“Your crimes against Wonderland are numerous and severe,” the White Queen continued.
Behind her, Romi stood in her bright white armor, her glare sharp where it bore into him. At her side, Humphrey stood in his red armor, his lips pursed, his gaze aimed at the ground as his chest heaved in silent breaths. Anastasia … she was not here, her sentence already carried out.
“The damage you’ve done, the harm you’ve caused, the lives you’ve broken can never be made whole again. The punishment for these charges is death.” The Red Queen lifted a sword. His sword, still in its sheath.
Addison bowed his head. He knew what was coming next.
“However,” the White Queen said, “given your service in the defeat of the Black Queen, which was instrumental in bringing about the era of peace we’ve entered, your life will be spared.”
“But you are hereby banished from this realm for the remainder of your natural life,” the Red Queen said. She extended the sword.
He took it without a word.
The White Queen lifted her hand. The Red Queen took it. Then they spoke as one.
“Now by our will we bind your heart,
And from these lands you must depart.”
The pain was instant and bone deep. It drove through him, tearing a scream free, robbing him of his strength enough to send him to his knees. The queens continued to speak, but he couldn’t hear them over the sound of his thrashing heart and his own agonized groans. Darkness hazed his vision. It stole his breath. The voices mingled and swirled, filling his ears.
They called his name. Insistent.
“Addison … Addison!”
He forced his eyes open. His vision was still blurred, but the pain had started to subside. Someone leaned in over him.
“He’s coming around.”
“Oh thank god.”
“I thought we hadn’t caught it in time.”
Addison blinked to clear his vision. Three faces solidified above him: Alice, Anastasia, and Odabeth. The princess looked haggard but relieved, her bronze face sallow, bags sagging slightly beneath her eyes. Something flickered between her fingers where her hand was pressed to her chest.
Anastasia and Alice wore twin expressions of concern, reaching to help sit him up.
He winced as something in his chest tightened. “What … happened?”
“The exile Verse nearly killed you,” Anastasia said. “Fortunately, the princess was able to give you a reprieve.”
“I’m surprised it worked,” Odabeth said. “Two queens cast the verse, two must break it. Usually. But … here you are. How do you feel?”
“Like Bandersnatch shite—oomph!” Addison nearly toppled over when Alice flung herself against him. His arms curled around her as she squeezed at him, mumbling about how he was a stupid, head-ass, reckless, something to do with fornications with someone’s mother. He held her as she sniffed and sobbed quietly for a minute or two then she drew back, allowing his eyes to fall to where she wove their fingers together. He smiled faintly. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she breathed, wiping at her face.
Behind her a young Japanese woman stood with a sword at her hip.
Humphrey and Chess were also awake, looking as haggard as he felt.
“What happened, exactly?” Addison asked.
“Well, I got my Muchness in order.” Alice smiled faintly. “But that’s about the only good news there is…”
Thirty-Eight
FOOLISH
“Humphrey.”
The Black Knight paused. That name again.
It was so strange to know it likely belonged to him, but to feel nothing when hearing it.
And yet he responded when the woman known as Anastasia called to him.
He looked up as she approached. He’d separated himself from the group to give them a moment to compose themselves and to deal with his own … whatever was happening in his head. So much and so little. It was a frightful thing, not knowing who you were, barely knowing who you were not.
“Yes?” he answered.
She paused and eyed him in a way that left him feeling … exposed. “You truly don’t know me?”
“No.” He looked away from her then, uncomfortable with the intensity of her stare. He wanted to apologize, but what for?
“Mmm. I know this may seem like a lot, but … Actually, no, I don’t know what this may seem like for you. Any of it. I can’t imagine how confused and lost you must feel—”
“Not helping,” he murmured.
“But I want you to know that we’re going to figure this out. What happened to you, what happened to the Red Queen, how … that woman claimed the Heart.”
At the mention of Her Majesty, a sense of … foreboding rose around him. It was a looming thing, like being caught in the eyes of a predator watching him from the edge of a forest, unseen, unheard.
Anastasia lifted her hand as if to reach for him, but thankfully did not. “It’ll take time—these sorts of things do.”
“Have much experience with magic-induced amnesia? If that’s what this even is.”
She chuckled faintly. “I should’ve known. No one else wields a wit half as sharp.” She sighed softly. “Think about the offer to come with us. There’s nothing for you here.” She gestured to the dingy walls and halls around them.
This place … it was the only home he’d known. It was here that Her Majesty had awakened him. Freed him from a prison, she’d said. Where he, she, and others loyal to the true queen had been locked away long ago. And he’d hung on her every word. Her Majesty. His lady. To think he followed a woman and didn’t know her name. And he’d been so sure of his duty to her, of his purpose. But now? Now he saw that he was simply a means to an end. Everything he knew, everything she had told him, was a lie.
“Maybe.” He closed his eyes. While he was certain he could no longer trust Her Majesty’s words, he didn’t know if he could believe Anastasia and the others. He couldn’t even believe what was in his own head.
