My eyes opened, and only then did I realize that they’d been half closed. I’d been about to fall asleep right there on that seat.
March was next to me, head back, eyes forward—but he’d whispered those words. I knew he had.
For the longest moment, he didn’t move an inch, didn’t blink at all as he looked at the others, and then he turned those eyes toward me.
“Why are you in my head, Spade?”
He still hasn’t said my name.
“I don’t know.” Was it wise to tell him that he was inmyhead, too? Instead, I said, “Do you like glass?”
A silly question, I knew. But maybe it was equally as silly as asking me why I was in his head, so…
March froze. Sucked in a short breath. Looked and looked and looked.
“How do you know that?”
Because you’re in my head, too.
“I don’t. It’s why I’m asking you.”
March didn’t answer me. “How did you know about the clockbeasts?” he asked instead. “And about the hour, too.” I didn’t answer him, either. “Whoareyou, really?” The suspicion that suddenly filled his eyes was heavy.
“You know who I am,” I said reluctantly. I’d told them my name.
“I don’t.”
“I’m a Hand in the Turning Trials.” That he made me say this—and that I actually said it—was pretty damn frustrating.
“We’re Hands, too, but you certainly don’t look like one of us.”
If he’d slapped me.
If he’d burned me.
If he’d whispered my name in my ear.
“You’re so incredibly suspicious of everything,” I found myself saying. “If not a Hand, what am I?”
Large shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. What kind of a person would stand back and not at leasttryto save someone in need?”
The memory of Reggie being wrapped up in those vines and roots crawled at the center of my mind.
The kind who knows when it’s useless to try,I thought, but didn’t say it. I don’t know why.
Luckily before I could come up with a different answer, the doors finally opened and a woman we’d never seen before walked in with a grin on her face and guilt gleaming in her light green eyes. A Timekeeper.
“Good day to the most wonderful Hands in the Clockrealm—and congratulations on your first unwin!”
Her voice was pitched high, her smile fake, her posture that of a statue. Her short hair was ginger, which was how I knew she was a Timekeeper. They were easily identified by their hair color, too. She’d done hers in tiny, corkscrew curls and she had a black cylinder hat on her head that she didn’ttake off when she bowed before us, but it somehow stayed in place. Must have been magic.
Some of the others stood up, including March. I stayed put, his words still spinning in my head, clashing with the image of this woman, as well as the two soldiers I could see just outside the doors while a man and woman walked in behind her. They were with the help, judging by their white uniforms, and they didn’t look half as happy to be here.
“Who are you?” Seth asked, his eyes bloodshot like he’d been stopping tears for too long.
“I’m Elida Hock, a Royal Timekeeper—and as your new warden, I am at your service.” Once again, she bowed with a hand to her chest, and her hat stayed in place.
“Where is the White Queen?” asked Erith, barely making it to her feet.
