“Maybe he can’t hear us,” Russ whispered.
“Maybe he can’t understand us,” said Mimi.
But he did. I knew deep in my bones that Calren understood perfectly.
I stepped closer to the table, took in a deep breath, went all the way until the edge of the table touched my hip.
“Calren.” He stopped drawing but didn’t raise his head. “We woke up here without memories, without a clue how we even got here, and we’re told there was a curse, and that we need to unwin to save everyone.”
Those eyes locked on mine.
“Unwinning will not saveeveryone.” He said the words slowly, carefully, like each letter was made of glass and he was being careful not to break them.
“They said it will. They said the curse was going to destroy?—”
“No-no-no-no-no.” As he said this, he slammed both his pencils onto the sheets of paper, making several holes in them, until the tips of his pencils broke. “The curse was not meant todestroy!”
Someone stepped behind me—March, and he stayed close enough that I felt the heat of him all over my back. His hands closed over my shoulders, too, and I knew he was worried that Calren might attack me or something, but he didn’t need to be. Calrenwouldn’t,regardless of how I knew.
“So, what was it meant for then?” I asked.
Another flash of golden light, and the tips of his pencils were sharp again.
“They told us it was meant to destroy Time itself, the entire realm,” said Mimi from my other side.
Laughter, dry and short, and I did jump back a bit at the sharp sound on instinct. “You don’t go breaking lamps whenyou want to blind a room, do you?” He looked at us and it was like he was a completely rational, intelligent man for a split second there. “No—you close the shutters to stop the light from seeping in.”
The rest of us looked at one another—nope, not a single one understood anything he said.
“What does thatmean?” Anika asked.
“I don’t think it means anything, guys,” Cook muttered—but I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“Calren, we need help. We don’t remember anything. Is there something you can tell us, someone who knows what happened?” I asked. “Is there any way to end this, tonot playin the trials? Any way to leave the Labyr?—”
“No.” The word was so final it cut mine in half.
“So how are we to know what we’re doing when nobody will tell us anything?” Mimi asked. “We don’t remember the trials we won! We don’t remember a curse—everything’s justmissing!”
Calren looked up at her then. “Mim-mim,” he said, and something inside me twisted. “Missing things don’t have edges. They don’t tear anything. They don’t break anything, they don’t.”
His words echoed in my mind. “Does that mean it was on purpose then?” I asked. “Does that mean we weremadenot to remember?”
Silence.
“The Red Queen,” whispered someone behind me, but I couldn’t tell who. And I couldn’t really focus on anything but Calren.
“Just tell us. What happened toyou? What happened tous?!”
Finally, he stopped scribbling long enough to look up at me. “Tick-tock-tea-talk,” he whispered and drew all the air out of my lungs, locked all the air of the world out of my reach. “Your time is running out, and when all of it does, you will be free. When everything’s over, you will be free.”
White noise in my ears. The others spoke again, asked him questions, but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t stop March from pulling me back when he did, either.
How-how-how was it possible? How did he know those words—how?!
A small scream pierced right through the confusion in my mind. I blinked and found Erith holding her hand to her chest—the same hand she’d grabbed Calren’s wrist with.
“He’sfreezing cold!” she cried out, moving farther back. The rest of them did the same.
