Chapter 1 #2
It was over. That was it. I’d already left—and I’d been dreading this moment for weeks and weeks now and I never actually thought I’d make it this far. I never thought I’d be on my way.
But I was, and the people who’d gathered around the main road of our town were proof.
Everybody had come to see me go, which was a surprise.
I’d gotten a lot more waves and nods and smiles, even flinches since I’d been chosen as a Hand from our side of the court in the past month, but I didn’t expect so many people to be standing there and waving, calling my name as I went.
Such an odd feeling, and not entirely bad.
In fact, the farther away from home I was, the more sense what used to be senseless made.
Maybe running wasn’t a very bad thing. Maybe I would be okay, after all. Maybe, just maybe, the Turning Trials were going to really turn a new Ora in me, like Father said.
I guessed I would find out soon—and in Neverwhen, no less.
It was the city of Timekeepers, the very center of the Clockrealm, surrounded by the four courts of the Clockfolk—The Court of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and my court—of Spades.
I lived very near the middle of our quadrant, which my mother called the most delicious slice of the Clockrealm, so it was going to take us about ten hours to get to Neverwhen.
I’d dreaded that part, too, thought it would be uncomfortable, but I was wrong.
The carriage was spacious, and the seats on both sides were big and soft and covered in rich red velvet.
A table rose between them like a flower on a thick metal stem, not big and not small, just right.
White roses hung on either side of the carriage walls, the vases made of glass, mounted on the wood.
The intricate silver designs all over the white surface could keep me entranced for hours, and the frames of the small windows seemed to have been made of ice.
It was only glass, but it was beautiful.
Plenty to keep me interested, curious, so that the trip to Neverwhen flowed as smoothly as drunken seconds.
The Royal Timekeeper brought me food. He moved about the outside of the carriage like we weren’t being dragged by horses at all.
He had a basket full of pastries to serve me for breakfast, even though I claimed I’d already eaten (I hadn’t—too excited).
For lunch, he brought me a bowl of pasta, which was somehow warm, but he refused to say where he was taking all these dishes from.
Or how he knew to bring me bottles of water and teapots full of warm tea any time I was only just slightly thirsty.
We only stopped once when I needed to use the bathroom of a restaurant, and we were on our way again within minutes.
Magic wasn’t an uncommon thing in the Clockrealm.
We used the energy of seconds and minutes to alter our reality on the daily, but this kind of magic wasn’t something I was used to.
To know when another person was thirsty or hungry, or in need of a smile and a how are we doing in there, Ora?
Definitely not something Spades excelled in.
So, before I knew it, the sun had traveled across the sky and to the other side of the realm. The scenery around us changed from one-story to two-story to multiple-story buildings, made not of wood but of thick, gray stone—and we’d arrived in Neverwhen.
The entire day could have been a dream.
A knock on the left window of the carriage while I was looking out the right.
“Hold on tight!” Calren called, and there must have been something he held onto just outside the carriage, because he had no trouble standing upright against it. “It might get bumpy going through the crowd.”
His grinning face flashed in front of the window for one second.
“Wait—what crowd?” I called, but he was already gone.
I had an answer to my question only a minute later.
The road we traveled was cobbled and wide, as wide as the roads in our court’s center.
We turned the corner around a large building that could have been wider than ten houses together, and five stories tall, so we couldn’t see the other side of it at all.
That’s why the sight of the many people who’d gathered on both sides of the road took me by surprise—there were so many of them.
Even though Neverwhen was primarily a Timekeeper city, Clockfolk from all courts lived in it, too.
It was the city to be in, where there were always opportunities to climb the ladder in society, in your career, for those who cared to achieve something bigger than their roles in their courts.
Not to mention that this was where our queens lived, and most importantly, where the Great Clock stood proud in the very heart of our realm, which was the very heart of Neverwhen, too.
Even so, I didn’t expect so many Clockfolk to be here among Timekeepers, holding signs of welcome to all Hands, cheering and applauding when they saw our carriage approaching—but it wasn’t just ours. There was another carriage identical to the one I was in ahead of me on the road, and…
The people pointed back, behind me. I pushed the window open and stuck my head out through the small space to see yet another identical carriage behind mine—and a boy’s head was sticking out the window, too.
My heart jumped. Another Spade Hand.
He disappeared for only a second, then his arm came out the window, all the way to the shoulder, and he waved at me.
My own laughter caught me by surprise. I stuck my hand out as well as I could to wave back when he showed me his face again, and he was grinning.
I’d never seen him before, which was no surprise, but he had sandy blond hair like most Spade males, and light eyes if I wasn’t mistaken, though we were too far to tell for sure.
Then he disappeared again and stuck his arm out to wave once more.
I turned—another Spade boy was looking out the carriage in front of mine.
Not entirely certain why I was laughing still, but I was.
Even as I forced my hand into the tiny space to wave at him, I was laughing.
There were three of us here—which was information I’d had since forever.
There were three Hands from each court in the Turning Trials, but actually seeing these boys here made the whole difference.
I was running to a foreign place, yes, but apparently, I wasn’t entirely alone.
People cheering and clapping, waving as we went, children throwing flowers at our carriages, jumping up and down to get our attention—and it was the most incredible thing I’d ever seen in my life.
They were doing this for me. For all of us, like we were already…important.
Then I looked up.
The Great Clock was the reason why our realm existed.
It hovered over a hundred feet into the air, a gigantic thing that held a part of Time Himself and forced it into order with every new second it ticked.
Funny thing about it was that it showed you its face no matter what angle you looked at it from.
I saw the face of it, and the large hands clearly indicating that the time was just before six s.b.
, which stood for sun-bound. And whoever looked at it from anywhere around it, no matter which side, they would all see the Great Clock’s face and the time.
It was the way the Great White Rabbit had created it.
Fences ahead, large and golden, and as we watched, the gates swung open.
So many people around it, Timekeeper and Clockfolk together, which I found oddly freeing.
More carriages ahead of us—another three.
The Hands of another court must have gotten here before us, and as soon as those gates swung open, the white horses took the carriages through.
It seemed we’d arrived at the Labyrinth, the place where the Turning Trials had been held for the past one-hundred and fifty years.
Our journey was officially over.