“Oh, poor soul,” Lida said, and she tried to touch my cheek.
I pushed her hand away. “Please. Just tell me if you know where he is.”
“I don’t,” she said, bringing her hands to her chest, her eyes suddenly glistening with tears. “I didn’t see him tonight, but I’ve seen him other nights.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs. He climbs on the tower where they put the lantern.”
I narrowed my brows. “Lantern? What lantern?” I urged her, and Lida sighed, shook her head.
“Pray I don’t get in trouble for this, but the green door on the fourth floor,” she said, and I was running again.Green door, lantern, green door, lantern,my mind chanted every time my foot slammed against the floor.
“Be careful on those stairs!” Lida called, and her voice followed me close behind.
I thought I shouted athank youback, but the only thing I was certain of was that I was running, and I wouldn’t stop until I found March.
There was onlyone green door on the fourth floor of the palace, which surprised me a little. I’d expected to be running around for a while, searching for it, which always seemed to be the case in this place. Yet the green door was there, and you couldn’t miss it because it was the only one of its kind inthe narrow hallway. The rest of the doors were white and polished, like all others in the building.
On the other side of it was a spiral stairway, and I knew exactly what Lida had meant when she told me to be careful. They were half ruined, half eaten away by time, made from white stone that could have been the carved bones of some giant being. The walls were uneven, too, sort of leaning in, like the entire stairway hadgrownout of the Labyrinth itself. The white walls were wrapped in creeping ivy, and they seemed to get narrower the higher up they went.
The stairs spiraled tightly along the inside wall, and they were indeed a mess. Some were missing, most were uneven, but the higher up I went the more roots there were on the wall for holding onto, roots that had pushed their way through cracks. Light came from the old lanterns dotting the walls here and there, some of them completely covered in ivy, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind the darkness—so long as it led me to light.
The air was thinner up there, too, cooler, cleaner, and even my footsteps sounded…less.Like I was growing more and more distant from all the world with each uneven step. Like the tower filtered everything below it out.
The walls closed in. I was starting to believe that whatever was up there, I wouldn’t even fit through.
Except when I finally reached the top—surprised, tired, breathing heavily—I found that wasn’t true at all. The end of the stairwell was indeed narrow and barely fit me through its walls, but once it ended, it opened onto some sort of a balcony ringed by greenery.
“Time’s Teacups,” I breathed with a sigh. This was definitely the farthest thing from what I expected to find up here.
A stone railing circled the balcony, though it was taller than me, so maybe it wasn’t a balcony at all. Vines spilledover it, dotted with pale leaves and small wildflowers that I could have sworn were glowing softly in the dark. From here, you couldn’t see anything beyond the edge—not the gardens, not the fence of the Labyrinth, not Neverwhen, just an uninterrupted spread of stars and drifting clouds. I had the thought I might be able to touch them if I climbed on those vines and reached out my hand high enough.
The balcony curved inward slightly, cradled by the part of the building behind us made of a simple white wall just like the rest of the palace.
In it was the lantern.
It was taller than a person, its glass panels fogged up to the middle, etched with delicate lines that barely allowed the light from a low flame burning inside it through.
The strangest thing I’d ever seen, just there on the white stone floor, hidden among the greenery, yet also in plain sight, and?—
“Velvet?”
I turned.
March was standing alone on the other side, with loppers in his hand and a furrow on his brow, like he couldn’t quite believe that he was seeing me standing there.
Once again, I ran.
The lantern, the stairs, the sky forgotten, I ran to him, and the entire balcony was maybe fifteen feet wide, so it didn’t take me long to get to him.
March threw the loppers to the ground and caught me in perfect time. My arms were around his neck like it was the most natural thing in the world, and his were tightly around my waist, and I could barely breathe at all, but I didn’t really need air as much as I needed to make sure he was here. That I knew his face. I knew the heat of his body, the way he felt when pressed against me like this.
“Velvet, what are you doing here?”
His voice was familiar. Perfectly familiar, like I’d never forgotten a single word he’d ever said in my presence.
I let go, moved back a little to see his eyes, but my hands were still on his face.
