Chapter 1
Ora Reese
Tick-tock-tea-talk…
My eyes opened.
I looked at the door beyond the edge of my bed, but it was closed. Silly door—must have forgotten to open to let Jinx through.
Because she was there, wasn’t she?
I heard her voice—only she ever used those words when she came to me in the morning to share her latest dream. Only she.
Except…the door remained closed.
And my room remained silent.
And those words repeated as if to let me know that they weren’t really real. They only existed inside my head.
Reality was chock-full of cruel seconds lately because it hid and hid for as long as it could from my own mind, then hit me all at once.
Reminded me of everything in a single tick—and then I was spinning, falling down a hole in the ground, even though I was perfectly aware that I was lying in bed still.
My bed. My room. My home.
And Jinx was long gone.
Which was funny because I felt like I was long gone, too. Or, rather, like I never came back from Neverwhen.
A knock on the door.
“Rise and shine, darling. It’s breakfast-in-bed time!”
Father pushed the door open while simultaneously holding onto the tray in his hands that was full of food. Full of milk and tea, which would be spilled all over the saucers, but I didn’t really mind. I liked breakfasts in bed, if only because I got to eat alone.
“Morning, Father,” I said, sitting up in the bed, pulling the pillows up against my headboard to make myself comfortable.
“A fine morning, indeed. Look at that sunlight!” he said as he came closer and brought the tray to my lap. The little legs on the corners fit exactly right on the sides of my legs—because he’d made it especially for me.
“Well, it is summer,” I muttered, then regretted it.
It wasn’t his fault that I was so…off. No—he was to blame for other things, but not this.
A kiss on the top of my head. “Summers can be rainy, too,” he claimed and sat near my legs, smiling that painfully fake smile that made me so uncomfortable I had hardly looked him in the eye since I came back. Mother, too.
“How did you sleep, darling?” he said. “Any dreams? Anything…new?”
I knew exactly what he was asking, but I pretended I didn’t when I picked up the teacup. “Nope. No dreams.”
He did his best to hide his disappointment.
I looked a lot like my mother. Same face shape, same lips, same cheekbones, but my eyes were identical to my father’s.
A pale blue—like the sky with only a thin layer of clouds over it—and they were identical in shape, too.
I always thought that was there reason why I could read him so well, always knew what he thought, how he felt.
Right now, he felt like he wanted to get out of his own skin—only there was no space left inside me to feel guilt. I was already full.
“Any, erm…memories?” he asked next because he felt he had to.
He had to ask every single day but never once did he consider telling me what would help me get my memories back.
I shook my head. Took a long sip of my tea. “No memories.”
Like every morning, I considered telling him that I no longer expected to (what he called) wake up and remember all that the Turning Trials had taken from me, all my memories, everything that had happened.
I no longer believed that I was going to get those four weeks of my life back—even though technically, I hadn’t been away from home a single day.
The date was the same. I’d gone forward in time, two weeks—and then I’d gone back, too.
To look at a calendar, you’d find I’d never even spent a whole day in Neverwhen.
Which didn’t even fit with my memories of it because I didn’t remember ever leaving home in the first place. All I remembered was watching the royal carriage come down the hill, and then…nothing.
I woke up in a strange place near the Great Clock, surrounded by eight other people and a screaming crowd, dressed in strange clothes. I woke up to be told that I’d not only won the Turning Trials, but I’d unwon them, too.
What a strange, strange world I’d woken up in.
“Well, that’s a shame,” Father said and patted my shin. “I’ll let you—”
“It would be easier if I knew what happened,” I said—because this was something I felt I had to tell him, too. Every single day, knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t going to change anything, but I still had to try.
Father flinched, jumped to his feet like I’d assaulted him physically.
I picked up one of the boiled eggs.
“Dangerous,” he said. “Too dangerous. You’ve read the decree. You know what it could do to you.”
Yes, I’d read the royal decree released by the queens the same day the trials were…unfinished?
Maybe just unwon.
“I’m sure it would help to hear at least a little bit of what ha—”
“No,” Father cut me off. “Not worth the risk, darling. You’ll remember when you’re ready to remember. Until then…” he stepped back, and he was no longer smiling, at least. Now he just looked terrified as he walked backward to the door.
