Chapter 7
My eyes insisted that the darkness beyond that doorway had birthed those men out of thin air—and not only that.
They insisted that the hair on their heads and the beard on their cheeks was ginger.
Timekeeper.
Which was funny because there were no Timekeepers in the Court of Spades, were there? The only one I’d ever seen was the woman who’d escorted me to the carriage in Neverwhen. That was where they lived—in the city, far away from the other courts. They were Timekeepers.
So, what were these two doing here?
And most importantly—where was here?
My body moved without my realizing it. I was backing away together with the others, our legs perfectly in sync as we made it to the other end of the table, our eyes unblinking, on the men.
Two of them. Two Timekeepers in black cloaks. Both were tall, as tall as the Heart boy, and the first had glasses over the bridge of his nose though he leaned down his head to look over the rims.
The one behind him kept staring at the floor, like the sight of us didn’t much interest him.
In fact, I almost got the feeling he was bored.
“W-who are you?” the Heart girl demanded. “Are you the ones who kidnapped me?! How dare you.”
I envied her courage. Right now, I couldn’t speak if someone offered me the whole realm—yet she sounded properly pissed off. Terrified, yes—but also furious.
“Kidnapped is a very strong word, but yes. We’re the ones who brought you here,” the guy with the glasses said and took a step into the room.
We all jumped, and most already had their chronobanks in their hands—which reminded me I had mine, too. In the pocket of my mother’s leather coat. My chronobank was with me, full of Sparetime to use, except I didn’t know the first thing about doing magic.
“We’re armed!” said one or the other.
“We’ve got magic—back off!”
“You caught me by surprise the first time—”
“Yeah. We’re ready for you, Timekeepers.”
“C’mon, what are you w—”
“Really, there’s no need for—” the guy started, raised a hand up and everyone erupted in screams and shouts, which sent him back a step again. He looked…exhausted. Just exhausted as he closed his eyes for a moment.
It occurred to me that they were Timekeepers.
It occurred to me that they had indeed been the ones to bring us here, but they hadn’t chained us or caged us or anything—they’d let us all wake up on our own and find this notebook.
A notebook with Mimi’s handwriting that Mimi obviously didn’t remember writing.
Which meant—and Holy Hour, I couldn’t believe I was thinking this, but—these men had answers.
“STOP,” I called, and by some miracle, they did.
They’d been so loud, speaking over one another that my ears had been ringing and I hadn’t even noticed.
“Stop for a second,” I breathed, fisting my hands to keep them from shaking. “Who are you? Tell us your names and tell us where we are.”
“All in due—” the Timekeeper said, but…
“Now is the due time,” the Heart boy cut him off, and his voice coming from right behind me made me consider if maybe he was my gravity, not the realm.
March. That was his name. I felt it in my bones.
“Yes, now is the time. If you want us to listen, you tell us right now,” Mimi said, her voice shaking. “Where did you get this notebook, and why does it have my handwriting in it?”
“Because you wrote it,” the Timekeeper said, his voice perfectly calm.
The one behind him stared at us passively, but it didn’t even matter, because I was right. They did have answers.
“Allow me to introduce myself, Hands. My name is Jonas Kohen. I used to be a Royal Timekeeper, and with the help of my friends, I’ve gathered all of you here today.”
“Here being…?” the Diamond boy said.
“Neverwhen, of course,” he said without missing a beat.
Neverwhen.
I looked up at the tall ceiling, at the walls that seemed to be closing in fast now, and then my head turned back, too. To the Heart boy, who was standing right behind me, his eyes on my face, searching. For what, I had no idea, but he analyzed my cheeks and my nose, my eyes—and my lips.
He analyzed my lips like it was the most important thing he’d ever do. My cheeks felt like they were going to melt off my face, and for that second, I forgot all about where we were and what was happening around us.
I just…forgot.
Then he looked away, and the sound of the people around me returned all at once, like I’d just pulled my head out of water.
They were shouting—you brought us to Neverwhen?! How long have we been traveling? How did you get us through the courts? Are you planning to kill us? Is this part of the trials? Did the 31st Trials even happen?!
Except they did. And even if I refused to believe the whole world about them, that little notebook in Mimi’s hand proved it.
We’d all been in the trials at some point. She’d written those words down with all of us present—I knew this. She’d written all our names, too—just the nine of us.
