Then the table began to shake again.
A bad feeling settled in my gut.
I think I’m going to be dead.
The others stood up, moved back, gave up trying to free Reggie. Levana looked at me, saw me standing there, waiting for the next minute to tick, and she twisted her face like she’d just tasted something sour.
“What iswrongwith you?!” She was crying.
Nothing,I wanted to say.
I don’t know,I wanted to say.
I don’t care,I wanted to say.
My tongue remained stuck between my teeth.
“Time’s Teacups—look, guys, look!” Mimi shouted, and she was crying, too, and the vines that had wrapped around Reggie’s body were moving. Undoing. Unleashing him.
My chest hurt with so much feeling—was it relief? Was it dread? Was it confusion?
The others all spread out, moving away from Reggie, hands raised and weapons drawn, waiting and waiting…
Purple, green, yellow and pink. Silk all over his body, and a hat inside a hat inside a hat on his head.
My mind came to a halt. All the fear and the confusion and thewhat is wrong with me?disappeared. Nobody said a single word or seemed to breathe as we looked at Reggie being released by the soil. His suit was gone. The clothes on his body were entirely different. Too colorful. Too silky. Toomuch.
Then his eyes opened.
A few gasps sounded among us—could have been me as well. We all started to move back as Reggie sat up, lookeddown at his hands and his torso, then stood up like a newborn, testing to see if his legs would hold his weight while he held onto the table.
Thump-thump-thumpwent my heart, faster than a fast-forward second.
“R-R-Reggie?” Mimi whispered.
And Reggie finally turned his head to us.Smiled.Grinned worse than the Cheshire had.
Time’s Teeth, he’d changed. His eyes glistened differently. His cheeks were red. There was a hat-in-a-hat-in-a-hat on his head that hadn’t been there before, and those clothes…
“I’m afraid Reggie isn’t available at this time. He’s been returned to the minutes that made him.”
Reggie’s voice, but with a sharper, colder edge to it.
Reggie’s voice, but…not.
“Where is he?” March demanded, in his hand a knife, his other fisted and ready. If he attacked, what wouldNot-Reggiedo? Would he fight back?
I would rather not find out at all…
“What did you do to him, freak?!” Seth shouted—and he, too, looked ready to attack.
But Not-Reggie was grinning still, unbothered as he walked to the beginning of the table, pulled out the chair, then pushed back the tail of his colorful jacket, and sat. At the head.
“Why, nothing, of course! The Game was owed a host…” His voice trailed off as he reached for the teapot with the rotten tea—it was full again. He poured himself a cup, then grabbed the sugar bowl, looked at us. “Now it has one to declare the Game’s unwon, darlings. Door’s that way—if you dare.” And he waved his hand behind us.
“Where is he?! We’re not going anywhere without him—where is Reggie?!” Mimi shouted at the top of her lungs.
But Not-Reggie put two or three spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and continued to grin.
