I figured I’d go eat so my body stopped feeling so weak, and then maybe I could get some actual sleep instead of lying in bed and getting assaulted by memories all night long.
The others were already out of their doors when I stepped into the hallway. Lida smiled at me but it didn’t reach her eyes. She took one look at my face and whatever she saw in it, she stepped back, nodded.
“There you are,” she said, the sweetness of her voice fake, too. “Well, I’ll let you get to the eating hall yourselves, then.”
She was more than eager to stay behind when I went ahead. March was there, walking alongside Reggie, and he didn’t stop to wait for me like he did before.
Well, it’s notbeforeanymore,I reminded myself. Things had happened. A lot of things, in such a little time.
“Do you know what the surprise is?” Mimi whispered when she and Erith fell in step with me.
I shrugged. “Does it matter?” We still had another three days to be here. We still had to finish the fourth trial before any of us was free.
Something stinks-stinks-stinks like rotten seconds,went the thoughts in my head, while the girls booed me.
“You’re no fun,” said Erith, and she rushed forward to go lace her arm around Reggie’s, to ask him the same question.
“You okay?” Mimi asked, just as we passed the hallway with the glass wall that had become sonormalto me lately I hardly saw it when passing it by.
The story of the Great White Rabbit was still being told on the surface of the glass, those little shapes sometimes more visible, sometimes less. Beyond, the night was dark, and the tower of the Great Clock was still there, same as always.
This time, though, I stopped and looked at it—reallylooked at it. For a split second, it felt like I was being looked back.
Shivers down my arms.
“I think so,” I told Mimi, though I didn’t. Not because I cared aboutworryingher, but I did care about lying to myself, it seemed. I cared about lying to myself a lot lately.
Then we reached the eating hall, and everything came to a halt.
“Surprise, surprise!Welcome, my little tickers. Welcome!”
The White Queen was in the eating hall together with Calren, who was smiling like he’d just swallowed something foul. Something bad. Something deadly.
I realized I should have stayed in my room, should have hidden, should have pretended I wasn’t there at all, because the last thing I wanted to do right tonight was to see the White Queen.
Nowshe decided to come see us.Nowshe decided to smile and clap and welcome us as we approached—and I was sure she could see by the look on our face that none of us wanted to be here, but she ignored it just fine.
“Congratulations to thebestestHands the realm has ever seen! You were amazing, my little tickers! Truly, truly amazing,” she said, and waved for us to spread about the table. “Go ahead, go ahead—sit! Let’s have tea together, and talk.”
Yes,nowshe wanted to talk.
I took my usual seat next to March, thankfully far away from the head of the table where the queen sat together with Calren. This time there were waiters coming and going,serving fresh food to the queen and to us, filling our cups with tea, avoiding eye contact as they went.
All the while the queen continued to tell us how impressed she was and how well we’d done in the trials so far.
“Fascinating, really. It was the fastest trial you’ve completed—you were in and out of the hourglass room within three hours!” She clapped her hands only barely, and her icy lips remained stretched all the way. Her hair hadn’t changed, the ends of it curved outward, never moving a single inch—and her eyes reflected just as much as the crystal crown on her head.
She really did look incredibly happy.
“Come now, little tickers. Eat! Go ahead, fill those tummies,” she said, and picked up her silverware to do the same.
It seemed we had a fixed menu tonight—my plate was full of carrot soup.
I didn’t like carrot soup.
“Three hours, imagine that, and—” She turned to Calren, sitting on her right. “Go ahead, tell them what you told me, Timekeeper.”
Calren gave a deep nod, putting his spoon down again. “In those three hours, more Sparetime has been released in the air than any other individual game in the recent history of the Turning Trials.”
