“We still want to talk to you about what we did, and what’s coming, and if what we’re doing is affecting the Great Clock at all! You see, it is still stuck.” Levana pointed her finger ahead to the windows where we could just see the walls of the tower.
“It certainly is. You unwon—as you should. I am very happy, indeed,” the queen said, pressing her hands to her chest next. “You don’t need me at all. You’re doing just fine on your own.”
Were we, though?
Yes, we unwon the trials, but barely, and without any clue what we were doing.
And most importantly—a Hand was dead.
“Is there nobody who remembers then?” I asked, but right now I didn’t seem to mind this habit of speaking what was on my mind without thinking it through thoroughly first.
The White Queen stopped, that bitter smile on her face still, like that might be her default setting.
“Is there nobody—no Timekeeper, nochildwho remembers the trials? We’re going in there blind, and apparently, losing our lives is very possible. If it happened to Reggie”—at the mentioning of the name, Mimi sobbed harder from the side—“it can happen to all of us.”
“Correct,” the White Queen said, and she wasn’t moving her arms to the sides like usual, I noticed. “Anything can happen in the Labyrinth. It doesn’t even have to be in the trial—accidents happen all the time.”
A threat,said a deep voice in my head.
A warning,said another.
A simple fact,said that of the Cheshire Cat.
“But you are very brave young tickers, and even though nobody in all the Clockrealm remembers the winning of the trials, I have faith that everyone will remember the unwinning of them.”
Nobody remembers.
How could nobody remember something that had happened? Something so many people had seen?
“But if—” Russ started, but the queen cut him off.
“And you are absolutely right—Idowant to hear all about the fourth and third trial. How about we discuss it over dinner?”
“Yes, yes, I’d love to join you!”
“Yes, of course—completelymypleasure, dearest tickers!”
Little by little, the queen rushed us out of the room beyond the kitchen, and into the eating hall that was still being set.
My mind was chaotic. I was made to sit down at the table, in the same place where I always sat, with Cook on one side and March on the other. The White Queen sat at the head, and she listened intently to the others while they told her about all we’d had to do to unwin the trials, and every new time she looked at me, I felt more and more exposed. The more she heard about me, the longer her looks lasted, the more I wanted to beg the Handsnotto mention my name to her at all.
Of course, I didn’t.
My instincts were very clear since the moment I sat at that table: say as little as possible to the White Queen—anddo not, under any circumstances, mention the Cheshire Cat or Silas.
Mimi was no longer crying.During dinner, the queen had spoken to her in a soft voice and touched her hand, had told her that Reggie would forever be remembered as a hero—and she seemed to like that. It was easier for her to accept his death when she thought of him as a hero.
By the time we made our way back to our rooms to change, she was even smiling.
So many things on my mind still, and the load hadn’t lessened. In fact, I was looking forward to being alone so I could try to think clearly, to put order to the madness, tounderstandeven a little bit of what was truly happening around me.
But before I could reach for the handle of my bedroom door, a grinning Seth stepped in front of me.
He had soft brown hair and light amber eyes that sparkled just now, the shadow of a stubble over his smooth cheeks, and a chin squarer than I’d ever seen. He was just a bit taller than me, possibly a couple inches, but he did manage to look down at me just fine.
“Hey, remember when I took you to the kitchen?”
I stopped. “Yes?”
