“Ah, yes.That.”
The others stirred. My eyes protested when I forced them from the boy and to the queen. She still hadn’t stopped smiling, not all the way. She was looking down at the table now, at the motions her hands made while she folded a white napkin to a perfect little triangle.
“There’s been an…incident, I’m afraid.” She put the triangle aside and grabbed another napkin—there seemed to be plenty around the plates. The silver threads at the edges of them matched the style of the hall we were in, too—the walls were white and silver, with the outlines of rose petals engraved here and there. The ceiling was high, shaped like a dome, and the doors on the other side of the room, both closed, were a polished white with silver streaks as well. From the windows we could only see the sky, so blue it insisted thiswasn’ta dream at all.
“You see, all of you entered the Turning Trials in their due time, which was two weeks ago. All of you played the four games and won.” Another folded napkin, and the queen looked up at us. Smiled harder.Must bereallypainful,I thought. “You made it to the very end, and then…and then…”
The White Queen’s black eyes glazed over as she looked ahead but didn’t really see the table—orusanymore. Her smile didn’t budge.
“The incident.” These words came from my own lips. It wasmyvoice that said them.
“Yes. The incident.” The queen looked at me. “And the incident was abad, badincident, indeed.”
But the blood and the grass and the night?—
“I don’t understand. How can I win the trials and not remember?” said someone—I didn’t look because I was trapped under the gaze of the boy across the table once more.
His name was at the tip of my tongue, and yet I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t rememberanyname other than mine—Ora Reese of the Court of Spades. That’s whoIwas.
And who washe?
Time’s Teeth, who were all of these people?
“All in due time, no rush,” said the queen. “We have minutes to spare, don’t we? You all won a great deal! Look–look, go ahead, I’ll allow it!”
More laughter, and it was soft and sharp at the same time, and the way the queen moved was…fluid. The curves her hands made, the way her fingers fluttered. Only her hair seemed to be frozen that way, unable to move the way the rest of her did.
But the others were indeed looking—down at themselves, at their own bodies. Searching.For what?
I had no idea, but I searched, too. I touched the foreign fabrics, pressed against the layers of shimmery tulle, and it only took three seconds to make out the hard object underneath the first few layers.
A clock.
It was round and golden, as big as the palm of my hand, and only one set of hands on it counted time. The otherheldit instead, because this was no ordinary clock.
This was also a chronobank.
Two faces, one within the other. The smaller one told time—a normal twelve-hour clock—but the bigger counted numbers up to a hundred. Three hands to count seconds and minutes and hours in the smaller clock, and the longest hand told the amount of Sparetime the clock contained.
Thathand was pointing at numberfifty-eight.
Fifty-eight minutes. That’s how much Sparetime this clock held.
Fifty-eight minutes wasa lotof power. One could do a lot of magic with that time. Yet the chain of the clock was attached tomydress as if all those minutes actually belonged to me.
I raised it, looked at it again, just like everyone else around the table.
Nobody understood.
“I don’t—” the boy sitting to my right started, but the queen did not let him finish.
“Before you start with your silly questions again—yes, these are your Life Clocks, given to you at the start of the trials, with thirty whole minutes to use, and to calculate your victories and failures throughout the games. I’m sure you can see…” She made a point to lean to the sides to see the clocks of the girls sitting near her. “Ah, yes—I’m sure you can see that they’re allfullof minutes now! Well-earned minutes that will serve you a great deal. All those minutes to use for any magic you please!”
How curious.
Even my parents who worked full-time had never had chronobanks this full—and this didn’t even look like an ordinary chronobank. Those were simple pocket watches that contained whatever amount of Sparetime you purchased, to then use as fuel for magic. They didnotlook this…sophisticated. This fancy.
“Very special, indeed. These chronobanks are one of a kind, my little tickers, and they are made especially for the Hands of the Turning Trials”—the queen raised her hands to indicate both sides of the table—“which isyou!”
