It was the building that Kohen told us to find, the same one we’d all been sent to that day. I hadn’t really paid much attention to it—my mind had been elsewhere, oreverywhereat once—but it really was a palace. A proper palace, five stories of pale stone and tall windows and archways carved with roses. Dark, too, empty by the looks of it, and even from here I could see the vines that had started to climb the walls, as if happy they were free to stretch wherever they wanted.
It was beautiful in a way that made my chest ache, so deeply I thought I might fall.
I’ve been here before.
My body screamed the words—every nerve, every muscle, every drop of my blood. I’d seen those walls and those windows, I’d walked through those long, white doors, and I didn’t mean just that day we woke up here.
I meantotherdays—days I didn’t remember. Nights, too.
“You guys, that’s…that’s…” Erith couldn’t finish her thought.
“It feels so strange. Like…” Mimi waved her hands around, searching for the right words.
“Like coming home to a place you don’t know,” I breathed. That’s exactly what it felt like to me. Home, but…not.
“The Timekeeper didn’t say if we should stay hidden,” Seth said in wonder.
“We probably should. Let’s skip the front doors and try one around back. There will surely be plenty with a building this size,” said Anika.
We all agreed, so we stuck to the shadows of the trees all the way to the other side of the white building. There weremoreof them, farther away, or maybe they were just groups of trees here and there. We couldn’t see much in the dark, only the silhouettes, but one second they looked like a rooftop, and the next like branches.
When we got closer to the other side of the building, though, Cook suddenly whispered, “You guys, come check this out!”
We turned to find he’d gone deeper into the trees where it was darker. He’d been so silent none of us had even heard him moving away. Curiosity got the best of me instantly, so I was walking toward him before anyone else—and March was right behind me. He was always close, and just his…existencehelped make sense of mine. It helped a lot.
Cook led us all the way to the golden fence again, only this side didn’t look out at trees.
This side looked at two low hills—and lots and lots of twinkling lights on the other side that we could clearly see from where they dipped to meet one another on the ground.
“Holy Hour—it’s Neverwhen,” said Russ, and he sounded just as in awe as I felt.
It was indeed Neverwhen, the city at the very heart of theClockrealm, where Timekeepers and Clockfolk from all courts lived.
The queens of the realm lived here as well.
It wasalive,the city. From here, we could see the bright lights, the tall buildings, theenergythat slipped right between those hills and made it all the way to us somehow. Buzzing like magic.
“When I finish school, I’m definitely coming to live here,” said Erith in wonder.
“I think I made that plan before,” March said, like these words slipped fromhislips, too. Just the softness of his whisper, and the way he looked at me right after, like he was surprised to hear himself speak.
I smiled so big my cheeks hurt.Me, too,I wanted to say—except I hadn’t. I had never planned to live anywhere other than my home—which was just how things were. Most people lived their whole lives in their own courts.
But maybe I could plan itnow?
Maybe signing up for the Turning Trials to get away from home hadn’t been the right call—but moving to Neverwhen altogether was?
Dreams. Silly, silly dreams—except in those moments, they feltreal.They felt achievable. Everything feltpossible.
But eventually we had to turn away from the view of the city and toward the palace again.
“Hey—if Neverwhen isright there,where is the Great Clock? I could have sworn I saw it…”
Mimi’s voice trailed off just as we stepped away from the trees and saw the dark tower of the Great Clock beyond the palace looming there like an impossibly big shadow.
My breath stuck in my throat, and I wasn’t the only one. Yes, we’d all seen the Great Clock then, but that whole day had become a dream to me that kept slipping from my fingers any time I tried to remember something specific. Tosee that dark tower and the Great Clock hovering in the air at the top of it was something entirely different.
It was already two m.b., but we all remained there staring at the gigantic face for a few more moments. Maybeitwas giving me the feeling that I was being watched?
