by Eva Chase
“Take him!” my mother snapped, and the guards lunged as one being.
I managed to smack the sword from one man’s grasp and dodged the swipe of another’s foot meant to trip me. My luck ran out there. As I yanked myself to the side, another stepped in with the prick of a blade piercing the fabric of my shirt. It sent a sliver of pain through my side.
Not just pain. A chilly, dizzying sensation trickled through my body from the spot where I’d been cut. My legs swayed under me.
They knew the Queen wanted me alive and relatively uninjured. He’d jabbed me with a dagger coated with some sort of drug. Its effects rolled through me, all the way up to my head, in a matter of seconds. As my mind hazed and my limbs turned to jelly, a single defiant thought stayed with me.
The road ahead of me was going to be longer than I’d hoped. Longer and fraught with peril. But at least the right person was on that road now. I would face the peril, not Lyssa. I would be the man and the prince she deserved.
Then the blackness filled my head completely, and I knew nothing.
LYSSA’S FAVORITE VANILLA-CRANBERRY-PINE SCONES
(Recipe makes approximately 8 scones)
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1 cup dried cranberries
2 teaspoons ground juniper berries
1/4 cup sugar plus extra for sprinkling
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk, plus more for brushing on top
Preheat the oven to 425° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Combine flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Using your fingers, massage in the butter until the mixture looks like fine crumbs.
Stir in the cranberries, ground juniper berries, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring until the dough is soft. You might not need all of the milk.
Shape the dough into balls about 2 inches thick and roll them on a floured surface. Place on the baking sheet and flatten to about 1 inch. Brush the tops lightly with milk. Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.
N ote: For more of a pine flavor, mix 3 tablespoons ground juniper berries with 1/2 cup of sugar and let sit at least 12 hours. Sprinkle the juniper sugar on top of the scones instead of regular sugar.
CHAPTER ONE
Lyssa
M y eyes fluttered open to bright lights and white walls, and my first thought was that I’d somehow fallen asleep in the White Knight’s office in his high Tower apartment. The smells weren’t right, though: crisp and plastic-y with a hint of chemical cleaner. Neither were the sounds: a steady electronic beeping filtering through a wall and the murmur of the TV set mounted across from me.
I shifted to sit up on the padded surface I’d been lying on, and a thin blanket slipped down my chest. Over the coarse blue fabric of a hospital gown. An IV line slid against my arm. A dull ache spread through my torso and limbs and up the back of my neck to gnaw at my skull.
“Lyssa!” my mother said with a sharp intake of breath. She tipped forward in her chair where she’d been sitting next to my bed to grab my hand. “Honey, are you really awake? Can you answer me?”
“Mom?” I said, bewildered. Her graying blonde hair hung limp around her thin face as if she hadn’t washed it in a few days, and her light brown eyes glinted with a liquid shine that was more than just the reflection on her glasses. “Of course I’m awake. What’s going on?”
I was in a hospital room, obviously. My pulse stuttered with the memory of the dark wet night I’d fallen into when Theo had sent me through the mirror from Wonderland, the horn and the glare of headlights bearing down on me. I couldn’t remember anything after that. How far from my Otherland home had I landed?
“Oh, sweetheart.” Mom gave me a careful hug, as if she was afraid the embrace might hurt me. “You were hit by a truck on the highway just a couple miles outside the city. Thankfully the driver called in the accident, and the paramedics rushed you to the hospital right away.”
This was my local hospital then. Even though I hadn’t been thinking about any specific place in this world when I’d come through the mirror, I’d managed to end up close to familiar ground.
I let out a breath, and my ribs twinged. For being hit by a truck, I didn’t feel that bad. My arms looked pale but unmarked other than a few pink splotches and the IV. My legs moved beneath the blanket when I tested them. A brace was wrapped around my left wrist, but otherwise I didn’t seem to have any bandages. It was actually kind of weird.
“I guess I got really lucky,” I said.
“You did,” Mom agreed. “Not that I could tell when they first called me in. You were bruised and scraped all over, and they were sure something had to be broken… The doctor said it’s incredible you survived. They think that strange shirt you had on must have protected most of the critical areas.”
She gestured toward the other side of the room. My vest of armor, made of flexible strands of Wonderland metal woven together with an arc of five rubies beneath the neckline, rested against the bedside table. The impact of the accident hadn’t even bent it out of shape or cracked any of the gems. Relief washed over me, followed by a smack of cold as the rest of what Mom had said sunk in.
“When they called you in,” I repeated. I couldn’t see anything more than a hint of bruises and scrapes on me now. “How long have I been here? I don’t remember anything.”
“You’ve been going in and out of consciousness,” Mom said, a tremor running through her voice. “And even when you seemed awake before, you were so dazed you couldn’t say anything or really do anything. You took a blow to the head—they fixed everything they could, but with the possible brain injury, they weren’t completely sure you’d be yourself again—”
She cut herself off with a swallowed sob. “I was so scared for you, Lyssa. I’ve been here every day, talking to you, trying to help bring you back…”
A lump rose in my throat at her distress. The time she was talking about was a total blank for me. She must have been so freaked out. Even when my life was going well, Mom fussed over the possible catastrophes I might encounter all the time—now she was never going to believe me when I told her she didn’t have to worry about me.
