Chapter 13
We continued to stand there against the walls, unmoving, barely blinking, never making a single sound—just staring at the bearded Timekeeper while he stared at us.
Meanwhile, the mad one kept slamming against the wall in his perfect rhythm—one shoulder, then the other.
A thousand thoughts crossed my mind. He was going to run now—turn around and run and alert the people from last night.
Or he was going to lock us down here to make sure we didn’t run first.
Or even attack us himself while he had the chance.
Or—
“I’m just here to deliver his food.”
The bearded Timekeeper slowly lowered on one knee and put the plate on the floor. A plate with a banana, an apple, bread and cheese and meat, all crammed together.
Food.
Then the man stood up again and backed away toward the wall.
“Wait!” I called before I realized what I was doing, and he stopped. Looked at me like I’d assaulted him.
“I don’t know anything,” he said in a rush. “I’m just maintenance. I just bring him food, that’s all.”
I could hardly believe my own eyes, but the bearded Timekeeper looked afraid.
“Do you know why he’s doing this?” Mimi asked.
He shook his head. “Nobody knows. He just does. Nobody can stop him.”
He just does.
That wasn’t even close to the answer I was hoping for.
“How long has he been like this?” March asked.
“I don’t know. Days, or-or weeks—I don’t know.” The Timekeeper moved farther back, half-hid behind the wall.
“Wait, please,” I said, just as Calren slammed against the wall once more, and then he fell.
He fell on his knees in front of the wall, pressed both hands onto the surface, head down as he breathed and breathed…
Then stood up again, his legs barely holding him.
“I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything,” he insisted. “I just bring the food!”
“But you have to—” Mimi started, but March cut her off.
“If you tell anybody about us, we will find you.”
Even Calren seemed to pause, to slam against the wall a second too late, breaking his perfect rhythm.
The bearded Timekeeper didn’t say anything else. He just turned the corner and walked away without making a sound.
Calren walked back a couple feet for momentum, but he couldn’t take another step. He fell, on his knees first, then his side, eyes closed, breathing slow.
But his eyes remained open and on the wall.
Missing things don’t have edges.
That’s all he said, over and over again. It had been at least a few minutes since the guy brought the food, but Calren wouldn’t even look at it. Instead, he lay there on the floor, sometimes with his eyes open, sometimes closed—like he was resting. Like he was preparing for another round.
Days or weeks.
That’s what the bearded Timekeeper said—only something told me it was the latter.
“He’s not going to help us,” Cook said eventually. “And I really don’t think those drawings are the proof.”
Yes. Neither did we.
“I say we stop wasting time and we continue our search, or that Timekeeper will tell on us,” Levana said.
“We can’t just leave him here,” Mimi whispered.
“Well, we can’t exactly take him with us, can we?” said Russ.
“Through,” Calren whispered. “Through.” Of course, his eyes never ever moved from the wall.
The others continued to argue, a few insisting that we couldn’t leave yet, others expecting the Timekeeper woman to come find us any second, others sure that we’d find the proof if we just kept searching this place like we’d planned.
March sat with me on the floor, our backs against the wall, our eyes on the Timekeeper.
“What do you think?” I asked at one point because he was the only one besides me who refused to participate in the argument.
March said, “I think he knows something. He’s just…unable to say it.”
Yes—unable was very much a word I’d use for Calren Hock.
To think that we’d met his sister.
To think that he’d been locked down there, in that room without even a window, for Time knew how long.
To think that he’d been out here doing this, slamming onto that wall for weeks.
My mind spun and spun, and I spiraled in and out of control every few seconds. I half heard the others, half heard my own self, half replayed everything they’d said since we met. Since we came down here.
Unable to say it, said March, and he was sure that the Timekeeper knew something.
But I wasn’t sure what I believed. He was obviously trying to get out of here—yet he refused to even move toward the corridor that would get him out. I believed that. I believed he didn’t want to be slamming against walls.
Except it wasn’t walls, was it?
Just that wall. That specific wall, that same spot, over and over again. I looked at the others—not a single blood stain, old or new. Just that one wall.
