“They’re everywhere,” he said—repeated it, like he needed to hear himself say it again. “The soldiers are searching everywhere.”
Which was exactly what Ididn’texpect to happen.
The queens, doing what they were doing, should have wanted to keep our disappearance a secret until they found us, shouldn’t they?
Except apparently the pressure became too much. According to Kohen, our families were demanding answers, and they were spreading the word that we’d disappeared, and now the queens had put out another royal decree that said something along the lines of: the Hands were kidnapped, and it was the duty of every single person in the Clockrealm to search their property and notify the crown of any suspiciousactivity, and also open their doors to the search parties that the queens had formed—soldiers going door to door, looking for us.
“It’s only a matter of time before they find us here,” Kohen said, shaking his head, as Master Talik paced around in a circle. “It wouldn’t be too far off to assume that someone saw you in the Court of Hearts, too, and followed you, or-or-or notified the crown already. All it would take is for them to know we’re underground.” A pause. My stomach twisted. “Nobody saw you, Talik…right? You’re sure of it?”
Master Talik stopped. His eyes fell on me, then March.
I was going to throw up.
“We can’t be certain of that, of course.”
But peoplehadseen us. In the Garden of Memories, and while we went there on the back of that cart. People had seen us, even if they hadn’t seen our faces, and we could have doomed ourselves and everyone else—yet there I was, sitting at that table andtryingto find a single hint of remorse or regret.
Failing.
I wouldn’t trade our trip to the Garden of Memories for anything—and wasn’t that just plainwrong?
“Does it even matter?” Russ said. “We failed. The Heart woman couldn’t give us our memories back.What elseis there to do except leave, anyhour?”
Andthatwas plain wrong, too.
A long moment of silence stretched in the room. Even Master Talik was no longer pacing. March sat beside me, a little farther back, his elbows over his knees, his eyes closed as his jaw clenched.
Everyone was feelingmiserable,it was clear to see. We’d all hoped. We’d all expected Vesta to give us our memories back.
Hope was such a powerful, wonderful—terriblething.
“We tried,” the Timekeeper Kohen said after a tick, his voice defeated. “We…we tried. And we found the boy.” His eyes fell on Silas. “There really isn’t much more we can do.”
Wrong, wrong, rotten seconds.
“So, that’s it? We just let the queens…continue? We go back, and pretend none of it ever happened?” The words came out of me, and it was like I was listening to them for the first time, too. Like another part of me thought this, while the other was stuck in that panic loop. “We just accept that our memories are gone forever, and that the queens will continue to steal and we can’t do anything about it?”
“Except we can’t just…leave,can we?” Mimi asked.
“But they’re coming.” Anika.
“If they find us here—what would happen?” Cook.
“Will they put us in jail?—”
“Will they question us?—”
“And what would we say?—”
“How would we lie?—”
“We leave this place behind like nothing happened, and there will be questions?—”
“I amnotgoing anywhere.” Silas.
My eyes opened—I hadn’t even realized they’d closed—and I looked at him as he stared at his hands over the table, his shaking hands.
“I’m not leaving. They’re welcome to come for me.”
