Chapter 14
There was no way out.
I wasn’t the only one who’d tried to escape the morning before, it seemed. Russ had tested the Labyrinth’s protection magics, and Anika had tried a gate far in the back meant for the help to come and go when the preparations for the Turning Trials began.
Neither could make it past the invisible shield that seemed to spread all around that fence that marked the Labyrinth area.
They didn’t tell me this, of course. They only spoke about what they’d found during lunch, after Master Talik’s class for the day was finished.
No, no one looked at me or spoke to me, or even sat close to me—except for March.
He waited until everybody was seated, and then he claimed the empty chair I’d left (maybe for this reason only, maybe not) between myself and Mimi on the right of the long table.
There were two other free chairs as well, but March decided to sit there, just like I expected.
He really didn’t trust me, which was funny because I wasn’t the only one who’d tried to run away. And when Anika was telling them how she found the gate, I gave him a pointed look to say, see?
Of course, he ignored me completely, and instead made my cheeks flush by stopping those eyes a second too long on my lips.
I decided I wasn’t going to leave space for him to sit next to me again, at least when I could.
Regardless of his reasons for wanting to keep an eye on me—I was far too easily influenced by him.
I was far too easily made to lose my breath and to bring back the memories of being in his arms again, and that was dangerous.
The others spoke to him eagerly whenever he addressed them, and they threw me looks that clearly stated how they felt about me, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t trying to make friends here, anyway.
I was only trying to…
My thoughts paused as we strode behind Elida after lunch, down another hallway we hadn’t been to before, and another three flights of stairs.
I stayed a few feet behind while the others walked ahead.
They didn’t want my company, and I wasn’t about to force it on them, of course.
But my steps slowed down even more as my thoughts came to a halt all of a sudden, and my purpose, my goal just slipped between my fingers like the finest timesand.
I’d wanted to go home.
The only reason why I’d gotten dressed and had followed these people around was because I thought I wanted to figure out a way to get home.
Except March had already ruined that for me, hadn’t he?
You were just going to run away and let the curse sweep up all of our time, kill everyone in the realm because you can’t be bothered to care? Those had been his exact words—I remembered them all too clearly.
No, I didn’t want to kill everyone. I just wanted to go back home to my parents. To Jinx’s things. To the lake. To my friends.
But if I left without unwinning these trials, would I have a home to go back to, or parents, or Jinx’s things, or a lake, or friends?
What if the Great Clock didn’t start moving soon, and what if the trials never got unwon? Would it remain stuck, or would it go backward, or would it fall out of order like the Timekeepers had always claimed it would?
The end of the world. What a strange concept.
There is no end to time, and therefore there is no ending ever—that was the idea we grew up knowing—unless the Great Clock no longer kept our realm’s time in order. Unless it no longer ironed out the hours and the minutes and the seconds for us to use.
So, how was I going to try to find a way out of the Labyrinth, if walking away could potentially cause the end of the Clockrealm?
“Welcome to the training arena, Hands!”
Elida’s voice snuck in my ears and got my attention.
I blinked and realized that we had indeed made it to our destination.
We’d never come out of the palace like I thought we would when they said training arena, and the reason why was because the arena was half inside the palace building, and half under the open sky.
I stepped onto the stone platform, my mind clear of thoughts until I took in my surroundings.
It wasn’t grand or pristine like most things in the palace were, but it looked very…
functional. The floor was a patchwork of materials: sections of smooth stone, rough grit, and metal plates bolted together.
Pillars of varying heights held up the ceiling.
Some were wrapped in padded cloth for grappling while others gleamed with metal edges that looked deadly all on their own.
Steel beams crossed overhead, the early afternoon sunlight slipping in through the gaps they made, probably intentional. It made the arena feel both indoors and outdoors, trapped and exposed at the same time.
Walls of reinforced glass on three sides, and on the last, racks of weapons were arranged with eerie precision.
The blades gleamed, so polished they could be used as mirrors.
