Chapter 44
Iran for a long time.
I wasn’t sure where I was going, only what I was searching for—March. I tried every door that was unlocked, every archway, every hallway, every floor. If March wasn’t in it, I walked out.
So far, I’d been walking out of every single place I went to.
Then I saw the maid.
Lida was her name, and I remembered it, which brought me relief, but I subconsciously ignored it. Because to acknowledge that I was relieved to remember was to also acknowledge that there had been a good chance I hadn’t remembered at all.
I wasn’t ready for that just yet.
“March,” I said when she said my name, surprised to find me there in whichever part of the palace I may have wandered into.
“What has gotten into you? You look so pale, Miss Reese, you need to—” She put down the basket full of clothes she’d been carrying, and straightened up to look at me, but I cut her off.
“I need to find March, Lida. Can you tell me where he is? He’s not in his room.”
I was relieved to have known all these words to say, too, but ignored the feeling without trouble again.
“Oh, poor soul,” Lida said, and she tried to touch my cheek.
I pushed her hand away. “Please. Just tell me if you know where he is.”
“I don’t,” she said, bringing her hands to her chest, her eyes suddenly glistening with tears. “I didn’t see him tonight, but I’ve seen him other nights.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs. He climbs on the tower where they put the lantern.”
I narrowed my brows. “Lantern? What lantern?” I urged her, and Lida sighed, shook her head.
“Pray I don’t get in trouble for this, but the green door on the fourth floor,” she said, and I was running again. Green door, lantern, green door, lantern, my mind chanted every time my foot slammed against the floor.
“Be careful on those stairs!” Lida called, and her voice followed me close behind.
I thought I shouted a thank you back, but the only thing I was certain of was that I was running, and I wouldn’t stop until I found March.
There was only one green door on the fourth floor of the palace, which surprised me a little.
I’d expected to be running around for a while, searching for it, which always seemed to be the case in this place.
Yet the green door was there, and you couldn’t miss it because it was the only one of its kind in the narrow hallway.
The rest of the doors were white and polished, like all others in the building.
On the other side of it was a spiral stairway, and I knew exactly what Lida had meant when she told me to be careful.
They were half ruined, half eaten away by time, made from white stone that could have been the carved bones of some giant being.
The walls were uneven, too, sort of leaning in, like the entire stairway had grown out of the Labyrinth itself.
The white walls were wrapped in creeping ivy, and they seemed to get narrower the higher up they went.
The stairs spiraled tightly along the inside wall, and they were indeed a mess.
Some were missing, most were uneven, but the higher up I went the more roots there were on the wall for holding onto, roots that had pushed their way through cracks.
Light came from the old lanterns dotting the walls here and there, some of them completely covered in ivy, but I didn’t mind.
I didn’t mind the darkness—so long as it led me to light.
The air was thinner up there, too, cooler, cleaner, and even my footsteps sounded…less. Like I was growing more and more distant from all the world with each uneven step. Like the tower filtered everything below it out.
The walls closed in. I was starting to believe that whatever was up there, I wouldn’t even fit through.
Except when I finally reached the top—surprised, tired, breathing heavily—I found that wasn’t true at all. The end of the stairwell was indeed narrow and barely fit me through its walls, but once it ended, it opened onto some sort of a balcony ringed by greenery.
“Time’s Teacups,” I breathed with a sigh. This was definitely the farthest thing from what I expected to find up here.
A stone railing circled the balcony, though it was taller than me, so maybe it wasn’t a balcony at all.
Vines spilled over it, dotted with pale leaves and small wildflowers that I could have sworn were glowing softly in the dark.
From here, you couldn’t see anything beyond the edge—not the gardens, not the fence of the Labyrinth, not Neverwhen, just an uninterrupted spread of stars and drifting clouds.
I had the thought I might be able to touch them if I climbed on those vines and reached out my hand high enough.
The balcony curved inward slightly, cradled by the part of the building behind us made of a simple white wall just like the rest of the palace.
In it was the lantern.
It was taller than a person, its glass panels fogged up to the middle, etched with delicate lines that barely allowed the light from a low flame burning inside it through.