At the same time, panic dug even deeper. “How many days? How long has it been?”
“Almost four weeks,” Mom said hoarsely.
Four weeks. Oh, God. I didn’t know how much time had passed in Wonderland while I was laid up here, but that was definitely longer than I’d wanted to be gone.
I hadn’t wanted to leave at all. Theo had brought me to the mirror to try to save me, but I’d rather have stayed and kept fighting, however I could. We’d only just freed the Queen of Hearts’ prisoners. Who knew what she’d have done to Wonderland’s people next?
Theo had revealed himself as her son, Prince Jack, assumed murdered for decades. He’d said he was going to challenge her, force her to change or give up her rule—clear a path for my rule as the Red Queen and the rightful heir to the throne. He’d said he would come for me when he succeeded. Maybe he had.
The only way he could have found his way to me here was by using the sketch of Aunt Alicia’s house that Hatter had. But I wouldn’t have been at the house or anywhere nearby. He’d have had to return to Wonderland empty-handed, not knowing where I’d gone or why.
Either everyone I cared about back in Wonderland was struggling to survive the Queen’s fury without me, or they’d been left with an empty throne. They’d think I’d abandoned them. I had to get back soon—now.
“I had a ring,” I said tentatively. “I was wearing it like a pendant. Do you know what happened to that?”
Had the vest managed to protect my proof that I was the Red Queen’s heir too?
“Oh. Yes. They gave that to me. I think I have it…” Mom du
g into her purse with her free hand and produced a plastic baggy that held the chain with the gold ring, its large ruby setting still encased in a shell of filigree. I had to restrain myself from snatching it from her.
“Was it your grand-aunt’s?” she asked. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Aunt Alicia left it for me. Can I…?”
I reached out, and she gave the baggy to me. Her fingers tightened around my other hand. “Do you remember what you were doing out there by the highway, sweetheart?” she asked. “It was an empty stretch—no stores or houses nearby, and it was pretty late at night.”
Even if there had been buildings nearby or it’d been earlier in the day, I shouldn’t have gone wandering right onto the highway on foot. Clutching my ring, I groped for a reasonable explanation to give her that wouldn’t freak her out even more. The ache was still creeping through my head, making it hard to think. Not that I would have had an easy answer ready clear-headed either.
“I stayed up organizing the house and realized I didn’t have much food around, so I looked up a late-night place to have dinner and figured I’d walk there,” I said, hoping my tone was convincing enough. “It looked closer on the map. Or maybe I got turned around. It was really dark on that stretch, and the rain started—I would have called for a cab, but my phone died on me. Just a really bad situation all around. I must have tripped over something to end up on the road. I don’t remember that part.”
Mom didn’t look any less worried with that explanation, but she must have decided any further questions could wait a little longer. “Oh!” she said. “I have to let the nurses and the doctor know you’re awake. And Melody—she’ll be so relieved. Your brother, too. He came to see you a few times, you know.”
She got up and hustled into the hall, pulling her phone from her purse as she went. My stomach knotted as she went.
How much longer was I going to have to stay here recovering? More and more days while Wonderland’s people—my people—might assume I’d abandoned them like Aunt Alicia had before?
The doctor hustled in, a tall woman in a white lab coat that set off her dark brown skin. She eyed me and the equipment around me, and for a second I thought she looked puzzled. She came over to the side of the bed.
“Miss Tenniel,” she said. “I’m glad to see you’ve rejoined us.”
“So am I,” I said in a weak attempt at humor.
It did earn me a small smile. “I’m Dr. Nicholson,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Kind of achy,” I said honestly. “But… not really that bad. My mom said I’ve been here for four weeks?”
She couldn’t somehow have accidentally said “weeks” when she’d meant “days,” right?
“Twenty-six days,” Dr. Nicholson said. “But you’ve proven very resilient.” Her gaze twitched toward the metal vest for a second before she caught it. “I’ll need to give you a quick exam now that you’re back with us.”
“Of course.”
She shone a light in my eyes and had me test my grip and my range of motion. I was definitely weak from all the lying around I’d been doing. Just lifting my legs up and down a few times was tiring me out. The doctor looked pleased with what she saw, though. Well, pleased and a little puzzled.
“Am I going to be okay?” I asked when she was finished.
“As far as I can tell,” she said. “I have to admit, Miss Tenniel, yours has been a rather unusual case. But I see every reason for optimism.”
Maybe the vest had protected me with its magic as well as its armor. I wet my lips. “Now that I’m awake, can I go home?”
“With the amount of time you’ve been unconscious, we’ll want to monitor you for at least another day,” Dr. Nicholson said. “And even once you’re discharged, you’ll need to take it easy for a while as you recover your strength. There’s also…”
She sank into the chair where Mom had been sitting before and fixed me with a firm but compassionate look. “I haven’t mentioned this to your family, but I think it’s important I bring it up with you. When you arrived at the hospital, you had a number of small but deep cuts around your lower legs and your hands. They didn’t match your injuries from the accident. In fact, I can’t think of any sort of accident that could have caused them. Did you want to talk about how you got those?”
