Chapter 21 #3
March shrugged, pulling up a larger piece of glass cut almost into a perfect triangle and brushing the timesand off the surface with his fingertips.
“I’m not trying to hide anything.”
It was infuriating how calm he was. How genuine.
I decided to let it go, anyway, and reached for a piece of glass on the floor again—we’d be much faster if we both worked.
Except March was not playing around. He seized my wrist yet again, and I’d have had something to say to that, except the moment our skins touched, something inside my mind cracked.
Maybe not cracked but was set free.
Suddenly I was not in the arena of the Labyrinth anymore but in a kitchen.
White and red tiles. White and red cupboards.
The blood was just red, though.
I heard the muffled screams. I felt myself moving, though I wasn’t. Through eyes that weren’t mine I saw a whole different world, and the silhouette of a man taller than me getting closer and closer—except he wasn’t coming to me. I was going to him.
Arms raised—my arms.
March’s arms.
A second later, another scream sounded, and a knife buried in flesh, and the pain that shot from my forearm paralyzed every inch of my body momentarily.
March’s body.
Blood dripped, warm and smooth. Someone roared. My focus was on the blade of that kitchen knife that had cut through my forearm and come all the way to the other side.
March’s—March’s—March’s forearm.
Then I was spit out right into the arena, and I was kneeling on black tiles again, watching him watch me with those wide eyes, his hand still around my wrist.
“What?” he asked, confused.
I had yet to take a breath.
March let go of me, the amusement faded from his eyes, replaced by raw suspicion. Concern.
For me.
“Nothing,” I managed to whisper and dragged myself back a little. “Go ahead.”
Please, please, stop looking at me.
“Are you okay?” Another thing cracked inside me—this one a definite crack, without a doubt.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Carry on, I’ll watch.”
The concern grew. The suspicion grew, and I saw it as if I’d spent years measuring it in a different life.
But March returned to collecting the pieces of glass, and I returned to trying to breathe without being too loud.
To trying to see March’s left forearm while I touched mine, like the pain had really belonged to me.
I felt it pulsating underneath my skin still.
But the white suits they’d given us had long sleeves, and I couldn’t see March’s arm at all.
I could only hope that that flash, that knife, that blood hadn’t been a memory, but just a figment of my imagination somehow.
Nobody had stabbed him in a red and white kitchen when he’d raised his arm to protect himself—or someone else. Nobody.
“There,” March said after a while. “This is it. I think this is all the glass of the bulb.”
Time’s Teeth, I had never been more thankful for a distraction.
We looked up at the platform, at half the bulb that still remained inside. I stood up, shaking my numb legs, but I didn’t mind the sensation. The pieces of glass were all there, and so was the sand, spread all around the base of the platform.
“I’m going to transport the timesand in first, trap it. Then I’ll mend the glass,” I said absentmindedly.
From behind me, March said, “I’ll be here to catch you if something goes wrong, Velvet.”
I didn’t allow myself to reply at all. I just pulled out my Life Clock from the suit pocket, and I called for the minutes it contained.
This time, I was so flustered, so panicked underneath the pretending that I didn’t even consider that the magic wouldn’t work. This was new to me, so new. Doing magic was as foreign to me as these Hands, but I just went for it. Closed my eyes and reached for that warmth that buzzed in my chest.
It came—even easier than before, like I’d definitely done this way more times than just two.
Purple smoke slipped out of my hands.
I’d never transported anything before—that I remembered—but I was pretty sure sand would be more difficult. It didn’t work as one body, but a million small grains, and the magic had to stick to each one, pick it up and move it at the same speed, in the same direction.
Still, it worked. It took a long time, much longer than normal, I guessed, and by the time half the sand was inside the broken bulb, my forehead was lined with beads of sweat.
When it was all done, I had to keep half my focus to not let it fall out again, until the glass was repaired and trapped it in.
Meanwhile, March was on his knees on the floor, and he’d rearranged all the bigger pieces of glass into the shape of the missing bulb, and he had his Life Clock out, too.
“March,” I warned because we had a deal. I was going to do the magic for this.
He looked up at me, an easy smile on his face, and said, “I like glass, remember?” He spread his hands out over the broken pieces. “Besides, you already did the hard part.” And his magic released into the air.
Red flashed under his palms, and the pieces of glass began to vibrate. I still had to keep half my focus on not letting the sand pour out of the broken bulb, but I was in awe of how quickly the glass was melting right there on the floor, and then merging together, piece by little piece.
It took March all of twenty seconds to harden the melted glass into a single piece again. It still glowed a little red when he grabbed it and came closer, placed it where the lower bulb was broken. It was identical in shape.
“Keep holding,” he told me, as he worked the broken piece into place, all the jagged lines at the top, and the smooth curve at the bottom.
The timesand was still wrapped in faded purple smoke. I held on tight as March’s magic vibrated between the piece of glass he’d mended and the rest of the bulb, melting them together, then hardening them again.
He stepped back. The red faded. “You can let go now.”
I did. The timesand stayed put, and it had only cost me six minutes off my Life Clock.
The bulb was restored. The hour was full again.