The Looking-Glass Curse: The Complete Series

by Eva Chase

  My heart wrenched. I started to move toward her, but she flinched, and I halted. “No,” I said, but I couldn’t look away from the accusation in her eyes.

  She wasn’t entirely right, but she wasn’t entirely wrong either.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, summoning as much as I could of the princely confidence that normally came so naturally. “I’ve been fighting for so long to free Wonderland, and I could see how important you were, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our progress by scaring you. I didn’t want to put you in danger by laying all that responsibility on you when you had nowhere else to go. Your grand-aunt found out the truth and immediately fled. I was going to tell you—I was going to tell you everything—I was just waiting for the right time—”

  “The right time was the first time I asked a question and you lied instead of telling the truth,” Lyssa said. Pain vibrated through her voice. “I came back. I’ve risked my life for this place. Being honest with me was the least you could do. Is—Is your name even Theo? It can’t be, can it?”

  “Theo is the name I picked for myself,” I said. “It’s been the name I’ve gone by for more than twice as long as I was anything else. My mother named me Jack.”

  “Jack of Hearts. That’s perfect.” Lyssa laughed, but there was no joy in the sound.

  “Lyssa—”

  “No.” She held up her hand to ward me off, backing toward the elevator. “I can’t talk to you right now. I can’t be around you right now. I don’t know if I ever want to see you again.”

  A cold rush of shame smacked me, but I had to say it anyway. “Please don’t tell anyone else what I told you. That’s all I ask. It could ruin everything, for all of Wonderland. I’ve never lied about how much I care about this place or these people.” I’d never lied about how much I cared about her, either, but looking at her expression, I didn’t think saying that part would go over the way I’d want it to.

  Lyssa’s mouth tightened. “I won’t say anything, for now,” she said. “That’s the best I can promise.”

  Then she was gone behind the elevator door, and I was alone again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lyssa

  I swung the sword through the air at the angle the Red Knight had shown me, and this time the weight didn’t leave all my arm muscles burning. The slice of the shining blade through the air was actually very satisfying. I had plenty of tension to work out.

  “Good,” the Red Knight said approvingly from where he was standing by the bedroom’s wardrobe. “Now try to combine that with the upward thrust I showed you earlier.”

  An unfortunate choice of words. At the phrase “upward thrust,” I was suddenly thinking about Theo—Jack—whatever the hell his name really was—pinning me up against his office wall last night. As furious and confused as I was right now, the memory still set off a flare of heat between my thighs.

  I gritted my teeth and swung again, jabbing upward at the end of the arc. I wasn’t exactly imagining running our supposed White Knight through, but the idea that I could do it might have been there in the back of my head.

  He’d played me so well, hadn’t he? Even yesterday, with his almost-confession, he’d acted like he’d wanted to protect me from what he was—and then he’d gone ahead and fucked me after I’d told him I was falling for him, still holding his secret in. Still pretending he hadn’t lied to me over and over. If he’d really wanted to come clean, he could have done that then.

  Well, whatever. I had two other guys I could count on. Okay, one for sure and the other one AWOL. But there was the Red Knight too. And Doria, slipping into the bedroom now with a curious arch of her eyebrows. And all the Spades who were waiting, ready for action.

  It didn’t matter who the guy at the top of the Tower was. I could still save Wonderland my way.

  As soon as I figured out what way that was.

  “Are you waging war on the furniture?” Doria asked, plopping down on the end of the bed.

  I had to grin. “Nope. Just trying to get the hang of my royal equipment.” I waggled the sword. “All of these things are supposed to have special powers that me being… me should activate. If I can get them to.”

  “So you can use those powers on the Queen of Hearts?” Doria grinned back fiercely.

  “That’s the idea, one way or another. It’ll help me prove my heritage when we’re trying to recruit more people to rise up against her. And I’ll take any advantage I can get to help us free the prisoners. A little magical boost could make all the difference when we’re so outnumbered. I want to know we’ve got a real chance.”

