March was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall between my door and the next. He had a knee up and his elbow against it, just like when we sat outside by the Labyrinth fence.
The world gradually disintegrated in the seconds it took him to raise his head and find my eyes with his.
There were words for this. I knew it as well as he did. There were questions to be asked—both for me and for him, yet I found I didn’t mind the silence just now. Instead, I stepped to the side and pushed the door open all the way, and I waited.
Half a smile curled a corner of his lip. March shook his head to himself, sighed. Stood up.
There was a chance he’d walk away, and he wanted to. I knew he did. But then he looked at the basket in my hand, and he must have known, too, what I was about to do. Which was to go knock on his door and…thank him?
Return the food he’d left me?
One or the other.
But March finally made up his mind, came into my room and pushed the door closed behind him.
I thought I might feel discomfort, or even a little bit strange, but I didn’t. I just went over to the coffee table, put the basket down, and sat in the armchair.
Meanwhile, March remained standing, his eyes scanning the room, searching. While I pulled the food out of the basket and set it on the table, he touched the walls and the wardrobe, then went to my bedside table and touched the cover of my sketchbook. He squatted down, eyes on the picture of Jinx. He grabbed it, brought it closer, looked at it like it was the most curious thing he’d ever seen.
I sat back and waited, the mushroom made of white stone in my hand to give me comfort, until he finally put the frame down and came to me. Then I hid the tiny thing in my pocket, together with the folded page from my sketchbook with Silas’s face on it. I still couldn’t bring myself to part with it. I’d carried it with me in my jacket all day.
The air charged with electricity. March sat beside me, his eyes never leaving my face, and for a while we didn’t move. He was fully clothed, and I was well aware that I was wearing my charcoal-black nightgown made of velvet and lace, but I still had my jacket over it.
Eventually, hunger forced me to reach for one of the croissants first, and I began to eat.
A moment later, he picked up an apple for himself, and leaned back on the armchair, watching me still.
Silence was comfortable with March. I suspected it was because of how calm my instincts were when he was around me.
Then he spoke.
“I saw her, too.”
Four words that weighed an entire world.
I was still chewing when I stood to go pick up my sketchbook.
My sketches were my own. I’d only ever shared them with Jinx, and that was a long time ago. They weremine,they belonged to me, they were a part of me that the world didn’t get to claim. They were my peace with the realm and my small act of rebellion against reality all in one, and so I never showed them to anyone ever.
Which was why I was so stunned by my own actions when I brought the sketchbook back, pulled open the last drawing I’d made, and left it there on the table.
The face of the Red Queen looked like nothing more than a fantasy. A very real fantasy.
March reached out his hand to touch the outline of her face, the curls of her hair.
“Identical,” he muttered. “It’s her.”
I nodded. “She did something.”
With the heel of his hand, March rubbed his forehead. “It hurt.”
I swallowed the food in my mouth. “Why?”
Our eyes locked. He shook his head. “Can I see more?”
He meant the sketches.
Every inch of my body was covered in goose bumps. I wanted to sayyes. A part of mewantedhim to see, just to know what he thought. Just to find out if he…remembered. Which was a silly thought to have, considering.
