I turned around and pulled the door open, and the others were preparing to leave, too. March walked out into the hallway after me, his hands in his pockets as he watched me leave.
“Goodnight, Velvet,” he called after me when I opened my door.
That I didn’t fall on my face right on the threshold was a miracle. “Velvet?”I barely breathed, the memories of us together in my room just now washing over me with a brand new fire.
He nodded, as sure of this as he was of everything else. “I don’t like calling you Spade.”
And I should have argued, should have insisted thatmy namewould have done just fine, but I didn’t. Instead I gavehim a halfhearted nod, slipped into my room—and only after I closed the door, I whispered, “Goodnight, Heartling.”
Then I slammed my head against the wall a couple of times until I could breathe normally again.
I meant what I said about going to bed—I did. I took the jacket off, left everything as it was on the coffee table, and I lay down and closed my eyes, begged sleep to take me, but it was impossible. He was everywhere—on the inside of my lids, in the center of my mind, on every inch of my skin he’d kissed and touched that was nowburninglike his hands were still there.
I considered—trulyconsidered knocking on his door, making him finish what he started. I considered calling for him at the top of my voice, too, to get him here, in bed, between my legs.
So much energy rushed through my body. If I didn’t get release, I was going to lose my mind. That’s why I found my own hands all over my body, tracing the lines he’d traced with his lips, playing with myself the way I wished he’d played with me.
My hand slipped under my panties, and in my mind, I saw him kneeling there before me, his tongue out, licking me like he’d done it a million times before. My fingers were no match for his tongue, but my imagination was perfectly vivid.
My hips moved and it only took me a few seconds to jump over the edge. I came with his name on my lips, and his eyes in the center of my mind.
Sleep took me soon after.
21
The panic attack was coming. I felt it simmering under the surface of my deepest, darkest thoughts, and I tried to think about everything and anything else, but it wasn’t working. We were in front of the gates to the coming trial, and our own bodies trapped us here. Our own bodies would walk through those gates when they opened, and they wouldn’t care about our will at all.
A few of the Hands cried.
I wished I could let it all out with tears, too, but instead my hands were shaking and sweaty; my eyes barely blinked, dry; all the voices around us came at me like an echo; my lips were perfectly numb, and no matter how hard I breathed, my lungs never filled as they should. There was not enough air in the world today.
I think I’m going to be dead.
Reggie’s face made everything worse, and then Silas was there, too, right next to his. My mind was not my own, just like my body.
And the people kept applauding.
We were in the arena again, right where we had been lasttime, except today there was no forest here. All the trees had disappeared, and in their stead were these large golden gates with only raw darkness behind them, andthat’swhere they were going to force us to go.
In there, in that darkness.
Elida the Royal Timekeeper was the only one with us today. No White Queen, and we couldn’t see through the shimmery veil that hid away the box where the Red Queen had been standing the last time.
No soldiers brought us weapons, either.
Someone spoke—that booming voice enhanced by magic so that I felt it vibrating in my very bones.
Time’s Temper, I was sweating like a pig.
“Hear, hear—welcome, Your High Timenesses, our lovely guests! And welcome to your second Backward Turning Trial, Hands! It is your pleasure, as it is ours, to be here this fine day!”
More applause. More cheering. I swallowed hard and looked back at the crowd of people.
Had they any idea what really went on here? What lies were they told? Did they know what we couldn’t even call out to them, that we couldn’t refuse to enter the trial?
Did they evencare?
Had Mother and Father made an effort to come here and see me themselves?
