’m suddenly seized with a certain instinct, and my stomach churns. This is another feeling that’s just plain wrong, but if I found the ‘courage’ to threaten to gouge out my own eye, then surely I have enough moxie for this.

  Lily’s standing at the double doors, right in the trial chamber’s maw. I’ve caught her midstep, and she stumbles, pressing her stomach against an enormous gilded handle.

  “You’re the reason I tried so hard to escape. Not the others, but you.” I finally manage to say.

  The door stays open, and Lily fidgets with the red band around her arm. A spring breeze runs against me as I’m about to lose my grip.

  “I’d like it if just the two of us explored the outdoors. That’d be a memory I could cherish long after this is over, a much better memory than two girls in a dark room with some stupid chairs.”

  “Just for a memory,” Lily says slowly. “Not to scout a route for the other players? Not to run as fast as we can to call for help?”

  “The others can come when we’re done,” I say. “They’re good enough people, so they’ll all understand why we went first.”

  At this, Lily sighs.

  There’s footsteps. Clothing shuffles, a ladder creaks.

  A hand presses against my lower back and pushes me, and I slowly—painfully— heave myself up. I take Lily’s hand and pull her too, and then we’re together on the hotel’s roof.

  It’s over. It’s finally over. Lily and I are together, and “Death Mafia” is completely done.

  But, amidst this joy a sharp breeze cuts into my face. It smells of seaweed and salt.