Ah, that would be a “No.” I’d gotten those cuts freeing the Queen’s prisoners and fending off her guards while mushroom-drugged to ten times my regular size. The guards’ swords had cut into me like little knives. If I told the doctor that, she’d send me to the psychiatric ward.
“My memory around the accident is pretty fuzzy,” I said. “I’m really not sure.”
Dr. Nicholson didn’t look as if she believed me. “Have you been under a lot of stress recently, Miss Tenniel? We have counsellors here you can speak with if you have any difficult emotions you need to work through in a productive way.”
Oh. Oh. Understanding hit me like a smack to the head. She thought I’d cut myself out of some kind of self-harming urge. I guessed that wasn’t too much of a stretch when by all appearances I’d also walked straight into traffic. Shit.
Hasty denial would probably just make me look even more unstable. I smiled instead. “I really appreciate the offer. I’ll let you know if I think I need that. For now I’d just like to rest some more.”
“Of course,” Dr. Nicholson said. “That’ll be good for you.”
As she got up, my best friend appeared in the doorway. Melody gave a little cry and rushed over to me. “Lyss! Oh my God. I’m so glad you’re okay.” She shot the doctor a pointed glance. “She is okay, right?”
“It appears she’ll make a full recovery—and a rather speedy one,” Dr. Nicholson said. “Go easy on her for now!”
“‘Go easy on her’,” Melody muttered to herself as the doctor ducked out. She raked a hand through her fine black hair and brandished a patchwork tote bag. “I had stuff packed for as soon as you pulled through. Because I knew of course you were going to pull through. Lyssa Tenniel wasn’t going to let some truck get the better of her.”
I had to laugh. “What did you pack me?”
“Jeans and one of your favorite T-shirts, all other clothing essentials, and a book I think you’ll like in case they aren’t ready to let you leave quite yet. Are they letting you leave?”
“The doctor said they need to monitor me for a little while longer,” I said, my gut tightening all over again. “It sounds like it shouldn’t take too long if they think I’m doing that well.” If they didn’t decide I needed to be carted off to the psychiatric ward after all, for my own protection. “Did you see my mom when you came in?”
“Yeah, she’s sorting something out with the nurses about your insurance or I don’t know what.” Melody sighed and then grinned. She grasped my hand like Mom had. “Do you really feel okay? You know you can tell me if you don’t. How you ended up out by the highway—it didn’t have anything to do with that asshole, did it?”
“No,” I said quickly. I’d given Melody a story about a neighbor I’d been planning to hit up for a booty call as a roundabout way of talking about visiting Wonderland. That lie spiraled a little out of control when she’d found me after my return the last time bleeding all over Aunt Alicia’s house. Now she thought some psycho guy lived in the area and might come after me again. “I’m really okay. I mean, not perfect, but if Mom hadn’t told me I was hit by a truck, I wouldn’t believe it.”
Melody kept smiling, but her brow furrowed. When Melody let herself look worried, you knew she was really freaking out. “I want you to know I’ve got your back, whatever you need, here and once you’re back home. I’ll grab groceries for the apartment and air everything out, and—”
“The apartment?” I interrupted. “When I get out, I’m going back to the house. I left a bunch of stuff there—I’m still sorting through everything.”
Melody’s mouth flattened. “Lyss… I don’t think that’s such a g
ood idea—you being on your own out there after everything. That place seems like it’s getting to you somehow. I’ve never had to visit you at the hospital in the entire ten years I’ve known you, and within a few days of you inheriting that place, you’re in here twice?”
Okay, so maybe Wonderland hadn’t turned out to be the best for my health, but that was the Queen of Hearts’ fault, not anyone else’s. And a whole lot more people could be getting hurt because of her right now. If Melody could have understood…
But she wouldn’t. No one would. How could I ever explain to anyone what I’d found there, why it was important to me? I’d thought I was hallucinating the first few hours I’d spent in Wonderland, with the actual reality of it all around me.
That fact hit me with a punch of queasiness. I cared about Mom—of course I did—and I didn’t want to worry her more. I loved Melody like a sister. But I couldn’t share anything with either of them about the people and the place I’d fallen in love with.
“Country living comes with unexpected dangers?” I said with an attempt at a wry smile. “It’s just a coincidence. You’ve been through the house—you didn’t see anything all that weird there, did you?”
“No. But still. Your mom and I were talking while you were out of it…” Melody looked away and then pulled her gaze back to mine. “We’re taking care of it for you, okay, Lyss? It’s all still yours; we’re just getting it sorted out so you can move on.”
I blinked at her. “What do you mean, you’re taking care of it?”
She sucked in a breath through her teeth. “We hired movers to come and pack up the place, bring all the furniture and the rest to an auction site. Anything that looked like it was a real heirloom or had sentimental value we already set aside in a storage locker. They should be in there to grab it all today, and then—”
My heart stopped. My voice crackled as it came out, but I couldn’t hold it steady. “Mel, that stuff is mine. You can’t just—”