March sat beside me again, our hands linked, always linked. When they weren’t, I felt like I was floating—and not in a good way. Feeling the warmth of him, his smooth skin, helped me breathe.
And when the silence got too much, and the hand on the door clock just reached nine, I said, “Silas?”
He sat on March’s other side, one knee up, an arm over it so he could rest his forehead on it.
“Yes?”
“How does…how is that possible?” I whispered, not entirely convinced that the words were out there, not just in my head. “Half Spade, half Timekeeper. How is that possible? You look exactly like a Spade. Your colors, your build…”
I didn’t mean to pry, of course. I was just so curious it drove me insane trying to figure it out.
At first, I bit my lip when Silas didn’t react, thinking maybe I had offended him. I looked at March and he looked at me, and I tried to ask him with my eyes, but he only shook his head a little bit, perfectly calm as he played with my hand. He didn’t think I’d taken it too far with the question.
Then Silas raised his head a little, and he was smiling.
“Well, I assume you know how babies are made.”
Mimi, Cook and Seth chuckled.
I pulled my lips inside my mouth to hide the smile. “Of course I do. The Tick Bird brings them,” I joked.
More laughter—which confirmed that the Tick Bird was not just a Spade thing, but the whole Clockrealm had it. It was this story that our parents told us when we were little about where babies came from. They said there was this giant bird with blue feathers that lived inside the Great Clock, and when two people loved each other enough, itplucked a second from the Clock’s face, and brought it to a mother’s lap through the window while she slept. That second then turned into a baby.
“Exactly.MyTick Bird just happened to be half Timekeeper,” said Silas, and when he smiled like that, even just a little, it transformed his face completely.
It hurt deep in my gut to see it, and I didn’t even know why.
“My father,” he said, after the chuckling died down from the others. Silas kept his eyes on the spinning clock on the floor as he spoke. “He was raised by Timekeepers—here in Neverwhen. Learned their trade, worked with machinery. He was good at it, actually. Better than good.” That smile cut right through me. “His hands understood the machinery in ways that even born Timekeepers said were unusual.”
He took a moment to breathe, close his eyes, get himself together before he continued.
“He also fell in love with a Timekeeper—my mother. She was a seamstress, made clothes for workers of this very Labyrinth.”
“Did shelooklike a Timekeeper?” Erith asked, and Silas looked up at her. “Sorry, just that…you’re…you reallydon’tlook like one.” Her cheeks were bright red.
“Looks aren’t everything,” Silas said, but he didn’t seem offended. “And yes—my mother did look exactly like a Timekeeper. Her hair was a bright ginger, fell all the way down her back. Blue eyes, orange freckles.”
“Must have been easy for your father to lose his head then,” said Seth with a cheeky grin.
“Actually, he said he fell in love with her hands before he even saw her face. Said he watched her sew a button back onto a coat once and knew right then he was done for,” Silas said.
We smiled. Laughed.
March squeezed my hand and looked at me, but for once, I had no idea what the look meant.
I just knew the thoughts that went through my head as I tried to imagine falling in love with someone so…easily. So quickly. To just…know.
Silas continued, “Anyhour—they had me, and then my mother died when I was seven.”
My eyes closed. Nobody spoke. The words hung in the air, and I could feel the others holding their breath around me.
For a long time, the room was very quiet. Even the clock on the floor seemed to tick softer.
Then Anika asked, “Then how did you end up in the Court of Spades?”
“I remember you, I think.” We all turned to Cook, who sat on the table next to ours on the right.
“We lived in the same neighborhood for a while, yes,” said Silas, nodding his head. “We actually talked about this…before.”
