Chapter 38
Calren had opened his eyes.
We had met around the three-legged table to plan when one of the other Timekeepers came through the darkness of the Hollow to tell us that our former warden was awake.
Master Talik didn’t want to hear about us going to see him, though. He disappeared with Kohen only, but he came back not five minutes later.
Calren was not awake. He’d opened his eyes and he’d said something none of them had been able to understand, and then he’d gone right back to sleep again.
I drowned in disappointment and I didn’t even know why. I didn’t know the guy—none of us did, yet I couldn’t help but feel like things would be…different if he were awake. Everything would be different.
“If he doesn’t wake up in the next day or two, we’ll have to move him,” Kohen said, which made Master Talik flinch.
He said, “We will—if we don’t die tonight.”
He was looking at all of us standing there around the table, arms around ourselves, eyes down—as if we were guilty of something. Guilty of wanting to do exactly what it was that they’d brought us here to do.
Maybe with a minor change along the way—but we weren’t about to leave Reggie behind.
“Nobody’s going to die,” said March from where he leaned against the edge of the table with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Out of all of us, he seemed the least concerned and panicked.
My heart jumped every time I took him in, and though I’d needed to be moving around to ease my nerves, I slowly walked back to his side again as if drawn by a magic spell.
“Yes—you’d think so because you don’t understand the mechanics of what you’re attempting. You survived underneath the Labyrinth once and you’re arrogant enough to think you can do it again.”
“Not arrogant—confident,” said March with that same ease that drove Master Talik mad.
“The game’s clock could be anywhere inside the structure—in the walls, in the floor, underneath the table itself. You could spend hours looking for it and—”
This time it was Silas who cut him off. “Then we spend hours,” he said without turning around. He no longer needed his cane and he no longer looked sick in the least. He looked…determined.
“And the Labyrinth’s defenses—you saw what happened in the Horologist’s study. The games protect themselves. If you start dismantling the mechanism, the trial will fight back—”
“Then we fight back harder.” This from Cook somewhere behind me.
Master Talik made a sound—something between a groan and a sigh. The next time he spoke, his voice was different. Quieter. Not angry but afraid.
“I have worked in that Labyrinth for twenty years. I have watched it eat people—with patience. It wears you down. It changes constantly. It shows you what it wants you to see. None of us truly know it.”
“Then stay behind,” Silas said—and he didn’t say it to be mean. “Master Talik—stay behind. I will figure out the mechanism and take it apart myself. You don’t need to be there. You don’t need to risk yourself.”
The look on Master Talik’s face, like his heart was suddenly split in two. Like he was suddenly crumbling on the inside.
“You think I care about myself?” he said in a whisper that made my stomach turn with this urgency to go wrap my arms around him and hug the Everstill out of the old Timekeeper. A strange sensation, but it passed.
“Then stop whining, you old minute.” Kohen stepped behind Master Talik and patted him on the back. “You will be all right. And if you’re not—just run. We’ll be out here waiting to do whatever we can.”
And that was that.
We divided ourselves in two. Stranger still how natural it felt once we were past the arguing.
“March, Cook, Mimi and Anika, we go for Reggie,” said Silas, and when March twisted his face like he’d tasted something sour, Silas told him, “I will need your strength to help me carry him.”
“And Ora will be all right,” Levana said with a roll of her eyes, which made my cheeks flush a little bit.
“We all will be,” I said anyway. “The rest of us will go to the room beyond the kitchen and find the plaques.” I turned to Russ. “You know how to get there.” Just to make sure.
Russ nodded. “I do. It’s pretty easy, actually.” He looked like he felt incredibly uncomfortable as he said this, but I didn’t doubt his words. I couldn’t afford to, not now.
“Then you will meet me outside in the mechanical garden,” said Master Talik. “When we’re done with the tea party, I’ll come for you as soon as I can. Don’t try to run on your own—wait for me.”
The man looked like he’d seen ghosts as he watched us.
“We’ll wait,” I said with a nod. “We’ll wait in the garden.”
A second of silence. “Good.” The Timekeeper nodded. “The underground route out is safe,” he said and swallowed hard. “Good-timing to all of you. Keep your eyes open. Don’t risk it. When in doubt, walk away. We can always get the plaques later.”
“But do try if you can,” Kohen said from behind him, and when Master Talik threw him a look, he pretended he didn’t even see it. “Good-timing, good-timing, Hands. We’ll be waiting.”
