“We aren’t—the Labyrinth is,” Elida said. “Now, if you have no further comments?—”
“Was his family informed?” March’s voice pressedPlayon the memories in my head that had just now started to fade.
Elida blinked at him. “As far as I know, they have,” she finally said. “All your families get updates on a two-day basis.”
I didn’t know that, but I was glad. My parents would know that I was alive, at least. That way maybe they wouldn’t be too quick to move on, like they’d done after Jinx’s death.
“Andnow,” Elida said. “No more comments. No more questions. We’re late for your lesson. Pay attention in the classroom—and try not to cut your hands off.”
Before anybody else could say something, she turned and pushed the large door open, and we finally saw inside.
It did not look like a classroom at all, rather like amechanic’s workshop that they’d tried to make respectable at the last minute. Four rows of metal benches with narrow tables in the front faced a long table cluttered with gears, springs, rods, and half-dismantled devices, some of which moved and clicked and spun on their own.
Diagrams made of brass were pinned to the walls, each one outlining different mechanisms. I’d been to the workshop my mother used to work in before, plenty of times, but none of it had looked anything like this. So…complicated,whatever type of machinery they were demonstrating: pressure locks, rotating bridges, collapsing platforms.
I won’t lie, it intrigued me. Before I knew it, I found I’d already caught up with the group, curious to see more, to get in there, totouchthe gears and analyze them from up close. The benches were to the left of the room, and the other Hands all went to sit in groups of two and three. I, of course, sat on the last one, all alone, and this time I did mind it. This time, I would have liked to be in the front.
But the front was already full, and I would still rather sit alone.
It was clear the others didn’t want to sit with me, either—even Cook who looked back at me from the third row and almost smiled like he wassorry.I didn’t exactly know how to feel about it, so I just focused on my surroundings.
The surface of the table was cold against my palms. The more I looked at the gears on that big one ahead, the more I realized it wasonesingle machine, not several put together. They were all connected, a network of moving parts.
Then there was the Royal Timekeeper who’d worked at the Labyrinth for two decades.
He did not look like Elida at all. No suit and no hat on his head, only ink-stained fingers and the posture of someone who lived hunched over since childhood. Could he even straighten those shoulders, I wondered?
Behind us, the door closed. Elida had stayed, it seemed, just to the side of it, sitting on a small chair with a pad on her lap, pressing the tip of her pen to her tongue before she started writing.
“Good day, Hands. They call me Master Talik, and I will start to teach you about advanced machinery restoration, as our queens and my people seem to think that it’s necessary to unwin the Turning Trials.”
The man spoke, and his voice was calm, low, so soft. Almost like he was doing it on purpose, like he thought we were children or something. And only after he finished speaking did he drop the screwdriver and take off the loupe from his right eye.
Hecouldstraighten his shoulders, it seemed, and like that he was indeed tall, with thin limbs and mostly gray hair, wide blue eyes with razor sharp focus.
A stranger, yetsomethingabout him felt almost familiar, like I’d caught sight of him passing me by on the street.
“And what doyouthink?”
My own voice startled me. I needed to either get used to my words sneaking out on me or break this nasty habit of theirs.
Master Talik turned his head, looked up at me, just slightly surprised. “What does it matter what I think?”
It did, though. He’d worked in this place for two decades, had he not? I’d much rather hear whathethought about this wholeunwinningthing, than anybody else.
“Who exactly creates these games, Timekeeper?” asked someone from the front—Anika.
“The Labyrinth, of course.”
“Yes, but who supplies the Labyrinth with the magic?” said Seth.
A gray brow arched to the middle of his wrinkled forehead, and suddenly he looked pissed off. His mouth opened,but then before he spoke, Master Talik looked up to the front of the room, to the door.
To Elida.
The next second he cleared his throat, turned around toward the boxes of tools in front of him, and said, “Time—who else?”
“Yes, we know it’stime,but who supplies it with time? Who makes the sketches? Who thinks up the games?” Helen said, irritated now, and then March moved.
