Chapter 26
My juices were kind of sweet.
I knew this because March’s lips were coated with it still when he came up on the bed and kissed me.
“Is it too much to ask to let me do that to you every day, every hour, every minute?”
My eyes squeezed shut, and now that my body had calmed down somewhat, I felt the full power of the embarrassment, and my cheeks became red-hot instantly.
“I think it is,” I muttered since my eyes were closed, his face in my hands, our lips touching.
We lay on the bed sideways. We hadn’t bothered to go to the pillow. His bicep was much more comfortable, anyway. And he was naked from the hips up.
“That was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. Seriously—wow.”
Time’s Teeth, my skin was going to really melt off my body soon. I didn’t even understand why I liked the way he spoke so much.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered—a lame attempt at a joke just to say something, just so I didn’t feel so damn awkward.
But then March moved, pushed me down on the bed and fell on top of me, and I was laughing. Giggling like a little girl.
He pinned my wrists down on the bed again, only this time his body was against mine, not an inch between us.
“You’re not as innocent as you look, are you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t look innocent,” I argued—and I really didn’t think I did.
“Keep telling yourself that,” he said, and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose.
“Those wide dove eyes, that pale skin, that hair that looks like it’s made of satin.
You scream innocent even when you’re covered in blood.
” The reminder didn’t even make me flinch. “I told you—you have a reputation now.”
I forced myself to roll my eyes. “It’s only the exterior.”
“I see that,” he said with a grin. “I’m glad for it. I still wouldn’t change it for the world.” A kiss on my lips. “I wouldn’t change anything about you.”
“I thought you just said I’ve changed tonight,” I reminded him.
“What I mean is I wouldn’t change anything about you whichever shape you take on any day.”
Something inside me squeezed. My heart about broke and melted and mended itself again within seconds.
His face.
Maybe he thought I looked innocent, but he was the innocent one here.
He looked at me in such an earnest way, pouring all of him out of his eyes. Like he couldn’t tell that I was…out of reach, for both myself and the rest of the world. Like he didn’t know that I was too far gone. Like he hoped, like Silas did.
So I asked, “Are you going to take your trousers off anytime soon?”
March laughed. My toes curled. My ears adored the sound of his voice.
“Not tonight,” he said, which surprised me.
“What? Why not?”
“Because it’s late. And because you need to sleep.” He planted one last, deep kiss on my lips, and stood up.
I watched as he put his shirt on, then sat down on the edge of the bed to tie his boots, and my mouth opened and closed a million times, but no sound came out of me. I knew he was right—it was late and it was too soon and too everything—but still.
He couldn’t just leave now.
“Don’t look so sad. I’d say you’re thoroughly distracted,” he said, and stood up. “My job here’s done.” He turned his head to the side a little. “That’s what you called me here for, wasn’t it?”
A little bit of hope in his voice. Just a tiny bit of despair in his eyes.
No.
Yes.
I went with, “I think you’re thoroughly distracted, too, Heartling.”
“True,” he said with a nod, which hid the flash of disappointment I thought I saw passing over his face.
Again—this could have all been in my head, though I wasn’t sure why I’d imagine such a thing.
“Sleep tight,” he said, and he turned around so fast, he could have been running. He walked out the door and closed it behind him without another look my way.
“Goodnight, Heartling,” I whispered to the empty room, and fell on the bed again, naked, satisfied, no longer distracted.
The next day, when I entered the eating hall for breakfast, I thought my legs were going to give out from how heavy the sense of embarrassment was when his eyes locked on mine.
March smiled just a little, then hid his lips behind his teacup. Meanwhile my knees were shaking, and I had no choice but to go sit right next to him because that was my place, and the only empty chair in the room.
“How are we feeling this fine morning?” March said under his breath when I said my good mornings. My cheeks had just started to settle a little bit when they flared up again.
“Fine.”
“Distracted?”
Holy Hour, something must have been wrong with me, because he said that word and my memories took me back to last night and now my knees were shaking for an entirely different reason. My thighs clenched and my heart hammered. I was so turned on so suddenly it shocked me.
And all he’d done was say a word!
