Chapter 13
The sounds around me were getting clearer and clearer the more aware I became of myself. I had a mind full of thoughts and a heart beating frantically and veins full of rushing blood.
I had arms and legs and feet to stand on, and somehow I was. Somehow, I had balance to stand without really even thinking about it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the first Turning Trial is over! I repeat—the first Turning Trial is officially over! All the Hands have won the challenge!”
Johnny’s voice slipped into my ears and pushed back every other thought for a second.
How curious that I understood exactly what he was saying when it felt like I hadn’t understood anything in so long.
Over. The first trial was over. All the Hands had won the challenge.
All of us were out of the ballroom.
A new wave of energy crashed over me. My eyes blinked and blinked until the lights around me became brighter, and I began to make out my surroundings.
The other Hands were there, indeed—all of them, and next to me stood March in his red suit, my mask in his hand still. His in mine.
The others all stood in pairs around us, pale, disoriented, none smiling. Just…watching. Mostly the audience that was screaming and clapping and throwing roses that didn’t even reach halfway to where we stood.
Which was outside the dome.
The White Queen was there, too—the Red Queen in her box, standing, clapping her hands.
The night was bright, the two screens behind the audience showing our faces, moving from one to the other, even though I saw no caster near me.
They were able to use magic and light-catchers to transmit images in real time, but they had to be near their subjects to do that, didn’t they?
I didn’t see them, though, just like I didn’t see Johnny. Only heard his voice as he repeated over and over again that it was over.
Then…
“Well done, my little tickers, well done!”
The White Queen was indeed in front of us, clapping her hands, her icy lips stretched ear to ear. She looked happy, genuinely happy, yet I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Because something was wrong inside me.
Something was…missing.
“If I may, Your Goodness, see the Hands inside,” said Calren, who could have popped out of thin air in front of us for all I noticed. “They now need their rest.”
The Timekeeper did not look happy. In fact, if I were to trust my eyes, I’d say he was afraid. I’d say he was panicked, especially when his eyes darted from the queen to us, lightning fast.
The queen didn’t look happy, either, at what he said, but she nodded anyway and waved him on.
“Certainly, certainly. You’re the warden. You know best. Go!”
But rest was not what we needed now, was it?
I looked at the others as Calren bowed to the queen, and no one spoke a single word. No one looked like they understood what was happening or like they agreed with Calren. We did not need rest.
Except whatever had happened to me inside those doors, whatever magic had taken my voice, it seemed to still have that effect on me even now. I’d gotten used to the idea of not having a voice so quickly that I didn’t even consider opening my lips to speak.
I just held onto the mask and I looked around—audience, screens, queens—and then a hand was on my shoulder, and Calren said, “Keep moving. I will guide you—just keep moving.”
And then, “You will all be just fine.”
I didn’t believe him for a second.
The way back to The Ever was a blur. I had no idea how my legs were holding me, how they were moving, but they did.
Calren spoke again as we went. We were being followed but I didn’t know by whom, and the others were there with me, too.
Sound still reached me as if from far away.
Something was wrong, yes, and something was missing, but my muscles were screaming in protest, too.
The maids and butlers were in the hallway that was our dorm, and they took the masks from our hands.
I gladly gave mine to Lida, and I realized Calren might have been right after all.
Because now I really did need rest. I really didn’t think I could continue to stand or walk or move for much longer.
Because now I had begun to hope that once I rested, once I slept and I woke up again, everything would go back to normal. Whatever was missing wouldn’t be missing anymore. Whatever was wrong would be right as Time when my eyes opened the next day.
It wasn’t.
I went through the motions of brushing my teeth and using the toilet and taking a bath—all the while Lida spoke, telling me about how much Sparetime had been gathered yesterday alone, how the people were more than happy with everything we’d done, how we’d danced, how we’d searched the memories.
They’d somehow known all along what we were seeing in our heads, too.
The memories of the illusions, that was.
Because those were planted by the Hearts who’d made this game possible.
They were all fake, not real memories, and so the audience had known what we saw.
The information had been made public the second we entered the ballroom.
Everything had gone perfectly smoothly, Lida said.
Except it hadn’t because I still felt only half of who I had been, like a book that had been full yesterday but now had a handful of blank pages.
