Calren stopped in front of him, analyzed Silas from head to toe, and the look in his eyes wasn’t one I’d seen before. Not on him, not on anyone, so I couldn’t really understand it. I just knew that it made me uncomfortable, like Calren sawmorethan there was to see on Silas’s face.
If Silas noticed how the Timekeeper was looking at him, though, he didn’t show it. His easy smile didn’t change.
“That’s a very specific supposition, isn’t it,” said Calren. “And you delivered it with a perfectly reasonable explanation, too.”
I don’t know why I was holding my breath while he arched a ginger brow higher and higher on his forehead—and I wasn’t the only one.
Then Calren smiled. “I do like people who talk too much. I like them a lot.”
Silas burst out laughing. The rest of us joined in.
Of course,he was just kidding. Of course it was a joke.
The Timekeeper laughed, too, before he stepped back and waved his hands to his sides. In his left was a pen—awoodenpen of some sort, thicker than usual, and he held it between his fingers as he bowed his head.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly to those of you who don’t know me—hi, Ora,”he said in a single breath and winked at me. Which in turn made me giggle, and turned my cheeks a bright red again. “I go by the name of Calren Hock, a Royal Timekeeper serving Their Royal Clocklinesses, the White Queen and the Red Queen, and I will be your warden for the coming weeks until the end of the Turning Trials.”
He bowed slightly, thenpulledat the end of his strange wooden pen.
Turns out, it wasn’t a pen at all. It extended right beforeour eyes, the material of it strong and sturdy, which was how we knew that it was magic. Normally magic could be seen as it burst out of our hands—it had color, like liquid spilling in the air or smoke spreading about, but I had no idea what kind of magic Timekeepers could do or what kind of devices they had. What had looked like a pen was definitely a cane, and he extended the handle of it so naturally, like that tiny thing was meant to becomethisall along.
When he was done, Calren tapped the end of it to the marble floor with a triumphant smile—he’d done this on purpose, to impress us.
“I only have two minutes before I have to take you out there to meet your audience—and the queens,” he said, and my heart just about exploded in my chest.
The queens. We were going to meet the queens.
“In these two minutes I will tell you—I am here to help you. I am here to watch after you. For anything you need and everything you might want, you come to me, and I will do my bestest best to accommodate you,” he said, his voice lower just now, like hemeantit. “The Labyrinth itself will keep you safe without needing anybody else to intervene—while you’re not playing in the trials, of course. And I know you know how things move along once you’re here. After all, you don’t get chosen among hundreds of applicants for not being prepared, am I right?”
Heads bobbed in agreement—mine included.
Calren smiled. “Correct. There are four Turning Trials in total, each inspired by one of the courts, and they’re all three days apart from one another. So, your first trial begins in three days.” He held up three fingers from his free hand, and in the other held the handle of his cane tightly.
Meanwhile, behind him the other two continued to write down whatever it was they were writing on their pads.
“The queens have a training program set in place for youthat will start tomorrow. It’s very basic things that I trust you already are familiar with, but nonetheless, all of you have to go through every one of them, and hopefully the lectures will help you complete the trials even better when their time comes.”
Ugh, lectures,someone said with a groan.
“With that, allow me to guide you outside. There’s a cocktail party waiting for you in the front yard, and a lot of people who want to meet you. Come, come—outside!”
“But what about our things?” someone asked.
“And what about our food?”
“And what about our clothes? We were told to only bring a backpack!”
They were right, we were. They told us to only bring essentials in the smallest backpacks we had—and we did. They took them from us when we entered this building, though—two men and one woman dressed in white, with silver and red threads in their uniforms.
“All in due time, Hands. All in due time. We’ll be back in the palace soon, and you will get the hang of your new life inside its walls in no time,” Calren said.
The rest of us looked at one another, wide eyes, slightly nervous again, though we trusted Calren.
I knowIdid.
Usually, the Clockfolk didn’t mingle with the Timekeepers. At least that’s what we were told back home. They were descendants of the Great White Rabbit, and even though he created the Great Clock and forced time into a twelve-hour order so Clockrealm could exist under it, he was also a thief. Hestolefrom Time in order to create, so it was a very confusing situation for most of us. That’s why Timekeepers stayed in Neverwhen, and they didn’t much care to mingle with the rest of us, either.
Apparently, though, here it was different. Or maybe itwas justwith us? Because I could have sworn that there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in Calren’s manner when he approached me and the others or when he spoke to us. I believed all that he said.
