Backward (The Clockrealm Chronicles #1)

Chapter 1

Tick-tock-tea-talk.

Wake up, you hairy hare.

The soft, delicate chime that followed those words seemed to be coming from somewhere in the back of my head. I knew that sound, just like I knew that voice that had woken me up for years, almost every single morning.

It didn’t anymore, though. Which was why I considered I might have imagined it.

But the sound came again.

It was of a spoon hitting the side of a teacup once—soft, crisp, almost musical. It vibrated for a little bit, then faded away into the air. The echo of it always remained in my head until I woke up.

Which was exactly what I was trying to do now, too. The past and the present—maybe even the future—collided inside me as my mind tried to cling to the waking world. More difficult than usual, and I couldn’t tell why.

Something smells like rotten seconds, I thought.

Then my eyes finally opened, and my mind went perfectly blank.

That sound. It filled the room again—and I was right, it came from a white teacup as a silver spoon touched the side of it just a few feet away from me, from the head of the table.

Table.

I was sitting at a table.

“There you are! Come, come—open those blinkers wide!”

Laughter.

The voice that said those words was not the same as the one that used to wake me up every morning. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, either, but my eyes closed before I could make out her face because my mind was suddenly overcrowded with thoughts that didn’t even feel like my own.

Teeth. Time. Terror.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, ti—

Blood. So much blood all over me, sticking to my skin, slipping between my lips, the taste of it rusty, metallic.

My eyes opened again. I sat up straighter as I sucked in a deep breath—yes, I was most definitely sitting at a table, with beautiful plates in front of me, with food and cakes and tea. Roses, red and white, tried to infuse the air with their scent, but all I could smell right now was blood.

Grass, dirt, clocks—tick-tock, tick-tock—

“There. That’s better. Do give it your bestest best to keep those lookers open, my little tickers!”

More laughter.

A blink and two and three, and I finally could begin to make sense of my surroundings.

The table, set; the people sitting around it, ten; the woman sitting at the head, the White Queen.

Everything came to a halt again.

The White Queen was sitting at the same table as me—and not only that. I was wearing a dress, a white dress with shimmery tulle around the hips, and a soft silk scarf around my shoulders. My hands were clean and my hair was clean and—where, where, where did all the blood go?!

And the night. And the grass.

And the beasts?

“Give it a moment—you have plenty to spare. Give it a moment and you will feel like yourselves again.”

The voice was soft, crystal clear, pitched high.

It really came from those lips painted with frost. Her black eyes moved all around the table, and her hands were raised to the sides, nails painted as though that same frost of her lips had touched the pointy tips of them.

She wore white, too, the queen, a perfect contrast to the color of her eyes, but almost identical to the color of her short hair, the tips turned outward just over her shoulders.

The crystal crown on her head glistened under the sunlight slipping in through the windows.

The White Queen of the Clockrealm was indeed here.

That’s when I realized I was inside a dream.

A long breath escaped me—the blood and the grass and the broken clocks would be there when I woke up. For now, it seemed I would be dreaming.

And what a beautiful dream I was in.

Ten others were sitting around me at the long table—strangers who looked about my age, not a day older than eighteen. Their faces were pale and their eyes wide, their lips parted, just like mine before I realized I was dreaming. They would soon figure it out, too.

For now, they looked at themselves, the clean clothes on their bodies, all white.

The set table and the steaming tea in beautiful teacups engraved with clocks in the faintest golden shimmer.

The chandelier over the table in this eating hall my dream had taken me to was made of tiny crystals shaped like hearts and roses, and the windows around half the room were wide open, letting in the sunlight, showing us the pale blue of the sky outside.

But of course, nothing was more curious to me than the White Queen.

I was not royalty. I was only a girl from the Court of Spades, and I’d never before set foot in Neverwhen, the capital city of the Clockrealm where the queens lived. I never even knew the leaders of my own court—or others—and I had no business sitting at a table with one of the queens.

Before. Before the blood and the night and the beasts, before…

What?!

What came before the blood and the night and the beasts?

Such a curious dream because I couldn’t remember.

In fact, if I thought hard enough, the last thing I remembered was watching a royal carriage traveling down the hill across from my house, coming to take me to Neverwhen for the Turning Trials, and then…nothing.

