Chapter 25
Blinking didn’t change the view in front of me.
The White Queen was alone in a big white room with floor to ceiling windows that looked out at the base of the tower of the Great Clock, and the city of Neverwhen beyond the Labyrinth’s fences.
She was holding a dish towel in her hand, and a cup in the other, and a lot more of them were lined on the white rack by her feet.
A lot more of everything was neatly placed on all the racks around the room, standing on wheels, reaching up to her hips only.
It made so little sense. As little sense as a talking cat, if not less.
The queen was in shock, too, to find us there, and it took her a good tick or two to come to her senses, to smile, raise her arms and say, “My little tickers—you found me!”
The others were already unfrozen, moving closer to her, all of them talking at the same time.
Clockbeasts; trials; tea party; Reggie; hourglasses; clocks; Reggie; tea party; clockbeasts—Reggie!
Those were the words that stuffed my ears over and over again as I stared from the doorway, until a hand pressed gently onto the small of my back and caused fireworks to explode all through my veins.
“Move, Velvet.”
I moved, put one foot in front of the other.
Tried to distract myself until I caught my breath again—with the things around us, the grand chandeliers full of crystals, the racks and racks and racks all over, on wheels, each with dishes on them, porcelain, glass, stone, even plastic. All of it was shiny, polished—white.
“See?” the White Queen’s voice rang in my ears. “Spotless!”
She was showing the others her teacup rimmed with silver that she must have been polishing, and she seemed awfully proud of it, too.
“But Your Excellency,” said Erith, her voice shaking. “Reggie is dead.”
Fire in the queen’s eyes, but it went off too soon to be sure it was real.
Outside the window, the sun was just unsetting, and the sky was a fiery orange, like it was mad.
“Yes, yes—most unfortunate!” the queen then said, and turned, put the cup onto the rack near her feet, then pushed it gently in line with the others—identical ones—against the white wall. “Poor ticker. He was so young.”
“But there must be something you can do,” Anika insisted. “He didn’t deserve to die. The game—”
“The game knows what it deserves and what it doesn’t,” the queen cut her off, and she fixed the layers of her long white dress, then adjusted the crystal crown on her head, and folded her hands slowly.
“Now.” She cleared her throat. “How is it that you found me? This is my free time, you know. Was it your warden? I was certain she didn’t know—”
“Ora,” Russ said. “Ora brought us here.”
The queen’s blue eyes settled on me. I swallowed hard, fisted my hands.
“I…I-I-I…” I hadn’t the slightest idea what to say, but every fiber in my being demanded that I kept the truth from them at all costs. No mentioning a talking cat. No mentioning anything.
“Well, little ticker? Speak—who told you to find me here?”
I could have sworn on anything that she was trying her best to keep her voice composed just now, and her eyes were spitting the same fire as the sky.
“Nobody.” Not the truth. “I heard talk in the garden about a room beyond the kitchen, and I was only curious to see what it was. I didn’t think you’d be here.” Truth. “Your Excellency.”
Did she believe me?
It didn’t look like it.
“It was luck, then. It was Time. We’ve been asking to see you since the last time we did,” Mimi said. “We were hoping you could tell us that Reggie was…okay.” Her voice broke.
“I’m sure he is, little ticker. They’re all very okay in the Everstill.” She giggled. “Or so I’m told.”
Mimi began to cry.
She hid her face behind her hands, and she was sobbing, shaking, mumbling incoherent words into her palms, and the White Queen flinched at the sight.
“Oh, dear—is she all right?” she whispered, while Seth and Anika grabbed Mimi by the shoulders and moved her farther back, tried to console her.
“Anyhour, tickers—as you can see, I am quite busy in my free time. I have to go over all these cups before the sun returns to the sky again. Off you go!” she sang, and the others watched her like she’d grown an extra head on her shoulders.
“Busy with what? Everything in here is already spotless.” I looked down at the floor, the shiny white tiles. “Not a speck of dust exists in this room.” She looked at me, not kindly. “Your Excellency.”
“We unwon the games,” Levana told her. “And-and the Red Queen—”
“What about the Red Queen?” the queen asked, and maybe it was just me, but her voice was sharp as a knife just now.
“We…we saw her,” Levana said. “We dreamed about her. All of us.”
“She did something,” Seth said reluctantly.
“Something?” She chirped the word like a bird.
“Yes, something. We don’t know what.”
Something stinks like rotten seconds, said the voice in my head.
The White Queen sighed, brought her hands together.
“I’ll speak to my sister, I promise,” she said.
“The something was most likely nothing but a dream, I’m sure.
” She batted her long white lashes at us.
“The Red Queen sometimes has an ill temper, true, but she’s very kind at heart, I assure you. I’ll look into it myself!”
Would she, really?
I doubted it. Very, very much—and I didn’t even know why.
The others looked at one another, confused. Some relieved. Only March was as suspicious as me.
“We still want to talk to you about what we did, and what’s coming, and if what we’re doing is affecting the Great Clock at all! You see, it is still stuck.” Levana pointed her finger ahead to the windows where we could just see the walls of the tower.
“It certainly is. You unwon—as you should. I am very happy, indeed,” the queen said, pressing her hands to her chest next. “You don’t need me at all. You’re doing just fine on your own.”
Were we, though?
Yes, we unwon the trials, but barely, and without any clue what we were doing.
