Chapter 14 #2
Then the woman raised a hand and waved to tell me to stop.
I stepped back, breathing hard, and wiped the sweat from my brow. The sun was especially hot as it moved east, preparing to unrise in a few hours. Plenty of light to see the woman—and to know that I’d never seen her before.
Short black hair—easily a Club—clear brown eyes, a pointy chin, and a body made up mostly of pure muscle.
She wore a black tank top, which you didn’t see people wearing outside often around here, and it showed the curves of her biceps perfectly.
It was tight enough that I literally saw her abs through the fabric, even though she was standing with her arms crossed, a leather holster around her hips full of knives and throwing stars and all kinds of small weapons.
“Who are you?” I asked when I was able to catch my breath. I was so thirsty I could drink an entire river of time.
“Asha Fordes,” the woman said. “I’m supposed to be your trainer.”
Oh.
I looked behind her, inside the arena, to the others. They had all stopped, too, and they were looking at us. Elida was standing to the side with two other men, and the rest of the Hands were just…watching.
Luckily, they were too far away to see my face.
“I’m Ora,” I said as my breathing returned to normal.
“I know who you are, Ora.” She raised her brows and nodded at the pieces of wood I’d picked apart. A couple were still spinning around slowly, as if hoping someone would attack and set them in full motion again. I was tempted, but the way the woman was looking at me…
“You’re good, I’ll give you that. But you’re out here fighting dummies, and the other Hands are in there.” She pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. “You’re not going to unwin anything with that attitude, I’m afraid.”
My jaw nearly touched the ground. “None of them wanted to spar with me.” Easier to admit that than to say I didn’t want to spar with any of them.
“And you should have waited for me to arrive,” Asha said even before I’d finished speaking.
“Nobody told me—”
“I’m telling you now. Tomorrow, you wait for me when you get here. For today—dismissed.” She turned around and walked inside the arena, leaving me standing there like a fool with my mouth wide open, thinking, what in Time’s Temper was that?!
They behaved like I was a disease-ridden creature at breakfast. The sun wouldn’t unrise for another couple hours, and I was exhausted.
I’d lain down on the bed for a little while after showering, but my stomach’s protesting had forced me to get out of the room soon.
I’d spent a lot of energy, and though it had felt great, I needed food before I collapsed.
So, I went to the eating hall, hoping to find it empty. It wasn’t. Most of the Hands were already there, except Mimi, March, and Cook.
I itched to get out and go find a kitchen somewhere—they had to make all this food in a kitchen. But I smelled the vegetables and the scent of grilled meat, and there was no way I could wait a moment longer.
I sucked it up, kept my chin up, and I went and sat at the end of the table alone.
They whispered my name.
They laughed at me under their breaths.
They openly looked at me—until I looked at them, and then they pretended they were busy with the food on their plates. It was so damn obvious it pissed me off.
That’s why—and only after I finished my food, I said, “If you’re trying to mock me or humiliate me, you should have the balls to do it to my face.”
I stood up, and it was evident that I’d caught them by surprise. Easy to see in the way their mouths fell open.
“But just so you know, I still won’t care,” I said with all the bitterness of the realm coating my tongue as I walked around the table. “Cowards,” I spit lastly, and for whatever fucked up reason, I felt worse afterward. Not better—worse.
Somebody laughed. Somebody said something I didn’t hear, but I didn’t let myself turn. I didn’t want to pick a fight with another Hand—for Time’s sake, we were all in the same position here, weren’t we?
“You.”
I stopped. Blinked. Realized I hadn’t been seeing where I was going at all, so consumed with all those bad feelings, with all the contradictions in my head.
Mimi had been walking toward me—and she was wearing pajamas again.
Not the gown she had on the morning before, but a green pair that matched her eyes.
My mouth opened to say something, but I had no idea what.
“I know you.” Mimi stopped in front of me and leaned her head to the side as she analyzed my face.
“Well, yes, I’m—” Ora, one of the Hands, I wanted to say, but she didn’t let me.
“I liked you,” she whispered. “Before.”
My stomach twisted like the gears in me were suddenly malfunctioning. “You remember?”
Mimi closed her eyes, but I could see she was moving them underneath—one side, then the other. Fast.
Now that I thought about it, she didn’t really look so well. Her face was covered in a layer of sweat, I noticed, and her hands at her sides were shaking.
I wasn’t sure whether to run back to the eating hall to call for someone. She really did look like she was about to collapse any second, but… “Mimi,” I said instead.
Because I had to know. Because if she remembered, then that would mean there was a chance. Somehow, there was a chance that I would remember, too.
Her lips moved but she didn’t open her eyes. Under her lids, they moved still from side to side at a dizzying speed. Then her voice came—“Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock,” she was whispering.
The feeling of dread returned full force. I stepped closer, touched her shoulder— “Mimi, can you hear me?”
A sharp intake of breath, and her eyes opened. I was more terrified than if I’d had five clockbeasts fighting for the right to eat me right now. I’d even moved back a couple steps without realizing it.
“I remember the queen,” Mimi whispered, and she suddenly looked afraid, too, turned to look down the hallway as if she was expecting to find someone there. It was empty. “Do you remember?” she then asked me.
“The White Queen? Yes, I remember her.” She’d been sitting at the head of the table when we woke up.
But Mimi shook her head, pulled the sleeves of her pajama top all the way down her fingers, wrapped the fabric around them as if she suddenly couldn’t bear to leave her hands out in the open.
“The Red Queen,” Mimi whispered.
“The Red Queen?” We hadn’t seen the Red Queen at all, except that time when we were entering the forest for the trial. She’d been in her box with the audience, but we hadn’t actually seen her face. She’d been too far away.
But Mimi nodded anyway, and she leaned in closer to me, and I couldn’t move away if I tried. “She did something,” Mimi said under her breath.
“Something…like what?”
She leaned back, released the sleeves from her fists.
“I need to eat,” she said, and her voice sounded completely different this time.
In fact, she looked perfectly fine as she walked around me and up the hallway, toward the open doors of the eating hall on the other side. Changed, just like that, from one second to the next.
Meanwhile, I stared after her, speechless for a good long while, wondering whether this game had fried Mimi’s mind for good. Wondering if it was going to do the same to all of us.
Then I continued down the hallway.