“Let’s just wait for the flowers to come back. They’ll tell us more, I know it,” said Anika, but she was wrong, I thought. The flowers had told us plenty. Our way out was through the wraiths.
“A trap,” Cook said. “They’re timewraiths. We can set up a trap for them, lure them in another direction while we run.”
That was…not a bad idea, actually.
“How are we going to do that?” asked Helen, who really did look green in the face just now. I wondered if she was going to be sick with time here and throw up all over the floor.
“Our Life Clocks,” March said, pulling his from his suit pocket. “We can lure them with our Life Clocks. They’re full of magic.”
Holy Hour, he was absolutely right.
“Yes, that’s right,” Seth said, eyes wide and glazed over as the wheels and cogs in his head turned. “They’ll follow the magic like moths.”
“Buthoware we going to run without our Life Clocks?” Levana asked.
Silence for a tick.
The idea popped into my head like it had always been there, and it was just now coming to light.
“A cage.” Like the one that had brought us up here. Like the one that we’d had to jump off to even begin the trial. “We lure them and trap them in a cage.”
“And then we run,” Cook said with a nod.
For once, all of us seemed to be of the same mind. Nobody argued when we got to work, and we were all eager to spend the Sparetime in our Life Clocks first.
“We’ll gather half in a pile right there on the ground, while the rest work the cage around them,” said March. “But we’ll have to be fast.”
One after the other, the Hands were pulling their Life Clocks from their pockets. I did the same.
“I’ll give mine for bait,” some said.
“I’ll keep mine for the cage,” said others.
“There’s plenty of wood. All we have to do is find the right spot with enough branches and cords at our disposal,” said Seth. “Mimi and I could wrap them up easily.”
An image flashed in front of my eyes—of Reggie, on the ground, being wrapped in vines and roots, slowly choking to death.
Something echoed inside me.
“…and Ora.” March’s voice snapped me out of it. “We’ll stand by and wait with Seth and Mimi. The rest of you play bait.”
Before the minute was over, we were all spread out to search for the best place that offered easy access to branches and roots and cords to create a cage with—but we didn’t wander too far.
Russ found the perfect spot in no time, very close to the main trunk of the tree. It had five branches that twisted downward just enough so it would be easy for us to manipulate them with magic, extend them, curve them down all theway. Together with the cords and leaves spread about, we could trap the wraiths against the trunk long enough for us to escape.
It was a solid plan. I actually believed in it, believed it would work.
Levana, Russ, Anika, Erith, Helen, and Cook all put their Life Clocks on the floor and stepped back a couple feet. Mimi and Seth were testing the branches with their magic, a dark green against the wood.
March and I looked at each other for a second—we both knew what we needed to do next.
“Stay here and be prepared. We’ll bring them your way,” said March.
Not going to lie, it was a bit exciting. I picked a piece of wood from the floor, as long as a bat and just as thick, just to have something to hold onto when I was face to face with the wraiths. March did the same, tore a bunch right off the trunk as we went, and we both had our Life Clocks out. Not that we’d need them—the wraiths would be onto us without them, for all the time inside our bodies, but still.
“Scared, Velvet?” he said when we were about ten feet away from the others.
I swallowed hard, licked my dry lips, held back a smile. “A little. But don’t worry, Heartling. I’ll still keep you safe,” I said, and it must have been the adrenaline, the way my heart was pounding in my chest with anticipation, because it sounded very unlike me.