  “I guess it’s going to be tough crashing the trial even with a few fancy artifacts, isn’t it?” Doria said, her grin faltering.

  “The Queen has a lot of guards,” I said. “But a smaller group can win against a bigger one if they’ve got the better strategy.” At least, I hoped it could.

  “Does that sword do anything yet?”

  “Well, I think it’ll do a decent job of cutting things.” I made a face as I swiveled the blade in a slow circle. “The ruby doesn’t seem to want to wake up.”

  “It’s all a matter of attuning your energy,” the Red Knight said. “They’ll respond to you soon enough. No cause for worry.”

  Soon enough to stop the Queen from chopping off a few dozen heads? I stabbed the sword toward the desk in the corner, willing all my frustration to the surface, but the blade moved and shone just like any other sword would. The ruby on the hilt gleamed with a tiny spark of inner fire at the same time as a wisp of heat trickled from the ring against my breastbone, but a miniature light display wasn’t going to topple the Queen or her guards.

  Doria watched me for a few more minutes, her expression pensive. Then she hopped off the bed. “Good luck with that! If you can stop a jabberwock, you can take on the Queen. And we’ll give you all the help we can.”

  After she’d gone out, the Red Knight talked me through a few more moves. I practiced them until the burn in my arms expanded into an ache. The sword remained utterly sword-like. With a groan, I set it down on the bed and picked up the scepter.

  It hadn’t done anything useful in my hands so far either. I guessed I could hope that holding it up and standing in a queen-like pose would impress all the guards into bowing down in fealty? Somehow I didn’t think that strategy was going to win the day for us.

  Maybe if I was wearing the ring on my finger, where it was presumably meant to be? I took it off its chain and slid it into the ring finger of my right hand, which it fit perfectly. As if I’d been born to wear it. The Red Knight gave me a meaningful look as if to say, “I told you so,” but we were past the needing to convince me stage already.

  I grasped the scepter’s handle and held it up. The ring’s ruby gleamed, and so did the larger gem at the top of the rod. I whirled it around a bit, pointed it at a bedpost and then at the window, and sighed when nothing happened other than a flicker of warmth over my hand.

  “Often these things come to us in the moment of need,” the Red Knight said gently.

  “That’s not very useful for planning ahead,” I muttered.

  Because I didn’t want to go around slicing open people as I walked by, I put the filigree case back on the ring and strung it on the chain again. After I’d tucked the sword and the scepter away in Hatter’s secret compartment, I paused and pulled out the woven metal vest.

  That armor would be useful even without special powers. I should probably get more used to wearing it even in the city. It was flexible and form fitting enough that I could pull a loose blouse over it. Wonderlanders had such odd senses of fashion, I wasn’t sure anyone would notice if I seemed a tad bulky.

  I tugged the vest on, adjusting it until it lay against my torso comfortably, and then grabbed a blouse that sort of matched the bottom of the dress I already had on. Clashing was all the rage around here anyway.

  Hatter appeared in the doorway, knocking his knuckles against the frame to get my attention. “Have you seen Dori
a?” he asked.

  “She came by… it must have been at least an hour ago now,” I said. “Just for a bit. Why?”

  His mouth slanted with worry. “She didn’t tell me she was going out, but she doesn’t seem to be in the apartment. Which isn’t entirely unusual, but she tends to tell me where she’s going unless she knows it’s somewhere or to do something I’m not going to like.”

  And this was not a great time for Doria to be skirting danger too closely. I thought back to our brief conversation, and a chill tickled over my skin. Something about the way she’d said, We’ll give you all the help we can…

  I’d given her the impression any victory we reached would be hard-won. Had she come up with some scheme to try to give us a leg up, without even talking to me or Hatter about it? Shit.

  “She seems to like the twins’ company a lot,” I said. “Maybe she’s gone to hang out with them?” Or get up to some mischief, as the case might be.

  Hatter headed back down the hall, adjusting his hat, and I followed him. The Red Knight trailed behind me, of course.