It hadn’t because there were two foreign memories in my head, memories that didn’t belong to me. Memories that belonged to March. I saw all he’d seen and felt all he’d felt—and how in the world could that ever be right?
I’d rested well enough. I’d slept for nine hours straight. My muscles no longer complained, and my senses worked as they should again. Perfectly functional on the outside, but the damage within remained.
Then Lida told me that Calren would be waiting for us in the eating hall for breakfast, and she left. Smiling, her eyes glistening. Happy. So unbelievably happy—and what for?
Part of me didn’t want to walk out of my room at all. Part of me wanted to hide under the blanket until I stopped feeling like this, but I also wanted to see the others. I wanted to see March. I wanted to talk to Calren.
So, I opened the door and I stepped outside.
Cook, Silas, Seth, Mimi, and Anika were standing there by their doors. Not moving out or in. Waiting.
I waited, too.
Reggie came out next. Then March. Then all the others.
A heartbeat, and we were all standing in the hallway in front of our doors, looking at one another. Searching each other with our eyes.
“We can speak again.” Mimi.
Russ nodded. “It’s over. The first trial is over.”
“But the real game has only just begun.” Seth.
Helen wrapped her arms around herself. “Guys, I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” Levana. “We’re okay, aren’t we? We’re all alive. It was just a party.”
But we all knew that wasn’t true, was it?
Just that there were no right words to say so yet.
“We went in there. We danced. We won.” Erith.
Except… “We did much more than that,” I said.
Silence for a beat.
“We won.” Reggie. “We went in there. There were no fights, no blood, no nothing—we won.”
And he was absolutely right, of course.
“We paid with our memories,” March said.
The gears and cogs in my stomach malfunctioned. I would be sick if my stomach wasn’t empty.
“Reggie’s right. There wasn’t even any fighting involved. Any blood. It was easy.” Cook.
Mimi flinched. “It wasn’t easy.”
“But it worked, didn’t it?” said Reggie.
“My maid said a lot of Sparetime was gathered yesterday,” I said.
“I don’t believe it. We didn’t exactly use magic, did we? Not a single minute on my Life Clock has been spent. On the contrary—I got five minutes added.” Levana.
The rest of us pulled our Life Clocks out of our pockets to check. Thirty-eight minutes. Not a single second spent, but eight earned.
“Do you not have any idea how much energy, how much magic is required to play around with memories? To hop in and out of them? It’s pure, raw magic.
What we gave yesterday provides this place with a lot more magic than if we’d fought with blasts of magic for days,” said Silas, and he sounded disgusted.
“It’s true,” said March. “Memories use more chronobank minutes than any other magic in our court.”
“In any court.” Silas.
“We weren’t even trained for it.” Cook shook his head, stared at the floor, half disappointed, half in disbelief. “All those lectures and all that running—none of it had anything to do with the trial.”
“And they say the first one is supposed to be the easiest one,” said Anika. Yes, that was what always happened in the earlier trials.
“It wasn’t easy for me—and we were not prepared. We should talk to someone about this, we—” Russ said, but Silas cut him off.
“Do you think it matters? The lectures, the training”—he made air quotes with his fingers when he said that last word—“none of it makes any difference. It’s three days between each trial. No kind of training is going to prepare us for anything.”
He sounded bitter. He sounded angry.
I was, too.
“They kept us distracted. We should have asked questions. We should ask questions about the second trial now,” I said. They would have no choice but to tell us if we demanded, didn’t they?
“We can try,” Silas said with a sigh.
“Stop. All of you—stop,” Reggie said. “We finished the first trial. We’re all perfectly okay.
We weren’t hurt. We didn’t bleed. We didn’t lose—we all won.
So, how about we focus on that, and we go eat, and we try to relax and enjoy the victory for the rest of the day?
” He smiled, and it was forced, but only those first seconds.
“After all, we’re here now. We all came here to play, and we’re not leaving until we win all the trials. ”
Silence for a tick.
When he put it like that…
Most of us found ourselves nodding along. Helen and March refused to smile at first, but when we closed our doors and finally decided to go to the eating hall, they relaxed more with every corner we turned.