“You okay?
March was still there, looking at me without really turning his head, as if he didn’t want anybody to see.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Thank you.”
“Afraid of heights?”
“A little.”A lot.“You?”
“I don’t mind them,” he said, then looked up, to our left, to where the sun had just started to unset.
“Guys, is this real? Somebodypinchme,” said Anika from across the table, shaking, but also with a strange smile on her face.
The other side were sitting with their backs turned to the edge of the floor, which was barely just five feet away, and I couldn’t decide whether I should move there to turn my back to the view or stick to my chair until I got used to it.
“Nobody pinchme,” Levana said. “I want to see this so badly…” and she rearranged her chair to face the unsetting sun without batting a lash.
“Remember to breathe,” March whispered near my ear again, and it was like my body was really at his command. I breathed and I looked at his profile, the way his hair pulled back revealed more of his face than I’d seen since we woke up here. But I still knew his hairline, every curve of it. The shape of his earlobe. The sharp edge of his jawline.
I’d drawn it all before.
“Time’s Teeth,howare we up here?” Mimi whispered from my other side.
“It’s the Labyrinth. This entire place is a machine,” Russ said. “I can’t see underneath, but I can guarantee something’s holding us up. Possibly a large steel pillar.” He wasn’t fazed by the height in the least, either.
“But why?” asked Seth with a dumbfounded smile on his face as he looked at the unsetting sun. “This is wicked, I’m not complaining—but why?”
“Whynot?” Helen said, eyes sparkling as she, too, stared at the sky. They all did, and I was tempted, and it was beautiful to witness indeed, but the sky wasn’t giving me any courage. The sky wasn’t reminding me to breathe.
I kept my eyes on March.
“Control,” he suddenly said, and some of the others looked at him, too, for a moment. “This is how she keeps control of the whole thing. Nobody comes or goes anywhere without her knowing. Everybody’s clearly within her sight. Nothing happens here without her seeing it.”
Smiles faded.
“Who?” asked Levana from across the table. “The…the Red Queen?”
Nobody answered. Instead, we all turned to look at the table across from us, at the Red Queen who had a glass filled with red liquid in her hand—and was looking right at us.
To see those dark eyes turned our way again made chills rush down my back, and I wasn’t the only one. Every Hand turned to the sky, terrified because we all remembered. We all saw, even if it was in a dream.
Yes, that woman had definitely been in our heads somehow. It was the same face, the same expression, the sameenergyas in that nightmare. And now I was dying to find out what she’d done.
“We’re safe here,” March said after a moment, low enoughso that only I heard it. “So long as everyone can see everything, we’re safe.” And he dragged his chair to the side a little bit to look behind at the floor.
Absentmindedly, I did, too.
There was so much more around us that I’d realized. The tables of the guests were spread on either side of ours and the queens’, and beyond them on the left was what looked like a bar. It was small, maybe ten feet long in total, and two people were on the other side of the white counter topped with red roses everywhere. There were waiters and waitresses in front of it, standing with empty trays in one hand, the other arm hidden behind their backs, waiting.
Across from them, beyond the guest tables to my right was the band.
Three people played instruments while standing on their own raised platform, almost as high as that of the queens. A woman with dark hair that fell like a silk curtain in front of half her face played a golden harp beautifully, while one of the men behind her blew on a silver flute, and the other with snow-white hair cropped short played a violin.
The music was slow, cheerful and sad at the same time, and it followed the rhythm of seconds perfectly, yet it sounded…strange. Not wrong, only unusual. I couldn’t figure out why, though.
And then there were the guests.
Most of them were looking at us as they spoke to one another, smiling openly, raising their glasses at us. They seemed to be having the time of their lives.
