“I’m Helen,” said the girl next to him—a Heart with her hair cropped closed to her head, and beautiful golden earrings shaped like hearts on her ears. She was very pale, and her lips were very red and her Cupid’s bow was so pronounced they looked like a heart if I squinted my eyes a bit.
“I’m Russ,” said the boy sitting next to me—a Diamond. There was silver in his suit, and a single streak of it painted his dark blond hair on the right side of his face. Possibly intentional.
“Levana,” said the girl across from him—another Heart with lashes so thick and long the tips of them touched her arched brows when she blinked.
I had my breath held before I realized what I was doing.
The boy with the curly hair next to her finally spoke. “I’m March.”
March.
I had never-ever-reven heard such a name, and yet I knew it. It wasmine,too.
A second ticked by. They all watched me now. It was my turn.
“Ora,” I said, and the Heart boy flinched like I might have spilled hot tea on his lap.
“I’m Cook,” said the boy sitting next to me—the other Spade. The last at the table, because the seat across from him was still empty.
There.All eleven of us. Five boys. Six girls.Uneven.
Mother always said eleven was bad luck.
“You guys don’t think the queen meant it, right?” said the girl who’d first spoken—Mimi with the moss-green eyes.
“But she did,” said Seth, the Club. “And we’d best get some food in because they will be coming for us soon, I tell you.” He reached for one of the plates full of roasted vegetables on the table. “The Great Clock stopped at eight-thirteen, didn’t it? I will bet you anything thatthat’swhen they’ll want us to start the trial.Backward.”
Someone gasped.
Some covered their mouths or put their hands on their chests.
Most shook their heads but reluctantly reached for the food.
The Heart boy March didn’t. He only looked at me and sometimes at the rest of the Hands. The suspicion in his eyes was sharp as a blade. Fascinating how it hid his fear so well—unless he really didn’t feel any.
“But…but it’s insanity,” said the Diamond girl Anika from the beginning of the table. “I don’t remember ever coming to Neverwhen. I don’t remember how I won the trials. I don’t rememberany of you!”
From across the table, Erith reached out her hand for hers to comfort her. It looked…oddfrom where I was sitting, not only because I didn’t feel the need to do so—and actually cringed at the very idea—but because I felt Ishould have.
Some old, rusty instinct, maybe? Because I didn’t quitefeel like myself, but I was also not entirely certain I knew whomyselfwas.
Which then made me wonder, had I alwaysbeen like this, or had I been different?
I tried to think, I really did. For the Time in me, I couldn’t remember.
“Me, neither. But I do remember hunger,” said the boy next to Anika—the other Club, Reggie.
They were a strange people, the Clubs. They had to be on the move to survive. If they stood still for longer than a handful of hours, they aged at an incredible speed.
I wondered which one of them I’d traded my room with,ifany of this was even true. Because Lida the maid was right—they did need to move constantly, couldn’t stay in one place for long. We were taught little about the other courts, but everybody knewthatabout Clubs.Their entire court was built in spiraling towers almost as big as the Great Clock because they needed to be moving physically. Running, fighting, sleeping for only a few hours at a time.
So very chaotic, but they were the ones who kept Time moving—a very necessary thing.
“I think we shouldn’t touch the food at all,” said the Heart girl sitting near March. Levana was her name, and it fit the sharp edges of her beautiful face, the chestnut brown of her hair, the look in her forever-squinted eyes. “I think we shouldrefuseto be a part of this until someone tells us the truth—because I do not believe we’ve already completed the trials for a second.”
“If we did,” said Erith, no longer holding hands with Anika. “We would be champions. Victors. We would be famous, and-and-andrich, and we wouldn’t be…”
Her voice trailed off. I looked at March—again, after my eyes traveled to anyone else for a second, they always came back to him like he was home. Which was absurd, consideringhe was a stranger—a stranger who loves to create shapes out of glass and feels pure, raw happiness when they reflect the light in the right way…
