Nobody could stop all twelve of us together.
Just like that, we were smiling, chuckling, feeling more like ourselves.
March was smiling, too. Nodding at me as if asking for confirmation. I nodded back. I was really okay. It was only the trials—they weren’t dangerous in any way. We could handle them just fine.
Then Johnny began to speak again, and most of us flinched at the sound of his sharp voice.
“Welcome, Your Royal Clocklinesses, our dearest White and Red Queens—welcome!”
Applause, screams, shouts. Behind us, the queens were still standing, the White waving her hands at the audience, the Red moving her hand fan as she looked at us.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, witnesses of this grand event, and most importantly—a big welcome to the Hands of the Turning Trials! We’re incredibly happy to have you in our midst tonight.”
I looked to the sides, all around us, expecting to see the Timekeeper speaking into his little round device, but Johnnywas nowhere to be seen, even though his voice still came from everywhere.
He continued from wherever he was hiding.
“Now, the important things. Here lies the ball of your lives, where art is deception—or was that the other way around?”
Laughter. I swallowed hard, looked at March again. So long as our eyes were locked, I’d be fine.
“Where every smile may hide a secret. Every heartbeat may be an echo—notice how I saymay.He-he-he,”went Johnny. “The room you are about to enter is full of possibility, dearest Hands—and with peril, too. Something to remember is that your voices are considered an offer already given. I myself cannot wait to see you tangled in a waltz of illusions, looking asgrandas you all do.”
More laughter. More applause.
I thought I might be sick any second, but I swallowed hard and pretended for the sake of the others.Just the trials, just the trials, just the trials…
“But before we let you go—some sound advice from our High Timenesses themselves,” Johnny said. “You must not believe what you remember, nor what you see. And most importantly—youmust dance!”
Dance, he said.
“What dance,you ask? Well, the one that begins at the strike of forgetting!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, and my eyes closed and I barely held myself from closing my ears. “To the first trial, ladies and gentlemen!To the first trial!”
I could no longer hear myself thinking, only the cheers and the screams of the audience—and Calren’s voice when he said, “Ready, everyone?”
I wasn’t. I’d need another day or three to convince myself that this was exactly what I’d wanted. What I was here for.
But time waited for no one.
I said nothing because there was nothing to say. I was here now, and I was going to see this through one way or the other.
So, I smiled at March when he smiled at me. And when Calren gave us the go-ahead, we walked together with our chins up.
Darkness.That’s really all there was between those doors.
“Boo,” Reggie whispered a few feet in. “Scared yet,my little tickers?”
His voice changed when he imitated the White Queen, and it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Laughter echoed all around us now, making me think that maybe this darkness went on forever. I was still afraid, yes, but it was impossible not to laugh at Reggie—he was insane.
“Where in the Everstill are we even going?” asked someone—but they must have been all the way to the other side of the line because I barely heard them.
“I wonder if this ever ends…” said someone else, but the voice was already faded that I couldn’t even tell if it was male or female. So far away—which made no sense because we’d walked in here side by side.
“Silas,” I said, and my own voice sounded strange to my ears. “Cook?”
No answer.
My hands shook as I reached out my arms to the sides—they’d been just there, both Silas and Cook! They’d walked in here with me, had laughed with me at Reggie’s thin voice, but now they were gone.
