“I’m a lot of things,” Calren said, and the ghost of a smile crossed his ruined face. “But I have never once been a liar, Your Excellency.”
A second. Three. Six.
Her eyes moved, dark and bloodshot. They shifted from him to Silas.
And Silas was looking, too. Right at her as tears slid down his cheeks and his chin shook and his hands shook—but he tried to hold himself together. He tried to keep it all in.
Meanwhile, I was shaking with sobs, trying to make myself as silent as possible. Others were the same, and together we sounded like a choir.
It was a moment suspended in time—worse than backward, worse than stillward—its own occasion.
But this, too, didn’t last long.
“NOW!”Silas shouted all of a sudden, his voice sharp and loud. He shouted it like he wanted the sun in the sky to hear him.
Everything happened at once.
Magic erupted from both his hands and the ones behind him—the hands of Master Talik.
Ribbons of teal, bright and furious, unleashed in a single blast. The White Queen didn’t move. None of us moved a single inch—there was no time, there was no point, there was no rhyme or reason to any of this.
The magic shot forward and it slammed into her the way hers had been about to slam onto us. The bright color hid her from our vision completely for a moment, but we still saw plenty when it began to fade. We saw how her body lifted, how her crown flew from her head and hit the ground somewhere behind her. Her white dress billowed and her hair whipped and her mouth opened in a scream that never quite made it out.
And then she fell.
She fell like someone had cut her strings, her body limp, hitting the grass right across from where the Red Queen lay. Except her face was still visible to me, and her eyes were open. Not blinking—just open. Wide. Dark.
Her lips twitched. Her hand twitched. Her chest moved—she was clearly breathing, no doubt about it.
But she didn’t blink, and those eyes…it didn’t look like anybody was home.
Moving was out of the question. I couldn’t even focus on the air that slipped down my throat, and I wasn’t the only one. Even the soldiers hadn’t had the chance to move, to act, to stop anything or anyone—or tonotstop them. Both queens were on the ground, and they stood there in a circle with their swords and their wide eyes, looking from one to the other, to Calren, to us…
Calren’s legs gave out. He collapsed where he stood—forward, onto his knees, then his side. He fell flat on the ground, right between the two queens, his eyes closed, but he was breathing. Definitely alive.
Half the sun had broken over the horizon by then. The Great Clock loomed over us, same as always, telling us that the time was six s.b.
We looked at one another, and none of us had the slightest clue what to do next, and none of us was able to make sense of what just happened…
“Time’s Trousers, we’re still alive,” Cook whispered—and he sounded genuinely shocked by the fact. Just as shocked as I felt. As we all felt as we looked at Master Talik, at Silas, who were kneeling there, breathing heavily, stuck in their own disbelief.
“Guys…” Levana whispered, and all our eyes turned to her next, but hers were ahead. On the ground, on the Red Queen still lying on the grass—except her arm had lowered so we saw her face now.
None of us breathed. None of us moved. None of us blinked for the longest second…
Then the Red Queen opened her eyes.
43
Ahappy ending wasnotwhat I expected when we were stuck in the ruins of the mechanical garden, waiting for our deaths.
I’d been twelve-hours certain that I would die that day. I’d believed it with all my heart.
Now, a whole week later, I still had trouble convincing myself that Ihadn’t.I hadn’t died—I’d survived. I’d made it. I hadallmy memories back, too, both from the forward trials and the backward ones. Which was surreal all on its own.
I was still breathing—and so was everybody else.
Except Helen.
