“So, when you said you know me, I thought maybe you remembered,” March said.
“I do know you. But I don’t remember how,” I said in half a voice, resisting the urge to grab his face in my hands, to get closer.
“Would you like to know?” His hand came up again, but this time he didn’t touch me, just hovered his fingertips along the shape of my face.
“Very much,” I said, smiling because it was painful. “I would like to know very much.”
March nodded. “I would like to knowyou. Regardless of what was before—I’d really like to get to know you.”
My smile released the pain but remained on my lips.Yes, I’d really like to get to know you, too,I thought, but never got the chance to say it.
“Hey! You two coming or not?” Mimi’s voice echoed from somewhere ahead.
March looked back for a second, then turned to me. Raised his hand between us, palm up.
I didn’t even hesitate before I put mine over it.
The way our fingers knew how to intertwine. The way our palms felt pressed against one another. The way my hand fit in his.
We looked at them for a second, and I thought,I’ve drawnthis before.The same lines, the same way his fingers curved over my knuckles, the same fingernails.
We’d held hands before, March and I. If I’d had any doubts about it, they were all gone now.
“When this is over…” I breathed, not entirely sure what the rest of that thought was—but he did.
“Maybe we’ll…stick around Neverwhen for a bit?” he offered. “Together.”
And it sounded exactly right.
I nodded. I smiled.
He smiled, too, almost involuntarily. Said, “That one’s my second favorite.”
He was talking about my smile.
Then he turned around and pulled me down the hallway while I reminded myself to breathe.
12
We kept going. Down to the first floor, through corridors that curved and connected in ways I couldn’t even begin to map in my head. Some doors were locked. Some opened to empty rooms with nothing but windows and dust. One opened to a stairway that went down. We took it, not exactly careful to stay silent or to watch where we were going.
But then came a sound from below, rising up through the cold air.
We all stopped, breaths held, ears strained.
My fear screamed in my ears, but it wasn’t footsteps approaching like I first thought. It was a rhythmic thudding, faint—like a heartbeat heard through a wall.
“What isthat?” Anika whispered, but nobody had an answer.
The sound came again and again, steady and relentless, like something hitting stone over and over.
“It’s coming from below,” March said.
“We don’t know what’s down there,” said Seth. “Could be the Timekeeper woman.”
“It isn’t,” Cook said, slowly moving down a couple stairs. “You hear the rhythm? It’s too even. Too persistent. It’s not new. I don’t think it’s a person.”
“Then what is it?” Levana asked—and I agreed with the Spade boy. The way the thudding went, it wasn’t footsteps and it did not sound like a person.
