“Fine,” I say, jaw tight.
“So, when we crossed the gateway, there was nothing in the water,” he drawls, rubbing his temple. “Like the hourglass was flipped, making the sea pour out. Then, it flips again, and suddenly the sand’s multiplying, so we start running like madmen, right?”
“Right.”
“But then…” He pauses. “It flipped again on its own.”
I sigh, biting back the urge to tell him to go sleep it off somewhere far from here. “Yes.”
“We didn’t do anything,” he adds.
“Nope,” I reply, keeping my voice flat.
“So what does it tell us?” He lifts his head, clearly straining, brow raised like he’s waiting for a revelation. I stare back, half-expecting him to actually say something worth the wait. But no—he just looks at me, a hopeful gleam in his eye, as if I’ve got the answer locked away somewhere I just haven’t bothered to check.
I cock my brow, gaze steady, waiting. “What does it tell us?” I finally prompt, when it’s clear he’s not going to figure this out himself.
His look of forced wisdom melts into a groan, loud and tortured enough to make my teeth ache. “I don’t know!” he whines, letting his head drop back. “I have no clue.”
He slumps against the workbench, staring at the ceiling, probably praying for some kind of epiphany that won’t come. Eventually, he just flops down and stares at the hourglass again, as if it might start speaking to him.
Fine. If he’s not going to get anywhere, I might as well try everything else, no matter how little hope I have in it.
I grab a piece of paper and turn the hourglass, sketching down the rough lines of what I see. It’s nothing coherent—just an hourglass in a shaky outline, more like a child’s scratchings than anything worthwhile. But at least it’s something to show for the last five minutes of listening to him ramble.
Then, of course, Vinicola’s voice cuts through my thoughts. Again.
“But you know what?” he says, eyes wide, voice soft and stupid. “This thing looked really beautiful in the sun.”
“What?”
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“You don’t remember? The way it caught the light? It was spectacular—like it was made to catch the sun just right,” he goes on, staring at the hourglass as if he’s still hypnotized by it. “The light bounced off it like nothing I’d ever seen before. And this entire Trial—“
“It wasn’t a Trial,” I cut in.
“Fine,” he relents, unfazed, “call it whatever you like. But it was terrifying and magnificent. I never thought I’d see water swallowing the sand like that or feel the ground breathe beneath my feet.”
“Hm,” I voice, listening to his rambling only half-tuned in.
I grunt, only half listening. Vinicola rarely speaks with any sense, his words flowing on and on like a stream with nodestination. But this time, he’s mentioned something that hits a nerve, making me sit up a little straighter.
The hourglass was made to catch the sunjustright?
Slowly, I pick up the hourglass, turning it over in my hands. I hold it up to the lanterns flickering in the armory. The dull, muted glow barely does anything, but I can almost picture it—how it might gleam in daylight, almost like…
I shake my head, muttering to myself, “Maybe you’re not as useless as you look...”
Vinicola practically springs up, his enthusiasm bouncing back tenfold. “You see? I told you! It was like stepping into another world! Show me anyone else who’s had the privilege to see something like that, and I’ll eat my quill! Sure, it was terrifying, but I feel—“
“That’s not what I meant.” I cut him off, unwilling to let his excitement spiral further. “The hourglass… it was designed to catch the sun. That’s the point.”
He stops mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he processes what I just said. “That’s… That’s the point?”
“We need sunlight,” I say, rising from the chair abruptly. It tilts dangerously, and Vinicola catches it before it clatters to the floor. He scrambles to his feet, trailing after me as I make for the deck.
“O-Okay,” he stutters, standing up as well and following me close by as I storm out of the armory.