But he didn’t have anywhere else to go, and there was no staying here. The subtle shifting of shadows in this place set a fear inside him, and not because of the Nightmares. In fact, there were no Nightmares—they seemed to flee when Her Majesty’s body vanished. Something about the place still left him uneasy.
“Are you all right?” Anastasia asked.
He laughed. “I simply am, right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m Humphrey. Maybe. I’m also the Black Knight. Either way, I am a traitor.” The very notion turned his stomach, even though a part of him was certain he’d made the correct choice. A small part of him that had grown bolder and louder since … well, since the night he first met Alice on the road to Ahoon.
His mission had been simple: attack the girl, implant the Verse, sic a Nightmare on her. But when she’d been injured, when she’d been calling out, part of him was desperate to answer. To … protect her. And that drive had only intensified over the following days until it culminated in him throwing himself between her and a Nightmare’s barb.
“That woman did something to you to make you into this—”
“Perhaps.” It was likely true. He had seen her do the same thing to Chess, but the difference was Chess had come back to himself. He remembered who he was before. The Black Knight … Humphrey … remembered nothing. Just … feelings.
Anger. Devotion. Hatred. Loyalty … love?
“I love you,” Hatta had said.
Humphrey didn’t want to believe him. It would be so much easier if he didn’t believe him. But he did. And because he did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave them. Not yet.
“I’ll go with you.” He lifted a hand. “For now.” It was the only thing that made sense, and possibly the only way he was going to even begin to try to figure things out. It was also fifty different kinds of foolish, essentially turning himself over to people who’d seen him as a hated enemy only moments before, but for the first time that he could remember, it was
fully his choice.
Thirty-Nine
CONTINUOUSLY CURIOUSER
Alice stood behind Addison as he stared at the broken throne. Stone and glass littered the ground around it. Moss and overgrowth covered the high glass ceiling, strangling the light as it tried to enter the throne room. Now that the Bloody Lady—seemed the name had stuck—and her minions had dipped, some of the gloom had lifted, but it was still a far cry from the brightness that filled Legracia and had probably done the same for this space once.
“How fitting that this place would be where everything would come together, seeing as how it seemed to be where it all fell apart,” Addison had said after he and everyone else were brought up to speed.
The Bloody Lady wasn’t the Red Queen, like Addison had feared—which was why his fool-ass came racing out here, nearly getting himself killed in the process. But she wasn’t anybody any of them recognized, and neither Chess nor Humphrey knew her name. They both called her my lady or Her Majesty. Freaky.
“Is everyone ready to go?” Addison asked quietly.
“As ready as we can be. I can’t believe you just know a bunch of talking horses.” Or maybe she could. Wonderland, after all. Did this mean all animals could talk, or just some? Was Chou just the strong, silent type?
“That was all Phinny’s doing.” Addison smiled. “She’s an old friend.”
“Seems you have a lot of those.” Speaking of old friends, there was one in particular Alice wanted to talk about. Or not talk about, really, but try to understand just what the hell was going on. “So the Black Knight is actually Humphrey? Who’s … the missing Red Knight.”
She wasn’t certain, but she thought she saw him flinch. “Mmhm. A shock. When he vanished, I … we feared the worst.” He looked to her, his expression slightly pinched. “Apparently, something far more sinister was in the works. Humphrey was brave and loyal. Much smarter than me, if you hear him tell it. For him to end up like this…” Addison shook his head as his shoulders sagged beneath the weight of his unspoken words. “I think I hurt him most when I chose to continue to serve Portentia after it was clear she was choosing a path of darkness. In fact, I know I hurt him most. So much so, his anger toward me survived whatever that woman did to him. But he’d never do something like this. No matter his pain. He’s truly lost himself, and … I don’t know how to help him.”
Hesitation played through Alice, listening to Addison talk about someone else like this, hearing the emotion in his voice, seeing it on his face. But she pushed past it and moved to take his hand. He squeezed her fingers. “You two were … clearly close.” She hoped she didn’t sound like some jealous thot, though she couldn’t help feeling like one. Mostly the jealousy part, not the rest of it.
Addison sighed. “We were involved, intimately, but that is long over. I’m not even sure we were friends, by the end of it. I’d betrayed him, after all. Betrayed Wonderland.”
“I’m … sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. Hell, she didn’t know why she was saying that. Her mind swirled with images of Addison and Humphrey together. Not like that! Well, kinda like that? And it wasn’t like she had any room to be all up in her feelings about this, not when she’d kissed Chess and … the butterflies in her stomach really got to going around Haruka … She was a mess. They were both a mess.
“Don’t be,” Addison said. “My mistakes are mine to live with. To pay for.”
Alice nodded. She’d have to pay for hers, too.
“Besides, I may regret the choices I made, but I don’t regret the path they led me down.” He looked to her, a smile pulling at his lips. “Or who they led me to.”
Those butterflies she was thinking about a second ago went wild as Addison leaned in. She met him, their lips brushing, sending a tingle of heat down her spine. She pressed into the kiss, molding her mouth to his, chasing the taste of him. When they broke away, she pressed in at his side, her head resting on his shoulder.