We knew someone was lying and someone had kept us stuck somewhere, and someone was responsible for our memories being lost, too.
Someone.
“If I may finish speaking.”
The voice of the Timekeeper was loud and crystal clear. Everyone shut their mouths at the same time, but their words echoed still in my ears.
“The trials happened—twice. The curse you were told about is real. We found that notebook in the Labyrinth, among your things that the help took from your rooms to be discarded. It’s the reason why we brought you here,” he said calmly.
“That doesn’t answer the most important question—why?” said the Heart and it was like the gears in my stomach turned twice as fast at the sound of him.
Whatever he was doing to me, it could not be normal. This situation required all of my focus—I’d been kidnapped, for Time’s sake—yet he spoke and I lost my head completely.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the Timekeeper said, eyes on the notebook in Mimi’s hand. “You read the vow you wrote. You knew. Even before your memories were gone, you knew someone was responsible for…well, everything that happened to you.”
A tick passed by slowly.
“Which is?” said one or the other, and even my heart didn’t beat as we waited and waited, and…
“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.”
The disappointment could have been a mountain suddenly resting its weight over my shoulders—as if I hadn’t been met by those same words since this madness began. As if I wasn’t used to it by now.
“Right. The decree,” said the girl standing next to me. If I thought hard enough, I would remember which name was hers, too.
Maybe.
“No, young lady—not the decree,” said the Timekeeper, and this time, when he stepped into the room and came close to the table, we didn’t move away.
We were plenty uncomfortable, but the table between us was wide, and most of us were holding our chronobanks, too, as if we’d know what to do with them.
I doubted it—not a single one of the former Hands looked older than eighteen.
“If we may sit down so we can talk properly.” The Timekeeper didn’t wait for a reply this time, and when he started walking and we all leaned away at the same time, he and his friend didn’t even look at us.
Instead, they went all the way to the chairs where we’d woken up and sat with their backs turned to the stairs. Kohen then waved his hand at the chairs across to tell us to sit down.
I didn’t want to sit down. Time knew I’d rather be somewhere out in the open right now, breathing freely—but I also knew that these men here had the thing I wanted the most, which was answers.
So, I inhaled deeply, locked eyes with the others for just one second, lest I let their fear and doubt hold me back. Then I walked all around them.
A hand on my arm.
The Heart boy’s hand.
He’d stopped me, pulled me back, and now he was looking at me like he, too, was surprised to find himself touching me. Just the way he stared at his hand around my arm…
The others were already talking, whispering as if they had hopes that the Timekeepers wouldn’t hear them when they were less than ten feet away.
What are you doing—they could kill you—they’re lying, of course they’re lying—I’m not going anywhere near them—they’re Timekeepers!—we need to use these minutes we were given, does anybody know how?!
On and on they went, all in the three seconds that the Heart boy and I looked at one another, his hand still around my arm.
Then he let go.
Such a strange feeling took over my chest, something like…disappointment. Which made no sense—but what really did in my life lately?
“If they wanted to hurt us, they would have. They obviously could,” I said in half a voice. The others stopped talking. “They could have kept us chained or roped. They could have hurt us while we were still unconscious.”
Wide eyes, shaking heads, flinches.
“They have answers.” I whispered the last word like it was more precious to me right now than all the time in the world. “And I have a lot of questions.”
“Even my questions have questions,” said the Club boy.
“We can be careful,” said Mimi. “There’s two of them, and nine of us.”
“They’re Timekeepers,” the Heart girl hissed with a roll of her eyes—and her name, too, was at the tip of my tongue. Was she Anika, or Erith, or…Levana.
She was Levana—I was eleven-hours certain of it.
“Which means we can’t leave if they don’t want us to, even if we try, so…”
“Might as well hear what they have to say.”
“All right, then. Let’s sit down,” Cook finally said.
Suddenly they were all moving, walking around us to get to the chairs, and the Heart boy was still staring down at me with those eyes that had so much color, such depth, I finally understood myself for wanting to draw him every waking second.
It would take lifetimes to immortalize all those shades, and I’d only barely scratched the surface.
That was only part of the reason why I remained there looking up at him, though.
The other was that I was…waiting for him to make up his mind?
“Coming?” one of the others called.
And the Heart boy blinked like he was just coming out of a trance. Leaned back. Looked down at his hand which had been around my arm just a moment ago.