“All these clocks here are stuck at seven,” said Mimi, and the others grabbed the clocks from around the table todouble-check. There were at least twenty of them, big and small, shaped like squares, triangles, a few like circles, and indeed they were all stuck at seven o’clock.
“Does that mean we need to undoall hours,or just one?” asked Levana.
“The sign says undothe hour,sandbrain,” Russ shot from the head of the table. “All we need to do is to bring these clocks to six.”
“Tick off, little rock,” Levana told him with a wave, and she reached for the pieces of paper that were folded near the teapot and the sugar bowl on the wooden box. “Drink me.”She looked up—straight at March who sat across from her. “It says,drink me.”She showed us the piece of paper, and the two words written in the same cursive as the sign.
“Eat me,”said Anika, who’d unfolded the other piece of paper near the sugar bowl. She showed us—identical cursive letters.
“So, we drink tea, and…just undo the hour?” Again, these words kept slipping from me by accident, like some part of me was so sure that it was okay to say them, that I evenwantedto be part of the conversation, when I didn’t. I could think better locked in my head.
But so far, I had nothing.
I wasn’t sure how one could undo an hour, but my best guess was thatwe’dsomehow created it when we first came to this trial in the past.
Or was it the future?
My head was starting to ache—but based on that calculation, we should absolutely be able to undo what we did. Just like with the clockbeasts.
“Maybeyoucould undo it—you’re Spades,” said Anika, and she was looking at Cook, then at me.
“We can undo anomalies and loops and bad magics, not hours,” said Cook, and of course, he was right.
“Maybe we can all use magic and just pull these hands to six o’clock,” Helen thought out loud. “You know, sincewe cando magic well, apparently…”
“Maybe we could—” Mimi stopped mid-sentence when the firsttickof a tock sounded in the air all of a sudden, and it came from the teapot standing on the wooden box in the middle of the table.
Steam began to rise from a crack on the lid, and from the long, curvy spout. The clocks all began to tick-tock,and the thin hands that showed seconds were moving, but the minutesweren’tturning. Instead, every time sixty seconds were done, the longer hands vibrated like theywantedto move forward, but then crashed and stayed in place instead.
“I think the game has officially started,” said Seth from March’s other side, and he pointed his finger to the back of the teapot. “And the hours arein here.”
Turns out, the tea in the old, cracked teapot held minutes, and we could see it when it started to steam. A narrow piece of glass was near the handle, revealing the liquid inside, and to the side of it were the markings shimmering on the porcelain—10, 50, 100…A measuring unit, and the wordminuteswas written at the top near the lid. The teapot was full of gold colored liquid, and in total, it had four hundred and twenty minutes—exactly seven hours.
The hour we needed to undo was just in the pot.
Relief fell over me like a soft breeze. I almost volunteered to get up and do the pouring myself, but luckily Levana was the first to make it to her feet.
“I got this. I’ve got a Life Clock full of minutes to use.” She took the golden clock from her pocket and put it over the table. “I’ve got the tea-time, and the cup. I will pour exactly sixty minutes, and we will get out of here,” she proudly exclaimed, and another wave of relief came over me.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” March asked whenshe grabbed the handle with a steady hand and lowered the spout near her cup.
Even though I could only see his profile, I knew he had the same suspicion in his eyes as with everything—even the queen. Maybe he felt something smelled like rotten seconds here, too.
“Of course. There’s seven hours in this kettle, and there need to only be six,” Anika, who was sitting near Levana, said.
“Just–just get on with it. Just–just finish it.Finishit,” Reggie said, and he looked pale as a ghost.
In fact, now that I looked at him closely, his forehead was covered in beads of sweat, too. He really did not look good at all.
“Hey, breathe, Reggie,” Seth and Mimi said at the same time, and Anika waved for Levana to continue.
“Go ahead and go slowly. We’ll watch the units together.”
Finally, Levana began to pour.
The tea spilled into the cup, hot and golden, but the smell of it was wrong. Tea didn’t smell like dead fish, no matter what herbs you used. The scent was strong, too, so that a minute in, we all had our hands in front of our noses to try to block it, but it was useless.
With a green face, Levana set the teapot down. The tea inside now reached only up to360,which was exactly sixty minutes poured.
