Chapter 37
Adream, I told myself. It had been a dream.
When I fell asleep in March’s arms, when my eyes opened throughout the night to find him sitting at the edge of the bed with my sketchbook on his lap, going over the pages; then when I found him standing in front of my open wardrobe, going through my clothes; and when he paced around the room, shirtless, with the heartlock in his hand, looking at it intently.
It must have been a dream.
It had to be—otherwise, I didn’t know what to think. That he’d put me to sleep, had done all of that, had said all of that, only because he wanted to snoop around my room and search for…what exactly? What had he been looking for?
Time’s Teeth, I was going to be sick.
I risked a glance to the side, to where March stood in line with the rest of the Hands in front of the palace doors, but his eyes were ahead. His hands were fisted, his jaws clenched.
Why did you search my room while I slept?
I’d been too tired, too confused, too disoriented to wake up, I figured. When my eyes had opened and I’d caught glimpses of him like that, part of me had felt it was…normal. Nothing to worry about. Nothing unusual.
Which unfortunately meant I couldn’t trust my own self anymore, at least not around March.
He still refused to look at me since we’d been called by Elida to come out of our rooms. Dinner had been brought to our rooms, so we all ate alone.
Lida had come to help me put on the brand-new suit she insisted was only washed, and then we were outside.
All of us, terrified, wide-eyed, on the verge of tears.
Well, most of us, I’d say. March just looked his usual, pissed off self.
Then Elida waved at us from where she was standing a few feet outside, speaking to the two soldiers who’d come from the right side of the palace.
“Come, come! They’re ready!”
It was dark outside, the night old, waiting to return to day again. My Life Clock said it was just after eight m.b. The trial was about to start soon, and none of us had a clue what it would be.
Still, we walked.
We couldn’t stop it if we tried. I did try—simply to stand back and not move for a moment, but my feet did anyway.
As if there were magnets underneath the ground, and they were pushing us to move regardless of what we wanted.
The message was clear, as it had been since the first trial.
We were going to be part of these games whether we wanted to or not. That was already decided.
But this time, Elida didn’t take us to the arena. This time we weren’t surrounded by tiered seats full of people screaming and cheering, and projectors showing the symbols of each court, and the glass box where the queens sat to watch the trials, isolated.
No—this time they took us to a forest, which would have been just at the other side of the floor of the Backward Banquet from the night before, except the white and red tiles were now gone.
Disappeared as if they’d never been there before, and now I really wanted to know exactly what I’d find if I were to peel off the ground of the Labyrinth.
How could one make such a massive thing disappear?
But the better question might be, how could one make such massive things appear out of thin air, because the forest ended with a large tower that was built around an even larger tree—or maybe it was the other way around?
People all around us, but there were red and white velvet ropes everywhere so that they stayed a good distance back into the trees.
Meanwhile we were just outside the last row, looking up at the monstrous structure, half tower and half gigantic tree, possibly higher than we had been the day before at the banquet.
This hadn’t been here before, that much was certain.
My bedroom windows looked out on this side of the Labyrinth, and this hadn’t been standing here the day before.
I hadn’t checked when I woke up tonight, but now here it was.
Dark and menacing and with fire burning here and there, lanterns, torches, magic trapped in glass balls.
The branches, the large leaves were indeed monstrous.
Trees did not grow this big. They didn’t grow into half towers made of gray bricks, either. It was like two halves had merged, the tower and the tree, and it just looked plain wrong. Unnatural.
My stomach twisted harder. Was this where I was going to finally get sick from Time?
Lida said it wouldn’t happen.
Lida also refused to answer me when I asked her if she really didn’t remember me from before.
I did not trust her.
And I did not trust that I’d dreamed the night before. I did not trust March, and I most definitely did not trust my body.
Yet that didn’t stop anything from happening.
I was still standing there with all the others, dressed in white suede, boots on my feet, no weapons or toolkits on my person this time.
Questions kept adding up, never lessening, and there was so much to say but no real way of saying it.
No real way that would make any sense, that is.
