Chapter 22
The minutes stretched. The clock spun. The hand above the door crawled past ten, inching toward eleven with agonizing slowness. The mechanical pieces on the floor had settled into a steady pattern, rotating in place, clicking softly.
It was Seth who lost his patience first.
“Enough of this,” he muttered suddenly.
Nobody saw it coming, the way we were all lost still in that story Silas told us. Nobody even considered a way to stop him before he jumped off his table and ran for the far door.
Just like that.
He ran and hit it shoulder-first, full speed, all his weight behind it. The sound of it was deafening to me.
But the door didn’t budge.
No, something way worse happened.
A flash of light came from the lock—bright white, sharp as a blade—and then Seth was flying backward. His body left the ground, and he sailed three feet before crashing into one of the tables.
He hit the floor on his side and didn’t move.
Screams and shouts.
We were all off our tables in an instant, clock pieces crunching under our shoes, scrambling toward him.
March got there first, rolled him over. Seth’s eyes were open—dazed, unfocused, but open.
His right arm was pressed against his chest, and even in the dim light I could see the way it hung wrong.
Not broken—at least I hoped not, but probably badly bruised.
“I’m fine,” Seth groaned, which was clearly a lie. “I’m fine, I just—”
“You’re an idiot,” Levana spat, but she was already kneeling beside him, pulling his sleeve back to inspect the damage.
“I’m just tired of waiting. I’m tired of being trapped!” he argued, and I knew exactly how he felt, and I knew he wasn’t talking only about this room.
Still, I was just glad that he was okay.
“There’s a high chance that Timekeepers are alerted,” Silas then said as he used his cane for support to come closer. He looked at the mess of things all over the floor, shifting, trying to assemble again because Seth had ruined the clock they’d made.
And the hand of the door clock was no longer moving because of it. It was no longer getting closer to twelve—if that would even get the door open.
I wanted to smack Seth in the face myself now.
“What? What do you mean?” said March, standing up to face him as Levana and Cook inspected Seth’s arm and pulled him to sit up higher.
“The Labyrinth’s protection layers are active. The door throwing Seth off is proof of that, and whenever protection layers are tested, they send a signal to Maintenance, who are Timekeepers,” Silas said, and his cheeks were flushed, and he was breathing heavier, too. Clearly worried.
Which then made all of us worry, too.
“So…they’re coming?” March asked, and my heart rushed so much she skipped beats.
“Most likely,” said Silas—
And he hadn’t even finished speaking when we suddenly heard the sound outside.
Footsteps.
Not from the door we needed to open, but from the door behind us, the one we’d come through, which had slammed shut when the game activated.
Heavy footsteps, rushing, getting closer.
“I’m going to murder you!” Russ hissed when he pulled Seth to his feet and slowly backed him away, disrupting the clock that the gears and pieces were trying to make again—and this time they did attack us.
They clamped onto our feet, but we didn’t even care to be afraid when someone was right there, outside the door.
The face of the Timekeeper woman was at the center of my mind. This was it—we were done for. We were caught. We were so, so doomed…
“Just stand back. Just stand back,” March was telling us, moving in front of us with his arms spread like he thought he was a shield. I stuck beside him.
“We’ll be okay,” I breathed. “It’s the Labyrinth—it will free us again. We’ll be okay, we’ll be okay…”
Except I didn’t really believe that. Not anymore.
Because if that was the case, the Labyrinth would have let us all out by now. We’d be long free. Those doors would have long opened.
Then the footsteps stopped together with our lungs. With our hearts.
A split second later came a second sound—a faint jingling, like small metal tools clinking together.
My mind was clear of thoughts, my hand squeezed March’s, the other holding onto that seeker tightly…
And the door opened.
Smoothly. Almost silently.
A silhouette filled the doorway. Thin frame, tall limbs, gray clothes topped with a stained apron, and ginger still clung to the hair around the back of his neck stubbornly, while the rest had long turned silver.
A clock was in his hand—a Timekeeper Clock, twice as big as my chronobank—and a bunch of keys in the other.
A Timekeeper. Clearly one who maintained the games around here, and he’d already seen us.
Time’s Teeth, Silas was right. It was already as good as over. They found us, and now this guy was either going to lock us in here again and go call for others, or he was going to force us to follow him to the upside of the Labyrinth—and what could we do?
Could we run when we got the chance? Silas probably couldn’t.
Could we fight?
Would the Labyrinth save us again?
Then the Timekeeper spoke.
“Don’t. Move.”
His voice was low, thick. It was like he’d slapped me right across the face, and my entire body froze as if his words were my command.
But the Timekeeper walked—past us without another look our way—and went straight for the clock spinning on the floor.
He carefully stepped onto the pieces that were still trying to assemble, then fell on one knee in the center of it. He reached for something in the pockets of his apron, pulled out this long, thin device with a hooked end, and inserted it into the center of the mechanism.
I still didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare relax my muscles, didn’t even consider telling everyone to just run out that door he’d opened, even if it took us back where we came from.
All I could do was watch.
His hands moved with a precision I’d never seen before. One tool, then another, then a third, one slotted into a different point, turned at a specific angle. No hesitation. No guessing.
This Timekeeper knew exactly what he was doing—and then the spinning stopped.