  “It’s possible,” Hatter said. “When you saw the White Knight, he didn’t mention anything about a mission before the meeting tonight, did he?”

  At the mention of Theo, I stiffened instinctively. “No,” I said, in what I thought was a normal voice, but something must have slipped into my tone, because Hatter turned at the top of the stairs to give me a questioning look.

  “He didn’t say anything about tonight,” I added quickly. We hadn’t ended up talking about the Spades’ plans at all. He didn’t know what Unicorn had told me or the suggestions I’d made. Every particle of my body balked at the idea of seeing him again, though.

  I’d talked to Hatter about it. We were supposed to meet with as many of the Spades as could make it to discuss strategy later tonight. Probably Theo would show up for that… I just wasn’t going to think about it. If anyone asked why I wasn’t talking to him directly, he could figure out how to explain it, not me.

  I’d said I wasn’t going to spill his secret, but that didn’t mean I was going to pretend everything was fine.

  The street was darkening outside the living area’s windows. Hatter peered out into the evening, nervous tension obvious in every twitch of his jaw, every adjustment of his sapphire-blue suit jacket.

  “Hatter.”

  The voice came out of nowhere, and then Chess emerged out of nowhere too, turning visible in the middle of the room. His auburn hair looked scruffier than usual and his face worn as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep. My heart panged at the sight.

  “I think you should get down to Caterpillar’s,” he said, looking at Hatter. “A few of the younger Spades, including Doria—you’ll have to see it. She’s okay, as far as I know, so far, but the Queen is not going to be happy.”

  Hatter blanched. He dashed for the apartment door.

  “I’m coming too,” I said, hurried after him. If I’d sounded more hopeful when I’d talked to Doria, maybe she wouldn’t have gone off and done… whatever she’d done.

  The Red Knight paused just long enough to grab his old sword where Hatter had made him stash it under the sofa. There wasn’t time for me to argue with him about it—or to grab my own sword, not that I was going to be much use with it yet. We all hustled down the stairs and through the shop, Chess blinking out of sight as we spilled out onto the street.

  Even from this far away, a strange wavering light was visible streaking up toward the darkening sky over to the tops of the buildings between us and the club. Hatter took off at about as brisk a pace as he could walk at without breaking into a run. My heart thudded as I pushed myself to keep up.

  Other Wonderlanders closer to the club had clearly caught wind that something was going on. Several people peered from their windows, and a few ducked out onto the street around us. At least that made us stand out a little less.

  Hatter stopped at the end of the street so abruptly I had to grip his arm to keep from crashing right into him. Then my gaze caught on the source of the light, and all I could do was stare too.

  Someone—the group of Spades that Chess had mentioned, I assumed—had built an effigy I immediately recognized as the ornate gate and wall posts at the main entrance to the palace grounds. It hung from the trees at the edge of the woods beside the club. Flames danced all along the top of the structure, melting the gold-tinted paint on the makeshift bars of the gate and devouring the tops of the stone-like blocks on either side.

  Glowing letters across the blocks blazed through the falling dusk. JOIN US AND WE’LL BURN THE HEARTS DOWN.

  My stomach flipped over. I’d mentioned how outnumbered we were. Doria and her friends had decided to run a little recruitment campaign directed at the Clubbers.

  I had no idea if it was going to convince anyone, but it was certainly getting people’s attention. A bunch of tonight’s early Clubbers had congregated just outside the spinning building to gape at the effigy and its message. The flames flickered, and my gaze caught on a much less welcome sight: the red-and-pink stripes of a palace guard’s tunic. Several of them were weaving between the trees beyond the effigy.

  If Doria had been here, it looked as though she’d taken off. We stood there at the edge of the street for a few minutes as the flames blazed on. I was about to suggest we head back to the shop and see if Doria had already returned when a shout carried from the woods.

  One of the guards strode out, hauling a teenaged boy I’d seen at the Spades meetings by the elbow, baton raised by the cheek he’d already left a red mark across. The flash of panic in my chest eased for just an instant before two more guards hustled out. One of them was dragging Doria by a clump of her dark hair.

