"Ow!" I slapped his hand away. "Quit it!"

"It's sharp?" he asked, jabbing me again. "It hurts?"

"Yes!"

He grunted, jabbed me one more time, then stood. "Imagine how much sharper the stakes in the Hall of Death are," he said.

Sighing miserably, I hauled myself to my feet and wiped sweat from my brow. Picking up the rope, I gave it a shake, then started back through the maze, dragging the rock and mapping out the walls, as Vanez had taught me.

Finally we stopped for a meal and met up with Mr. Crepsley and Harkat in the Hall of Khledon Lurt. I wasn't hungry — I felt too nervous to eat, but Vanez insisted: he said I'd need every last bit of energy when it came to the Trial.

"How is he doing?" Mr. Crepsley asked. He'd wanted to watch me train, but Vanez had told him he'd be in the way.

"Remarkably well," Vanez said, chewing on the bones of a skewered rat. "To be honest, though I put on a brave face when the Trial was picked, I thought he'd be — excuse the pun — out of his depth. The Aquatic Maze isn't one of the more brutal Trials, but it's one you need a lot of time to prepare for. But he's a quick learner. We still have a lot to fit in — we haven't tried him in water yet — but I'm a lot more hopeful now than I was a few hours ago."

Harkat had brought Madam Octa — Mr. Crepsley's spider — to the Hall with him and was feeding her bread crumbs soaked in bat broth. He'd agreed to take care of her while I was concentrating on my Trials. Moving away from the vampires, I struck up a conversation with the Little Person. "Managing her OK?" I asked.

"Yes. She is… easy to… take care of."

"Just don't let her out of her cage," I warned. "She looks cute, but her bite is lethal."

"I know. I have… often watched… you and her… when you… were onstage… at the Cirque… Du Freak."

Harkat's speech was improving — he slurred his words a lot less now — but he still had to take long pauses for breath in the middle of sentences.