Her eyes trailed to the throne, same as his had before. “It feels like I failed my duty again,” Addison said.
“What do you mean?”
“Humphrey is not himself, and this Bloody Lady is in possession of the Heart. This likely means the Red Queen is gone. I know it wasn’t my duty to defend her, but … it had been, once.”
“You thought the same about Humphrey, and here he is.”
“True, but I’m reluctant to look for twice the miracle.”
Alice could understand that. But she would hope for him. For the others. “About that, the Heart and whatnot, I thought only a member of the royal family could use it.”
“Mmm. From what you described, doing so drains her severely. She’s likely forcing its power somehow, nearly killing herself in the process.”
“Curiouser,” Alice said.
Addison blinked before smirking. “And continuously curiouser.”
She heaved a sigh before snorting, toying with his fingers then weaving hers with them. “You aren’t the only failure here, you know. I was supposed to find the Heart. It was my plan. Now it’s wherever those things took her body. Without it, you and the White Queen can’t be cured.”
He pursed his lips, nodding. “No, we can’t. But I made my peace with my condition long ago. As far as the White Queen, hopefully Maddi and Naette can treat her, the way Maddi treats me. If not, well … Princess Odabeth will take her mother’s crown and be the last remaining member of the royal family.”
Alice hoped they could help Odabeth’s mother. She’d meant it when she said she didn’t wish the pain of losing a parent on anybody, and that was before she and the princess were friends.
“On to more cheerful subjects—Chess is doing well?” Addison asked.
Alice nodded. “Whatever the Bloody Lady did to Humphrey, she started it on Chess. We were able to get to him before he lost his memory, though. He’s sorry for everything he did, but up and breathing. For now.” Her voice softened on those last two words. “Odabeth is too weak to use the Eye, if it’ll even work on him. So we have to wait and see what happens.”
“Between Maddi and Naette, we’ll be able to keep the Slithe from completely consuming him.” Addison curled his arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I promised we’d take care of him, milady, and we will.”
“I know.”
“It’s strange, though. I had no idea your friend was such a capable warrior.” Addison arched an eyebrow.
Alice snorted. “That makes three of us, including him. Could the Slithe have … I don’t know, given him powers, like with me crossing into Wonderland?”
“It … maybe?” Addison rubbed at the back of his head. “Slithe has not been put to use like this before. Perhaps it was the Bloody Lady’s puppetry of him.”
“Maybe…”
Alice fell silent when he turned to guide them through the palace to where everyone was preparing to journey to some nearby town where Courtney was waiting for them. There they would resupply and prepare to part ways. Alice, Addison, Maddi, Courtney, Chess, and … Humphrey would make their way to the Western Gateway. Xelon and Odabeth would return to Legracia, along with this Naette, to tend the White Queen. The Duchess would accompany Haruka to the Eastern Gateway before returning to her post.
The Black Knight was gone, the Bloody Lady’s plans—whatever they were—were foiled, and everyone was in one piece, for the most part. That … that was more than Alice could’ve hoped for.
Epilogue
THE BEST PEOPLE
“Alice Kingston, stop running in my house!”
Alice flinched, drawing up short where she’d been racing down the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Sorry!” Thanks to the construction going on to fix the damage caused by a “particularly rowdy burglary,” the carpet on the steps had been pulled up, and now Mom could hear Alice no matter where she was in the house. It was like she was five again, damn.
The trade-off was she was getting a new bedroom. Humphrey had apologized when she told everyone at the
pub about it. He’d apologized for a lot over the past few days, and was still working through his shattered memory to piece together his life. It had to be hard. She felt kinda sorry for him.
Once she reached the bottom of the stairs, Alice hurried for the kitchen at a trot—technically not a run—groaning at the smell of fried eggs, bacon, and something decidedly sweet baking. Usually everything smelled like paint and sawdust unless Mom was cooking, which was pretty much all the time now. It helped her de-stress. She was still coping with her daughter being a superhero. It was cute, and funny.
“Smells so good.”
“I know, because I’m good. Wash up, it’s almost ready.” Mom stood at the stove, robe still tightly wrapped around her body, hair tucked in a bonnet. She glanced over her shoulder as Alice bypassed the veritable buffet spread out over the island in order to grab a yogurt cup.
“Wha—that’s it?” Mom held her hands up, gesturing at the food with a spatula. “I made a whole breakfast.”
“I know, but I promised Courtney a Belated B-Day Brunch.” Though she did grab a bit of bacon, taking a large bite out of it before leaning in to kiss her mom’s cheek with greasy lips.
Mom ughed as she wiped at the grease with the back of her hand. “Her birthday was last week.”
“And I missed it, remember?” Alice also snagged a piece of toast.
“Mmhm. Where y’all going?” Mom turned back to her pan.
“Yonnie’s.”
Mom’s brows shot up. “Bring me back a strawberry bagel.”
Alice smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” Her phone chirped. She glanced down at the cracked screen. “Court’s here. Back soon!” She turned and hurried for the door.
“Stop. Running. In. My. House!”
“Sor-ry! I love you, bye!” Alice called over her shoulder as she slipped outside.
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