Chapter 8 #3
“Really.” Levana crossed her arms in front of her chest as she watched him. I could just see her profile in the dark, but I already knew what she looked like when she watched you like that. I knew without knowing—however that made sense. “And we’re supposed to just…believe that?”
Kohen opened his mouth to speak, then closed his eyes and sighed, like he thought better of it.
Instead, he fell on his knees right there in front of the missing bar and reached out a hand.
He…touched the air, it looked like. Pressed his palm against it, just between the bars. Took his hand back, fisted it, then slammed it between the bars with all his strength—and it met resistance.
Invisible resistance. It was plain to see—unless the Timekeeper was somehow tricking us.
But he stood up, dusted off his pants, and told Levana, “Now you try.”
I was so curious I found myself rising on my tiptoes to see better, when a hand wrapped around my own and I was pulled to the side—March.
It was his hand and I knew this before I knew it—however this made sense, too—but he pulled me all around the crowd and closer to the Timekeepers so we could see Levana better.
My skin where he touched me burned. When we stopped and he let go, I almost sighed-pouted-groaned in complaint. Luckily, I caught myself in time.
Dangerous, dangerous Heart boy.
Here I’d imagined a completely dream-like version of him in my sketches—soft, silky, like clouds—without having the slightest clue he’d feel a million times more concrete than the earth, more intense than fire.
Meanwhile, Levana was on all fours, sticking her hand through the opening between the bars, and…it went through.
“There,” Kohen said when she sat back on her legs.
“How do I know you didn’t fake it?” Levana said with an arched brow.
“Time’s Temper—either go in or stand back,” said the younger Timekeeper with a roll of his eyes.
“I’ll do whatever I please,” Levana snapped.
“I’ll go through first,” said Mimi, lowering to her knees. “Move over—I’ll go through, then the rest of you can follow.”
I really didn’t think the Timekeeper had faked not being able to slam his fist through the bars. It had looked pretty real to me, but Mimi went through on all fours without trouble. Nothing stopped her, and she made it to the other side and stood up with a smile on her face.
“Ta-da!” she whispered, arms raised to her sides.
“I’m next, I’m coming,” Cook said, and he moved around Levana, and dragged himself on all fours and to the other side.
One by one, they all made it inside the fence, while the Timekeepers watched intently, and sometimes looked about at the dark trees on the other side and sometimes pulled their clocks out from under the cloaks to look at the time.
I couldn’t see if they were chronobanks or just ordinary clocks, but they did say Timekeepers always kept more than two on their person at all times.
We’d had different clocks on us, too, that day when we woke up here. The Timekeeper Elida had pulled a golden clock, bigger than any chronobank I’d seen, right out of my suit pocket, before she’d given me the silver one.
I wondered why. I wondered what the golden clock had been—I’d been too distracted to even look at its face then.
When all the others had gone through, it was my turn. The missing bar gave me plenty of space to crawl quickly. Behind me, March kneeled in front of the opening, and Time’s Teeth, he was so big. All those shoulders—how was he going to fit?
I was worried for a second, but he didn’t seem to be. He was perfectly at ease as he held my eyes, then lay on the ground all the way on his back, and slowly inched one arm through first, then his head and neck, then the other.
“I think the Heart boy likes you,” whispered a voice in my ear from behind as Seth helped March get to his feet.
I turned to find Mimi with a strange smile on her face, looking at me like she didn’t know whether I was going to smile or attack her.
Meanwhile, I was completely paralyzed. Just…something about those words. Something foreign and familiar all at once.
“All right, everyone. You’re all in now. Start with the main palace—it’s the biggest building in here and very easy to find. Just head straight through the wood. However long it takes, we will be waiting,” Kohen said from the other side of the fence. “I wish you good-timing.”
Without waiting for any of us to speak, he turned around and walked back where we’d come from.
My stomach twisted—we were going to be alone now. All alone in a foreign place.
Did we have questions?
Because it felt like we should have had questions. It felt like we should have been told more before being left alone like this, but I didn’t have the slightest clue what to ask.
“Do try not to die,” the other Timekeeper said with a mischievous grin on his face that he wasn’t trying to hide for once.
“Damon—keep moving,” Kohen called, and the young Timekeeper turned on his heels, pulling the ends of his cloak dramatically so it floated around him like a shadow.
“I’ll wipe that grin off his face when we get out of here. You’ll see,” Levana muttered.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Cook said, and we all turned one by one. There was nothing to see on this side, anyway.