The knife I was about to use to spread my jam on a piece of toast shook in my fist. “I will stab you.”
A chuckle—this one he hid with his hand. “Promises, promises,” he said—and why in the world was I smiling?
“It was a simple question, Ora,” he said. “I don’t want you stressed out, that’s all.”
I threw him a look. “Then maybe you should get on your knees.”
Could have been someone else taking control of my body, but those words left my lips all the same.
March raised his brows, and he didn’t laugh or smile at all. In fact, that same dark look fell over him as the night before, and he said, “What a coincidence. That’s my favorite thing to do.” He leaned a little closer. “As soon as night falls, I’ll be kneeling by your bed to do my worshipping.”
Embarrassed? Goodness, no.
Now I was seconds away from grabbing his hand and guiding him back to my bedroom.
And again—all he did was talk.
That mouth on him. The look in his eyes. The way he’d known exactly what to do to me, how to touch me, how to drive me over the brink.
It was the memories, I figured. Everything we’d done last night was still very vivid in my head, and that was the reason why I was so flustered.
Then…
“Bad dreams?”
Silas, who sat across from me at the table, was looking right at me.
I swallowed hard. Lowered my eyes to the table and proceeded to pretend like I was hungry and in need of food. Prepared to speak, when…
“On the contrary. She was just telling me about how…intense they were.”
March.
March and his perfect mouth and that awful, awful grin.
Silas said nothing. I didn’t raise my eyes from the table again until breakfast was over.
At dinner, half the Hands ate as fast as they could, then rushed back to their rooms to rest, and I couldn’t blame them.
Asha and Hector had been especially strict with us today.
We’d started one-on-one combat and it had been harder than I’d thought to use actual weapons and to actively try not to hurt whoever I sparred with while also moving and landing as many hits as Asha required to be satisfied.
My muscles screamed, too, but I still had a meeting to attend with Master Talik, so when I stood up to leave, I told Calren the same thing others had told him—I’m too tired and I want to go lie down.
March looked at me skeptically as I went, and I feared he’d say he was coming with for a moment, but he didn’t.
I’d spent the whole day avoiding his eyes, and luckily Asha hadn’t paired us to spar together, but I had to get myself under control when it came to him.
I should be able to behave like a normal person even when I was horny, damn it.
The problem was that I couldn’t stop those memories from taking over my mind any time I looked at him by accident, or felt his eyes on me. It was proving to be an impossible feat.
But when we weren’t in the same room, I breathed much easier.
That’s why I had no trouble focusing on the questions I wanted to ask Master Talik, hoping that, since dinner wasn’t even over yet, he’d still be at his workshop.
Last night I’d had no luck finding him anywhere in the palace, and that morning Calren had been with us at all times, so it had been impossible to speak to him privately.
Tonight, though, I had a good feeling that I’d finally find him, and I was right. Because just before I turned the corner of the hallway that led to the workshop, I heard the door opening.
I stopped for a second, strained my ears to hear better.
Footsteps, then something slamming against the wall—which confused me. I reached for the corner of the wall and peeked to the other side, sure that I’d find Master Talik handling some kind of a device or something, but…
It was Reggie.
I paused.
Reggie had just come out of Master Talik’s workshop, and the door swung closed behind him slowly. He’d stopped a couple feet down the hallway, and he was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, breathing heavily.
Holy Hour, he was so pale, his skin slick with sweat, and he could barely keep his balance.
The smart thing to do would have been to stay behind the wall and wait until he got himself together and left, but the curiosity. It drove me toward him even before I knew what I was doing.
“Reggie.”
His eyes opened and he pushed himself off the wall, but he couldn’t hold his balance so he fell against it once more. My brows were narrowed, my head shaking. He really did look like he was going to be sick any second.
“What happened to you? Did the Timekeeper do something?” That would be something I’d want to know.
“Ora,” Reggie whispered, blinking his eyes fast before he gritted his teeth and pushed himself off the wall again. “Ora, I…”
He raised up his hand, and in his fist was a piece of paper.
Reggie stopped when he saw it, like he hadn’t even known he was holding it. His voice trailed off as his eyes moved on whatever words were written on it fast.
Curiosity burned me.
