Chapter 24
The day rolled by, slower than the others. Calren refused to show his face in the training area, and we even held Master Talik’s class without him.
Nobody really listened to the old Timekeeper this time, though.
He was still talking about devices, asking if anyone wanted to try to fix this or that, but nobody did.
What would be the point, anyway? They were obviously not preparing us for the actual trials.
They were just keeping us busy. Keeping us where they could see us.
None of it would matter.
But Master Talik did know a lot about the Labyrinth and the games, though. According to the stories he told us while he taught us, he’d been here two decades, had worked as a Timekeeper almost every single day.
Who better to ask my questions than him?
That’s why I planned to pay him a visit after dinner tonight, just to see what he’d say.
At dinner, though, Calren came back.
He didn’t say much, only that he spent the day with the queens and reported on everything we’d done, and everything the team of Timekeepers had reported on our physical state. He said that as long as we continued to drink tea and eat the food served to us, we would be okay.
I believed him—only because by the end of the day my muscles were no longer sore, and the others were the same.
Maybe because Asha hadn’t made us jump or climb earlier in the day.
She’d made us sit instead, and taught us about weapons, using the arsenal of the arena to show us everything she talked about.
It was quite interesting, actually—I was invested, especially since she promised that we would be sparring with one another tomorrow.
Yes, we were all feeling better, even though the trial was just yesterday—except maybe Silas and Reggie. They came to the eating hall last, and they looked incredibly pale, like maybe they thought they were back inside that tree with the wraiths.
The reminder sent bile up my throat but I pushed it down.
Neither of them spoke, though, when the others asked what was wrong. Neither of them even looked up for half the dinner, and neither ate.
March no longer spoke to me, either.
I wasn’t sure why, and I did notice how he stiffened when I touched his arm by accident.
I noticed how his jaw worked when he spoke to the others, his profile turned to me.
I noticed the shape of his curls, and the length of his fingers, and I thought maybe I was feverish or something, but no.
I just wanted to be in my bed again, underneath him, getting devoured by his mouth.
It would be such a nice distraction.
“…plenty of creatures out there in the universe,” Calren was saying when I forced myself out of my head. “There are plenty of them that live in our realm, too, that we might not know about.”
“Impossible—where could they live that we wouldn’t see them?” someone asked, and everyone was listening, but I was already back to analyzing March again. The muscles of his neck when he swallowed, his wide shoulders, the curves of his biceps.
Holy Hour, I really wanted his hands on me.
“I don’t know—underneath our realm, maybe? In the Spill, probably.” Calren answered. I doubted anything could live in the Spill, though. It was the edge of the realm, where anything that went off fell forever—but creatures were bound to die eventually if they fell.
“In time-loops nobody else sees,” Calren continued. “Even in glitches.”
“Glitches? What does that mean?” Could have been Erith who asked.
“Glitches of time. I don’t know, it’s all very messy. From a Timekeeper’s point of view, anything’s really possible—if not here then elsewhere. We do believe in Darton’s theory. You guys know his theory on timeliness, yes?”
“Of course we do,” said Mimi with a roll of her eyes. “Do you think us illiterate?”
Calren laughed. “Not a chance.”
Mimi was right, though. We all learned that theory in school over and over, but I was never twelve-hours certain that I believed it.
Basically, Darton was the Timekeeper who claimed that Time supplied a lot of worlds in the universe, not just ours, and that all timelines in all worlds happened at the same time—we just didn’t remember.
He also claimed that there was an infinite number of versions to everything and everyone, continuously, forever—which was where I hesitated to believe. Because if that was the truth, what was even the point of living?
To be honest, I didn’t really believe the story of our creation, either. I mean, what were the odds of a gigantic rabbit hopping about in outer space all by himself? Where would he have come from?
Of course, I said nothing, only continued to look at March as the others talked. I continued to analyze his every feature so that I could maybe draw him later, when…
“What?”
He’d noticed me looking (not that I was trying to hide), and he suddenly turned to me.
Heat on my cheeks. “I want to see you later,” I whispered, sure nobody could hear because they were all listening to Calren.
March was definitely not expecting that, but he nodded. Opened his lips to say something, then shut them again.
I would take that as a yes.
“Hey, Ora—wait up!”
Mimi was running after me when we were done with dinner and Calren saw us to our dorm.
I stopped, surprised—we’d been at the eating hall together, and she hadn’t said a single word to me all night. Not unusual, but if she had something to talk to me about, she could have then.
