Chapter 16 #2
Then we tried to argue, too, and Levana reminded him that we were the Hands of the Turning Trials, but the guy couldn’t have cared less.
The help in their white uniforms went around and started gathering things that we’d left on the floor, as if they were really hoping to clean this place up anytime soon.
They stopped the music, too, and turned the lantern off, drenching the place in darkness.
In the end, we had no choice but to walk out and head back for the palace.
So…fast. It was all so fast I had yet to believe it had actually happened.
“We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll be more careful, block the doors from the inside,” said Seth as we went, and he was right. We were going to do just that. They couldn’t keep us away forever. They probably checked today by accident, but they’d forget all about the junkyard tomorrow.
By the time we made it to the front of the palace, Calren was rushing out the doors with his cane in one hand, and a golden clock in the other—his Timekeeper Clock.
It was even bigger than our Life Clocks, and I didn’t see the face of it, but it was made of shiny gold and it had a lid, too, which Calren pushed closed with his thumb before he put the clock in the pocket of his jacket.
He wasn’t wearing a vest for once, and his hair wasn’t combed, and the laces of his shoes weren’t tied, either. He had been in a hurry.
He breathed deeply once his eyes scanned all our faces, then exchanged looks with the Timekeepers who’d brought us here, together with the soldiers who stood a few feet behind. The help had remained back in the junkyard still.
No word was spoken, but Calren then nodded, straightened his jacket, grabbed his cane in both hands. The Timekeepers and the soldiers retreated in silence.
Enough light from the lanterns on the walls of the palace to see the disappointment in his eyes. The fear.
He turned to the side. “Well. Let’s get you to bed then.” And he waved his cane toward the open door.
None of us said a single word as we made our way through the hallways and to the main stairs.
The night was already over, and I was angry.
I was so pissed off. March would have no choice but to go to his room, and I would have no choice but to go to mine—and I didn’t want to sleep, damn it!
It wasn’t fair when we had such little time to begin with.
So, before I made it to my bedroom door, I turned to Calren who waited at the mouth of the hallway with that cane in front of him, watching us like a hawk with barely blinking eyes.
“We weren’t doing anything wrong, Calren,” I said before I could help it.
The others stopped, too. Turned to him.
“We were just hanging out, listening to music. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
Levana stepped closer to him again, hands on her hips. “How dare those Timekeepers treat us like that? Like we’re some lowly criminals,” she hissed.
“We weren’t breaking anything—on the contrary. We were trying to fix things,” said Seth. “We weren’t bothering anyone at all.”
Calren touched the edge of his cane to the floor, shook his head like he couldn’t believe his ears.
“Do any of you have the slightest idea how dangerous the Labyrinth is?” he said, his voice calm, almost hushed. “We have all kinds of protections installed around here for you, but magic is never predictable.”
“Is that so? Then why would barely-adults be the only age group allowed to even apply to play in your games, Timekeeper?” asked Silas.
Calren’s lips fell shut as he looked at him.
Silas added, “Maybe that’s a question you should ask your queens.”
Your queens.
It didn’t escape my attention how he continuously seemed to separate himself from…everyone, pretty much.
“Enough,” Calren said, slamming his cane a little harder against the floor. “You’re tired. You need to rest. You need to be prepared for tomorrow—and the day after.” The second trial, he meant. “Go, now. To your rooms. And don’t try to leave the palace in the middle of the night again.”
His every word was heavy. Final. And there really was no arguing with him—and what could Calren even do? He didn’t call the shots around here. If we weren’t allowed in the junkyard, it was because of the queens. They made the rules, ultimately.
So, we nodded at one another, and we went to our rooms without so much as a goodnight or another glance Calren’s way.
Which did make me feel bad because I really believed that he cared about our safety—but it really wasn’t fair.
If anything, being kicked out of that junkyard made me feel like a prisoner.
Like my every move was being watched for real, and my freedom wasn’t my own.
That night, for the first time, I actually considered if coming to the Turning Trials had been a mistake.
The next night, when Calren saw us to our rooms after dinner, we waited a whole hour to sneak out, to make sure that even if he stayed outside to see if we’d behave, he’d get tired thirty minutes in and leave.
We all took our shoes off, too, as we made our way down the stairs and through the hallways, then hid in the shadows all the way to the junkyard.
But when we got there, we found the doors wide open, lanterns burning inside—new ones, while the old one, the big one, was gone. It had disappeared.
“Hold,” said Silas, when Reggie made to walk inside, and he put a hand over his chest, too.
“There’s nobody there,” said Reggie, and he was right. There were plenty of lanterns now in the junkyard, on the piles and on the walls and even a couple on the floor. It was empty—no Timekeeper and no soldier and no help.
“Watch.” Silas leaned down to the ground, grabbed something—a small rock. Threw it at the open doors.
It didn’t go through.
Instead, it caught on this web that became visible only for a second when the rock fell against it, made of strings of white energy—like a net. It threw the rock back, then disappeared again. Became perfectly invisible.
The rest of us were speechless for a moment.
“A layer,” Russ then whispered. “We use those against timewraiths.”
Timewraiths. The monsters who fed on magic.
They were protecting this place from us in the same way.
Funny, wasn’t it? A little bit sad. A little bit absurd.
I stepped closer, a hand outstretched to feel the energy. It was right there, the heat radiating by the layer of magic that most likely spread all around the junkyard walls, not just the doors. And they’d left the door open so we saw the inside, so we knew they knew we’d be here again.
The others approached, too, and we all felt the magic, all who needed to be convinced that this was real. They really were going to keep us out for doing nothing.
A bad feeling settled in my gut.
“Well, I guess the mechanical garden it is,” Erith said.
“And I have some good news,” said Seth. “I think I found the kitchen.”
He had found the kitchen for real. After training earlier in the day, he’d pretended he wasn’t feeling well and had asked his butler to go get him water and crackers.
He’d then followed him downstairs, all the way to a door behind the main stairway that wasn’t marked with anything, but it was indeed the kitchen. When we got there, it was empty.
A few low lights on here and there. A lot of space and appliances and cabinets. Most importantly, a lot of food in the cupboards and the multiple fridges.
I ate just to have something in my stomach and grabbed a jar of peanut butter when we went outside to the mechanical garden to hang out and get some air.
It wasn’t the same, though. And we all tried to pretend we were in a good mood, that we weren’t afraid—for each other’s sake—but we were.
Confused and afraid and not really sure what to expect going forward.
Time seemed to move incredibly fast in this place.
A whole week had already passed, and with every new hour, I was wondering more and more about what was to come before this was over.
Then came the second trial.