March suddenly took my hand in his and pulled me a little to the side.
“The palace will most likely be watched,” he said, and just then that perfect mask of confidence slipped a little, and I saw my own reflection in the red of his eyes perfectly. “The maids saw us last time. If the queens have soldiers searching—”
“I know.” I squeezed his hand to tell him that I was going to be okay. I hated to see him concerned.
But March wouldn’t hear it. “You’ll have no Timekeeper with you. If a door locks behind you—”
“I know, March. I’ll run. I won’t risk getting caught. You can trust me.”
A hand on my cheek. “I do.”
He looked at me with those impossible eyes, lips open, but he swallowed the rest of his objections anyway. I appreciated it more than he knew.
“The mechanical garden,” he said. “I’ll come with Master Talik.”
“I’ll be there.”
He forced a smile. “I’ll take your promise.”
“Then I promise.” This promise I’d keep even if the sky fell on us somehow.
I mean, time had actually moved backward at one point, even if I didn’t remember it, so stranger things had happened.
He nodded, closed his eyes, breathed in deeply to gather himself. “Don’t be late,” he whispered.
I smiled. “Don’t be slow.”
Then we were on our way.
Kohen and Damon led us to the missing bar of the Labyrinth fence again. Just like last time, we had to crawl underneath, and the night was dark, no moon in sight, but I still felt like all the lights of the world were on us.
I also still felt naked without March standing there beside me. I’d gotten used to his presence so quickly it was a little concerning. Good thing there was no time to dwell.
“Right,” Levana whispered when we got to the other side, hidden in the darkness. “Kitchen, metal plaques, mechanical garden. Let’s get this over with before I lose my nerve.”
“You have nerves?” Russ muttered and earned an elbow in his gut that knocked the wind out of him the very next second. A few chuckled. I smiled, too, if only to ease my anxiety.
“We’ll be all right,” I said. “In and out of the palace—no stops, no distractions.” It sounded so simple.
“And if we run into soldiers?” Erith asked.
Seth answered, “We run faster than them.”
Maybe it wasn’t much of a plan per se—but then again, none of our plans had been much of anything, and we were still here, weren’t we? Against all odds, we were still standing. Still—stupid? Brave?—enough to keep going.
And there was no going back now.
As we walked toward the dark trees close to the fence, I’d managed to convince myself, if only for a little bit, that we could actually pull this off for real—and survive to tell the tale.
There were no soldiers, no guards, not a single soul in sight as we went through the small woods that separated the fence of the Labyrinth from the actual Labyrinth grounds.
The palace was there as we’d left it, and the tower of the Great Clock loomed in my peripheral at all times, and it felt like it was breathing down my neck, too, which was all too ridiculous to even consider.
We didn’t make a single sound as we went, on our tiptoes, eyes wide open and ears strained. The lights were dimmer—or maybe it was just me. I could have sworn the last time more of the lanterns placed everywhere around the yards and the gardens had been on, but now most were off. Lifeless.
And then there was the palace.
Too quiet. We noticed it the moment we slipped through the side door—the same one we’d used before, half hidden behind the overgrown roses. We were perfectly aware of the possibility of actually getting caught this time, so we were much more cautious, silent, slower—just in case.
But the corridor beyond was dim, lit only by a few lanterns that flickered weakly as if they were about ready to give up.
No maids. No Timekeepers in dark uniforms. No footsteps echoing from somewhere deeper inside. Just silence—thick and heavy.
We waited a good long moment to make sure nobody would catch us by surprise.
“Where is everyone?” Levana whispered from behind me.
“Sleeping, hopefully,” said Russ. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“It was the middle of the night last time, too,” Levana muttered. She was right—they’d found us right away the last time.
But maybe it was a good thing that nobody was there to wait for us when we went through the door, right? Maybe it was a good thing that nobody was awake.
Except…rotten seconds, my thoughts insisted. Something smells like rotten seconds.
“Paranoia is not a luxury we can afford right now, Levana. We have a job to do,” Erith said, and I thought, paranoia is not a luxury, in my father’s voice. It’s a tool, he used to say—except right now it didn’t really feel like it.
“This way,” Russ said, taking the lead when we made it through the second door, too. By now a part of me expected to be caught or seen or running from someone at the very least, but the walls were so quiet still.