Chapter 43
We would no longer have classes with Master Talik, apparently. When Elida came to find us the next day, she was sweating, and it was so easy to see the discomfort she was in, I didn’t have the heart to even mention Calren to her. Neither did the others.
Besides, we all knew by then that Elida was not a decision-maker of any kind. She was only doing her job.
Then again, so was Calren, and so were we…before.
But she didn’t take us to the workshop of Master Talik this time.
She said that, for the final two days of the backward trials, we were going to be listening to lectures on all courts by Miss Ren, a retired Diamond coordination officer, and lectures on timekeeping by Lefa James, not-a-royal Timekeeper, Elida specified.
The first (second?) parts of the day would be reserved for Asha in the arena, though she would be the one to tell us what we’d be working on the remaining two days.
To think that I wouldn’t be seeing Master Talik again was… strange. There had been something about that old man, something… just there, yet I couldn’t really place it.
Hadn’t there been something I’d wanted to talk to him about, I wondered? Hadn’t there been something?
I couldn’t remember for the Time in me.
Miss Ren was a round-faced woman with dark hair that fell in gorgeous waves all the way down to her hips.
She wore a silver dress with a red and white rose just over her heart, and she smiled, too, like her life depended on it.
Like she was sure that we were going to see right through her if she didn’t smile like she was about to melt into a pile of goo.
I thought it would be interesting to hear her lectures at first. We all learned at home about courts, but we learned about our courts, our ways, our traditions.
We only touched on the other courts superficially.
I thought I’d want to know more about Hearts and Clubs and Diamonds, especially about the harvesting process of Sparetime.
I’d always been interested in that, except the moment Miss Ren started to speak, my mind drifted away.
I wasn’t one to not pay attention in class, not until today.
But there was just something about…something.
The others were the same. We were all very confused, all looking ahead, sometimes at Miss Ren, sometimes out the window of the classroom they put us in, never listening.
The sun shone outside. The sky was blue.
Time continued to move backward. And I continued to feel more and more like myself, but also less. In a way, much less.
The lecture ended, and when we walked out of the class, I found I hardly remembered the woman’s name, let alone her lecture. But we had a break for an hour before lunch, and I planned to get myself together until then.
“I didn’t know.”
I was walking together with the others back to our dorm to freshen up. Nobody had really spoken to one another since we met Calren. Nobody had much to say that could be said freely, without fear of being heard or without bursting into tears.
It was Levana who’d spoken to me this time, though. Which surprised me.
“I was mean because I didn’t know what you had to give up,” she told me, and my jaw almost touched the floor.
I looked at her profile, her pixie nose and full cheeks. She was absolutely stunning—and she was actually apologizing to me for treating me the way she did…before. In her own way, at least.
Warmth slipped under my skin. “I know. Me neither,” I said. I’d had no idea that I’d had to give up compassion in the forward trials, and that she and the others had had to do the same.
We were all in this together.
With a nod, Levana looked at me only once before she hurried up the stairs, and by the time I made it to our hallway, she was already in her room.
March was by his door, too, and he waited for me, watched me pass him by, open my door, as if he wanted to make sure that I made it inside safely. I looked at him, too, from the doorway. Said with my eyes what I couldn’t bring myself to say with my mouth.
Things were complicated.
Things were so damn complicated, and I already couldn’t wait for this to be over so I could be free.
March went inside.
I did the same and locked the door behind me.
When we met for lunch in the eating hall, the others were just as irritated as I was. Resting was out of the question—it was our minds that were buzzing with thoughts. With things that didn’t make sense.
With lies.
“So, far as I can gather,” Russ said when we were halfway through lunch, “The people here remember what happened in the real Turning Trials, and we don’t.”
“And Silas never meant to cast a curse to destroy the whole realm,” said Cook.
“And we were made to forget because… who even knows,” Anika whispered.
“That’s if we want to believe a guy who is so out of sync he writes different things with both hands at once,” Seth said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly believe that he’s well in the head. His gears are all screwed up.” And he tapped his temple.
Tempting. It was tempting to believe what he said, simply because it would make things a whole lot easier.
“We should talk to the queens,” said Mimi, and at least three of us said no automatically, at the same time.
“That’s not a good idea. They are obviously one of the people who are hiding things from us. Lying to us,” March said.
“Then who?” asked Russ.
“Nobody. We don’t speak to anybody,” said Erith. “You heard Calren. As soon as we do what they want us to do and unwin the last trial, they’ll let us go. We’ll be free. He said so himself.”
Also tempting to believe, except…I didn’t.
Or rather, I didn’t think that’s what Calren meant when he said you’ll be free.
“What if we die?” Anika said in half a voice.
The rest of us looked at our plates, shivered visibly.
“Nobody’s going to die. It’s the last trial. We’ll make sure to keep each other safe,” March said, his voice thick with something heavy.
I looked at his profile where he sat near me, and my heart squeezed. I missed him. My body craved him. I wondered if he would be outside his window when we went back to our rooms.
I wondered if he maybe would come sit outside my door tonight.
The memories of him were there, though very… hazy right now, but they made this need I had for him grow all over me, under my skin, in an instant.
