Chapter 14 #3
Take it, take it, take all of it, I chanted in my head, held onto his hand with all my strength, willed the Timekeeper to know what to do and willed the seal on the wall to recognize him.
It wasn’t much, but Father always said that it was will that moved the biggest mountains.
Sheer will could do more than magic—that’s what he always told me and Jinx.
Then the wall breathed.
It sounded silly, but it felt like the wall exhaled, and it moved back an inch or two, giving me the sensation that I was about to fall on my face.
“What—” I started, but before I could open my eyes, I saw the light.
Right there where I’d felt the magic buzzing, the knot loosening, there was now light that my mind’s eye saw, a pulse of bright, teal-colored light that rippled outward from the center, spread to the edges of the large circle that consumed most of the wall.
It was incredible that we hadn’t seen it, hadn’t felt it as clearly, when it was massive! It was the whole entire wall that was made of that light, and the harder it pulsed, the clearer it became, until—
It wasn’t.
It wasn’t there anymore.
Not the light and not the wall.
There was no explosion, no big shift, no crash—only a click that I felt deep in my chest, together with the moving hand on my chronobank.
It moved and moved, spun around in itself, became lighter as the Sparetime that had been in it faded with the bright light.
Just a click—exactly like a lock turning.
The seal had been released.
A rush of air hit me before I even opened my eyes—cold, thick, smelling of something old and still and wrong.
Beside me, the Timekeeper collapsed.
Screams and gasps and whispers. I was completely disoriented because there’d been a wall there just a second ago, and now there wasn’t.
Now there was a corridor, narrow and dark, right where the wall had been—and the air was much colder—and Calren was no longer standing next to me, but on the floor, eyes closed, fresh blood dripping down his nostrils, a chronobank in the palm of his hand.
Something warm touched my cheeks, raised my head, filled my vision. March’s wide eyes were dark, his skin pale, and his curls wild.
“You’re okay,” he told me, and this I heard clearly. “You’re okay. Breathe with me.”
I did.
I held onto his wrists and I breathed, and with every new blink I was more aware, more grounded, my feet firmer on the floor.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, and March took another second or two to analyze my face before he let go of me and stepped to the side.
Calren Hock was the only one on the floor.
“Is he…” Mimi started as she looked at him, both hands over her chest.
“Alive,” Russ said, and it was like he’d given me back air. “Just unconscious.”
Cook leaned in and grabbed the chronobank from the palm of his hand. Raised it, showed it to me.
“One minute,” he said.
The chronobank had one minute left from sixty.
“Guys,” Anika whispered. “The…the wall. It disappeared.”
As if we were just realizing this, we all turned to look at the wall that had indeed disappeared. To the narrow corridor it had revealed.
A loud breath left me. March took my chronobank from Cook because I couldn’t be bothered. All I could think about was move, move, get in there, go!
So, I did.
I went ahead, right into the corridor.
“Ora, wait…”
“We don’t know what’s in there!”
“Let’s just wait for the Timekeeper to wake up first…”
“Just hold on a minute—hold on!”
But I didn’t.
I walked as if somebody else was in charge of my own body, my limbs numb, but my senses worked. I saw the darkness, and the light coming from somewhere on the other side. I heard the footsteps and the whispers of the others as they reluctantly followed.
The corridor wasn’t long at all. It turned to the right a few feet in, and then I found myself in the strangest place yet.
A room that wasn’t a room. The ceiling was higher than it should be, then lower, then higher again depending on where I looked. The floor was made of different things—stone here, water there, grass in a patch near the back.
A metal hook sprouted from the soil in the center like it thought itself a tree.
And against that hook, on the floor, barely visible in the dim light that seeped in from our side was a boy.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Thin. Pale. Deep hollows on his cheeks. Long hair matted and dark, falling across a face I knew but didn’t.
His chin was square and his jaw sharp, and he looked tall, even sitting against that hook like that. He was breathing, definitely alive, and he had a name. I’d seen it written on the pages in that room.
“Silas.”
The word could have slipped out of my lips or someone else’s—it didn’t really matter. We were all thinking it. We all knew the boy, even if we didn’t.
But the boy wasn’t alone.
A blink, and it was like the view before me changed, when it didn’t. I just hadn’t noticed that, on the boy’s lap, curled like it belonged there, was a cat.
Fluffy, unnaturally still, with numbers flickering over its fur like each strand was alive.
The cat opened one eye.
Looked at all nine of us standing in the doorway with our mouths open.
“Oh.”
The cat spoke.
The cat grinned.
“You arrived early.”