The scent of oil and chalk and blood was in the air, though faint, but the memories that jumped to the center of my mind blinded me for a second.
Those teeth and that grass, all the blood I’d been covered in.
I almost didn’t recognize you without all the blood.
The words popped into my head uninvited, just like the Cheshire had come to that forest. Hadn’t he said that he could only live backward, that glitches were his home since Time had cast him out for whatever reason?
So then how had he seen me covered in blood—something that supposedly happened in the forward, normal Turning Trials?
Or had I imagined the whole thing?
Little by little, it felt to me like my sanity was slipping through cracks in my skull. I was losing myself, my own memories, and I was currently a stranger to me just like all the other Hands. I knew me but I didn’t.
They knew me, too—or thought they did, and so when it came to picking partners for sparring, nobody wanted to pick me.
Mimi paired with Helen. Anika paired with Erith. Levana crossed her arms and turned her head away—which would translate to roughly: never-ever-reven will I go anywhere close to you.
Fair enough. I didn’t want to go close to her, either.
Elida said something to her, and they were arguing, it was plain to see, and March’s eyes were on me from the mats.
He was paired with Russ, and Cook was paired with Seth.
I refused to even look their way, and I refused to acknowledge Elida, who was trying to talk the other girls into pairing with me now, too.
Time’s Teeth, I couldn’t stand it.
So, before our trainer—whoever he was—came to find us, I went to the wall of weapons. They didn’t want to spar with me, and I didn’t want to spar with them. Perfectly fine. I was better on my own, anyhour.
Yet as I analyzed the weapons, and pretended I couldn’t hear Elida calling my name, there was an overwhelming need to cry until my eyes were too swollen to see the world anymore.
Of course, I didn’t give in to the silly urge. Instead, I chose two large knives with strange wide blades that were engraved with Vs and Is all around the edges for some reason. With them, I walked outside.
The arena opened into a wide training yard bordered by tall cedar trees.
The space had looked simple from the inside, but the longer I studied it, the more I noticed the structures designed for practice.
It was all mechanical, just like that garden on the other side, like if I stripped anything away, I’d find a mess of hidden gears underground, steaming as they worked.
A line of wooden posts stood at staggered distances near a narrow balance beam stretched between two sturdy poles, swaying slightly with the slow breeze.
A little farther off, hanging ropes and rings dangled from a crossbar constructed between two large trees.
Father had told me about them, about exercises to strengthen one’s grip, but I’d never actually seen one made exactly for it.
This must have been built by whoever designed the training programs for the queens’ soldiers, because it looked so sophisticated.
So…advanced. Not at all fit for someone with my level of skill.
Which was exactly why my heart was beating like a drum, and I’d already forgotten that there was someone in there, that someone could see me.
Jinx used to say that when our heart slams against our ribcage when we’re scared and excited, it’s actually an applause.
Our hearts are applauding us for our courage and urging us to keep moving—and for the first time, that’s what I thought about as I went farther and farther outside.
My heart was applauding for all this equipment I was going to try—and fail at, probably, at first.
The air smelled like pine and earth out here, which was infinitely better than oil.
It was oddly quiet, too, and every step I took was loud.
I was no longer on the brink of tears nor thinking about the why of it.
This was exactly what I’d needed: space and weapons and pieces of wood to fight against.
When I finally made it to the thick wooden posts with seven arms each that spun when you hit them, I chose that as my first exercise and got to work to sweat off every nightmarish memory that was stuck inside my head.
I didn’t hear her approaching, too busy fighting against pieces of wood, trying to do as much damage as I could, to release all this pent-up energy hidden under my skin.
But I saw her while I was spinning to land a hit on the edge of a wooden arm coming for me.
The posts were masterfully done. You hit a lever and it swung with its full strength to come at you from the other side.
It was kind of predictable at first, but when I started hitting all seven arms at once, it became chaotic within a minute.
My muscles were screaming and I was sweating from head to toe, but I felt great.
I felt a sense of normalcy, finally. I felt like I was at home—or at least in my own skin after a lifetime.