Chapter 39
The wraiths didn’t follow.
We ran back where we came from, made it all the way to the beginning—and the timewraiths just…disappeared. One second they were running after us, and the next they were just shadows.
“They’re gone,” Mimi whispered when we stopped—we were almost to the doorway that led to the cage. “They’re not following us anymore. They’re gone.”
“See? You woke them.”
A few people screamed as we jumped—could have been me as well. The voice was familiar now—it was Blue, the flower, but it still caught us all by surprise.
Eyes and mouths and teeth on the flowerheads of both of them, Blue and Yellow. They’d awoken again, and they were tsk-tsk-tsk-ing us as they shook their petaled heads.
I kept expecting them to not be there each time I blinked.
“You could have just told us, you know?” said Anika with her hands on her hips. “We would have been prepared!”
“We did tell you,” Yellow insisted, and though their voices were slightly strange, they were both undoubtedly female.
“We said to keep your mouths shut—you didn’t listen,” Blue insisted.
“Are they really timewraiths?”
“Who would bring actual timewraiths into a confined space like this to kill us?”
“Do they really not care about us at all?!”
“Hello?! Somebody must be seeing this—they have timewraiths in here with us!” This from Seth who was spinning around and looking about as he screamed, hoping the casters who projected this whole thing to the audience outside caught him.
But even if they did, they wouldn’t care. That two of the Hands were already dead proved it—nobody out there cared whether we lived or died.
“Guys, focus,” March said, and he was right beside me, but I’d been watching the shadows so intently I hadn’t even noticed.
“We can figure out another way,” said Mimi. “We can just go…another way.”
“Yes,” said Russ. “Let’s just avoid that dark tunnel and go another way.”
It seemed like a decent plan, and I’d have approved, but…
“Silly Hands,” Blue said, and Yellow sighed.
“So silly. You’d think they’d learned by now,” she said.
“Learned what?” Levana demanded.
“That you can’t go another way. There is only one way!” Blue said angrily.
“Which way is that, since you seem to have all the answers?” March asked, perfectly calm.
“Of course, we have all the answers. We’ve been here since creation,” said Yellow, and she turned her head the other way, and her petals moved so gracefully with her.
“So, help us, then,” Helen said, and she looked paler than most. “Just help us get through.”
“Why in the world would we do that?” Yellow shrieked.
“Because you’re flowers. You’re supposed to be good,” said Levana.
“I’m not supposed to be anything. I am simply me,” said Blue, and with her leaf arms, she actually pushed a few petals to the sides dramatically, like a person would do with their hair.
“So annoying,” Yellow said.
“They go on and on and on…”
“So, help us move on then. You won’t ever have to see us again,” I said, almost accidentally.
The flowers stopped. Looked at me.
“I suppose that would be a good reason,” Blue muttered.
“It is,” said Russ. “We’ll be out of your petals in no time.”
The flowers turned to one another, flowerhead to flowerhead. I still couldn’t get over the way they moved, the fact that they had eyes and mouths. Voices.
Time’s Teeth, they looked so real.
“All right, then. We’ll tell you how to unwin: you must go through the timewraiths,” Yellow finally said.
We waited a tick.
“That’s… that’s it?” asked Seth.
“You already told us that,” Levana hissed.
“Then you already know,” said Blue. “Go through the timewraiths and unmake the way that brought you up here, unplant what you planted, and all shall be fine.”
“What way?” someone asked, but the flowers were giggling.
They were giggling and waving their leaves as if in a secret gesture, and just before our eyes, their eyes and mouths faded. The sound of them remained only an echo in our heads as the others called for them, begged them to come back, not disappear. Talk to us—give us better advice.
But the flowerheads were just flowerheads within seconds, the flowers just flowers.
We were all alone—with timewraiths waiting in the shadows, that is.
“That’s it, I’m not moving from this place,” said Erith and sat down on the floor. “If they think they can get me to willingly give all my time to a wraith, they have another think coming.”
“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere near those things again,” said Russ, and he shivered visibly.
“But, guys, we have to,” said Mimi. “How else are we going to unwin?!”
“Let’s just wait for the flowers to come back. They’ll tell us more, I know it,” said Anika, but she was wrong, I thought. The flowers had told us plenty. Our way out was through the wraiths.
“A trap,” Cook said. “They’re timewraiths. We can set up a trap for them, lure them in another direction while we run.”
That was…not a bad idea, actually.