Now, though, she was grinning ear to ear as she stopped in front of me, those wide green eyes shining. She was indeed breathtaking—and a good head taller than me, and awfully comfortable deep into my personal space.
“So, I have a favor to ask,” she told me, then put her hands over my shoulders. “Switch rooms with me, pretty please?”
Now that was not what I expected from her, either.
I leaned back on instinct. “Oh! I…well, I—”
“Just that I need to move, and I like your scent best, and it’s been five days of me sleeping in the same room, and I’m a Club, you know? I have to move, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked.” She blinked her lashes slowly. “Pretty, pretty please?”
What in the Everstill…
“Well, I have everything in this room and—”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that! I’ll do all the moving, you just get your stuff ready and sit tight. I’ll bring my things here, and take yours into my old room, no problem. I would love to!”
My mouth opened and closed a couple times.
Meanwhile Calren watched from the mouth of the hallway, and Reggie and Silas had already started switching rooms—they were right next to one another—and Helen had just agreed to switch rooms with Seth, too.
Clubs. Of course they had to move all the time. I should have seen it coming. “Sure,” I said, then cleared my throat. “It’s no bother. I can get my stuff packed right away.”
“Yes!”
A hug.
Mimi hugged me, crushed me to her chest, and she might have looked skinny and tall, but she was strong. Strong enough to break my back completely if she kept squeezing me a little longer.
I don’t know why I smiled—I didn’t much care about hugs, to be honest. But either way, I was smiling, and Mimi was smiling when she ran back to her room—the first on this side of the hallway. March was smiling, too, from in front of his door.
So many smiles.
I waved a hand at him awkwardly, then went inside to get my things packed.
Easy enough to do since I didn’t really have anything other than clothes—and Jinx’s picture—so once that was done, I sat down on the armchair to draw. I even sniffed my shirt once or twice just to see what kind of scent I had that Mimi liked, but I didn’t really notice any specific smell.
True to her word, she didn’t let me carry a single thing. She brought her things in my room first, then told me to sit tight and keep drawing while she took my things to her old room.
The whole thing was over in less than thirty minutes.
Mimi hugged me again, thanked me a hundred times for agreeing to this, which was almost silly.
It was no bother, and it was a need for her.
I smiled as best as I could, and with my sketchbook in hand, I walked up the hallway and into her old room.
It was identical to my old one. Same windows, same bed, same bedside tables, same wardrobe.
The colors were identical too. Even the tiles in the bathroom.
Even the view outside the windows was almost the same.
I saw the arena at the back of the palace and the trees beyond, even the corner of the tower of the Great Clock.
When I stuck my head out to look up at the face of it, I saw the time—just a little after ten m.b.
The moon shone all alone in the dark sky, and it was kind of comforting to see.
I stayed there for a minute, too, just to ground myself as well as I could.
After that, as soon as I put my things in place—and Jinx’s picture frame on the nightstand—I walked out of the room again.
The hallway was empty. Even so, I walked on my tiptoes until I was near the stairs, just in case someone was around the corners or hiding in the shadows, spying on us.
I also didn’t want the other Hands to see me.
I wanted to talk to Master Talik first, see what he had to say.
But when I went to his workshop, the door was closed.
Of course. It was his workshop, not his living quarters, even though Calren had said they all lived inside the Labyrinth.
With another hour before bed and nothing better to do, I decided to try to find wherever Master Talik slept.
Alone, I walked the endless hallways of The Ever.
By the time thirty minutes were over, I’d passed so many corridors, entered and exited so many rooms, I was convinced that this place went on forever.
Finally, tired and thirsty, I decided to call it a night, see if I could talk to Master Talik in the morning.
When I finally made it back to the dorms, I found March sitting on the floor with his back resting against the door of the first room on the right. Mimi’s old room.
My room now.
“Oh.” I stopped walking.
A bitter smile stretched his lips. “I guess you forgot.”
“Forgot?”
Slowly, March stood up, and little by little, the physical pull he had on me grew in strength. It was like magic—mesmerizing to experience, really. Whatever his body was made of, I’d bet anything that mine was the same. Otherwise how would this attraction be possible?
“You said you wanted to see me later.”
Ah.
I did remember, only I’d never actually thought about what later meant.
So I cleared my throat and said, “I meant this later. You’re right on time.”
His smile widened. He closed his eyes and sighed, shook his head. “Am I now.”
I stepped to the side and pushed my bedroom door open. “Come on in.”