Every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps.
A minute later, we were back by the wall, hands pressed and eyes closed, trying tofeelthe buzz with our every fiber—and it was there.
I felt it. Time’s Teeth, it was soclearto me it was ridiculous to think the others couldn’t feel it.
Except Cook. Cook felt it just as clearly as me.
“A Spade thing,” said Russ, shaking his index finger at us. “It’s gotta be a Spade thing, then.”
“He’s right. If both of you feel it, he’s right,” March said, looking at Cook suspiciously—but I believed him. We were standing right next to one another now, eyes locked, both hands pressed to the cold wall.
“Bad magic,” Cook whispered.
“No,” I said because I’d felt bad magic. My mother used to work for a train engine builder when I was little, and a lot ofmagic went bad in his workshop. I knew howbadfelt—and this wasn’t it.
Cook closed his eyes, and the fact that he didn’t once doubt me made me feel…strange.
“Is it…” I held onto the next word that would leave his lips while the others talked and talked, threw ideas around. “…a loop?” Cook wondered.
Close.Closer.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel like a loop.” I flinched. “Do you know what loops feel like?” Because I didn’t.Shouldn’thave known, except…
“Almost,” said Cook, and that was exactly what I felt, too.Almost.
“It’s…it’s like…” Now Cook looked atmylips, waiting as impatiently asmefor what I’d say next, even though I didn’t know what I was thinking. My mind wasthatchaotic. “A seal?”
Cook closed his eyes.
I closed mine.
The others continued to talk. A presence was right behind me—March. “Ora, what are you thinking?” he asked, but I didn’t really know, did I?
I didn’t know what I was thinking, just that there was magic on this wall and it was buzzing, and it wasn’t bad magic, which Spades had the natural affinity to end or turnright. And it wasn’t a loop, I didn’t think, which Spades could close, too. It felt likea seal,something I’d only really felt once when we were fooling around in high school, and our elder cousins—who were in the second year of their magic studies—had tried to do ablood bondon Allan and Finn. In the end, it hadn’t worked. They hadn’t had enough Sparetime in their chronobanks for it, but I’d been scared to death while they’d tried around a fire we’d lit in my uncle’s yard in the middle of the night, and that’s why I remembered it vividly still.
A blood bond was technically a seal—magic that sealed two lives together to a certain extent (when done right) and I thoughtthiscame close to that. At least a little bit. Same flavor.
Or maybe I was just as terrified now as I had been then?
“Yes,” Cook said, and my eyes opened wide. “I think it’s a seal.”
Both of us moved away from the wall at the same time.
“We think it’s a seal,” I told March. “It’s…there’s a seal on this wall.”
Now everyone was around us.
“What exactly is a seal?—”
“How do you know what a seal is?—”
“Is it like ritual magic?—”
“Did a Spade do it?—”
“Did the Timekeeper do it?—”
“Why would anyone put a seal on a wall?—”
