Of course, it was Silas, and he said, “I’m going innow.I won’t wait another minute.”
Master Talik nearly lost his mind. Kohen was unusually quiet—he wanted this over with sooner rather than later, I thought. Damon was begging Master Talik to figure out a way to let him come with us, while the old Timekeeper kept insisting that it wasthe Labyrinth—“Not a single one of you has any idea what that means!”
But we did, though. We’d been in there. We’d seen plenty.
In the end, Silas looked us all in the eye, a different man from the one we’d found in that room—determined, unafraid, confident.
“I’m going back tonight and I’m going after Reggie first. You’re all welcome, of course, and you’re also welcome to ignore me—just so long as you don’t try to stop me.”
A tick of silence that weighed more than the entire realm stretched in the room just outside the Hollow. The edge of the three-legged table I held onto was the only thing keeping me upright—not because I was weak. My gears still malfunctioned constantly inside me, but I hadn’t thrown up again, and I’d actually eaten. I’d also laid down a few hours, had slept for one.
I wasfine.
And I was not prepared, but…I was ready, if there even was a difference. I was ready.
It was Mimi who broke the silence first, though.
She stepped around the table and went so Silas, and for a split second there I thought she might either hug him or smack him on the back of his head.
Instead, she offered him something—her chronobank. She held it in front of Silas’s face and said, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Cook was next to say, “And me.”
Then Erith. Then Anika—and she offered her chronobank to Silas, too.
I closed my eyes and released a long breath. It was decided, it seemed, because it wasn’t just me who wasn’t prepared. None of us were—but we were all ready.
Master Talik lowered his head and closed his eyes and looked on the brink of tears, but he said nothing. Didn’t object. Kohen sat down in one of the chairs with a deep sigh, like he was both terrified and relieved at the same time.
March and I looked at one another, and though I was terrified, I was smiling because my mind was full of the image of the boy with the hat-within a hat-within a hat, making tea in a room underground, all alone.
Not for long, though. Maybe we’d lost Helen, but Reggie was still there, and we would try our best to get him out. Somehow, against all odds, I’d fulfilled the one promise I’d been so sure I would never keep.
And that made me feel like I’d already won—or, at least, like Iwouldwin no matter what.
Thirty minutes later,we were armed with enough will tocarry a mountain—and enough hope and magic to get us all the way back to the Labyrinth again.
38
Calren had opened his eyes.
We had met around the three-legged table to plan when one of the other Timekeepers came through the darkness of the Hollow to tell us that our former warden was awake.
Master Talik didn’t want to hear about us going to see him, though. He disappeared with Kohen only, but he came back not five minutes later.
Calren wasnotawake. He’d opened his eyes and he’d said something none of them had been able to understand, and then he’d gone right back to sleep again.
I drowned in disappointment and I didn’t even know why. I didn’t know the guy—none of us did, yet I couldn’t help but feel like things would be…different if he were awake. Everything would be different.
“If he doesn’t wake up in the next day or two, we’ll have to move him,” Kohen said, which made Master Talik flinch.
He said, “We will—if we don’t die tonight.”
He was looking at all of us standing there around the table, arms around ourselves, eyes down—as if we wereguiltyof something. Guilty of wanting to do exactly what it was that they’d brought us here to do.
Maybe with a minor change along the way—but we weren’t about to leave Reggie behind.
“Nobody’s going to die,” said March from where he leaned against the edge of the table with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Out of all of us, he seemed the least concerned and panicked. My heart jumped every time I took him in, and though I’d needed to be moving around to ease my nerves, I slowly walked back to his side again as if drawn by a magic spell.
