“That’s okay. I’d have showed them to you myself, anyway,” I said, and I meant it. I really didn’t mind. He hadn’t been himself, just likeIhadn’t been myself, either.
In fact, even in those very moments, I was having trouble remembering whomyselfhad been these past two weeks.
“They were incredible,” March said. “The details and the shadows—you’re incredibly talented, Velvet.”
Heat on my cheeks. “That’s just because I had a good model,” I muttered.
He chuckled again, and my toes curled inside my boots. “Were those all from before?”
“They were,” I said with a nod. “I really did know you, even when I didn’t.” I knew the curls of his hair and the colors of his eyes, the shape of his lips, his silhouette.
“And I knew you,” he said. This, I didn’t doubt, even if there were no right words to explain it.
We made it to the mechanical garden and continued to move ahead. Memories crashed and burned, some faded as I took in the trees and the rose bushes, the hedges—all shielding what was underneath us.
The Labyrinth was alive under our feet. It was a monstrous machine that this garden tried to shield from our eyes but couldn’t. I was almost twelve-hours certain I’d witnessedhowit did this days ago, but at the same time, I couldn’t pinpoint an exact memory of being here at all.
So strange.
Then we saw the others.
We both slowed our steps when we noticed the other Hands. I blinked a million times to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, but then March and I exchanged a look, and I knew he saw them, too.
Mimi, Seth and Russ were sitting together on the grass, cross-legged, and on a bench on the other side were Anika and Erith, each sitting with their feet up, their backs against the bench’s armrests. Cook was a few feet to the other side, arms wrapped around his knees as he stared at the tree over his head, and Levana was lying on the grass next to a large rosebush spilling steam every few seconds with a hiss.
They were all there, all around this large tree that seemed familiar, except I had no idea why. The apples hanging on the branches did, too.
The Hands looked at us when we went closer, but no one was surprised at our joined hands. No one said a single word when we went to sit near Cook.
Mimi wore her pajamas, but the rest of them were fullydressed. The silence was comfortable for as long as it lasted. We didn’t even look at one another, but we were all…calm. Like webelonged.
Time’s Teeth, I’d missed being this comfortable in my own skin. Whether it was March alone, or the garden and the other Hands, too, it didn’t really matter.
Then Mimi exhaled loudly.
“I keep thinking I’m going to remember something if I just sit here long enough,” she said. “But it doesn’t come.” She looked up then. “Anybody?”
Seth, who sat between her and Russ, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s like the lights in my brain are mostly turned off. I can’t…seea damn thing.”
That was exactly what it felt like to me, too.
“I think I dreamed of this very place once, but I’m not sure. I can’t catch the memory,” Anika said from the bench.
Cook shivered and wrapped his arms around his knees tighter. “It feels like I’m being…emptied out. Does that make sense? Like I’m being drained.”
“Oh, yes,” Anika said with a nod.
Across from her, Erith stared down at her hands, like she was hoping to have answers written on her skin. “If I could only remember what I’m forgetting…”
The panic was there, simmering underneath the surface of my mind, but I held onto March’s hand tighter. I knew I was losing myself, too. I felt it just like the rest of them, but I still had March. I was still anchored to this world. I wasn’t alone—and neither were they.
“We’re all in this together,” I said, more for my benefit than theirs.
Levana didn’t raise her head when she spoke, only continued to look at the sky. “Maybe it’s easier to forget. Maybe it’s for the best.”
“It isn’t,” said Russ from the other side. “Wewillremember.As soon as the last trial is over, we will remember everything.”
“We will befree. That’s what he said, didn’t he? The…the brother.” Mimi flinched. “I don’t remember his name anymore. I could have sworn I did just now…”