  “We got a couple of them!” the first guard hollered. “They have spark paste all over their hands.”

  Doria tried to wrench away from the guard holding her, and he raised his knife to her throat in warning. A wounded sound escaped Hatter’s mouth as if he’d been stabbed. Before I could stay anything, he was throwing himself toward them.

  If there’d only been one or two, maybe he could have taken them on. But a few more guards were already jogging over to join the three with the captives. Hatter plowed right into the man holding Doria, knocking him to the ground. The next guard grabbed her before she could take a step. Another leapt in and punched Hatter in the face as he spun around. The crack of knuckles to cheekbone propelled me forward.

  I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do in there, but I wasn’t leaving Hatter to fight seven on his own.

  The Red Knight charged in with me, letting out a whoop of a battle cry. He slammed his sword right through the gut of one of the guards. I jumped between the one guard and Hatter, and his next punch struck my chest instead of Hatter’s head. The impact threw me backward a couple steps, but he’d hit my vest. The guard yanked back his hand, a spasm of pain crossing his face. Then an invisible kick sent him careening toward the growing crowd by the club. Chess had joined us too.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. More guards charged out of the woods and from the other side of the club. My pulse stuttered. I glanced toward the Clubbers, but none of them looked inspired enough by Doria’s message to jump in. They just stood there rigid and wide-eyed.

  It was their fucking land I was trying to protect. How could they watch and do nothing?

  Theo’s voice echoed through my head. We’re all scared.

  Hatter hurled himself past me to slam his fist into another guard’s jaw. He whipped his hatpin from his jacket. One of the new guards came at me with a baton. I dodged to the side, right into the path of someone else’s dagger.

  The blade raked across the fabric of my blouse, scraping my vest—and jerked up toward my neck. I tried to fling myself backward out of the way, but hands behind me heaved me forward instead. I gasped, already anticipating the bite of the blade.

  “Never!” a creaky voice shouted, and the Red Knight shoved in front of me. His sword clanged against the
dagger. He swung it around, his fluffy white hair in disarray and his eyes gleaming defiantly, not quite fast enough to stop the jab of another guard’s knife.

  A cry of protest ripped from my throat as the guard dug the blade in deep. Red bloomed through the Red Knight’s tunic. He staggered to the side.

  “I fulfilled my duty to the best of my ability, your—” he rasped out, and the slash of the first guard’s dagger cut off his voice and the light from his eyes. He crumpled in a heap on the ground.

  My chest constricted. This man had waited so long for me to show up. He’d believed in me so much. And now he’d followed me straight to his death.

  The guards didn’t offer any time to grieve. They lunged at me and Hatter. Hatter bolted for the one now hauling Doria away, hatpin in his hand. A beefy guy barged into the way, shattering the pin with a smack of his sword. He belted Hatter across the forehead so hard Hatter’s hat flew into the air. He skidded backward ten feet across the ground.

  They couldn’t kill him too. Anguish and desperation seared through me, and the ring beneath my clothes flared. The vest’s rubies lit up with a glow that pierced my blouse.

  I jerked up my arm to block the blow of a baton, and a wave of energy jolted off me. It slammed into the guards nearby, sending them stumbling backward. What the hell?

  I spun and ran to Hatter. Blood was streaking through his spiky hair. I snatched at his shoulder to help him up, but he couldn’t seem to lift his head all the way—it kept swaying to the side, his eyes squinting. Oh, fuck, that guard had hit him hard.

  And now three more of them were racing toward us, recovered from whatever magic my vest had hit them with. I turned to shield Hatter, willing that magic to activate again, but the rubies’ glow had dimmed. The guards didn’t even hesitate.

  Chess’s presence brushed past my side. He hefted Hatter up over what must have been his invisible shoulder and gripped my hand.

  “Time to get out of here, lovely,” he murmured in a strained voice.