The tiny pieces we’d disrupted stopped trying to assemble. They just…stopped for a second.
Silence in the room.
I feared the whole world could hear my heart slamming against my ribcage—but it didn’t last long. In the next breath, the hand on the door clock jumped straight to twelve. The lock disengaged with that heavy clunk, and the door swung open with a creak.
Just like that.
The Timekeeper stood up. We all moved back on instinct as he slowly put those metal tools back into the pockets of his apron, then raised his head and looked at us.
A face full of deep lines and sharp angles. Brown eyes that were…calm. His beard was trimmed close to his jaw, and there were black stains on his fingers, and…
A sigh from our side of the room.
Silas was smiling.
“Master Talik,” he said, and his relief was evident.
He knew the Timekeeper by name. A name I was eleven-hours certain I’d heard before (if only I could remember where.)
The man looked at Silas, at his cane. At his pale face and shaking hands, and the expression on his face changed, if only for a flash. He looked relieved.
“I would ask you why in Time’s Truth you’re underneath the Labyrinth, but something tells me the answer isn’t short.”
My mouth opened and closed. I looked at the others, at March, and they were all as confused as I was.
“We…they…they came for me,” Silas said. “It’s not their fault.”
“Is that so,” said the Timekeeper without missing a beat, and he didn’t move from his place at all as he looked at us, but I wasn’t so terrified anymore. Still plenty, just not as much. Because if Silas was talking to him this way…
“And which one of you was smart enough to touch clocks in a Horologist’s study?
” The Timekeeper crossed his arms in front of his chest, raised his gray brows.
We all looked at Russ instinctively, but nobody said anything.
Not that the man gave us a chance before he continued, “Twenty years I’ve worked in this Labyrinth, kept these old parts running.
Do you have any idea what would have happened if the game had continued? ”
“The door would have eventually opened,” Silas said—muttered the words as he lowered his head a little, as if he was now embarrassed.
What in the world was going on here?
“It would have—absolutely,” said the Timekeeper. “It would also require Sparetime to do that. And where do you think the game would have extracted the Sparetime from, when the Trials aren’t active and it has no other source of energy?”
Silas’s mouth opened and closed.
Blood rushed to my cheeks as I looked at the door, at March, at Seth still half lying on the table.
Holy Hour, the door would have killed us when it opened. It would have taken all the time out of us as energy to do so.
It would have killed us.
And Seth’s outburst had saved us.
“We didn’t—” Silas started, but the Timekeeper didn’t want to hear it.
“Of course you didn’t. Which is why you’re not supposed to be here at all.” A sigh. A hard squeeze of his eyes. “Follow me, the lot of you. And don’t say a word until we’re out.”
With that, the Timekeeper went for the door—the door that would lead us out. The same door we’d been waiting to open, never knowing what it would do to us when it did.
I was sweating.
“What in Time’s Teeth is happening?” Mimi whispered when he was out the door.
“It’s Master Talik,” Silas said. “He’ll get us out. Let’s go.”
But March put an arm in front of his chest before he could take another step. “Are you sure about this, Silas? How well do you know him?”
The look in Silas’s eyes. The way we saw his heart breaking at March’s words for a moment.
“As well as all of you know him. I told you the main story of what happened in the trials, but there are a lot more details I’ll have to go over, it seems. One of them is him.
” Silas nodded his head toward the door.
“He was our teacher. I’m ten-hours certain he was part of the Underclock at one point, too. He’s safe.”
Teacher, he said.
“Guys, I need to be out of here. I need to—let’s get going,” Levana said, and she was the first to step over the pieces of clocks on her tiptoes and slip out the door behind the Timekeeper.
One by one, the others joined, and Silas dragged his cane and his leg behind them. March and I looked at one another, and in his eyes, I saw the hesitation. He had no idea who to trust.
“He used to be our teacher. I think we’ll be fine.” I pulled at his hand. “C’mon. We’ll figure it out, whatever comes next.” If we don’t die first, was what I thought but didn’t say.
March nodded. “Stay close to me, Ora.” Equal parts plea and order.
“Walk fast. Don’t speak. And for the love of the Great Clock—” The Timekeeper, who was waiting for us right outside with a hand-lamp in his hand, threw a look back at us. “Keep your hands to yourself.”
Nobody said a word as we followed him.
It was different this time around.
The Timekeeper navigated the rooms and the corridors without hesitation, without a seeker, without even looking at the walls.
It was clear to see he knew this place. Like I knew the feel of pencil on the rough surface of my sketchbook paper, he knew every turn and every corner, even the pipes—he ducked without even looking.
The rooms we passed through were different again, but I was no longer surprised. I was no longer afraid, either. At least not half as much as I had been on the way down.
We followed the Timekeeper and the jingling of his tools, and the steady sound of his boots on the stone—and we didn’t ask where he was taking us.
None of us asked, but none of us were surprised when we made it back to the narrow corridor that would lead us to the hatch on the floor of Kohen’s Hollow.
The old Timekeeper was there, squatting near the edge, on his face an expression that said he’d aged ten years in the past few hours.
But he wasn’t surprised in the least to see the Timekeeper who led us here. He didn’t even say hello.
Instead, Kohen only asked one question: “All of them?”
The Timekeeper nodded. “All of them.”