Because it sounded exactly like it…
8
“Look at this.” March guided me toward one of the smaller piles on the right of the large space. The others were alreadythrowingthemselves at the bigger ones, touching everything, trying, testing,licking and biting,even. I could have sworn Seth was trying to bite something that looked like a wooden carrot—and the smile on my face was really starting to hurt.
Then I saw what March was pointing at.
It was a flower.
“Holy Hour, that’s beautiful,” I breathed and immediately fell on my knees in front of it—it was abigflower, as big as my torso, the only thing standing upright in the entire pile, like someone had placed it there on purpose. LikeMarchhad placed it there—for me.
He confirmed it when he, too, lowered to his knees next to me, my hand still in his. “I found it a few hours ago. It’s the only familiar thing in this place. I think I know what it is, but I’m not very sure.”
Red on his cheeks. I’ll be damned, but it looked good on him. The dark looked good on him, too.
So did the light from the lantern, and the shadows that the others cast while they moved around us.
“Well?” I said, a wondrous smile on my face. “What is it?”
That knowing grin had me melting on the inside, and it was so intense Ihadto look away before I turned into a pile of goo right there on the floor. I had to reach for the flower—with both hands, and he did let go of me. The air was so cold, I realized. It had been so much nicer when his fingers were intertwined with mine.
“I think it’s a timebloom, a very old one. Very big.” He reached out to touch the top of the closed flower gently, like he was afraid it might break.
It was sculpted from bone-white porcelain and dark bronze. The petals were layered metal sheets painted red, etched with impossibly fine lines that even the dust had done nothing to hide.
“What does it do? How does it open?” I wondered, leaning in to see better.
The porcelain leaves stretching from the stem were outlined with bronze. The detail the creator had put on the lines and the edges was remarkable, but I couldn’t see beyond the petals at all.
“Music,” said March. “They’re very specific music boxes. It opens here—look.” He leaned down and waved for me to do the same, to look at the stem that was as thick as my thigh.
On the side there under a leaf, there was a box attached to it, as big as my hand, with three wheels spinning out of it, marked with numbers.
“You wind it up just like you would a music box.” March reached for the back of the stem. “It’s gotta be somewhere—ah.” His eyes were on me while he spun the winder, and I realized we wereveryclose. We’d both leaned in to see better, and now the tip of his nose was an inch away from mine.
My heart wanted to soar right out of me and into his hands.
“You wind it up, and you set a date, and it plays music—onlyon the date you set. My mother’s timebloom played once a month—every eleventh.”
“Oh. I think I heard of a timebloom before.” Someone must have mentioned it at school or something, because I’d heard of something like it, but I’d never seen one. Spades preferred old-fashioned music boxes for their songs, but this was something else entirely.
March nodded, looked down at my smile like he was indeed seeing wonder.
“I’m going to set it to today and see if it plays,” he said, then leaned down again, eyes on me until he had no choice but to look at the wheels.
Meanwhile, I was currently above clouds, oblivious to the world around me.
How strange. I was told stories about things like this before—by friends and cousins. I’d read books, too, where the girl and the boy met and clicked and fell and fell, like one would from the edge of the realm. You didn’t die if you went over The Spill—you simply fell forever.
This, too, felt like falling, though I was perfectly aware of the cold ground underneath my legs.
Something clicked. Wheels turned. And while they did, I studied the shape of March’s profile, his nose, his chin, his earlobe, all the curls on his hair, wilder now than before because of Reggie who’d jumped on his neck earlier. He didn’t seem to mind at all, March, and it was for the best.Wildlooked good on him, too.
Then the petals moved with a louder click.
Only when the silence fell heavy in the room did I realize how noisy it had been here until now. Everyone had been talking and laughing and calling, and I hadn’t even noticed.
“What’s that? What’re you doing?” someone called, and others were already making their way toward us.
