“I kind of do. Just trying to figure out why I don’t care.” I squinted my eyes at the middle of the table as if I was really hoping to find some kind of answer on the old wood.
“Maybe because there are more important things than death?” Silas offered.
“Speak for yourself.” Levana. “There’s nothing more important than life.”
“Same, to be honest,” said Erith, a hand under her chin as she scratched the tabletop with the other. “It’s the memories—that’s why. It’s our memories on the line.”
“But not just that,” said March, and his voice sent shivers down the length of me, like always. “It’s not just our lives on the line here. Think about the future. The lives of our own children. Think about what they’ll have to deal with, generations after, if we don’t do something to stop this.”
I looked at his profile, at the shape of his lips, the way they came together and stretched apart to form each word.
Time’s Teeth, I wanted to get lost on his lips one last time, at least, before we went and got ourselves killed.
“I mean…maybe we should just letthemhandle this. Maybe it will be better if we do,” Seth muttered, moving all around the table like he was in a rush to get somewhere. “Maybe it will be easier forthem.Maybe it?—”
“Was it easier for us?” March cut him off. “Look at us now. We’re going through this because nobody stopped them before. They just took our memories—not a single second of accountability.” We all stopped talking. Stopped thinking. “If we do nothing now, what will happen to the next Hands, and the ones after?”
No answer.
Of course, he was right.
“Wewilltry. We already said we would,” Levana muttered. “We’re just saying, itisgoing to kill us, most likely.”
“I, for one, would have liked to say goodbye to my sister,” said Mimi.
“And I’m glad I didn’t,” muttered Russ.
“I wonder what my parents are thinking.”
“I wonder what the queens will tell them when we die.”
“Will they take our bodies home?”
On and on they went. And I had those same questions myself, and I was thinking about my parents, too, but I was also tired of thinking. So tired of everything that went on in my head, and tired of the day, and tired of hoping when I knew it wouldn’t serve me.
It was almost eight o’clock, and I wanted to lie down for a bit before we had to go.
So, I stood up.
“I think I’m going to rest for a while, clear my head.” I reached out my hand for March, and he took it without hesitation. “Coming?”
“We all should get some sleep,” Silas said, and suddenly they were all standing, too, nodding.
“Theywon’t be getting any sleep, though,” Seth said with agrin, wiggling his eyebrows at us, and my cheeks flushed bright scarlet instantly.
We said nothing, but when he looked March’s way, he turned forward instantly and slipped into the darkness of the Hollow on the other side of the doorway. Impossible not to smile.
We said our goodnights, and we went to March’s room again—something about his cot, and something about the floor made out of glass. It smelled like him in there, too.
I pulled the rose he’d given me from the pocket before he took my coat off, smelled it until the sweet scent filled me from head to toe, then put it on the only small table in the room, next to the old lantern. I was going to leave it there until all of this was over. No way would I take it with and risk destroying it. If I died, at least this flower will still be here. It would still remember. Maybe I could get the Timekeepers to do a spell to keep it like this forever.
March kneeled to take off my shoes, too. Wouldn’t hear it when I said I could do it on my own. Not going to lie, it felt good to be taken care of like that. The way he took my hands, pulled me toward the cot. Sat me down, then lay with me. The way he wrapped his arms around me and practically pulled my body over half of his. The way he looked at me.
His eyes in the dim light were darker than usual—the browns deepened, the reds nearly invisible. He looked exhausted and beautiful and afraid, and he somehow pulled the look off.
Or maybe it was just me?
I raised my hand to his cheek, touched the smooth skin and the short stubble that had started to grow along his jaw.