Backward.
What a strange word. What other strange words accompanied it in my mind as well—and they popped in my head without warning like I’d heard them before in that very order: you’re walking backward very well, I must say…
What a silly, silly thought. Who would even say something like that to me?
Must have been a dream I didn’t remember.
“Sure, Father. Sure,” I forced myself to say because it wasn’t worth it. I’d been home a full month now, and I’d tried every single approach there was. I’d tried begging, crying, getting angry, slamming doors and refusing to eat—I’d tried, but neither would budge.
Not my parents, not my cousins whom I’d grown up with, not my friends. They all refused to say a single word to me about the Turning Trials, either the forward or the backward ones.
Because of the time-damned royal decree—everyone’s shield against my questions.
As soon as I mentioned anything, even if I said I wonder, they were all quick to remind me that the queens had issued a royal decree, as if I didn’t know all about it.
As if I hadn’t read it so many times, I knew it by heart.
During the completion of the 31st Turning Trials of the Clockrealm, an unprecedented magical event required that time be reversed for a period of fourteen days.
We the people were subjected to extreme temporal displacement, our minds forced to move against the natural flow of time for two full weeks.
However, for the Hands, this reversal was combined with exposure to unstable and highly volatile magic during the final trial, as well as amplified consequences by the Labyrinth itself, and this has placed severe strain on the cognitive and emotional faculties of all survivors.
Their memories of the trials have been temporarily compromised.
The Crown’s physicians have determined that any attempt to restore these memories prematurely—whether through conversation, imagery, written accounts, or magical intervention—carries a significant risk of irreversible psychological fracture.
The mind must be allowed to heal at its own pace, in its own direction.
For the safety and full recovery of the Hands, the Crown hereby orders the following: no person—family, friend, citizen, or official—shall attempt to remind, inform, question, or otherwise prompt a Hand regarding the events of the 31st Turning Trials.
No recordings, projections, or written materials pertaining to the trials shall be shared with or made accessible to any Hand.
No interviews, public appearances, or formal inquiries shall be conducted until the Crown has certified each Hand’s full recovery.
The Crown will oversee this recovery personally and will provide updates to the families of the Hands as appropriate.
Any violation of this decree will be treated as endangerment of a Hand of the Turning Trials—a crime punishable under the full extent of the Crown’s authority.
By our hands and by our time, this decree is absolute.
Yes, the royal decree that was printed and mounted onto every wall, every building, every fence gate through the court, was perfectly clear—except for one thing: the Crown did not foresee any recovery personally or otherwise.
I hadn’t seen or spoken to any official or anyone at all about the trials since I woke up.
I had nothing.
Not a single thing from four whole weeks—spent forward and backward in time—and no matter how many times I raged or cried or shut down, that didn’t change.
I wondered about the other Hands.
I wondered if any of them had remembered.
I wondered if I went down to put in a request with The Ledger—the highest council of the Court of Spades—they’d turn me away again or even accept my letter and pretend to take my request into account.
Which was to reach out to the queens, to the other Hands, to someone who could talk to me about all those memories I’d lost. All that time.
Someone who could tell me why my mind was so full of thoughts and words and images that I’d never seen before. Why it felt like I wasn’t me, like I was less than half of who I had been the last time I was home.
My eyes closed, the tears prickling the back of them furious, but I refused to cry.
Instead, as I forced food into my mouth, I thought about what I did remember—which was them.
The other Hands standing around me in a circle.
Eight, not eleven, as they should have been.
Only eight other Hands, as confused as I was while the crowd cheered and an annoyingly loud voice announced for the whole world that the trials were unwon.
I thought about the girl—Mimi—with big green eyes, and the boy with the silver streak of hair on his head and the girl with the short blonde hair, and the boy.
The Heart boy with the wild curls and reddish eyes that occupied a part of my mind every second I was awake. A face that all my sketchbooks had met and learned in detail.
Details I shouldn’t have known, as I only saw him from a few feet away, and for possibly less than five minutes before we were taken away by the soldiers and the Timekeeper woman.