Chapter 3
Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock…
Both clocks in the room moved backward. I looked around, resisting the urge to rub away the goose bumps that had risen on my forearms. The air was fresh in here. The lamps on. The bed made. The room fancier than anything I’d ever set eyes on before.
“Is this…was this my room?” I asked, not expecting the woman who’d brought me here to even answer.
She did.
“It must be—this was where I was told to bring you. Though I imagine you changed it at least once.” She pointed a thumb back.
The hallway of our dormitory was wide and well lit, and it had six doors on either side. The other Hands were by them, too, the girls with their maids, the boys with their butlers—except the room two doors down from mine. It remained closed, the space in front of it empty.
“I did?” I scanned the others quickly—the boy with the curly hair was across the hallway, all the way to the last door. One look back, right at me, and he disappeared inside, and closed the door before the butler could follow.
“Why, yes. You know what it’s like living with Clubs,” said the maid.
“I don’t.” I’d never lived with anyone from the Court of Clubs before. I didn’t think I’d ever met one, either.
Laughter, sharp and precise. Fake.
The woman said, “Oh, bless your heart. Come, come, inside with you.” She pushed me over the threshold and tried to close the door, but I grabbed the handle on the other side and stopped her.
“Wait,” I said.
“Oh, but it’s not a big deal, Miss Reese.” Her cheeks were flushed bright scarlet. “They have to be on the move. It’s why I assumed—only assumed. They have to switch rooms every few days. It’s what I was told.”
But I didn’t understand. “Who?”
“The Clubs!” she cried out, and she looked more and more uncomfortable by the second. “The…the Clubs have to be on the move. That’s why I assumed you’d changed your room before—it’s no big deal, really.” Except she was making it look like it was. “Now, get inside, lay on that bed, and sleep!”
She pulled the door closed so hard the handle slipped from my fingers.
Then I was alone.
A sense of dread clashed with a strange familiarity as I moved deeper into the room and took note of what was around me.
A vanity table without a mirror, just a big drawer underneath.
A coffee table with two dark blue armchairs at the sides.
A nightgown in charcoal black that my mother had gifted me for Neverwhen was folded at the edge of the bed—and again, it felt like the sight of it should have broken me down, but it somehow didn’t. It was just a nightgown.
A sketchbook with a black leather cover was on the bedside table, one I bought myself with money I earned from my father’s woodshop. The pencil that came with it was there, too, now no longer than my middle finger, used, when I’d just bought it.
And next to them was a silver frame holding the picture that made everything inside me vibrate.
It was my sister Jinx.
She lay on grass, smiling, surrounded by daisies, her blonde hair snaking its way around the grass blades like silky serpents.
She looked happy. She was glowing. It was my favorite picture of her.
I wanted to take it in my hands but didn’t.
I wanted to cry, to sigh, to whisper something to her but didn’t.
I wanted to feel, thought I should—heartbreak, sadness, something—but didn’t.
There were windows in the square room, on the other side of the bed, across from the white, polished wardrobe. I thought I should go open one and look outside, see Neverwhen—but instead decided that I would lie down on the bed without changing, without pulling the covers, and sleep.
After all, there was still a good chance I was dreaming.
And what better way to wake up than to fall asleep?
I woke up on the same bed, with the same dress on and the same dread consuming me on the inside.
Not a dream.
I went to the nearest window of two, opened it, and looked outside. The night air was warm—it was almost summertime, after all—and the view of the city refused to let it go down my throat for three-four-five seconds.
Round buildings. So many of them beyond a tall golden fence, yet so much grass and nothingness on this side of it.
I was high up, possibly three floors, and the tower, at the top of which was the Great Clock was to my left, not too far in the distance.
I barely saw the face of it when I stretched my neck outside the window, but the hands weren’t moving.
The Great Clock was indeed stuck at eight-thirteen. The lights illuminating it from the tip of the tower left me no doubt—it was as clear as if the sun was shining.
My sense of dread intensified. Or maybe it was hunger? It gnawed at my insides and distracted me from the view below, the twinkling lights, the round buildings. I was in the city of Neverwhen, the heart of the realm—and all I could think about was food. And a bathroom.
To my surprise, I found one behind a door near the windows in my very room. It was small, but it had everything I needed: a shower cabin, a toilet, a basin, and most importantly, a mirror shaped like a heart.
I’d never been more curious to see my own reflection before. When I stepped in front of it with my breath held, I expected…something. Something different. There had to be something off and strange that the mirror would reflect back to me.
It didn’t.
Same blonde hair and blue eyes. Same jawline, same thin brows.
My ears were the same size as well, and the tip of my nose was still as upturned.
Each one of my freckles was in place, too, and my teeth were the same white they’d always been.
My collarbone and arms, my breasts and my legs and my toes—everything was the same as always.
Which was absolutely ridiculous. How could one feel like a stranger in one’s skin, but the skin still remained the very same?
Ah, but it didn’t.
I saw the redness only when I unzipped the dress, pushed down the sleeves, and let it slide off my body.
When I heard the thump as it fell to the floor, I realized the Life Clock was still attached to it.
I’d slept with it, too, and hadn’t noticed.
Judging by the stiffness of my body, I hadn’t moved at all while in bed.
But my skin was raw red in some places—the left side of my waist, my right arm, and my right thigh.
Red, like someone had just hit me, like I’d just been attacked.
My back, too, and when I reached up to touch it, I felt the pain just below my shoulder blades, as if it had been waiting for me to notice it since forever.
My eyes closed for a second. Flashes of large sharp teeth were in front of me. Grass and night and blood—so much blood. When I looked down at my body again, I could have sworn I was covered in it.
My stomach turned. Bile rose up my throat. I brought both hands to my mouth and kept my eyes on the mirror to convince myself that I was clean. No blood was on me. My skin might be red in some places, but I had no blood on me. I was not outside and there were no beasts coming for me.
I am okay.
But I wasn’t. It was clear to see in my very eyes, even if I didn’t know why. Nothing was okay, and nothing was a dream, and somehow this was happening.
Somehow, I was in Neverwhen, even though I didn’t remember ever leaving home. Somehow, we’d won the trials—the twelve Hands of Time—but now we were only eleven and we had to unwin everything—or die.
This was all becoming so real, and I didn’t know what to do with it. Or myself.
Stinky, rotten seconds.
“Breathe,” my reflection told me, and it only worked because I heard my own voice, too. Focused on it. Let the blood and the teeth and the terror fade away, slip off me, just like the dress.
Then, I cleaned myself up and I went back to the room, to that wardrobe that was fancier than anything I’d ever owned, to find clothes inside—both mine and not mine.
Pants and tunics in black and purple, as well as dresses with shimmer, in white and silver and a deep, royal blue. Black leather boots near sneakers that were mine, well worn, though I could have sworn to you I’d never once had them on my feet.
But I must have—they fit me so perfectly, molded onto the shape of my feet like they were made for them, or like they’d been worn in that much.
Sense escaped me. I found no tie for my hair, so I braided it and hoped for the best. Then I made for the door, anxious, my blood rushing, the questions at the tip of my tongue.
I was going to demand answers from whoever came before me first. I was going to demand them, and I would not rest until someone explained this madness to me in detail.
But the door opened before I could get to it, and the maid who’d seen me to the room before was in front of me again, carrying a small bag, and a suede suit in a metal hanger.
“Where do you think you’re going in that?” she said, eyeing my black tunic and pants like she was disgusted.
“I…I….” I had no answer.
The door closed—this time with her inside.
By the time ten minutes had passed, the woman had me looking exactly like I wasn’t myself again.