Meanwhile Calren stayed by the double doors and watched, a smile on his face so fake it hurt to look at it, so I didn’t. I just ignored him like everybody else was doing.
We’d all made it. We’d all won the trial, it seemed.
When I walked into the broken mirror, I’d found spiral stairs that went on forever at the end of a short corridor. They’d led me all the way down the tower, and outside. March, Anika, Russ and Mimi had already been there, waiting, wide eyed and silent while the crowd cheered. The others came down, too, all through that same door on the side of the tower.
Calren brought us here in The Ever, sat us down in that same lounge room with a wall full of pictures of the other Hands. I couldn’t look atthoseanymore, either, partly because I thought I finally understood the look on their faces. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself yet.
Then the help came to patch us up, our usual maids andbutlers, as well as a couple Timekeepers to check us for wounds. I had my head examined, too, like they knew I’d fallen and lost consciousness at one point.
Butof coursethey knew. I was willing to bet anything that they watched every single step we took in here. At least during the games.
Silas, Reggie, Seth, Erith and Helen were examined much more thoroughly, of course. They’d been the ones to be touched by timewraiths. They’d been the ones who had given their own life energy to those monsters.
Monsters thatthese peoplehadput in there with us.
Five timewraiths.
The memory sent shivers down my back, but I knew that I wouldn’t get an answer if I asked. We’d been asking questions since we came out of that tower, and all Calren had said waswe’ll talk later.
And the queens hadn’t even been there in their little box when we came out.
It made me angry. It made mefuriousto be sitting here, to know that I had come to this place with my own free will. To remember what the people out there believed the Turning Trials to be. To know that they were being lied to.
We’dbeen lied to all along.
Because who was to say it hadn’t been likethisthe other times as well, and the people in charge, whoever they were, hadn’t just kept it a secret?
Time’s Teeth, I felt so betrayed.
Then the help finally left, and the Timekeepers put all the salve they could put on our wounds—some kind of a grease that smelled like cinnamon—and Calren closed the door of the lounge room behind them.
His cane slamming against the floor as he came closer to us irritated me like never before.
“Congratulations,” he said, and I squeezed my eyes shut just to stop myself from screaming at his face.
Others laughed, shaking their heads.
“Congratulations—you did very well,” he continued like he heard nothing.
“Congratulations?” Helen spit first. “Congratulations for being face to face withtimewraithsand surviving to tell the tale?”
“They put wraiths in there with us!” Reggie said, a dumbfounded smile on his face. “Do you…do you understand what we’re saying?Wraiths.”
Calren put his cane in front of him, both hands over the handle, his eyes on the floor.
I thought his cheeks were flushed, and I thought maybe he felt like shit—just the way he was standing there—but also Ididn’t care.For once, I couldn’t care less about how he felt, because he hadn’t been there with us. He hadn’t been chased by those monsters, hadn’t had to run from them inside a fucking tree.
“We almost died, Calren,” Cook said. “You train us to climb ropes and to fix devices—then put us inside a tree with monsters.Whywould you do that?!”
Cook sounded a little bit desperate as he said this.
“And the queens couldn’t even stick around to wait for us to walk out?” Silas demanded.
“Whomakes these games, Calren?” March said. He sat right next to me on an armchair, so I saw how tightly he fisted his hands. There were cuts all over his knuckles, too, covered in that salve.
“Yes—who?! Maybe you should look into it,” Anika shouted. “Maybe you should fire them or put them in jail, because that can’t be legal!”
Except it was.