Then the speaker made us all jump in place.
“Hear, hear—welcome to the second Turning Trial, which just so happens to be the third in these backward times. Welcome, welcome, Your High Timenesses, our dearest ladies and gentlemen, and our favorite Hands!”
We turned on instinct, trying to see where the voice was coming from, but whoever spoke at the trials still remained hidden. The speakers must have been planted everywhere in the trees around us because the voice was coming from all directions again.
The people behind the velvet ropes and the guards burst into applause. Cheered. Called our names.
They knew mine, too. To hear it being screamed like that from those strangers made me want to throw up extra hard.
“I know, I know. We’ve watched the sun unrise three times, waiting for this, but the wait is over. In a minute, our brave Hands will begin, and we the lucky spectators will watch everywhere from our casters, into the projections on the other side of this forest.”
Don’t panic, I told myself, but I was. I was panicking, and looking at the others didn’t help at all, because they were all panicking, too. Looking about. Asking for help with their wide eyes.
Nobody was coming, though. We knew this. It was the third time we’d been in this position—nobody was coming to save us. Our only way out of this, once more, was through.
“Before you stands the Tree of Years, a vertical maze made by the Labyrinth’s most hardworking allies with love and dedication.
Now, we may not remember this, but you have been in this maze before, and you’ve climbed your way to the very top,” the speaker continued.
“Each of these branches remembers, I would say. All the choices you made, all the paths you didn’t take, all those you ruined—it remembers, so climb carefully. ”
He paused again, like he wanted to allow his words a second to sink in.
“Before, you made it to the top. Today, you will begin at the crown of the Tree of Years, and to unwin, you must descend.”
A vertical maze—how strange. The Tree of Years looked menacing all on its own, and the tower hugging its side made it even darker.
“Choose where to step, and choose what to abandon,” the speaker said. “And most importantly—make sure to fall carefully.”
Another round of applause.
My name was being called again. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and looked at the others one more time, then around.
The queens weren’t there that we could see, though the speaker had addressed them.
They would be on the other side of the forest, most probably, watching the projections.
I had the feeling it was because the White Queen didn’t want us to see her, ask her questions.
Unless she’d spoken to the Red Queen about our dreams, and she’d decided not to be seen near us…
Elida stood alone at the beginning of the row, near Russ, smiling forcefully, giving us her thumbs up as if she were hoping to calm us down.
Then a loud bell rang somewhere at the very top of the Tree of Years.
“Gather up, brave Hands! We’re going up-up-up!” the speaker shouted, and the crowd lost their minds screaming, and Elida waved for us to move toward the structure—the vertical maze that we had to descend.
Sweat on my brow. Soldiers around us. Nobody offered us any weapons, only rushed us to the side of the tree where there was a hole the size of a monster’s mouth. We had to enter it, and it was just at the edge where the blocks of the tower began.
The inside was darker than it had been out there, even though the walls of the round hall were full of torches and lanterns. There was no ceiling, like the tower went on forever, and in the middle of it extended a single chain as thick as the width of my hips.
It was attached to the top of a cage in the middle of the room.
“There—quick! Get in there. You’ll be up in no time,” Elida said, while four soldiers wearing silver armor went to pull the bars on the side of the cage open. They looked heavy, judging by how hard they strained and how much they flinched, but the cage opened.
A cage with bars as thick as my arms, barely big enough to fit us all in.
“Keep your eyes about you. Keep your focus sharp. Remember what we learned, okay? Remember your training,” Elida said, standing right there by the opening as if she couldn’t wait to get out already.
Her eyes were wide and her face slick with sweat.
Her smile would have scared me any other day, but I was scared enough already. Terrified.
Our legs moved. We had no choice but to step into the cage. Mimi’s eyes were full of tears. Helen’s hands were shaking so badly she kept trying to pull her very fingers off.
The soldiers pushed the bars closed and the sound of it when they fell in place was so final. So horrific.
Someone screamed.
“See you on the other side!” Elida called and slipped outside without hesitation.
The soldiers nodded their heads at us once, then followed.