March didn’t trust me. He was just…curious about me. About why he had my memories in his head, and I had his.
He was only curious, that’s all. He didn’t evenlikeme.
“A mistake,” I muttered against every instinct in my body.It had been a mistake to kiss him—both times now—and a mistake to want him the way I did.
The reason?
The aftermath of the trials, of everything that had happened since we woke up. That’sallthere was to it.
“A mistake?” March leaned back a moment, looked at me intently.
“It’s…it’s not real, Heartling. It can’t be. It’s just this place that’s messing with our heads. We don’t know each other.” And that was logic. That made sense. That was possible.
“The only thing that messes with my head is you and your memories and the thought of your face.”
March had yet to move away or let go of my chin. I found I was still holding onto his arm, and he was still holding onto my hand, too.
“You are more real to me than everything out there I can see and touch and smell.”
“March,” I breathed because he was making it too hard. He had to know that this was wrong—he had to want answers first. All thosewhy’s—didn’t he want answers?!
“Something’s wrong with you, Velvet.” This time,Ipaused. “Something’s wrong with me, too. Something’s wrong with all of us, every day—butthisis not one of those things.”
Yet it was there, in his eyes what he really thought—and I said it: “You don’t trust me.”
“And you don’t really care about anything.”
Holy Hour, how was that so…true?
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not dying to know every inch of you better than I know myself,” he said in a lazy whisper, and it was all I could do not to moan when he pulled my bottom lip between his teeth and bit.
Curiosity, it’s just his curiosity, it’s just his curiosity?—
Then came a loud banging from the hallway.
“It’s five o’clock. Lesson starts in ten. Out with all of you!” Elida shouted, then continued to slam her fists on the rest of the doors in the hallway.
My eyes closed. I let go of March and he let go of me, stepped back.
“Looks like it’s time to go,” he said with a wicked grin.
“It is,” I said, trying to make up my mind, to make the right choice. Ihadto—until I knew more, I had to be smart about this, no matter what he felt like. He didn’t trust me and I didn’t care. There were far more important things to worry about.
So, I forced myself to say, “And March? Don’t come back here again.”
He stopped. Turned to look at me with his hand on the handle still. Surprised first, then curious—then he shrugged.
“All you have to do is not open the door, Velvet.” And he walked out of my room, leaving me to stare after him in silence.
They tookus to Master Talik’s workshop again, and we learned how to dismantle a much simpler machine than the other ones he’d prepared for us before. That’s because the lessons were following the timeline, Elida said, and so we were learning backward, too—from hard to easy. Which made no sense at all.
Master Talik didn’t look at me once, even when he was standing right next to me at the main table, watching how I was pulling the pins out of a gear to take it apart. His focus didn’t waver. Mine did. I wanted to ask him if we could meet later,alone,because I had to ask him more about Silas. The Cheshire said he hadn’t hadauthority, onlypermission—so who did? Surely it must have been a Timekeeper, and though Neverwhen was supposed to be full of them, we only saw theones inside the Labyrinth. Elida was out of the question—not a single one of my instincts trusted her. So, Master Talik remained the only option.
Elida was with us the whole time, so I could say nothing before we had to leave, but I planned to come back at dawn. I planned to sit there and knock on the door until he either came out or let me in.
In training, the exercises had gotten significantly easier, too. Asha and her partner put us in low-oxygen tunnels to test how long we could hold our breath and put us in shifting labyrinths to see how well we could find our way out based on pure intuition. They made us balance on these huge moving platforms on the part of the arena that was outside, and climb ropes faster and more efficiently as well. There was no sparring, no weapons, just over three hours of pure movement.
Mimi and Seth thrived. When we were done, they were glowing. The rest of us were beyond tired, but it was worth it. Nothing better to distract you from your strange reality than to be so physically exhausted you wondered if you’d make it to your bedroom before collapsing.
