War of the Cards

by Colleen Oakes

  “Things returned to normal. Then the Queen of Hearts—er, I mean you—rode on our fair city. Lord Sander died on the battlefield—a knife to the throat!—but we fared okay. Swete returned safely from outside the north wall, gods be good. Two days after the battle, we began making bread again. The Cards needed it. But a week later, my son went to bed, and the next morning, he was gone. His clothing and bags were still there, and his bed had been barely disturbed. All that was left of my son was a single drop of blood, left in the middle of his pillow. I looked for the package but couldn’t find it. I have no proof. I have no son.”

  Dinah knew where the package was. She dropped her eyes as thoughts raced through her brain. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Sorry? Why should you be sorry? Lord Sander should have been sorry for what he did to my son, my innocent boy. He wrapped him up in his shady dealings, and now I have no son, no husband, no family. I am glad for Lord Sander’s death. I would dance on the man’s grave.”

  Ruby Thorndike picked up the loaf of bread that had fallen to the ground, brushed it off, and placed it back on the cart. “I am sad for his family. His wife was a kind woman who took to Swete. But whoever Lord Sander got involved with took or murdered my son. I am sure of it.”

  Dinah turned away from the woman to hide her face. Her heart raced. The pieces were falling into place, but she wanted a quiet spot to think. The sun would be rising soon, and she needed to get back to the palace.

  “We must go,” she muttered. “Now.”

  Dinah nodded at Ki-ershan, who swiftly gave the woman a single heavy gold piece, equal to two years’ wages. She gasped.

  “I know that this cannot buy your son back. If I were you, I would take this money and head for one of the towns on the Western Slope. Start a new life. It is for your silence, and for your loss. Go now, and do not wait. Wonderland is no longer a safe place for you.”

  The woman’s hands shook. “Thank you, Your Majesty! How can I hope to repay you?”

  Dinah paused a moment and then plucked a loaf of warm bread from her cart.

  “This will do nicely. Thank you.”

  Dinah walked away from the woman, who gazed after her with amazement.

  As they ran back to the palace, Ki-ershan was obviously annoyed by her much slower pace, but it couldn’t be helped. Dinah was overwhelmed. She felt as if the stars themselves were falling all around her, like she was back in the Sky Curtain. Everything around her plummeted to the ground, illuminating all the parts of her mind that had lain dormant for weeks. Her heart and chest, already bloody and raw from what she had done to Alice, felt like they were ripped open.

  In this still night, all was so clear, but Dinah knew if she hesitated for even a moment, it would become cloudy again. Her mind reeled as she connected the pieces, and she began to see things take shape in the dark, things that she hadn’t let herself ever consider before. She let out a long breath as her strong legs pumped underneath her. Ki-ershan’s eyes glowed in the darkness. To anyone watching, the sight of the queen and a Yurkei warrior racing toward the palace would be strange indeed.

  Dinah pulled the hood of her cloak back over her head. There will come a day, she thought, when I will no longer have to sneak around. There will be no more whispered secrets, no more insistent fear and doubt. Memories flooded her senses, and everything fell swiftly into place. Charles, giving her the crown. Charles, his tiny body cradled in her arms. Lord Delmont, poisoned. Lord Sander, killed in battle. Swete, poor innocent Swete, who never knew what he held in his hands. The swirling flurry of questions in her mind fell to the ground. Behind the confusion and doubt was only one person. One person who was probably already aware of what she was seeking. He was the key to her rule, to her crown, to her fate. He was always one step ahead of everyone.

  Her father, the man in the purple cloak.

  Cheshire.

  Seventeen

  The next night was void of stars, as if they knew what was about to transpire. Dinah’s fingers shook in the cool night as she clutched a dagger marked with a purple amethyst, a gift from her father. She had thought like him, planned like him, and now she waited for him. This was Dinah’s first time in the Spades’ barracks, which were in the process of being completely torn down. And while she had supported the rebuilding of the Spades’ residences, she had not fully understood why until now. Under the shadows of the Black Towers, the Spades’ barracks were the equivalent of a shantytown. Stacked and cornered, each little stall pressed uncomfortably against the one before it, the barracks were more a prison than a home.

