Chapter 4 #2
The twelve Hands of the Turning Trials. We would spend the coming weeks inside the Labyrinth, and we would play fun, exciting games, and we would learn along the way.
All the players who’d ever been part of these games before said the same thing—that it changed their lives forever.
That they were never the same after. That they’d experienced some of the best days of their lives during the trials, had formed the strongest friendships that lasted a lifetime.
I was looking forward to seeing exactly how the best days of my life were going to unfold.
“That, we are,” Silas said with a nod and an easy smile, before others came around us to shake our hands, to congratulate us. We congratulated them as well.
Another glass full of rosewater in my hand, and though I clipped the chain of the Life Clock to the front of my tunic and put it in my pocket, I still kept one hand around it, just in case.
Something about it.
Something about all the Sparetime inside it.
We were no longer required to walk around the cocktail party—we were allowed to stay there near the table with the queens.
The wooden case was gone, probably taken away by a soldier while we were busy shaking hands, and the queens had drinks in their hands as well, and a slow melody started from somewhere in the distance—maybe a band or maybe a music box.
I didn’t recognize the tune, but it was cheerful.
Everybody was cheerful—and Calren most of all.
I knew he was close simply because I smelled the scent of him—he smelled of something sweet, sweeter than flowers, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
He congratulated us, too, then fell into a conversation with the White Queen and some of the others, while I found myself slowly moving toward the Red to better hear what she was saying to the Hearts. Levana, Helen—and March.
The Heart boy whose eyes were always on me.
The closer I inched to them, the more heated my cheeks became, but I didn’t let the discomfort or the embarrassment stop me.
March smiled that little crooked smile as if to say, I see you coming closer, and I didn’t let that stop me, either. Not until my elbows were firmly planted on the white silk that covered the tabletop, and I heard the Red Queen’s rich voice.
“…and that is how you always know a memory,” she was saying, her thin red lips stretching into a smile at the end before she took a sip of her drink. Red wine that looked all too similar to blood—but the taste must have been good because she seemed to enjoy it.
Then her eyes landed on me. “A Spade—how nice. I’ve always liked Spades. Very straightforward. Very honest people.” She raised her glass just slightly—a queen raising her glass to me, I thought. Curiouser and curiouser.
“I hear they are difficult to work with,” Levana said, analyzing every inch of me with those intense eyes.
“I hear they barely have any emotions,” said Helen.
“That’s a lie, actually,” I said, the words slipping out of my lips as the thought pushed itself out of me.
“It is, indeed,” the Red Queen said before taking another sip of her wine.
The middle of her lips was now stained a darker shade of red than that of her lipstick.
“Spades feel. Everyone feels.” Her eyes flickered from us and to the other side of the table, to the White Queen, where she was speaking to Calren and the others.
Then she lowered her head a little and whispered, “It’s why they’re so easy to manipulate.” And she winked.
Impossible not to smile—even more so when I looked at March and saw how he looked down at me, the rim of his own glass near his lips.
Like I was something that inspired awe in him. Like I was…adorable or something, which wasn’t at all what I wanted to be. Not to him, not to anyone.
“I can’t wait to get older and learn magic, and be powerful—like you,” said Levana, and she looked at the Red Queen kind of like the same way—minus the adorable part.
“But with power comes great responsibility, young one,” the Red Queen said. “That part seems to escape people’s minds all the time. Something like a faded memory.” She sipped her wine.
I looked at March again—how could I not?—and this time he winked at me.
If I didn’t resemble a tomato right now, I would forever be grateful.
That, and if I could just stop smiling so big for a second…
“Oh, and while we’re talking about responsibility—I was indeed asked to extend a courtesy to the lot of you.” The Red Queen threw another look to the side, at the White Queen, and it wasn’t a bad look. It wasn’t a good look, either.
She put her glass down and said, “You are all allowed to make one mistake.”
We paused. Looked at one another—no winks this time.
Then March said, “Only one?”
The queen’s grin mirrored his. “Yes, indeed, Heartling.”
“Generous,” he muttered.
“It is,” she said, like she was suddenly excited that he understood. Like she didn’t get his sarcasm at all, which I was sure wasn’t the case.
“One mistake only. And what happens after?” asked Helen.
“After, we stop pretending we didn’t notice.” The queen herself winked, and she was so…open. So authentic, but I don’t know why that surprised me so much.
“And what if we don’t make it at all?” I wondered. “What if we save it?” After all, there wasn’t much room for mistakes in the games—they were games. We would be having fun, figuring out puzzles, possibly sparring or running or whatever kind of physical tests they were going to put us through.
But the Red Queen’s smile widened. “Now that is the most common mistake to make.”
A mistake not to make a mistake.
“Does that mean we have to make it count then?” asked Levana, and the queen’s eyes lit up.
“Yes, darling—yes,” she said. “And please, by the Everstill—” she leaned in, grinning, and we all automatically did the same to hear her whispering—“make it interesting. I’m simply too old for bland mistakes. They make my wrinkles deeper.”
A beat of silence.
March chuckled first, and the sound was like warm tea on a winter morning going down my throat. We laughed, too, and the queen smiled like she was suddenly accomplished. Her eyes glistened as she looked at us. I considered it safe to say she liked us—and I liked her, too. I liked her a lot.
Then the White Queen called for her, and for the rest of us to gather around for a picture.
We were all to stand in the front—the tallest of us to the sides, of course—while the queens and Calren stood behind us.
The light-catcher in the hands of a brunette woman dressed in green velvet was more sophisticated than the ones I’d seen before.
They took our picture at school every couple years, but their light-catcher had looked different.
This one was smaller, with more gears on the top of the rectangular shape, and a bigger lens in the front.
“All right, everyone! Eyes on the lens—and hold your breath for one second,” the White Queen instructed.
We did.
The sound of it when the woman clicked the button, even though she was far away, echoed in my mind.
I was standing in between Cook and Mimi, smiling, breath held and eyes wide open so that the light-catcher didn’t catch them closed.
That was all it took to immortalize the moment, to prove to however many years came after ours that we had been here at this point.
We had all been here and we’d smiled and held our breaths at exactly the same second.
That was where our story truly began.