Chapter 6 #3
“Lucky, indeed,” I said with a nod. And I’d had no idea how lucky until I came here.
These guys were right—it was a big deal to play in the Trials.
It was a big deal to leave here with fame, money and Sparetime to get us started and settled into adulthood.
It was going to change my life, this place, even if I’d only come here to run away.
It was going to change my life forever. I felt it.
We all paused, staring at nothing in particular, lost in thought for a moment.
And then we heard the footsteps.
I jumped to my feet together with Seth, but everybody else was too stunned to move as we turned to look deeper into the mechanical garden where the footsteps were coming from.
I thought it would be soldiers. It thought it would be the help, or Calren, or someone coming to tell us to get back to our rooms that second.
Instead, it was the rest of the Hands.
Levana and Helen led the way, walking arm in arm, smiles on their faces, while Reggie, March and Silas came right behind them.
My heart jumped—too many emotions going through me at once when my eyes locked on March’s.
Meanwhile, the others were already at it, accusing them of scaring us shitless.
On the one hand, I was irrationally happy that he’d made it, but on the other…
if all of them had been together, why hadn’t he thought to come to my door, too? Mimi had.
Then March smiled and all my freckles probably disappeared.
“Relax, relax, we just wanted to mess with you, that’s all,” Reggie was saying. “We went to the other end of the garden, no biggie. We just wanted to see what was out there.”
And they all sat on the grass around our bench, except for Silas. He continued to pace around, eyes up on the mechanical canopy full of fake leaves and apples, analyzing as he went.
“Well, we sat here to enjoy the scenery,” said Mimi with her arms folded in front of her.
“And later we’re going to find the kitchen for snacks,” shot Anika. “And you’re not invited.”
Guess it should have made me feel better that I wasn’t the only one they hadn’t invited, but I wasn’t.
Still, I pretended. I was very good at pretending. Had been practicing every day for the past two years and never once failed.
So, I said, “Unless you did find something worth exploring.”
“Maybe we did and maybe we didn’t,” March said, and he looked directly at me.
The mischievous grin. The sparkle in his eyes. The way he was spelling secret with the way he looked at me.
“Whatever,” said Erith with a wave of her hand. “We’re going to be out here every night for two weeks. We’ll find everything there is to find inside the Labyrinth. Maybe we can even sneak out into the city, too.”
The very idea of it sent chills down my spine instantly. I wanted to do that. I really wanted to see Neverwhen from up close, but…
“Impossible,” said Silas from where he stood with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, his black coat that reached all the way to his ankles tucked under his elbows.
Wow—he really did look like those men who modeled for clothing brands. Every inch of him could have been drawn, especially his striking eyes and jawline.
“The Labyrinth would never allow it. It has so much magic, it knows and keeps track of each one of us at all times,” he continued.
I narrowed my brows. “How would it do that, though?” It sounded like a lot of magic—and for a place to be able to keep track of people? It didn’t sound very sensible.
Except Silas reached for the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulled something out—his Life Clock. He grinned. “Why do you think they made these for us?”
The next second, all of us were looking at our own Life Clocks.
“How do you even know that?” Reggie asked—the only one smiling, his elbows over his knees as he looked up at Silas standing underneath the fake apple tree, still analyzing the branches.
“I’ve worked with Timekeepers before. I know how they do things. The Labyrinth is no joke. It’s almost…sentient,” he said, and I could have sworn his voice turned darker just now.
“How could a place be sentient? Don’t be silly, Spade,” said Anika before I could.
“I’m not silly at all.” Silas slammed his feet against the grass.
“It’s all machinery, and it goes as deep as a hundred feet underground.
The entire place is basically a gigantic clock, and we are its hands.
Everywhere we step, everything we do here—they know.
It’s how they make the games possible. It’s how they multiply Sparetime. ”
Holy Hour, that actually made sense.
I looked down at the bench I sat on, and at the ground, with a new light.
The others argued that it wasn’t possible for a machinery that big to even exist, and Silas listened intently, but didn’t interrupt.
They all looked at him, waited for what he’d say next as my mind spun.
If what he said was even close to the truth, it was…
wrong, wasn’t it? There was no end to this.
No balance. If this entire place was a machinery underneath—who held all the power?