  Inside was a maze in shades of black—black walls made with black wood. There were very few windows. Small tree roots of the Black Towers rose and fell all across the ground. The soil underneath her feet was grainy and soft at the same time, and quite hard to navigate without tripping. A feeling of hopelessness—a little sadness, a little madness—made the rooms feel even more dark and ominous. It was the same feeling that Dinah had experienced in the Black Towers, only diluted to make the place barely livable. No wonder the Spades were so angry. The Black Towers fed off their misery and then gave it back to them.

  When Wardley had shown up in the Darklands so many months ago with an army of Spades behind him, Dinah had been amazed that the Spades had defected so easily from the Cards to join her side. Now that she had witnessed their living conditions, and the vein of unease that ran through the ranks, she understood completely. The Spades were desperate for change. It was her privilege as queen to be able to give it to them. Sir Gorrann, as usual, had been right about everything.

  She let her weight shift from foot to foot, her thoughts lingering always on Alice or Wardley. The night huddled protectively around Dinah and her Yurkei guard. There was a faint creak of wood, the slightest of breezes, and the ominous feeling of darkness approaching. Dinah shut her eyes and willed herself to listen, as she held her breath in the pitch-black barracks. She could sense a man moving through the rooms like a cat on silent feet. He made no sound. Everything around her moved slowly, purposefully. A drop of water falling from the ceiling took years to reach the ground. A paper fluttered in the breeze, circling and dancing across the disgusting floor.

  She felt Ki-ershan’s mouth brush her ear.

  “Uhlaet.” Breathe.

  Another soft creak echoed through the room, and Dinah’s spine tightened uncomfortably. She felt Ki-ershan’s arm wrapped protectively around her, the beating of his furious Yurkei heart against her shoulder. She was not afraid, not for herself—no one would get through him.

  From her hiding place, Dinah saw the rickety door swing open and watched as a tall shadow stepped into the room. Immediately, she recognized the black cloak and hood. It was the same terrifying ensemble that had come into her room that fateful night. The figure moved quickly. There was a flash of silver in the moonlight as he raised his dagger, creeping swiftly toward the slumbering lump on the bed. The figure looked quietly down at the sleeping Spade before yanking back the bedcovers, his dagger arching overhead.

  He would not succeed. Sir Gorrann was ready and waiting for him. He threw the covers into the attacker’s face, leaping from the bed and tackling the smaller man to the floor. With one hand, Sir Gorrann grabbed the cloaked man’s dagger and tossed it across the room. Unleashing a growl, her loyal Spade crouched over the figure, his legs pinning down the man’s arms, his long sword pressed tightly against his throat.

  “Don’t move, coward,” he hissed. Sir Gorrann blew a lock of hair out of his face and nodded to the false wooden wall that Dinah and a dozen Spades stood behind, all too easy to miss with the new construction, riddled with holes perfect for spying. The wall dropped with a thud, and Dinah strode forward in a shower of black dust. Her steps were slow, calculated. Taking a deep breath, she steadied her face and withdrew her emotions. Now was not the time for feelings.

  “Take off his hood.”

  Sir Gorrann pulled the man up to his knees and bound his hands behind him with rope. Wi
th a yank, he pulled off his hood. Cheshire’s black hair shimmered in the light, a macabre grin twisting his narrow face.

  “My queen, it is so nice to see you about at this late hour of night. What brings you here, beautiful daughter?”

  Dinah smiled coldly before striking his cheek, hard, once and again. Cheshire barely winced. Her black eyes were emotionless as she stared into his face. “I know the truth. I know what you did. Confess it to me now, and you may have a prayer of going to your grave with a clear heart.”

  Cheshire’s features hardened. He now looked incredibly dangerous, a coiled snake ready to strike. “What is it that you think you know, Your Grace?”

  Dinah glowered down at him, rage building inside her at the sight of his snide smile. But she would not lose control like she had with Alice. Never again. Dinah seethed in his presence, the crown glittering brightly on her head.

  “I know that you killed my brother. You killed Lucy and Quintrell that night, and then you threw—threw!—Charles from a window. You murdered him, a young child, the son of the woman you once loved. How could you? He was innocent!”

  “He was a pawn!” hissed Cheshire. “He stood in the way of your throne by his very nature. He was a weakness, an embarrassment to you, to our family! He was the proof that your whore of a mother actually slept with the king. I knew the only way I could convince you that the king never intended to give you the crown was to get rid of Charles. It was the only way you would leave the palace, the only way you would ever seize your destiny. The king would have killed you if you had stayed. He would never have crowned you queen. I was only looking out for you. You must believe me.”