Which made me wonder if I’d fallen asleep on the way.

“Where…where am I?”

This question was mine, but it came out of the lips of a guy sitting on the other side of the table.

I looked at his face.

Every part of me froze for a second and a half.

What a strange dream because I had never seen that face before, and yet I almost remembered it.

I almost knew it in detail, knew the curls of that dark hair, knew exactly how smooth they were; knew the up-tilted shape of those eyes, and every shade of red and brown in them; knew the shape of his nose and the curve of his jaw—when I didn’t.

I didn’t know any of these things, and I didn’t know his voice, yet I could have sworn that it had whispered in my ears many times.

Curious, curious dream.

“You’re in Neverwhen, of course. You’re in the Labyrinth—where else?” said the White Queen with her soft voice and her smile. She picked up her cup and brought it to her lips. “Drink three sips at once, and you shall feel better. Come, come—drink!”

We did.

Because she was queen and we should always listen to our queens. Wasn’t that what Jinx used to say?

The tea was heavenly, chamomile and honey, and something else I had almost tasted before. My eyes remained on the boy sitting on the other side of the table, with the mess of reddish-brown curls over his head, his hands shaking as he brought the cup down onto the saucer again.

Then he looked at me, too.

He froze for that same second and a half, and then his eyes were moving all over my face and hair and dress and hands still wrapped around my teacup.

I know you.

But I didn’t.

He didn’t know me, either, but his lips parted and his eyes resisted blinking as he drank me in the same way his mouth had drank the tea. Not sure why that made me want to release another breath. Not sure why that expression on his face put me at ease.

Then the White Queen spoke again.

“If I may have your attention, my little tickers. Look here.” Another tap of her spoon against the side of her cup. The chime rang in my ears, too sharp this time.

Shivers erupted all over my arms. We all stared at the head of the table.

“That’s better.” She put her spoon down. Her smile had yet to melt off her beautiful face. It looked like hard work to be smiling so big for so long, but even in a dream, I didn’t comment.

“Now, a quick recap of your past two weeks—you entered the Turning Trials, you completed the games created for you—for which I must say, bravo, my tickers, bravo!” She clapped her hands together so lightly they barely made a sound.

Entered the Turning Trials, she said.

Only I did no such thing. I was twelve-hours certain of it.

So, what came before the blood and the night and the beasts?

“Wait…”

This, too, was a thought of mine, yet it came from the lips of the girl sitting to the queen’s left. I was on the right, sitting between two boys, six of us on this side, and only five on the other.

Which was strange all on its own and I still couldn’t say why.

“Wait, wait…I never entered the Turning Trials. I was going to. I-I was prepared. I-I-I…” The girl could have picked the words from my very brain.

But it wasn’t just her—it was all of them. All of us who thought the exact same things.

“Ah, but you did,” the White Queen said, leaning in to tap the girl on the tip of her nose once.

In my mind I almost heard the chime of that small touch.

“No, no, I didn’t,” said another girl sitting on my side of the table, dark red hair bouncing around her head when she shook it. “I remember that I didn’t. I was going to, I was looking at the royal carriage coming for me, and…and…”

And then blood. Teeth. Grass. Night. Beasts.

Memories that could very well not be mine flashed in front of my eyes, and I squeezed them shut, and pressed my fingers onto my temples to try and stop the sharp ache that wanted to cut my skull in half.

Large jaws with sharp teeth snapped in front of my face.

Break the clock-you have to break the clock-you have to break the clock!

The words painted themselves in my head, but these couldn’t be my thoughts, could they?

Because what clock? Why break it?

“He-hem!”

My ears rang. My eyes were on the queen’s face again.

“Remember to focus on me, little tickers. You did complete the Turning Trials. All of them. You did an excellent job, in fact. So excellent that the Diamonds have harvested more Sparetime in the past two weeks than in the last two years combined!”

She tried to clap again, but the sound barely reached.

I looked at the others, too, the boys and girls who were just as confused, and my eyes stopped on the reddish-brown ones of the guy sitting on the other side. He was looking at me, too. Asking me questions words didn’t exist for.

Just like I asked him.

“Then…why don’t I remember?” His lips moved. Those words tumbled out of them as if by accident. “I don’t remember anything, only…only…”