“The good thing about it is that nobody can hear us here,” said Silas. “This garden has natural immunity to any spyware that might be planted around The Ever, and the rest of the Labyrinth.”
I thought I probably heard him wrong, but…
“Spyware?” Russ said. “Why would anybody want to spy on us when we’re not playing in the trials? That makes no sense.”
It really didn’t.
“Oh, ignore him—he has a suspicious mind, that’s all,” said Reggie with a grin, throwing a look at Silas, who only shrugged and continued to look up at the apples.
“I think I know you, actually.”
We all turned to Cook—and he was looking at Silas, too.
The Spade was surprised, his hand halfway up to the apple over his head when he stopped and turned our way again. “You do?”
“Yes. You lived in Ribitt, too, didn’t you? For a while. We went to school together, too, for a year or so.” Cook flinched. “I think.”
Silas turned his head aside as he analyzed him. “Yes, I did live in Ribitt. Where exactly did you live? Which house?”
I had no idea where Ribitt was, but it must have been in the Court of Spades. Normally, three people were chosen from three different areas in a court to avoid two people forming alliances of some sort, but I guessed if one moved from one place to the other, that changed things.
“The green house in Tenth Street. The one at the corner?” Cook said.
“The Tenth S…” Silas’s voice trailed off when realization hit him—he knew exactly the house Cook was talking about. His eyes were wide and…changed when he looked at the boy now. Almost like he was suddenly… sorry.
Which made me madly curious.
“I remember the green house,” Silas finally finished.
“Yeah.” Cook cleared his throat. “You used to live with your mother and grandmother down on Eighth. Yes—it’s definitely you. I thought you looked familiar.”
Pressed lips curled at the corners slightly, but Silas was definitely not smiling. “It’s definitely you, too,” he said, then turned to his apple.
Silence for a beat.
I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but something happened there. Something was said—not with words—and I completely missed it.
So did everyone else.
“Hey.”
March was suddenly in front of me, sitting down very close to my legs. He must have dragged himself closer while I wasn’t looking.
Heat on my cheeks. “Hey.”
“I want to show you something.”
His eyes were wide, and though it was dark out here in the garden, barely a few lanterns on these low posts here and there, I saw the colors in them clearly.
All the reds and browns, and the shades in between.
Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe it.
For the first time in my life, I had a gnawing need to add color to my drawings, just to try to replicate what Time had created in him.
“Something like what?” I said, as a smile slowly crept over my lips—so naturally.
Just that nothing seemed to matter at the moment, even the things I felt very strongly about minutes ago.
“Something like a place I was just in. I think you’ll like it. It’s—”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Reggie suddenly shouted—and he was pointing his finger at March, too.
March seemed to know exactly what he was talking about because he was grinning ear to ear when he stood up. Offered me his hand.
I put mine in his without really thinking.
Electric. That’s what it felt like to touch him before he pulled me to my feet.
“I would,” said March.
“But you said we’d let them find it themselves!” Levana shouted.
“And you were only there because we needed him to help us open it!” Reggie told her.
I shook my head—what in the Everstill were they talking about?
“But he said, he said—” Levana insisted, eyes wide and full of horror as she looked at March like she couldn’t even believe him, but he cut her off.
“I lied,” he simply said, then pointed his finger at Reggie. “And the only reason I came to help you was because I knew you’d want to keep it to yourselves.”
“Keep what to yourselves?!” I demanded, a little flustered because now everybody was standing, looking from one face to the other. Meanwhile Reggie laughed, Silas chuckled as he shook his head, and Helen and Levana had crossed their arms in front of them, fire in their angry eyes.
“It’s not something I can explain. I’ll just have to show you,” said March, pulling me toward the end of the garden.
“Hey—what about us?!” someone called—could have been Erith.
“You can do whatever you want! Stay here in your boring garden—or follow us,” March called back.
And Reggie roared with laughter before he took off running after us. “You bastard—I’ll show ya!”
“Run!” March shouted, laughing, and pulled at my hand harder.
I ran.
Everybody ran.
Everybody laughed. The night echoed with the sound of us, and March never let go of my hand as we went through the fake garden, and I had the strange sense that I was actually walking on clouds, if only for a moment. I was purely happy.