Steve's eyes snapped to the hedges. They were *moving*—not swaying in wind, but shifting, rearranging themselves. Walls sliding into new configurations, pathways closing off behind them.

  *This can't be real. This can't be—*

  "What the—" Hansel started.

  Steve looked back where the old man should've been.

  Brother Cornelius was gone.

  "Into the maze," Steve said, already moving. "We need to get to the church."

  The hedges towered above them now, eight feet tall at least, forming narrow corridors that twisted and turned. Steve's pulse hammered in his ears. He couldn't shake the feeling they were being *herded*. Like cattle to sughter. Like him and Gretel walking into the gingerbread house, not knowing what waited inside.

  *Stop it. Focus. Just focus.*

  They rounded a corner and—

  Something whipped past Steve's head with a whistle of dispced air. He jerked sideways instinctively, and a hand trowel embedded itself in the hedge behind him with a *thunk*.

  "Run!" Hansel shouted.

  They sprinted through the maze, taking turns at random. Steve's mind raced back to the book, to the word they'd read: *infestation*. This was it. This was what they'd come to stop, and now they were trapped in the middle of it.

  *Stupid. So stupid. We should've called someone. We should've—*

  Headlights swept across the hedge walls—a car passing on the street outside the church grounds. For just a moment, the beams cut through the greenery, and Steve saw someone : Brother Cornelius standing perfectly still in the corridor ahead, illuminated in the shafts of light. Watching them.

  Then the car passed. Darkness returned.

  And Cornelius was gone again.

  A figure dropped from above, appearing from nowhere, shears sshing downward. Steve threw himself aside, felt the bdes whisper past his ribs. Before he could recover, Cornelius melted back into the shadows between the hedges.

  "Where is he?" Hansel panted, spinning in a circle.

  "I don't—look out!"

  A pruning saw sailed out of the greenery, spinning end over end. Hansel barely got his arm up in time, catching the ft of the bde against his forearm with a curse. Blood welled through his sleeve.

  *We have to fight back. We have to do something.*

  Steve saw Cornelius emerge from the hedge wall ahead—just *stepping out* of it like it was made of smoke. Without thinking, Steve lunged forward and threw a punch at the old man's face.

  His fist passed through empty air.

  Through Cornelius. Through his *head*.

  Steve stumbled, off-bance, confused. He'd *seen* his hand go right through the gardener's skull, like punching through a magic user's allusion.

  Hansel tried next, swinging wildly. His hands swept through Cornelius's torso, finding nothing solid.

  "That's not fair!" Hansel shouted, backing away.

  *Life isn't fair,* Steve thought bitterly. *They learned that years ago. Fair is rare in the world.*

  Cornelius tilted his head, looking curious. Then he swung the shears.

  The bdes were *very*sharp. They opened a line across Hansel's cheek, drawing blood.

  "Run!" Steve grabbed Hansel's arm and they bolted down another corridor.

  *He can hurt us but we can't hurt him. How do we fight something we can't even touch?*

  They kept moving, kept running. But Cornelius was everywhere and nowhere. He'd appear from the hedge walls themselves, strike with inhuman speed, then vanish before they could retaliate. A rake handle cracked across Steve's shoulders, sending pain shooting down his spine. More cuts. More bruises.

  Steve's lungs burned. His vision blurred at the edges. They were being picked apart piece by piece, and there was no way out, no way to—

  Cornelius materialized directly in front of Steve. Too close. Too fast.

  The gardener's booted kick smmed into Steve's chest, and this time they were *solid*. Steve flew backward, crashing through the hedge wall behind him. Branches tore at his clothes and skin as he tumbled through, nding hard on his back on the other side.

  For a moment, Steve just y there, gasping, staring up at—

  Light.

  A streetlight outside the church grounds shone down through the gap he'd made in the hedge. The orange glow illuminated the corridor in a circle of brightness.

  Cornelius started to step through the opening after him, shears raised—

  And Hansel came from the side, wrapping his arms around the old man's throat from behind.

  A chokehold.

  Cornelius struggled, but Hansel held on, his forearms locked around the gardener's neck.

  *He can grab him. Hansel can actually hold him.*

  Steve scrambled to his feet and charged back through the opening, into the light. He drove his fist into Cornelius's stomach—once, twice, three times. Solid impacts. The old man wheezed, trying to break free.

  *It's working. We're actually hurting him.*

  Then the hedge wall began to move. The opening sealed itself, branches weaving together, cutting off the streetlight.

  Darkness returned to the corridor.

  Cornelius's body seemed to *shift*, losing substance. He turned into shadow—into smoke—and slipped out of Hansel's grip like water through fingers.

  Both of them stumbled backward, gasping.

  "What the hell?" Hansel panted. "I had him!"

  Steve's mind raced, pieces clicking together. The car headlights. The streetlight. The way Cornelius had turned solid in the light, then disappeared when darkness returned.

  "I think... I think it has something to do with light," Steve said.

  Hansel wiped blood from his cheek. "What do you mean?"

  "Remember when we first got here? When the cars went by?"

  "The headlights came through the hedge," Hansel said slowly. "And then when you went through the wall just now—"

  "The streetlight. When he was in the light, you could grab him. When I was hitting him, it actually hurt." Steve looked around at the dark corridors of the maze. "It's like... as long as he's in light, we can hurt him. In darkness, he's untouchable."

  "So we need light." Hansel's eyes widened. "We need to get him into the light."

  Steve's hand brushed against something in his pocket.

  The lighter.

  *Fire. Fire makes light.*

  "I have an idea," Steve said. "But you're not going to like it."

  Before Hansel could respond, Steve flicked the lighter open and held the fme to the nearest hedge.

  "What are you—"

  For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happened.

  Then the leaves caught. And the fire *exploded* outward like the whole maze had been soaked in magicline. Fmes roared up the hedges, racing along the walls faster than any natural fire should spread, consuming the byrinth in seconds.

  *Light. Everywhere. No shadows left to hide in.*

  "Go! GO!"

  They ran toward where they thought the church stood, smoke choking their lungs, heat searing their skin. Through the curtain of fme, Steve caught a glimpse of the building's stone walls.

  Behind them, a scream—human, agonized.

  Steve risked a gnce back. Brother Cornelius stumbled out of the inferno, his robes abze, beating at the fmes with his hands. He dropped and rolled, shrieking, trying to smother the fire consuming him.

  *It's working. The light is destroying him.*

  Steve didn't wait to see more. He and Hansel crashed through the st burning hedge wall and stumbled onto the chapel grounds proper. The stone church loomed before them, doors open.

  They threw themselves through the entrance, gasping, and whirled around.

  Through the doorway, they could see Cornelius crawling toward them through the fmes, one hand reaching forward. His robes still smoldered, his skin blistered and healing and blistering again in the unnatural heat.

  Then—

  Lines appeared across his body. Glowing green, like a grid of light spreading through the smoke and fme. Ones and zeros flickered across his skin, his clothes, racing outward from his center.

  *What is he?*

  The pattern spread to the hedges. To the fire itself.

  The entire burning maze lit up with that eerie digital glow—a wireframe of reality unraveling before their eyes.

  And then it all *exploded* in a burst of silent light.

  When Steve's vision cleared, he blinked in disbelief.

  The grounds were normal again. Simple grass. A few practical herb beds. No hedge maze. No fire. No scorched earth.

  Just the regur, well-kept wn of the church, exactly as it had always been.

  Brother Cornelius was gone.

  *Like none of it ever happened,* Steve thought, his heart still racing. *Like it was all just... A magic trick.*