“And the warden? Calren? Where is he?” Cook asked.
Both Damon and Kohen flinched.
“He hasn’t woken up yet. His mind…needs a bit more time,” Kohen muttered.
Then…
“Guys?” Russ.
He was looking down at himself, touching his hips.
No—his pockets.
“Guys, where is my chronobank?”
Russ’s chronobank was gone, and so was Levana’s. I had mine still, though practically empty, but the two of them swore up and down that they’d had theirs in their pockets all along. Had even slept with them.
So the only thing that made sense was Silas.
Silas had stolen their chronobanks because he needed all the Sparetime he could get to go to the Labyrinth.
A fool. He was a fool to go back there on his own like that, without even telling anyone. If he’d told me, I’d have gone with him. March would have, too.
Weallwould have gone with him.
Wasn’t that what we said in Mimi’s notebook?
Together.
“I’m going after him,” said Russ, moving for the hatch. “He has my chronobank—I’m going after him right now.”
“Step aside, Damon,” March said when the Timekeeper tried to get in Russ’s way.
He raised a brow at March, like he was suddenly surprised. “Or what?”
March was suddenly right beside him, shoulders wide, hands fisted, his eyes spitting fire—but when he spoke, his voice was still calm.
“Or I’ll make you.” A simple sentence.
Damon smiled a very bitter smile. He opened his mouth to say something, and I was already uncomfortable as it was, but Kohen beat him to it.
“Enough with the nonsense. Step aside, Damon. Let them through.” Because he knew we couldn’t just leave Silas when we went through all the trouble of finding him.
More than that—Kohen knew that without Silas, the story he told us would remain just a story. Silas was the proof he needed, maybe even more so than Calren.
“But we don’t know what’s down there, what they’ll find. For all we know, the Spade could be dead by now,” Damon said through gritted teeth, and the gears inside me malfunctioned loudly.
“He’s not,” I said, more for my benefit than anything else.
“He’s a smart boy. He knows what he’s doing,” said Kohen, his cheeks so pale he looked sick. “We can’t leave him there all alone, and chances are, he won’t want to leave, especially if he finds Reggie.” His wide dark eyes moved from one face to the other, and for a moment there, I could have sworn he wasbeggingus. He was pleading. “The Labyrinth will not let go of what belongs to it. Youmustget Silas back.”
“We will,” March said.
“We’ll carry him if we have to.” Seth.
“He better not have spent a second of my Sparetime.” Russ.
“Let’s just get this over with quickly,” said Erith.