The strangest thing I’d ever seen, just there on the white stone floor, hidden among the greenery, yet also in plain sight, and—
“Velvet?”
I turned.
March was standing alone on the other side, with loppers in his hand and a furrow on his brow, like he couldn’t quite believe that he was seeing me standing there.
Once again, I ran.
The lantern, the stairs, the sky forgotten, I ran to him, and the entire balcony was maybe fifteen feet wide, so it didn’t take me long to get to him.
March threw the loppers to the ground and caught me in perfect time.
My arms were around his neck like it was the most natural thing in the world, and his were tightly around my waist, and I could barely breathe at all, but I didn’t really need air as much as I needed to make sure he was here.
That I knew his face. I knew the heat of his body, the way he felt when pressed against me like this.
“Velvet, what are you doing here?”
His voice was familiar. Perfectly familiar, like I’d never forgotten a single word he’d ever said in my presence.
I let go, moved back a little to see his eyes, but my hands were still on his face.
“What’s wrong?” March said, his voice lower as he, too, analyzed my every feature. “What happened? Did someone do something to you?”
Tears in my eyes—now they come.
“How did we meet, March?” I choked. “Tell me, please tell me—how did we meet?”
Because I didn’t know if I could remember, and I didn’t dare try to think back—because if I didn’t remember, what would be left of me?
If I couldn’t think back, why would I bother breathing?
If I lost March, I’d have lost. That’s what it felt like to me.
I’d have simply…lost.
March looked confused. “What? What do you mean?”
“How did we meet, March? Tell me, please. When you first saw me, when we first spoke. Have you forgotten?”
He leaned back a bit and I let go of his face, let my hands slide down to his chest, over his red shirt. I could hear his heart beating wildly underneath my palms.
“Please,” I whispered. Please, please remember…
“You were sitting at the other side of the table when my eyes opened. Your face is the first thing I saw. I thought I was dreaming because you couldn’t possibly be real,” March said, eyes wide, unblinking, locked on mine.
I held onto his every word like it was my lifeline—because it was.
“You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.
Still are.” His hand moved up to my cheek.
“Then I saw you in the trial,” March continued. “We spoke for the first time.” His fingers wrapped around my jaw.
Tears, warm and big, slid down my cheeks. “I asked you who you were. I asked you why you were in my head.”
Yes, yes, yes you did!
I saw it. I saw the whole thing in my mind, the memory faded but there. He spoke, and I saw how it all happened, and I was shaking by now. Crying.
“Then I followed you out of the palace, Velvet. You were trying to run away. I watched you, and if the Labyrinth had let you go, I’d have stopped you. I’d have kept you here with me.”
My heart jumped. The memories were there.
“Why?” I whispered, simply because we didn’t know each other yet then.
“There’s no point to any of it without you,” March whispered, and he looked like the words surprised him as much as they did me. “It’s just a feeling. I don’t know where it comes from—it’s just there.”
It was.
It was right there in the middle of my chest, too.
He remembers. The whole world could have been handed to me in those moments. We hadn’t forgotten.
I rose on my tiptoes, locked my arms around his neck again and kissed him.
March didn’t hesitate. Our lips yearned for one another, and we knew exactly how to move with each other, like we were made for this very thing. Maybe we were. In those moments, I’d believe that this was why I existed.
I had never once felt more connected to the world. I had never once felt less alone.
Our tongues clashed and our breathing tangled, our arms tightly around one another. We were chest to chest and our hearts beat as one. And that was something I was sure I’d never forget if I lived a thousand lives.
“You’re okay,” March whispered against my lips when we slowed down.
“I’m okay,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips. “What is this place, March? What are you doing here?”
He let go of my face but kept an arm around my waist when we stepped to the side to see our surroundings once more.
I’d been so afraid, so panicked when I first came here that I hadn’t really seen how absolutely beautiful this place was. Secluded, hidden away, green and bright and magical. The large lantern on the other side, the vines, the flowers that still glowed, catching the starlight over us like dew.
“I call it the Lantern Tower. I found it when we first woke up, and I was searching for a higher ground to see all our surroundings,” he told me.
“Wow,” I whispered. “What is that thing? Is that really a lantern?”
“Yep.” March was grinning.