Then they talked.
Too far. We couldn’t hear a single word they said.
“Anybody know how to read lips?” Russ said, earning a look from Damon. “What?”
But the Timekeeper said nothing, only turned back to the yard.
“I think she’s saying…I’m too old for this,” Mimi said, then flinched.
“She’s too old foreverything,” Seth muttered.
“Actually, she looks like she could still kick your ass,” I said—but only half-jokingly because she did.
Others laughed. Seth threw me a look. Opened his mouth to speak, and I expected a comeback, but…
Then his eyes moved to March, who was standing on my other side.
He closed his mouth and he turned ahead again.
I looked at March, too, squeezed his hand, but he only shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”
He was a damn liar, and the way he was trying to stifle a smile said so.
“I think it’s anot my responsibility,” Anika said.
“You sure? I think it wasthat’s not my tea recipe,” said Cook. With a straight face.
So, of course, we were all looking at him.
“What?!”
“Why would she talk about tea recipes?” Mimi asked.
“Have you seen her table? There’s tea there. And her garden—there’s herbs there. A lot of herbs,” was his reasoning.
“Ignore him,” Erith said.
“I’m just reading lips!” Cook complained, but we listened to Erith.
“I think Master Talik is saying,“she will find out.”
Shivers ran down my back “The Red Queen?” I wondered in a whisper.
Probably.
Then Vesta laughed. Short and sharp, she laughed, throwing her head back, and her hair was all over her face, bouncing up and down. She said something else, but it was impossible to read her lips when she was still moving her head a little.
“This does not look good,” Russ muttered. It really didn’t.
“She’s going to turn us away.” Mimi, waving her hands up and down, shaking her fingers.
“Ireallydon’t want to go back with that thing. I can’t handle it.”
“Tick it—I will walk.”
“Not setting foot in the runner again.”
“Agreed—”
