“I’m not—”bragging,I wanted to say. What a silly little grinning cat—not understanding wasn’t something to brag about!
But he cut me off. “What’s that in your hand? How curious. May I see?”
I looked down at my hand, confused still. Angry. Mostly confused, though, because I didn’t knowwhatto be just now.
There, clutched in my fist was the folded sheet from my sketchbook with Silas’s portrait.
I fell on one knee as the Cheshire came closer—backward, of course, and stopped when he was right next to me where he could look down at the drawing in my hand.
He felt like…nothing at all. No heat came off him, and though my hand was close to the tips of his fur, he might as well not have been there at all. My body didn’t feel his body, his energy, his presence, not even a tiny bit.
“This is?—”
“Oh.Him.” The Cheshire stood up and continued to walk around me, backward.
My stomach fell. “You know him?”
“I most certainly do not.”
“But you said,oh, him.” That sounded like something you said when you knew someone. I turned, following the cat walking backward all around me. “That’s Silas. He’s the onewho betrayed us, who was half Timekeeper. Who cast the curse.”
The Cheshire stopped on my other side, looked up at me curiously, his eyes darker than the night. “A curse is only a curse when it comes full circle, O-ra.”
I thought about it for a second. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it means,” said the cat, and he continued backward to the tree again, walking upside it like the metal bark had its own gravity field holding him upright.
“Idon’t knowwhat it means,” I insisted.
“Well, what do you know, then?”
So frustrating. “There was a curse and now we’re stuck here and we have to unwin trials none of us remembers winning, and two Hands are already dead, and Silas…” I looked down at the drawing.
Time’s Teeth, I was exhausted—not just from the trial, but from seeing his face andnot knowing.Living like this, with only half of me present.
“Silas did what Silas had to do. He didn’t have authority, only…permission,” the Cheshire said, making my heart skip a beat.
“Permission from whom? For what?” I demanded. “And I thought you said you didn’t know him.” Because what he just said implied that hedid.
“I say a lot of things,” the Cheshire said, and he was already sitting on the branch, licking his paw backward. “You want answers, O-ra, but you’re looking in the loud parts of the Labyrinth.” As if to prove his point, a valve went off somewhere behind us, and steam rolled out of it with a screeching sound for a second.
“Where should I look instead?” I asked the Cheshire, not really hopeful that he’d say. So far, all he’d done with his words was confuse me.
“Well, I am no Hand to Time, I assure you—but if I were,I’d look for whatever is trying to make sure nothing changes.” Slowly, he stretched his front legs and lay down on his belly on the metal branch.
“And what is that?”
“A what, a who—so much to do,” he said, and his eyes were already half closed as he settled with a paw under his grinning face, and with the other scratched the metal of the branch exactly as he had been doing when I found him. The sound of it was identical, too. “Which is why I shall now take a nap or two.”
“Wait, wait, hold on,” I said, but I already knew it was a losing battle. The tip of his tail was no longer there, but I went closer to the tree anyway, looked up at the branch that was low enough I could reach it if I jumped a little. “Who’s trying to make sure nothing changes?Whereshould I look for answers? You have to help me, Cheshire.Please—help me.”
A pause. His grin faded. “For someone who’s lost so many parts, you’re awfully sensitive,” he told me. “Find the kitchen and go beyond. Maybe there’s a quiet place for your questions.”
“What kitchen—the palace’s kitchen?” But the Cheshire had already faded halfway, and only his grin remained clear for another second.
“Don’t just disappear like that,” I whispered, knowing full well it was useless. “Who even are you? Why did Time cast you out?!” Because it couldn’t have been for anything good, could it? For all I knew, I was talking to a criminal. To a thief. To a traitor.
The grin was the only thing visible about the Cheshire’s body now, and it turned downward with a growl that seemed to only pop up in my head.
