The sun had begun to set by the time the girls reached the centre of the maze. Amira’s legs felt like lead, dragging slowly along the grass and kicking up dirt with every step. Ro hadn’t fared much better; her dark brown hair had sprung loose from its coils and stuck to her face in a sweaty, matted nest. For the first section of their journey, the silence in the air had been calming, like the maze had wanted to lure them in further. Now that they were in the centre, and had been for several hours, the humidity clung to them like a thick, oppressive fog. Ro nudged Amira, motioning languidly to a collection of pink roses growing along the southern edge of the maze wall.
“There are hybrid roses in there,” Ro said. Out of breath, Amira only nodded. There were certainly a number of hybrid tea varieties nestled in the collection, but her experienced eye could tell the wall was bursting mainly with an impressive pink floribunda rose bush, its scent clinging dense and sweet over their noses. Floribunda roses were something Amira had only ever seen in books — they were far too expensive to be a regular sight in her poor little village. She slipped a pair of garden scissors from her satchel and carefully pruned away the outer edge of the bunch. While these varieties were neither sturdy enough to use as a weapon, nor potent enough to be crushed up and used in magic rituals, each had its uses. The sticky pollen within floribunda roses could form an adhesive, and when it came time for David Austin roses season, the colourful blooms could be woven into fabric and used to fashion beautiful clothes.
Beside her, Ro nibbled the edge of a hybrid tea rose. “Tangy,” she said thoughtfully. Glancing down, Amira noticed that Ro had already collected a number of roses and divided them into neat little piles on the grass. However, while most of the varieties were obvious to someone as experienced as Amira, a small pile on the edge caught her attention.