Lida waited for me in front of the last door on the right.Mybedroom, for now. She waited and she looked concerned when she saw me dragging my feet. They were all concerned, the help, as they waited to assist us now that the third trial was over.
But I didn’t need assistance. I just needed to be left alone.
“Please, go away,” I thought I told her, and for once, Lida didn’t argue. I don’t think she even said anything, only stepped aside to let me through, then closed the door behind me.
I walked and walked, seconds that sometimes felt like hours, and I found myself sitting on the floor with my back against the bed’s edge. Not sure why I didn’t just lie down, but I pulled my legs up to my chest instead, wrapped my arms around my knees with all my strength, and I cried.
I sobbed. I screamed, sometimes whispered.
I only stopped when unconsciousness took me, and I slept on the floor.
I sleptfor over ten hours.
When I woke up, the sky was dark, my head hurt like I’d split my skull open somewhere, and the clock on my nightstand said it just before ten m.b.
I was whole.
Such a strange sensation.
While I bathed, I touched my chest, my stomach, my limbs, tried to feel exactly where the change had happened, but it was everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. It wasinside,and that place that had been empty until the day before was now full. Settling. Not exactly comfortable but getting there.
I wasmeagain. I was the same Ora Reese I had always been. I’d never beenbroken.There was never anything wrong with me—it was just my compassion that I’d been missing. Just my compassion that I’d somehow given away in a game I didn’t even remember.
Now I had it back.
Now I felt, and I hurt, andI cared.That’s why I was crying again while I dried off and got dressed. For Helen, mostly, for the look on her face as she fell together with the timewraith that had somehow managed to grab her ankle. For myself, too, for having been so terrified since I woke up here. For my parents who I hadn’t seen in such a long time that it felt like I’d lost them forever.
For March.
The hallway was empty when I walked outside, and my legs knew the way to the eating hall without my having to think about it. Most of the Hands were already there, March included, and they looked…off.Unplugged. Alive but not entirely conscious in the way they moved. The way they didn’t even look up at me when I entered.
I felt exactly like that, too.
The velvet cushion of my chair felt like it was made of needles. I went through the motions of picking up food and putting it on my plate only because my body demanded fuel. When I ate, I didn’t feel taste. I felt nothing but the heavy shadows layering the inside of my head.
Nobody spoke.
By the time I was done with half the food, all the Hands were sitting around the long table.
All the Hands that were left.
No Reggie. No Helen.
No Silas.
“What was it?” Seth asked, maybe minutes, maybe hours later. “What did you get back?”
Goose bumps rose on every inch of my skin.
Of course they gave away something, too. The trials took from everyone.
It was Cook who answered first. “Imagination.”
Imagination.
What kind of a life could one live without it?Howhad he managed?
“Belonging,” Anika said in half a voice.
