I’d stayed there, too, on the threshold, unable to just push that door closed. Unable to break eye contact.
Unable to stop that smile from taking over my face.
Then March had steppedoutof his room again, like he wanted to come talk to me, and I panicked so bad it could have been funny. But before he took the second step, Calren’s voice came from the beginning of the hallway following that sharp sound his cane made when he slammed it against the floor. “All of you inside, now!”
We had no choice but to finally close our doors.
I ran to the mirror first to look at my face—and HolyHour, March was right. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed before—probably never cared to check—but my freckles were gone indeed. They were a pale brown in color, and the red of my cheeks had completely overwhelmed them.
My cheeks looked like tomatoes for real, but the mirror over my vanity insisted that my skin everywhere else was glowing. My pale blue eyes were sparkling like they hadn’t in ages, and even my hair looked bouncier and healthier than normal. Its color was a very light blonde—very Spade-like—and it fell straight down to the small of my back, so it usually looked pretty lifeless. Not today, though. Not when I unbraided it and ran my fingers through the strands. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been thissoftyesterday, either.
Could it be the shampoo?
Probably not, though. Probably justthis place.
Or was it the Hands? Or was it the physical exercise?
Or was it March?
A combination,I concluded. And that’s why I thanked Jinx again in my mind.
She always called me a hairy hare—though I wasn’t hairy at all. On the contrary—my eyebrows were half as thick as hers had been. So, I started calling her a silly snake just to spite her, but of course, she loved it. I didn’t think I’d ever meet a more positiveperson than Jinx, but nowthisplace was proving to be very different from…anything I knew, really. So maybe there would be even more surprises on the way?
All I knew was that having spent the past two years forcing myself out of bed and never even considering smiling, crying alone in the woods and avoiding andhatingeveryone around me—here, I was another person completely. Reborn. Renewed.Smiling.
Whatever it was, one thing or three or five, I only hoped it lasted.
March switched places with Helen and Levana for lunch so he could sit right across from me. We never actually said anything, but he did tell a story about one of the greatest Heart warriors from the past century, who’d stopped an all-out war between courts with his magic without anybody even realizing it until he died and left the evidence for people to find.
Time’s Teeth, his voice was mesmerizing. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, hardly blinked while he spoke, like he’d put some sort of spell over me. It was the most beautiful magic my ears had ever heard.
Calren kept the conversation going, always asking questions, always pretending he wasn’t watching every single movement Silas made.
When lunch was done, he took us down to the second floor, to a lecture room this time that looked very different from our classrooms in school. This one had walls lined with shelves that were full of books, and Calren promised to show us the library after, too, where there wereeven morebooks to choose from, to read for fun or for research—anything we liked.
The first lecture was held by a retired Diamond coordination officer who asked us to call her Miss Ren, and she lectured us on the basics of magic of each court, how they worked, what they could and could not do. All things we’d learned in school, but she promised to go more in depth on the subjects tomorrow.
The second lecture would be on timekeeping, held by Lefa James, aTimekeeper with thick straight hair that fell just below her shoulders, and eyes like two drops of the bluest water on her tan face. She did not smile at all, which was when I realized that Miss Renhadsmiled all the time during her lecture.
The Timekeeper didn’t once look at us when Calren held the door open to let her through. She simply nodded at him, went to the front of the class, and pulled out a notebook from her purse. She read from it, recited everything she’d written on it, and didn’t care for questions or comments, didn’t care for whispers or laughter, either. Only breathing—and reading.
By the time she was done and Calren let us out of the classroom, half of the Hands were almost asleep.
Not me, though. Not when March sat at the bench directly behind me, and any time I turned, I found him looking right at me. His attention was like exercise—it kept my heart beating fast and my blood rushing, my cheeks permanently warm.
We made it to the eating hall right after—we didn’t need to go change anymore, though they had filled all our wardrobes with brand new clothes for each of us. Mine was full of pants and tunics and underwear my size. My colors, too, like they really were made for me.
Nobody wanted to go rest before dinner, either, when Calren asked.
“In that case,” he said with a deep nod, “stay in the hall, eat and drink as long as you like, then go rest. The help will see you to your rooms after dinner. Maybe tomorrow you can go about to explore the palace, too, if you want.”
He smiled a knowing smile before he slipped out the door, calling, “I will see all of you in the morning!”
Explore the palace,he said, and that was exactly what I planned to do—exceptnottomorrow. Definitely today.
To be here in this place another night, and to not see more of it before sleep was a sin I didn’t plan to commit—and judging by the look of the others, they were on the same page. Still, the maids and butlers remained in the eating hall with us when Calren left, right there by the walls, so nobodysaid a single word. The help didn’t need to know, and neither did anybody else.
After dinner, we let them guide us back to the dorms, see us into our rooms with the promise to come wake us up in the morning. Lida even asked if she could come in and wake me without waiting for me to tell her to come in first—apparently, she’d knocked for five minutes straight that morning before I woke up. I believed her. I was a very heavy sleeper, so I told her it was okay. Anything to get her to leave faster, really.
