Questions. So many questions. I had plenty of my own as I stared at the floor and tried to come up with a decent plan onhowto get Master Talik to speak to me. To trust me. To tell me whatever truths he knew.
“It’s late. We’re supposed to wake up in a bit.” Russ had stood up. “Let’s get to bed, everyone. We can talk more tomorrow.”
“But…but the queen,” Erith whispered, and she started shaking again.
Anika sat up higher on the bed. “I’ll stay with you, don’t worry. I’ll sit here and you can get some sleep.”
Herwords twisted my gut in a different way. I couldn’t understand why she’d agree to justsitthere so Erith could sleep, why she wouldn’t want to go back to sleep herself, and it irritated the time out of me because some part of me almost understood.
But it didn’t. Because there was no sense in it.
“Why are you dressed?” A shadow fell over me. “What’s that in your hands?”
March was in front of me, his eyes dark, analyzing. He wore dark red pajamas, and he was barefoot, too, and a knife was in his hand, the blade just longer than my middle finger.
My heart skipped a beat. “I…” The words were there, but somehow they slipped from my tongue. I wanted to tell him—wanted toshowall of them what I’d drawn, wanted to show them Silas, but I couldn’t.
“Move out of the way. Some of us are trying to get to bed here,” Seth said, coming to my other side, as irritated as I had been a second ago, but for a whole different reason.
I turned, half thankful, pulled the door open, and walked out. The rest of them followed.
When I looked back before closing the door to my room, I found March still by Erith’s door, eyes on me.
17
They took us to Master Talik’s workshop again the next day, and he tried to teach us how to find a problem in a malfunctioning device. The problem was, he went over terms and parts like he was sure we knew exactly what they were, and we didn’t. That’s why none of us could find the problem when he called us to his table one by one. Only Anika came close. The rest of us guessed.
I didn’t have a single second alone to ask him any questions before Elida announced it was time to eat because training started in an hour.
She joined us at the eating hall today for both dinner and lunch, and so the others didn’t say much. I still sat at the end, and March still sat right next to me, and we all pretended to be very interested in our plates as we chewed. Erith looked okay.Normal, though at times in the workshop I thought I saw her shivering since I was sitting on the bench right behind her. She never said anything, didn’t speak a single word, which was very unlike her.
And I wanted to get in her head so badly to see her dream.
Then there was the piece of paper I’d torn off my sketchbook, folded and tucked into my pocket. The portrait of a boy named Silas. I don’t know why I’d taken it with me when I left the room, but I couldn’t imagine parting with it. I’d taken the tiny mushroom made of white stone, too, just for a bit of comfort. It actually helped.
March remained a solid presence near me throughout the day. He never spoke to me, but any time he wasn’t looking at me, I was analyzing him. Now that I’d seen the way I drew him, my fingers itched to immortalize every little detail on him again—even the shape of his fingernails, and the lobe of his ears. I must have felt the same craving before, too. It explained all those sketches of his perfectly.
In training, Asha and her partner Hector took us all to the outer parts of the arena this time, and we weren’t required to find partners—they paired us themselves. Elida watched and took notes, and we were told to do dual-weapon fighting with real weapons we chose from the racks, then disarming our opponent.
Then we had to fight in confined structures, for which we went near the edge of the arena to this maze made of wood with barely enough space foroneof us to move, let alone two to fight.
But we managed.
Somehow, we managed to complete all the tasks she gave us when I’d been sure that we’d all fail even worse than we had in Master Talik’s workshop. A curious concept, but my body knew movements I was sure I’d never done before. I was more aware in a fight, and much faster to react than I would have ever thought possible.
Muscle memory,Asha told us, and how could I not believe her when I felt my own body like it was a stranger’s?
Four hours went by both incredibly fast and excruciatingly slowly as the sun unrose higher and higher in the skyuntil noon. We were all dripping with sweat, bruised, bloody, and dirty when Asha decided that we’d had enough.
“Well done,” she said before she dismissed us. “Rest. Eat. Prepare yourselves for tomorrow. We’ll be focusing on long distance weapons and mechanical traps for as long as you can stand.”
Then she and Hector turned around and left the arena with a nod Elida’s way.
The Royal Timekeeper beamed like she herself had been given a compliment.
“That was a day well spent. Congratulations! I’ll let you?—”
“Where are the queens?” Erith cut her off.
