Of course.It was his workshop, not his living quarters,even though Calren had said they alllived inside the Labyrinth.
With another hour before bed and nothing better to do, I decided to try to find wherever Master Talik slept. Alone, I walked the endless hallways of The Ever. By the time thirty minutes were over, I’d passed so many corridors, entered and exited so many rooms, I was convinced that this place went on forever.
Finally, tired and thirsty, I decided to call it a night, see if I could talk to Master Talik in the morning.
When I finally made it back to the dorms, I found March sitting on the floor with his back resting against the door of the first room on the right. Mimi’s old room.
Myroom now.
“Oh.” I stopped walking.
A bitter smile stretched his lips. “I guess you forgot.”
“Forgot?”
Slowly, March stood up, and little by little, the physical pull he had on me grew in strength. It was like magic—mesmerizing to experience, really. Whatever his body was made of, I’d bet anything that mine was the same. Otherwisehowwould this attraction be possible?
“You said you wanted to see me later.”
Ah.
I did remember, only I’d never actually thought about whatlatermeant.
So I cleared my throat and said, “I meantthislater. You’re right on time.”
His smile widened. He closed his eyes and sighed, shook his head. “Am I now.”
I stepped to the side and pushed my bedroom door open. “Come on in.”
25
March sat in the armchair next to mine. It was almost identical to the armchairs in my old room, except these ones were a little softer, like they’d been here longer. Had been used more than the others.
I wondered by whom.
The lights were low, only the lamps on the nightstands on. They spilled warm orange light on his side, and I caught new shapes and angles on his face and body to draw. My sketchbook was right there on the table.
He kept looking at it.
“Who’s the girl in the picture?”
I knew he’d been looking back at the bed, at the nightstands—I was studying the way his profile looked when he turned his head, to put it on paper so I’d never forget. To immortalizethe shapes of him, just like Jinx used to say.
“My sister,” I said and took one look back at Jinx’s smiling face. Like always, something inside me twisted violently, but let go fast.
“And where is she now?”
“Dead.” The word echoed in my head. “She died two years ago.”
The look on March’s face. “I’m…I’m sorry, Spade.”
I flinched. “I don’t like it when you call me that.” It was too general.Anybody could beSpade.
“Me, neither,” March said. “What happened?”
“Hastenheart.”
It was a disease like any other, I supposed. Jinx’s heart aged much faster than her body, followed a much faster timeline than the rest of her, so that when her body was twenty years old, her heart was over seventy. She just didn’t wake up one day.