Holy Hour, how I craved him.
“What other choice do we have?” Seth whispered. “We can’t leave. We can’t not play in the trial.”
“But we can make sure we survive,” I said before I could help myself.
I knew now where this habit of speaking my mind had come from all along—it was me.
Just me, nothing missing, nothing added.
I thought and I spoke—normally. As I always had.
There was nothing particularly wrong with me, just who I was.
However, realizing that didn’t make me feel any better like I’d hoped.
“We survive,” the others said, nodding their heads reluctantly.
“And when the last trial is unwon, and we’re free to walk out of this fucking place, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find out the truth. We won’t stop until we find it,” Mimi said, her voice shaking, her eyes full of unshed tears.
It hurt to see her like that. I knew she was suffering. We all were.
“Yes, we will.” Anika raised her glass half filled with juice. “As soon as we’re out there, we’ll find out the truth.”
The others raised their glasses, too.
So did March. So did I.
“To freedom,” Seth said, and we drank our freshly squeezed juices together.
It was the last toast we ever made.
The Timekeeper who taught us about timekeeping and clockmaking did not smile. I found it oddly comforting.
We were in the same classroom where Miss Ren had talked to us about courts, and Lefa James had a notebook in her hands she read from, and she didn’t once look up at us when she began.
She recited the lessons she’d written on her notebook, and she didn’t care much about questions or anything else—only breathing, and reading.
Asha thought it a good use of our time to run laps all around the arena for a whole hour, then climb up and down ropes with our hands covered in chalk for another.
She hardly even looked at us—she knew we were way past these things.
We’d already gone through much harder training, albeit only for days at a time.
It’s the program, she said, and that was that.
When we were excused, Elida was gone, not in her usual spot by the door to wait for us, and we were all relieved about it.
Looking at her face made me think about Calren, and thinking about Calren never failed to give me a headache because I was constantly trying to make sense out of his words and couldn’t.
The others were right. We were bound to get out of here eventually.
Only one trial left to unwin and then the Labyrinth would have no reason to keep us locked in here anymore.
We’d find out the truth. For all we knew, the memories would return to us all on their own once whatever magic had hold of us let go.
Choosing to believe that gave me hope—and filled me with anxiety at the same time, because what if?
Hours later, sleeping was out of the question.
I waited, sitting in the middle of my bed with my arms wrapped around my legs, thinking about one something and two somethings and all the somethings I couldn’t really name.
My mind had become such a curious thing, and the voice inside my head wasn’t mine. It was male, and it was…different. Not like a person’s, and I couldn’t even figure it out. It kept speaking to me in riddles that I couldn’t even begin to understand as I waited and waited and—
A knock on the door.
My heart jumped.
My very soul left my body, then slipped under my skin again. March was here.
I ran this time. I didn’t hesitate this time. I wasn’t going to make him sit down outside at all—I unlocked the door and pulled it open, and I prepared to jump in his arms while figuring out how to breathe at the same time, but…
It was Mimi.
She wore pajamas. It was early still. The sun had begun to unrise outside already, and the sky was getting darker, but I still had my tunic on. Hadn’t had the will to change and get comfortable.
Mimi had. She’d changed into her pajamas, but she most definitely did not look comfortable. In fact, her eyes were still full of tears as they had been during the day, and her hands were shaking, and her dark hair was loose and wild around her head.
“Mimi.” Her name could have been a question leaving my lips.
“Tell me the truth, Ora,” she said. “Did we…did we meet by the grandfather clock on the ground floor? There, at the junction. Did you see me there before?” She stepped over my threshold. “Tell me, Ora, was I there?”
“Time’s Teeth, Mimi, you—”
The words were right there.
No—the words should have been right there. They should have existed inside me, should have sprung from my lips, because I knew what I was going to say, didn’t I? It felt like I knew, like I should have known, like I should have spoken.
“I…I…”
That’s it. I-I—that’s all I could say.
Because I didn’t really know if we met anywhere. I didn’t really know where Mimi had been.
I should have, but I didn’t.
I didn’t know.
Big tears slid down her dark cheeks like crystals, catching the light from my room. My heart broke into a million pieces.
“Mimi,” I said again, but her name wasn’t a question now. It was a pleading.
Please, please, please…what?!
“We’re…we’re forgetting,” Mimi whispered, and those words settled on my shoulders like two mountains.
Then she turned and she ran, up the hallway, turning the corner so fast I had yet to take the next breath by the time she disappeared from my sight.
That’s where I stayed for a long time, in front of the open door, staring at the hallway outside, thinking. Trying. Holding onto threads that kept slipping through my fingers.
We’re forgetting, Mimi said.
You’re not done forgetting yet, Calren said.
And my mind was near blank.
That’s when I ran, too—out the door and to the one right next to mine.
I knocked and slammed my fists onto the wood over and over, but I didn’t think I was crying.
I couldn’t—I was in shock, but I still needed to see March.
I still needed to talk to him because my mind was so empty, so dark, so horrifying.
Eventually a door opened across the hall.
“Keep it down, Spade. He’s obviously not in his room!” Anika shouted, then slammed her door shut again.
The sound echoed up the hallway, running from me.
I chased it.