Chapter 7 #3
It was obvious what we wanted to do, but…
“We find out what they want from us first,” the Heart boy whispered, as if he’d read the words in my mind.
“Let’s do it. Let’s ask, then.”
A rush of excitement went over me, brand new and stronger as we turned to face the Timekeepers again.
They sat up straighter, too—at least Kohen did, ginger brows raised to the middle of his forehead, as hopeful now as he was uncomfortable.
“We’ve spoken,” Mimi said, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. “And we want to know what you want from us first.”
“To go back to the Labyrinth,” the Timekeeper said.
The Heart boy didn’t miss a beat. “For what?”
“To find the proof.” The man leaned forward, rested his elbows over his knees. When he did, his forehead glistened a little, like he was sweating.
“What proof?” asked Mimi.
“The proof of everything that happened.”
We looked at one another again. “Is it…is it another notebook?” I wondered.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” the Timekeeper said, throwing me off.
“So, how will we know what to look for?”
“Oh, you’ll know it when you see it,” said the other Timekeeper. That was the first time he spoke, and only then did I realize that he was…young. Possibly our age, now that I was looking at him better.
Yes—he was just as young as he sounded, actually. It was his clothes and his wild hair that had given me the wrong impression at first.
Just like that, we were at a loss again.
“So, we’re to go to the Labyrinth somehow, and find proof without knowing what we’re even looking for, and then just hope that you’ll tell us what happened afterward?” Levana said.
“Not somehow—we’ll take you to the Labyrinth, and we know it will let you through. It knows you,” the Timekeeper Kohen said.
Which gave us all a pause.
“It? How would it know us?” I breathed, as something that almost felt like a memory came back to me viciously, words popping into my head and not even in my own voice—a gigantic machine, a hundred feet underground—a gigantic machine, a hundred feet underground—a gigantic machine, a h—
“Its protection magic only lets through the people it knows. Now that it’s closed for the year, it won’t let through anyone but the help—and the last Hands to have played in the trials. It knows you.”
The Timekeeper said all of this as if it was an absolute truth.
“What exactly does that mean?” Because he still made it sound like the Labyrinth was a person or something, which was ridiculous.
“I can’t tell you that,” said the Timekeeper.
“But you will find out for yourself.” Half a smile on the young one’s lips as he looked at me. I was sure if he let it, it would develop into a full mischievous grin, but he didn’t.
“Is there anything you can tell us?” the Heart boy asked, his voice thicker than before, like he, too, was getting angrier.
“What we already told you,” the old Timekeeper said. “We’ll take you to the Labyrinth, we’ll get you inside, and you’ll have to find the proof and bring it back. Then we’ll tell you everything.”
My poor heart.
“Everything?” Mimi breathed, as if the word did the same thing to her as it did to me.
Both Timekeepers nodded. “Everything,” said Kohen.
At that point it would be silly to even pretend with my own self that I was thinking things through.
That I had any semblance of a self-preservation instinct left.
No—I was sold, all in, would go to the Labyrinth and to the mountains, even to the Spill to find out what had happened to me, what a whole month of my life—that was really only two weeks—had looked like.
“How do we know you’re not lying to us?” Mimi said. “How do we know this isn’t a trap?”
The Timekeepers exchanged a quick, confused look. “Why would we go to all that trouble to bring you all to Neverwhen—in secret—just to trap you? It was no easy feat, I assure you.”
“And you can’t do this yourselves?” the Diamond boy asked.
“No. The Labyrinth will not let us inside,” said the old Timekeeper.
“And what guarantee do we have that you’ll tell us the truth after?”
“You don’t. You will just have to have faith,” said the young one, that same smile curling the corners of his lips.
It would be silly to have faith in strangers, that much was clear. But we did have leverage, didn’t we?
“The proof,” Mimi said, the same thing occurring to her, too. “We will not hand over the proof until you’ve told us the truth.”
The Timekeepers exchanged another look, only this time I couldn’t really decipher the expression on their faces at all.
But a tick later, they both turned to us, nodded. Said, “Deal,” in unison.
Deal.
We had a deal.
With Timekeepers who’d somehow kidnapped us and claimed we were in Neverwhen—but we had a deal.
The truth was suddenly…possible. It was so close I could almost touch it if I reached out my hand far enough. The actual truth.
“Well, then,” said the Club boy from behind us. “Before we go, you should know—I’m really hungry.”
A smile stretched my lips as my stomach rumbled, but I caught myself before anybody saw.
And my truth was, I was really hungry, too.