Master Talik was standing right behind Silas now, looking down at me, mad,concerned,afraid.
And the others had all gathered around him, too, some squatting down, some standing, all panicked.
“You should have?—”
“I know,” I cut him off. I knew I should have watched the floor.
His lips opened and closed as he analyzed my face. “You could have fallen forever.”
I swallowed hard. “I know.” But the fact that Iwantedto at one point didn’t make it out into the world. That was formeto know.
A tick of silence.
Then the Timekeeper said, “Well, did you?”
“Did I what?” My mouth felt weird—I needed water. I was parched.
“Go stillward?”
Goose bumps on my arms. “I did.”
Slowly, Master Talik squatted behind Silas. “And?” he asked in half a voice.
“And…I fell.” Which hadn’t exactly felt likefalling,but it wasn’t something I could explain just now. “And I saw.”
“Did you see Reggie?” Silas said, like he both couldn’t wait for me to answer, and he was terrified of what I was going to say next.
“No,” I said, and he held his breath. “But I saw a game. And I…” My eyes closed as the thoughts in my head raced for sense. “The Clockrealm is one big, massive Labyrinth.”The words popped up in the center of my mind, and I repeated one after the other. “Our lives are the games inside it.”
“I said that.” I opened my eyes, looked at Cook as he scratched his head, confused. “Didn’t I?”
I nodded. “And,if the Great clock were to stop, the games would end.”
“Hey—Isaid that!” Levana said. “Up there in the Distribution Room!”
Tears in my eyes as I nodded again.
“Ora,” said Silas, his voice half a whisper, almost like he saw it, too.
“The players would no longer be needed,”I said. It was so hard to choke the words out, but I did.
And Seth said, “Pretty sureIsaid that, but I could be mistaken.”
He wasn’t, though. He wasn’t.
“We’re all bound to the Clockrealm because it exists. If it didn’t, we would all perish.” Seth said that, too. And I heard, even if I couldn’t put it together yet. Not without seeing those Timekeepers… “While I fell, I saw a room similar to the ones under the Labyrinth, and a Timekeeper lost to some kind of magic, and I saw another pull out a pin from the game’s machine. The…the man wasn’t lost anymore. He just…fell.”
In my mind, it all made sense. It made so much sense—except I wasn’t sure I knew how to put it in plain words.
“Silas.” I pulled at his hand to get him to look at me—he’d been staring down at nothing just now. “Silas, if the game doesn’t exist, the players would no longer be needed.”
Just likewewouldn’t be if the Great Clock ever stopped.
His eyes closed. He let go of my hand. I leaned to the side—right onto March’s arm. He was there to catch even when I didn’t pay attention. His arm wrapped around my shoulders.
“How? Is that possible?” March asked—but he wasn’t looking at me or Silas. He was looking at Master Talik.
He slowly stood up again, a hand around his chin, his eyes down.