Slowly, I stood up from the floor and went a little closer, squatted in front of his feet. His attention didn’t waver, though. His wide brown eyes were focused ahead.
“Why?” I whispered while the others still talked, like I really thought he might give me an answer. “Why that wall? Why are you hurting yourself like this?”
Through, he said. Through, like he really thought that he’d set himself free or something if he broke the wall and went through.
But the wall wouldn’t break.
There was nothing there—just the concrete…or was it?
I stood up again, my mind chaotic, not a single sensible thought in my head. I went to the wall, thinking maybe I should try that, too. Maybe I should just slam against it to see what the Timekeeper saw. Maybe then I’d understand.
Good thing I thought to touch it first, though.
Because the second my palm pressed against the wall stained with dry blood, I felt it.
It was barely there, but it buzzed against the center of my hand like it was alive, even if barely.
Magic—only not like the one that hung around this place. Not as wild as the one inside the room with the bars, not like the magic the Timekeeper had used to blast the metal door off.
This was different, but it was there.
“Can you…can you guys feel this?” I asked, and they all stopped talking for a moment.
A few stood up and came to me, watched me with their brows raised, then reached out their hands and touched the wall, too. March, Russ, Mimi and Anika.
They closed their eyes and held their breaths, and I waited, sure they’d confirm it, my mind already searching for options, when…
“Nope. There’s nothing there,” Anika said first.
“Nothing. Just a wall.” Russ.
“No, I don’t feel anything.” Mimi.
March looked down at me, his hand right next to mine, our pinkies almost touching. “What do you feel?”
Holy Hour, he didn’t feel it, either.
I pushed myself off the wall and stepped back, shook my head. “A…a buzzing. Magic, I think. There’s magic there.”
Seth was suddenly on my other side, pressing his hands to the wall. “I know how magic feels.” He looked at me, wide green eyes focused. “There’s nothing here.”
Great. Now I’d lost my mind, too.
“Maybe it’s just the residue you feel,” Mimi told me, her hand over my shoulder. “Maybe he tried to attack this wall too, like he did the door.”
Which was the most logical explanation, of course.
“Yeah. Yes, you’re right. That’s probably it.”
I let go, stepped back, smiled at Mimi.
“We’ll be all right,” she said. “We’ll find proof. We’ll…remember eventually. Right?”
Except even as she said this, she didn’t sound like she believed it. She just sounded like she wanted me to reassure her—but how could I lie to her face like that?
“Chains,” said Seth from the other side of the room, near the corner that would lead to the exit. “You guys saw those, right?” And he hit something with his foot on the floor, something that rattled. Definitely chains.
The kind we put on clocks to secure them to our clothes. Two of them, silver and gold.
“That’s probably from his chronobanks. Where is his Timekeeper Clock?” asked Levana as she bent over to inspect the chain.
Meanwhile, the Timekeeper remained there on the floor on his side with his eyes closed.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? We have to go, guys. We really have to go now before it’s too late,” said Anika.
It felt like throwing my own heart to the floor and stomping on it—but she was right.
“We’ll come back. We’ll tell Kohen,” March said from behind me, as if he could read the thoughts in my head and knew exactly what I was thinking.
“I know,” I whispered. Though I didn’t really think Kohen—or anyone at all—could do anything about this if they hadn’t until now.
But he did have food brought to him. The plate was full, and he must have eaten at some point. Of course, he did—otherwise he’d have been long gone by now. Someone knew he was here. He wasn’t all alone.
Not a big consolation, but it was better than nothing.
Mimi cried in silence as we walked. All of us, one after the other, heads down, shoulders heavy.
Every instinct in my body raged. Demanded I stop, turn, stay. The thoughts were so powerful that I stopped just as we’d passed Calren, and March bumped into me.
Something smells like rotten seconds, I thought.
Then…
“Guys?”
We turned, all of us, back to the wall stained with blood. To Cook standing there all alone, a hand pressed to it, his eyes glistening.
“I…I feel it, too. I feel the buzzing.”