When he looked at me again, Reggie suddenly straightened his shoulders, stuffed his hand in his pocket, and cleared his throat.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing happened. I just, uh… I think I ate something I shouldn’t have.”
Except I ate the same dinner he ate, and I was feeling fine.
In fact, he’d only left the eating hall some twenty minutes before me, and he’d been fine then. A little more silent than usual for Reggie, and he did look perfectly disoriented since the night before, but still. Those mirrors had changed all of us.
“What were you doing in there?” I asked, pointing at the workshop’s door, and suddenly Reggie looked panicked. Wiped his face with his hand. Moved to the side.
“Nothing, I…I have to go, Ora. I have to go.” And he rushed down the hallway as fast as his legs allowed without losing his balance.
Curiouser and curiouser. I was dying to see what that letter he’d put in his pocket said.
Instead, I went to Master Talik’s door and pushed it open. It gave.
The lights in the room were dimmer than usual, and the tables and benches we usually sat on were all pushed against the walls.
The room looked bigger that way, and with a lot more tools and devices all over the floor that my foot caught on as I made my way to the other side of the room where Master Talik was.
He wasn’t working for once, which was strange all on its own. I’d only ever seen him with tools in his hands. Right now he was sitting on the other side of the long table, eyes closed, and he had sweat beads on his forehead, too. He wasn’t breathing heavily though, just deeply.
The long table was a mess, as always, except for right in front of him.
There, a single device as big as the palm of my hand glowed with white light.
A strange device I’d never seen before—tear-shaped, with these thin metal strings wrapped around the glowing glass ball in the middle, like they were caging it in.
Such a curious thing.
I wondered what it was used for. I was so focused on the way it was made, the way those metal strings were twisted around, that I didn’t see where I was stepping until I hit something made out of metal with my foot, and it shot forward and slammed onto the leg of the table, making a deafening noise.
My heart jumped and I froze in place. Master Talik opened his eyes and straightened up on the chair instantly.
When he saw me standing there, he narrowed his gray brows in surprise, like he hadn’t heard me coming in at all.
“Hello,” I breathed with an awkward wave.
“Miss Reese.” The Timekeeper looked around the workshop as if to make sure that nobody else was there with me.
Then his eyes fell on the table in front of him.
The panic that went through him was evident. He grabbed the device and slipped it in the pocket of his apron, and stood up. Wiped his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“What are you doing here at this hour? The workshop is closed. The lectures start again tomorrow,” he told me, and his voice was so different from usual. So…sharp.
“Nothing, I…” I looked behind me at the door and considered mentioning Reggie, but Master Talik already looked out of it.
The way he’d been sitting there with his eyes closed. The way he hid that device from me, whatever it was.
“I just came to talk to you, if you have a moment. I only have a question.”
He turned to the side, ran his hands through his hair, shook his head. “No time,” he whispered. “I have no time I’m afraid, Miss Reese. I’m, uh…expecting someone.”
I raised a brow. “It’s eight o’clock.”
“And I’m already late,” he said, and moved all around the table, came to me. “Come, now. Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“I just want to know about the Labyrinth, Master Talik,” I said, but he was already pushing me gently toward the door. Time’s Teeth, I’d never seen him acting like this before. He was always so friendly.
And maybe it was just me, but his hands were slightly shaking, too. His skin was at least two shades paler than usual.
“We all do, we all do,” he muttered, rushing me forward.
“The memories that we gave, Master Talik,” I said anyway. “The…the versions of us we had to forsake in the trials.”
We were already by the door, and he opened it, put his hands over my shoulders, and basically pushed me out into the hallway.
I turned, put my hands on the door frame, angrier by the second. “I just want to know when the Labyrinth will give them back, that’s all. Please, just tell me. That’s all I want to know.”
I didn’t plan to leave here without an answer. Because he had to know. If not him, who?
For a second there, Master Talik’s eyes softened a little. He smiled—not a pleasant or unpleasant one. Just a smile. I thought for sure he’d tell me—two weeks, a month, a year. I’d take anything, really. Any answer would do.
Instead the Timekeeper said, “Goodnight, Miss Reese.” And he closed the door in my face.