He was kind. He was sweet. He wasgood—you could see it in his eyes. He cared—a lot more than me. I’d say more than anyone.
“So what is he doing then, if it is Sy?” March wondered. “Why would he deliberately sabotage the Labyrinth when he’s in the trials, too? It makes no sense.”
It didn’t.
“Where is he, anyhour?”
“Maybe we should just ask him about it?”
“Or maybe we can just stop pointing fingers and think about it for a second.” This from Seth. “Silas has been nothing but kind and helpful to all of us since the get-go. Let’s not accuse him of something when we don’t even know what the something is.”
“We’re not accusing him,” I said. “We’re trying to understand.”
“Exactly,” Mimi said. “You heard the Timekeepers at the end, right? When Cal said,you know what he is, right?He saidwhathe is, not who.What.”
Another long moment of silence ticked by. My head was already killing me.
“Let’s just get to bed for tonight before anybody sees us here. Let’s move,” March said eventually. The others must have felt as hopeless as me because they were all eager to call it a night.
Things were getting so…serious.
None of this was like we’d expected, and now we were face to face with the consequences—and nothing was even over yet. We still had another trial to survive among the secrets crawling in the shadows, and people who could be anything, anyone, and you wouldn’t even know it until it was too late.
Mimi stayed on the ground floor near the grandfather clock we always passed at the junction to get to our dorms.
“You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up,” she said waving us off as she stopped to look at it. She was always looking at it likethat—like she both loved it and was wary of it. I found it odd but said nothing. None of us did.
And when we made it to our dorms, it hit me all over again just how much Ididn’twant to be in my room right now, not alone. I didn’t want to be witheveryone,either—just with March.
March, who was already saying his goodnights to the others. Who opened his door, not even looking back at me the way he usually did.
Probably because he already knew I’d be on my way to him before I got to my room.
“Hey,” I said before he could close the door, and others turned to look at me, some with grins, some with wiggling brows as they went. I didn’t really care, to be honest.
March stopped, turned to look at me, even tried to pretend he wassurprisedto find me there.
“Yes, Ora?”
Heat on my cheeks, especially when the corner of his lips turned up a bit.
“I was, uh…I was wondering if you were going to sleep right away.” Time’s Teeth, I should have been goo all over the floor by now. It was insane that this was so hard even after everything.
March arched a brow slowly, and said nothing until the last door in the hallway was closed, and we were outside, all alone.
“I am,” he then said. “Why do you ask?”
Do it—do it—do it,my mind chanted, because I knew that if I chickened out and walked away, I’d be staring at the ceiling all night, and then inevitably just come to his door again. Better to just get this over with right now.
“Because maybe I could…come over.”
Fuck, it was like the words were nails coming up my throat. They cut me wide open.
“Oh. You want me to fuck you again?” My jaw hit the floor. “How…predictable.”
Holy Hour, I could hardly believe my ears. “March,” I said in a whisper, not entirely surewhatI wanted to sound like—a warning, or maybe aplead?—but he didn’t care.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You want to come into my room, take what you can, then leave in the middle of the night again while I’m asleep.” He smiled, his eyes dark, his wordsfull.Heavy.
