I wanted to say something,neededto break the silence, but my tongue was dry and my panic was being overrun by excitement—because, Holy Hour, it was real. There was an actual place beyond the kitchen, and Russ knew about it.
“Who told you about a room behind a kitchen?” asked March.
“I…”a talking, grinning Cheshire Cat.“I just heard.”
Feeling like I was standing on needles, I moved around the other side of the isle, and toward the kitchen appliances—where Russ had already opened a door in the wall I would have never seen there because it didn’t even have a handle. How Russ had known to push it back in the first place was beyond me.
“Heard from whom?” March asked as he fell into step with me easily. His legs were much longer than mine.
“Do you always come to the kitchen for snacks before meals?” I asked instead. “All of you? Together?”And why do I soundlike thiswhen I ask?
“They do. Every day,” March said, and the others had already disappeared through the door in the wall.
I rushed my steps.
“Why—you suddenly want to be their friend?”
I threw March a look—no, I don’t.Luckily, I didn’t need to say anything because we were already at the door and I stepped over the raised threshold without waiting another second.
A long, narrow corridor that barely fit March’s shoulders comfortably. The others had fallen into line, one after theother, talking, laughing, moving toward the other end, which was farther than I’d thought.
Then March whispered from behind me, “I saw you again,” and it was like he’d jumpstarted my heart from the beginning.
My step faltered. I looked back at his face, so beautiful even in the dim lights that my fingers itched to both touch him and draw him.
But before I could think of a word to say, a door swung open loudly somewhere ahead, and three gasps filled the air, one after the other.
Both March and I turned forward to finally see the end of the narrow corridor as the last of the others stepped inside. My feet stopped moving just by the entrance, but March was taller than me, so he could see over my head.
He could see the large white room clearly—and the White Queen standing in the corner with her eyes wide open, frozen in place.
25
Blinking didn’t change the view in front of me. The White Queen was alone in a big white room with floor to ceiling windows that looked out at the base of the tower of the Great Clock, and the city of Neverwhen beyond the Labyrinth’s fences. She was holding a dish towel in her hand, and a cup in the other, and a lot more of them were lined on the white rack by her feet.
A lot moreof everything was neatly placed onallthe racks around the room, standing on wheels, reaching up to her hips only.
It made so little sense. As little sense as a talking cat, if not less.
The queen was in shock, too, to find us there, and it took her a good tick or two to come to her senses, to smile, raise her arms and say, “My little tickers—you found me!”
The others were already unfrozen, moving closer to her, all of them talking at the same time.
Clockbeasts; trials; tea party; Reggie; hourglasses; clocks; Reggie; tea party; clockbeasts—Reggie!
Those were the words that stuffed my ears over and overagain as I stared from the doorway, until a hand pressed gently onto the small of my back and caused fireworks to explode all through my veins.
“Move, Velvet.”
I moved, put one foot in front of the other. Tried to distract myself until I caught my breath again—with the things around us, the grand chandeliers full of crystals, the racks and racks and racks all over, on wheels, each with dishes on them, porcelain, glass, stone, even plastic. All of it was shiny, polished—white.
“See?” the White Queen’s voice rang in my ears. “Spotless!”
She was showing the others her teacup rimmed with silver that she must have been polishing, and she seemed awfully proud of it, too.
“But Your Excellency,” said Erith, her voice shaking. “Reggie is dead.”
Fire in the queen’s eyes, but it went off too soon to be sure it was real.