“How are we going to do that?” asked Helen, who really did look green in the face just now. I wondered if she was going to be sick with time here and throw up all over the floor.
“Our Life Clocks,” March said, pulling his from his suit pocket. “We can lure them with our Life Clocks. They’re full of magic.”
Holy Hour, he was absolutely right.
“Yes, that’s right,” Seth said, eyes wide and glazed over as the wheels and cogs in his head turned. “They’ll follow the magic like moths.”
“But how are we going to run without our Life Clocks?” Levana asked.
Silence for a tick.
The idea popped into my head like it had always been there, and it was just now coming to light.
“A cage.” Like the one that had brought us up here. Like the one that we’d had to jump off to even begin the trial. “We lure them and trap them in a cage.”
“And then we run,” Cook said with a nod.
For once, all of us seemed to be of the same mind. Nobody argued when we got to work, and we were all eager to spend the Sparetime in our Life Clocks first.
“We’ll gather half in a pile right there on the ground, while the rest work the cage around them,” said March. “But we’ll have to be fast.”
One after the other, the Hands were pulling their Life Clocks from their pockets. I did the same.
“I’ll give mine for bait,” some said.
“I’ll keep mine for the cage,” said others.
“There’s plenty of wood. All we have to do is find the right spot with enough branches and cords at our disposal,” said Seth. “Mimi and I could wrap them up easily.”
An image flashed in front of my eyes—of Reggie, on the ground, being wrapped in vines and roots, slowly choking to death.
Something echoed inside me.
“…and Ora.” March’s voice snapped me out of it. “We’ll stand by and wait with Seth and Mimi. The rest of you play bait.”
Before the minute was over, we were all spread out to search for the best place that offered easy access to branches and roots and cords to create a cage with—but we didn’t wander too far.
Russ found the perfect spot in no time, very close to the main trunk of the tree.
It had five branches that twisted downward just enough so it would be easy for us to manipulate them with magic, extend them, curve them down all the way.
Together with the cords and leaves spread about, we could trap the wraiths against the trunk long enough for us to escape.
It was a solid plan. I actually believed in it, believed it would work.
Levana, Russ, Anika, Erith, Helen, and Cook all put their Life Clocks on the floor and stepped back a couple feet. Mimi and Seth were testing the branches with their magic, a dark green against the wood.
March and I looked at each other for a second—we both knew what we needed to do next.
“Stay here and be prepared. We’ll bring them your way,” said March.
Not going to lie, it was a bit exciting.
I picked a piece of wood from the floor, as long as a bat and just as thick, just to have something to hold onto when I was face to face with the wraiths.
March did the same, tore a bunch right off the trunk as we went, and we both had our Life Clocks out.
Not that we’d need them—the wraiths would be onto us without them, for all the time inside our bodies, but still.
“Scared, Velvet?” he said when we were about ten feet away from the others.
I swallowed hard, licked my dry lips, held back a smile. “A little. But don’t worry, Heartling. I’ll still keep you safe,” I said, and it must have been the adrenaline, the way my heart was pounding in my chest with anticipation, because it sounded very unlike me.
I saw March’s grin through the corner of my eye just fine. “My hero,” he said, and though I wanted to smile, too, I didn’t let myself. I still hadn’t forgotten the morning before.
“You—” he started, but then we both saw the shadow against the tree just a few feet ahead.
We both stopped moving, breathing, blinking for a heartbeat.
Then March sang, “Who wants some delicious tiiime?!”
He must have been out of his damned mind.
Movement ahead. I gripped the piece of wood tighter and held my Life Clock by its chain higher.
“Come now, don’t be shy. I promise you full, juicy, mouth-watering seconds,” March continued.
“March!” I hissed because the wraiths had already seen us, and they were slowly slipping out of the shadows from behind branches and trunks.
“I’ll warn you, though—keep your fingers off her.” And he nodded at me. Grinned like there weren’t four timewraiths right there ahead of us. “She’s all mine, and I don’t share.”
Strange gears turned in my stomach. My blood was near a boiling point.
The wraiths growled, and the hair on my forearms stood to attention—while March waved them off. “I know, I know. I’m a selfish bastard. What can you do, right?”
I wanted to kiss the stupid grin off his face as much as I wanted to kick him for this.
All four wraiths charged us at the same time.
We ran—and we were faster than them. They were hungry, just like the flowers had said, but that only made them stumble the first few feet. Then, they were running just as fast as us—even faster.