And then it was my turn.
I don’t much remember the details of walking over to the White Queen because a part of me was still seven-hourscertain that I was in a dream, and too many details just didn’t matter. But I saw the big brown eyes of the woman, smelled the scent of roses in the air that intensified in her proximity, felt the attention of the Red Queen on me as well.
Then the White Queen moved her icy lips, spoke words that reached me a moment too late, before the weight of the Life Clock fell on the palms of my hands:I wish you good-timing, little ticker!
The clock clicked once—I heardthatwith clarity. It clicked in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat, and I knew it was mine the same way I knew my limbs belonged to me.
A special thing, that chronobank, and if my eyes were telling me the truth, it hadthirtyminutes’ worth of Sparetime inside it. Two faces, one within the other. The smaller one told time like a normal twelve-hour clock, and the bigger counted numbers up to a hundred. Four hands (three for hours and minutes and seconds), and the biggest that told the amount of Sparetime the clock contained was undoubtedly pointing atthirty—I triple-checked.
Thirty minutes.
The most I’d ever seen on my parents’ chronobanks was twenty, and even that was rare. One could do a lot of magic with all those minutes. People usually bought their first chronobank when they began the School of Magic after they were of age, so I’d never had one before. I’d just turned eighteen a couple of months ago, and wasn’t due to start learning magic till September—but never in my wildest dreams did I consider my first chronobank to contain thirty whole minutes.
And the queens were just givingit to me. Just like that. They expected nothing in return but to play a bunch of games and make more Sparetime for the Labyrinth to multiply, so that the Diamonds could then harvest it.
Curious, indeed.
Before I knew it, I was back in my place. Silas was the last to go to the White Queen to claim his Life Clock, his shoulders rigid, his hands fisted tightly before he reached for it. If I were to guess, I’d say he was more uncomfortable than most, which wasn’t a surprise. If I were to agree that this indeed was reality, I feared I would fare much worse than that—but I didn’t. I held onto the possibility that I was still swimming deep inside a dream.
“How wonderful!” the White Queen exclaimed when Silas returned to my side, and the crowd all around us erupted in a deafening applause. The queens joined in, too, and I felt giddy all over again.
So many people cheeringfor me,when I wasn’t all that important. In fact, I wasn’t important at all.
But maybe I was about to be?
“Congratulations, congratulations, my little tickers!”
The others were shaking hands with one another, too, and Cook turned to shake my hand, then I turned to shake Silas’s. He looked down at it, and at the Life Clock in his other hand like they were snakes coming to bite his head off—before he finally shook it.
“Silas,” I whispered, half a smile on my face, uncertain. “You look a bit pale. Are you all right?”
When he met my eyes, it was like hejustwoke up. I saw the split second he realized where he was and whoIwas clearly reflecting on his face—and then he smiled. Straightened his shoulders. Put the Life Clock in the pocket of his trousers.
“Of course, beautiful Ora. Only a little too excited.” Which I understood very well.
“I am, too. We all are,” I promised him. “We’re in this together.”
The twelve Hands of the Turning Trials. We would spend the coming weeks inside the Labyrinth, and we would playfun, exciting games, and we would learn along the way. All the players who’d ever been part of these games before said the same thing—that it changed their lives forever. That they were never the same after. That they’d experienced some of the best days of their lives during the trials, had formed the strongest friendships that lasted a lifetime.
I was looking forward to seeing exactlyhowthe best days of my life were going to unfold.
“That, we are,” Silas said with a nod and an easy smile, before others came around us to shake our hands, to congratulate us. We congratulated them as well.
Another glass full of rosewater in my hand, and though I clipped the chain of the Life Clock to the front of my tunic and put it in my pocket, I still kept one hand around it, just in case.
Something about it.
Something about all the Sparetime inside it.
We were no longer required to walk around the cocktail party—we were allowed to stay there near the table with the queens. The wooden case was gone, probably taken away by a soldier while we were busy shaking hands, and the queens had drinks in their hands as well, and a slow melody started from somewhere in the distance—maybe a band or maybe a music box. I didn’t recognize the tune, but it was cheerful.
Everybodywas cheerful—and Calren most of all.
I knew he was close simply because I smelled the scent of him—he smelled of something sweet,sweeter than flowers, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He congratulated us, too, then fell into a conversation with the White Queen and some of the others, while I found myself slowly moving toward the Red to better hear what she was saying to the Hearts. Levana, Helen—and March.
The Heart boy whose eyes were always on me.
The closer I inched to them, the more heated my cheeksbecame, but I didn’t let the discomfort or the embarrassment stop me.
