“Itisstrange, isn’t it?” Erith whispered. “I loved it but I hated it.” A pause. “I loved meeting the lot of you sandbrains.”
“Aw, Err, how sweet!” Reggie mocked, bringing his hands to his chest while he batted his lashes at us. “I loved meeting you, too, little ticker.” And he pretended to wipe a tear.
Erith flipped him the tick, but she was smiling.
“For what it’s worth, I think every one of you is pretty amazing, considering,” Silas said.
Reggie gasped, the drama queen that he was. “Consideringwhat?!”
“You signed up and came to Neverwhen with your own free will,” Silas said, grinning.
“You did, too!” about half of them said at the same time.
“In that case,I’mpretty amazing, too.”
“Considering!” Reggie shouted, and then the others laughed. My own smile took me by surprise.
The two of them, their body language, the way they made eye contact—their connection was…something else. Something I’d thought I shared with March before. Now I could hardly even look at him when he was looking at me. I preferred to analyze him when his attention was elsewhere.
I wanted to say something, too. A part of me insisted that Iwantedto tell them that I’d come here to run, and it was thanks to them that I’d felt so comfortable in my own skin in the beginning. It was because of them that I’d remembered what it was like tobelong, to not just be by my lonesome all the time.
I couldn’t, though. The words refused to come out.
Russ then raised his banana in the air. “Topretty amazing,then,” he said, and the others raised their snacks, too. I raised my box of crackers reluctantly. “Whatever happens tomorrow,thismattered. Whatever we lost along these trials, we’ll always have this.”
My heart became heavier and heavier.
“Topretty amazing,” a few of the others said in unison.
“And to not dying. Let’s not forget that part,” Reggie said with a grin.
So we raised our food to that, too.
Our laughter echoed in the night, and none of us thought about that little door at the edge of the garden tonight. None of us wanted to sneak down there and see if we could hear something else, because what would be the point? Tomorrow was the last trial. We were going to play the last game, and then we would go back home. There were nolosersin the Turning Trials. The Hands always won, so I tried not to worry about anything else, at least for tonight.
However, when we decided to call it a night and went back to our rooms, I didn’t even take my clothes off—what was the point? I lay on the bed for an hour, then sat in the middle of it for another, hugging my legs, breathing in and out slowly, trying not to let my mind wander to the past, the present, the future.
I failed every single time.
38
Icouldn’t sleep.
It was about time I admitted it—I wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon, no matter that I knew Ineededit. No matter that I knew this was the last night in The Ever. Quite possiblybecauseI knew that, sleep didn’t just escape me—it never showed itself in the first place.
I took a bath, hoping it would calm me down, lure sleep to me sneakily. Didn’t work.
I sat down with my sketchbook, hoping my eyes would get tired if I just forced myself to draw something.Anythingat all. The pen remained between my fingers until it began to slip from sweat. I couldn’t draw a single line.
So my last idea (before I lost my mind, that is) was to go outside to the mechanical garden again, and to take a walk. My muscles were already used to the sparring Asha put us through, so maybe that was why I wasn’t as tired as I should have been after three hours of jumping and fighting. Or maybe it was all those breaks she gave us today.
Or maybe…
I pulled the door open as I put on my jacket—the nightscould get cold out there, and it was already past midnight. But as soon as I stepped out onto the hallway, I stopped again—moving and breathing and blinking.
March was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall across from my room.
To say he was shocked to see me there was an understatement. He jumped to his feet and looked at me like he still wasn’t sure whether I was real, or just a figment of his imagination.
