And I was indeed in Neverwhen, in a palace fancier than anything I’d ever seen before, anything I believed existed. Spacious, clean, every piece of furniture polished—the vanity table, the armchairs, the wardrobe on the left of the bed. The rugs on the dark hardwood floor could have been made of clouds. Everything looked both lived in and brand new at the same time.Not mine.
The only familiar thing was Jinx’s picture frame that I’d put on the bedside table, and my untouched sketchbook near it. I’d wanted to draw the night before—the shape of March’s eyes, of his face, of his whole body—but I hadn’t had the energy.
Today, I decided. I’d draw all of him today.
Maybe I could do a quick sketch before I leave the room?—
“Miss Reese, I’m waiting!”
The woman’s voice startled me. I was so distracted, I’d forgotten that she was in the bathroom, preparing my bath. Nobody had ever done that for me since my parents when I was a little girl—maybe that’s why.
So strange. So unlike anything I thought I’d ever live.
Even so, I couldn’t kill the smile on my lips for the time in me. “Coming!”
The palace wasa wonder all on its own. With the sunlight slipping through the floor-to-ceiling windows, it looked very different from the night before. Massive hallways and halls, beautifully carved archways, polished wood and smooth walls, paintings, and roses, and roses, and roses—so many roses.The smell of it was heavenly at first, but it became almost too much a minute after I left my room.
The hallway of our dormitory was wide, too, with lanterns on the walls, and twelve doors in total—six on either side, across from each other. My room was the fourth on the right, and the room of the Heart boy was the door across the hall. I knew this because I’d watched Calren show him to it the night before. I’d watched him watching me—up until he closed his door and I couldn’t see his face anymore.
Not a single word exchanged, yet it felt like I knew him better than the others already.
This whole thing was proving to bemorethan I had expected, even in the wildest scenarios I made up in my head.
The other Hands had maids and butlers assigned to them by the White Queen as well. When we came out of our rooms, we did so at the same time—they seemed to be in perfect sync. We were smiling, all of us, waving at one another, saying our good mornings. March was grinning at me from across the hallway, too, and when I waved (and also almost bit off my tongue by trying to keep myself semi-composed), his grin turned into a full smile that made my knees shake a little bit. I had never seen anything perfect in my life before. Nothing wasmeant to beperfect—wasn’t that what our art teacher used to say?
She’d be surprised to hear she was wrong all along.
This whole place came close to perfection, too, with the tall ceilings and the spotless floors, and especially a wall made of glass in a huge round hallway we passed on our way to eat.
The glass was curved, and it had colors moving about somewhere inside it, like it was made of layers. Colors and little lights—and they created figurines that were moving about, depicting the story of the Clockrealm’s creation over and over again, like the figures were stuck in a loop that went on forever. There was the White Rabbit, wandering about in space, jumping from one star to the other, until He came upon Time, who was but a vicious current swirling and twisting in on itself. Time was wild originally, unstable, untamable,until the White Rabbit stole a fraction of it and forced it into order by creating the Great Clock. He ironed the seconds and minutes and hours with it, and created twelve for days and twelve for nights. Thus, the Clockrealm came to be—a story that we all knew since we knew anything at all, but to see it here being played out on this glass was something else entirely. The others felt the same—we stopped and looked at the Great White Rabbit stealing from Time at least a few times before the maids and butlersguiding us through the hallways reminded us that it was time to go.
Better yet, the glass wall gave us a clear view of the Great Clock and its tower as well. If we leaned down a bit, we could even see its face.
Our dormitory was on the third of five floors in The Ever palace, and apparently the eating hall was on the same floor, too. It was a beautiful room—wide and spacious, with a single table set for thirteen in the middle, surrounded by windows through which fresh sunlight streamed in from one side. Calren was already there, sitting at the head, smiling ear to ear.
He stood to welcome us to breakfast, and told us that we would be sharing all three meals of each day together in the same place from then on. We were starving, so the moment we sat down, we went for the food—bowls of fruit and pastries, plates full of boiled and scrambled eggs, hams and sausages, delicious tea and milk and juices. It was a feast unlike any I’d seen before, but that seemed to be the thing witheverythingaround here. I’d do best to get used to it, I thought.
The Hands told stories about their courts, about where they came from and what they did, what they liked and what they learned—and I loved listening to them speak.
March never did, though. I suspected he liked to listen, too. His attention remained on me—he sat across the table from me, two chairs up—even when he was looking at someone else. I wasn’t sure how I knew, just that I did.
Calren’s attention, however, always came back to Silas for some reason.
Silas sat between Cook and me. All Hands from the same courts stuck together, something that came very naturally, so we were all sitting in groups of three—the Clubs and the Spades on the left of the long table with the doors at ourback, and the Diamonds and Hearts across. That’s why I noticed every time Calren looked our way, and his eyes would always stop on Silas for a split second. Always, without fail.
Silas’s attention was on the front of the table, too—only onourside, on the Clubs.
Specifically on Reggie.
Jinx always told me that Isaw everything,that I should consider becoming one of those detectives we read about growing up. I never really believed her because I didn’tsee everything—only what caught my attention. Only what I chose to pay attention to.
But it was impossiblenotto notice the stolen glances of Silas simply because he was sitting right next to me, and every time he leaned in to see the beginning of the table better, I had no choice but tosee himdo it.
Eventually I leaned back all the way to make it easier for him. Casually, of course, so he didn’t even realize it.
“Pardon me, Timekeeper, but are the queens not coming today at all?” asked Anika the Diamond halfway through breakfast.
“Oh, but theymust,” said Mimi.
