March shook his head once. “I’m fine right here,” he said.
It was like he’d served me the world right there in front of everyone.
And Calren wanted to argue. He wanted to insist that March went to stand in his place where he always stood in line before a trial, with the other Hearts.
Instead he took one look at my face. Just one look.
Whatever he saw in my eyes, it made Calren step back with a nod. I must have looked worse than I realized. “Very well,” he said, and moved farther up the line.
March turned to me and winked, bathing me in warmth. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Time, as you all know, is patient,” Johnny continued through the speaker. We couldn’t see him from here, like usual, but he couldn’t be too far away. “It can wait as long as it needs to wait to be persuaded to movein the rightway.” Easy to imagine him grinning as he said this.
“Our dearest Hands have come so far, and now we’re at the finish line—almost there!” he shouted and it was all I could do not to cover my ears as the crowd threw their fists in the air and cheered. “To getthere, though, they will have to push time in a…different way. They’ll have tomakeit, if you will. It’s an easy recipe, I’m told, but onlytheywill know for sure.”
Breathe, breathe, breathe,I told myself in my mind, stared ahead at the dark forest waiting for us, and behind at the crowd, at the queens standing there in their box, watching.
“To the Hands, I say, be mindful of what you add. Some things rise in certain conditions. Find them—or time will answer with teeth.” Laughter. Screams and cheers.
Those people definitely didn’t know what went on in the trials, and I had half a mind to run to them, to shout, to tell them that nothing in there was what it seemed. To tell them exactly what winning these games required—but would I be able to if I tried?
What would Calren do?
What would the queens say?
Better yet—all those soldiers covered in silver armor standing at the edges of the seats, would they run for me and take sure to keep my mouth shut?
Then the images on the large screens changed. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were made of, or how projection really worked, only that it was calledcasting,and casters could use these specific devices to project what they saw onto large surfaces—like those screens.
Right now, they were projectingus. Our faces.
Time’s Teeth, we looked even worse from afar than I expected.
“Now, we will be calling in our friend, Mister Luce, for our picture. We want to remember this very important moment, don’t we? The Labyrinth will want to remember, too!”
A moment later, we saw the man coming from around the palace building, carrying a light-catcher on a tripod as he limped his way toward us little by little. I’d never seen the man before, but he was a Timekeeper. A woman had taken our picture that first night in The Ever, when life was infinitely simpler and I was whole, but this guy was different. More stern looking. The soldiers made way for him to pass but never once took their eyes off him.
We exchanged a look with the others, and I knew what they were thinking—the wall. The wall in the lounge room full of pictures of the Hands of the former Turning Trials. Holy Hour, we’d thought most of those boys and girls had looked sad and terrified in the beginning.
Now we knew exactly why.
It felt like ages as we waited for Mister Luce to come in front of us and lay down his tripod. He was a short man with a long, orange beard that touched his chest, and wide blue eyes that were kind. He smiled at Calren, and Calren smiled back as he stood to the side and held onto his cane with both hands.
I kept wanting to ask him why he kept that thing around when he obviously could walk just fine, but it always slipped my mind.
Not that it mattered.
“All right, folk. It’s simple. Painless. You’ve all had your photograph taken before. Just look here into this lens.”Mister Luce stepped to the side and pointed at the round lens of his wooden light-catcher.
None of us said anything, though. We just stood there in line and looked at the lens.
“If you can…” Mister Luce moved his hands to tell us to gather closer to one another, and we did. As if we were hypnotized, we moved closer inch by little inch, until we were standing right next to one another, shoulders touching.
“Perfect. Now, don’t move,” the Timekeeper said, and pressed buttons over the light-catcher, made sure it was secure on the long legs of the tripod. “And try to smile a little, will you?” I swallowed hard, threw a glance at the others. They were trying to smile, at least a few of them, but I didn’t bother. There was absolutelynothingto smile about standing here. “All right, then. Three, two…one.”
A flashing light.
“Perfect,” the Timekeeper muttered, and nodded at Calren. “All done.”
