Nuisance. But I might as well finish the thought now since it was already out there.
“Does the queen have any reason to lie to us?” Because I, for one, couldn’t think of such a thing.
Neither could they.
“Part of the trial,” Russ said, drinking all his lemonade in one swig. He was very noisy when he swallowed, and licked his lips, and slammed the glass back onto the table. “It’s all part of this year’s trials.”
Except those words stank worse than rotten seconds.
“It isn’t.” March. My eyes moved up from my plate—he was looking at Russ for once.
“How do you know?” the Diamond asked.
“Because the Great Clock cannot be altered for anyone. They wouldn’t mess with it for anything, let alone the trials.”
Those words, the way he pronounced them. So…precisely.
That voice, the way it remained neutral, like he was incapable of feeling.
But he was. I’d felt it myself while he spun that rod in his hands. Happiness. Pride. Joy.He’d felt all of that—overglass.
“The Great Clock is stuck. We all saw it. The curse happened,” March said.
I looked at him again. What kind of magic could the Labyrinth possess to make people see through another’s eyes, experience their very emotions the way I had his?
How could that be real?
Or was this, after all, just a very long, very strange dream?
And if so, how could I dream of something I’d never seen or thought about before, so vividly?
“So…what now?” Could have been Reggie or Seth who asked.
“Now?” Anika said, arching a thin brow. “We unwin the trials.”
Panicked whispers and movements. The three Clubs stood up and paced around the table.
When they returned to their seats, they each took the other’s.
The rest of us remained in our places, forcing food down our throats. I still couldn’t taste anything, and my mind wouldn’t stop spinning, and March wouldn’t stop looking at me when he thought I couldn’t see.
I could. His attention had physical weight on me.
Why did I make up that visual of him working with glass?Howdid I imagine what his happiness felt like?
Was it a spell? Had I been magicked?
Why was the Great Clock stuck? What kind of a curse could make the very center of our realm just…stop?
Why would a Spade or a Timekeeper or anyone at all want tocurse Time?!
“Relax, everyone,” said Helen, leaning back on her chair with her arms crossed casually. “It’s no big deal, okay? Even if we really have to play the trials backward—so what?We wonthem forward, didn’t we? How much harder couldunwinningreally be?”
That brought all my thoughts to a sudden pause.
Hmm.
Wehadalready won the trials, according to the White Queen. We were here—and my clothes were somehow in that room, and my sister’s picture and my sketchbook I never go anywhere without were on the nightstand. My skin was raw red in places, like it had been recently healed by a medic.