And most importantly—a Hand was dead.
“Is there nobody who remembers then?” I asked, but right now I didn’t seem to mind this habit of speaking what was on my mind without thinking it through thoroughly first.
The White Queen stopped, that bitter smile on her face still, like that might be her default setting.
“Is there nobody—no Timekeeper, no child who remembers the trials? We’re going in there blind, and apparently, losing our lives is very possible. If it happened to Reggie”—at the mentioning of the name, Mimi sobbed harder from the side—“it can happen to all of us.”
“Correct,” the White Queen said, and she wasn’t moving her arms to the sides like usual, I noticed. “Anything can happen in the Labyrinth. It doesn’t even have to be in the trial—accidents happen all the time.”
A threat, said a deep voice in my head.
A warning, said another.
A simple fact, said that of the Cheshire Cat.
“But you are very brave young tickers, and even though nobody in all the Clockrealm remembers the winning of the trials, I have faith that everyone will remember the unwinning of them.”
Nobody remembers.
How could nobody remember something that had happened? Something so many people had seen?
“But if—” Russ started, but the queen cut him off.
“And you are absolutely right—I do want to hear all about the fourth and third trial. How about we discuss it over dinner?”
“Yes, yes, I’d love to join you!”
“Yes, of course—completely my pleasure, dearest tickers!”
Little by little, the queen rushed us out of the room beyond the kitchen, and into the eating hall that was still being set.
My mind was chaotic. I was made to sit down at the table, in the same place where I always sat, with Cook on one side and March on the other.
The White Queen sat at the head, and she listened intently to the others while they told her about all we’d had to do to unwin the trials, and every new time she looked at me, I felt more and more exposed.
The more she heard about me, the longer her looks lasted, the more I wanted to beg the Hands not to mention my name to her at all.
Of course, I didn’t.
My instincts were very clear since the moment I sat at that table: say as little as possible to the White Queen—and do not, under any circumstances, mention the Cheshire Cat or Silas.
Mimi was no longer crying. During dinner, the queen had spoken to her in a soft voice and touched her hand, had told her that Reggie would forever be remembered as a hero—and she seemed to like that. It was easier for her to accept his death when she thought of him as a hero.
By the time we made our way back to our rooms to change, she was even smiling.
So many things on my mind still, and the load hadn’t lessened. In fact, I was looking forward to being alone so I could try to think clearly, to put order to the madness, to understand even a little bit of what was truly happening around me.
But before I could reach for the handle of my bedroom door, a grinning Seth stepped in front of me.
He had soft brown hair and light amber eyes that sparkled just now, the shadow of a stubble over his smooth cheeks, and a chin squarer than I’d ever seen. He was just a bit taller than me, possibly a couple inches, but he did manage to look down at me just fine.
“Hey, remember when I took you to the kitchen?”
I stopped. “Yes?”
“And I told you I’d have a favor to ask?”
I did remember that part as well. “I—”
“Don’t you dare, Seth—I was going to ask her first!”
Suddenly Mimi was at our side, in her pajama gown still, her fists on her hips as she looked at him—and she was taller than the both of us, so she looked down at him with ease.
“Ask me about what?” I wondered because I almost knew in the back of my head what they were saying, but…
“She was mine before,” Mimi told Seth, ignoring me completely as her foot tapped furiously against the floor.
“You don’t know that!” Seth said.
“I am a hundred percent, almost twelve-hours certain that she traded rooms with me back then,” said Mimi.
“Well, we’re not back then anymore, are we? We’re back now.” Seth cleared his throat and turned to me. “Ora, since I already did you that favor, will you do me the honor of switching rooms with me?” He leaned closer. “I need to move, or I wouldn’t have asked.” And he winked.
“Oh.” I knew this, didn’t I? Lida had even said something about switching rooms with the Clubs before.
I wondered, had Reggie done it, too?
“You are such a lazy minute—argh!” Mimi shouted as she strode down the hallway, clearly angry.
“I think I’ll just give her the room—” I said, because whatever seemed to happen in me when I saw people crying, it lingered, and the way Mimi had sobbed in the room beyond the kitchen, it still echoed in my head.
Awfully irritating. I’d rather make it stop.
But Seth said, “No. I need the first room. I need it, Ora. Please. I will do anything.”
That was not what I expected. “Uh…yeah. No, sure. No problem.” What in Time’s Teeth was I supposed to do when people spoke to me like that?
He said please. He said I will do anything.
I wanted to be far away from here now.
“Hey, Mim!”
March’s voice came from right behind me.
Mimi, who was about to enter her room, still cursing, stopped, looked, shouted, “What?!”
“I’ll trade rooms with you,” March said.
And where was Mimi’s room, you ask?
Right next to Seth’s.
My cheeks flushed.
“You stay here, and you pack your things, okay? I’ll bring mine, and I’ll take yours to your new room. Stay here,” Seth said, so excited you’d think I promised him the world, and then Mimi screamed with her fists in the air, too, this time in happiness.
“Don’t you move a single thing! I’ll do all the carrying!” she shouted, then slammed her door shut in a rush.
March stopped right next to me, arms crossed, a small smile on the corner of his lips. “What a coincidence. We’ll be right next door from now on.”
I pulled my lips inside my mouth so as to not smile—others were still in the hallway, looking—and I slipped inside my room without a word.