“They’re so incredible! The White Queen was the best?—”
“The Red Queen wasthe best!So kind and funny?—”
“I wonder, do they sleep like we do?—”
“Do they eat like we do? The very same foods?—”
“Where do they live?—”
“Do they use the bathroom, too, like the rest of us?”
On and on they went, one after the other, until Calren stopped them.
“Their Excellencies see you all the time, rest assured. They will be there to watch every trial, and I personally update them twice a day on every moment we spend together,” he said.
“So, theywon’tcome to see us in the meantime at all?!” asked Anika with a pout.
“No, they won’t. They have work to do—theyarethe queens of our realm,” Calren said with a sad smile—before his eyes moved to Silas lightning fast, then turned back to the rest of the table. “And yes—they do eat the same foods, and they sleep, and have to regularly relieve themselves?—”
“Ew!”
“No, stop it!”
“Not while we eat!”
Laughter all around the table.
Calren shrugged. “You asked.”
After that, the others—and Calren—made joke after joke about sleep and food and bathrooms, and we didn’t stop laughing for a good while. It was one of the best meals I’d had in a very long time, and it had nothing to do with the food.
Then it was time for training.
Asha and Hectorwere the people who would be helping us prepare physically in the coming weeks for the trials. They were both Clubs, both muscular enough that they made me feeltinyin comparison, and neither of them smiled at us, only at Calren.
It seemed to me he was very well liked among the people here—and there were so many. The hallways all the way down to the ground floor to get to the arena were near full—Timekeepers and Clockfolk alike, some with uniforms on, some with ordinary clothes, going about their business. Theyall stopped to nod and sayhelloto Calren, though. And he always smiled and said it back.
The arena in which we would be training was half inside the palace, and half in its backyard under the open sky.
It wasn’t fancy like the rest of the palace, which I expected, but it was very well equipped. The floor was a mix of different materials in different sections. Some were laid with smooth pale stone, some were rough grit, some with metal plates bolted together, some with red mats. Pillars jutted upward everywhere, short and tall—the latter ones holding up the ceiling, which was made of steel beams with holes in them to let the sunlight through. The walls were made of reinforced glass, so there was plenty of light to see everything. Racks full of weapons covered the wall on the right almost entirely, and they seemed to have everything in there, all kinds of blades. The air smelled strange, like oil and chalk mixed together, but not as heavy as that of roses.
Then there was the outside.
Asha remained with Calren inside while Hector led us under the sunlight, and we were all too stunned to speak for a good moment. Tall cedar trees surrounded the wide space that was clearly designed for practice.
Wooden posts stood in uneven rows, each serving a different purpose, some fitted with rotating discs that seemed to spin a little with the light wind, others capped with brass bells that probably chimed when struck. Most stood straight but a few leaned crookedly, too.
To the sides of the posts, they had balance beams and hanging ropes and rings dangling from crossbars mounted on those cedar trees. My father had been a soldier in our court once, briefly, and he’d undergone the queens’ training programs, and he’d explained a lot of these things to me, but to experience them with my own eyes was different. It wasso muchmore—especially the scent of pine and earth, so much better than roses or oil.
“For today, you will be running to get your blood rushing and your muscles heated up,” Calren said when he and Asha came to stand beside us. “For some of you, that won’t be much, but it’s a program that we have to stick to for all of you.”
As he said this, his soft green eyes were on Mimi, Seth and Reggie—the Clubs.
He was absolutely right, of course. Clubs needed to be on the move all the time—that’s how they generated more energy. They only slept for up to three hours at a time, twice in the day and twice in the night, otherwise the stillness would kill them—literally. They aged and died within minutes if they weren’t moving for long enough, and that’s why their entire court was made of towers and spiraling stairs, to forever keep them moving, so they never ran out of places to run to and from.
“No fair to compare us with these weaklings,” said Reggie with a grin, and his eyes darted fast to the other side of the line—toward the others. I didn’t see it exactly, but I was willing to bet he looked at Silas, and Silas was already looking at him.
“Who’re you calling weakling, you brute?” Silas said with a grin. “I’ll race you any time you please.”