  “I do,” said Dinah calmly. “But you were sloppy that night. So unlike you, Cheshire. You killed Charles, but you were in a hurry. You had to wake me and send me on my way, and also convince me that the king had killed him. Perfect timing was so crucial to your plan. In your haste, you took the crown that Charles made for me. The only evidence of your crime. You didn’t anticipate that I would go to Charles’s room before fleeing, that I would notice it was missing. But why would you anticipate that? That had to do with love. You would never, in your wildest manipulations, dream that I would go to my pathetic brother’s room instead of fleeing for my life. But I did. You have never understood love.”

  Cheshire’s eyes narrowed into glittering slits of black. “I believe you know a little about where love can lead a person, don’t you? And you didn’t love Charles. You pitied him. He was like a malignant growth—he needed to be cut off.”

  He gave her a cruel smile before chuckling. “Charles was silent, you know, when I threw him out the window. He curled up in my arms, like he had accepted his fate. There was no struggle. He had just watched me kill his beloved caretakers. What could he do? So the boy just let me drop him out the window. And as he fell to his death, he waved at me, right up until his body hit the stone. Why? Because he was mad—”

  Dinah cut him off. “No. He waved at you because he knew I would discover the truth. Because he knew you would soon join him in that starless night that waits for all of us. He knew I would outsmart you eventually.”

  Dinah circled him now, sizing up his betrayal before gently resting her hand on his cheek, her fingers tracing the lines of his face. “Pride was your fatal mistake. You wanted to give me that crown, because of its glory, because of its grandness, and because you wanted Wonderland to see it. If you had kept it hidden forever, I would never have known. But you had to place it on my head and flaunt your genius, your stolen triumph. Your real reward was the moment when your daughter was crowned queen—the culmination of all your scheming.”

  Cheshire’s smile stretched to the ends of his face, his dark eyes sparkling with pleasure, and he leaned in as if to rest his head on her shoulder. “Dinah, so fierce and intelligent, the pride of my loins. Tell me, how did you unravel my well-laid plans?”

  Harris shuffled forward from behind the wall of Spades. His normally kind eyes filled with fury. “It was simple once Dinah spoke with Ruby Thorndike and Lord Geheim. After my queen fled the kingdom, you were nervous about having the crown on your person, especially with the king around. If he found out that you, and not the queen, had killed his son, nothing could have saved you from his anger. So you gave it to two men who owed you a debt—Lords Sander and Delmont—for safekeeping. Lord Sander agreed to keep the crown for you, in his home, for his debt was greater. Together, they began to put the pieces together and, in a fatal miscalculation, attempted to blackmail you. You poisoned Lord Delmont and his family as a warning to Lord Sander. An entire family, wiped out, all to scare one man. Your plan worked. Terrified, Lord Sander gave the crown to his apprentice, Swete Thorndike, to hide it from you. He thought it was his insurance—that you wouldn’t kill him if you didn’t know where the crown was.”

  Cheshire laughed, an insane, high-pitched cackle dripping with malice. “Those lords, so jumpy! They thought they could outsmart me. It makes me laugh even now.”

  Harris continued, “Then you left, to find Dinah, to help raise her army. You marched on the palace. You killed Lord Sander in the battle—how convenient to be able to do it out in the open!—and then, with a bribe, you were able to persuade a few Spades to kill his family.” Harris paused for effect. “We have ferreted out those men, by the way. They will stand a private trial for murder.”

  “And then . . .” Cheshire’s cool demeanor looked slightly worried now, his black eyes darting back and forth from Dinah’s face to Sir Gorrann’s.

  Harris went on, “After you returned, you quickly figured out that Lord Sander had hidden the crown with his poor apprentice. One day before the queen’s coronation, you snuck into the Thorndike residence, killed Swete, and found the crown he had been hiding. Then you gave it to Vittiore—Alice—to carry into the coronation.” Harris rubbed his glasses. “You must have believed you were in the clear! To think, in your blind pride, you had forgotten what you had told the queen about your whereabouts the night of her brother’s murder. That you had consorted with Lords Delmont and Sander while the king murdered her brother. I imagine their names must have been the easiest to remember in the midst of your lie, seeing how you had already killed one and were planning on killing the other. What a sloppy mistake! When the queen realized that Alice had never worn that crown, and that the King of Hearts had never even seen it, she realized it couldn’t have been the king in the room that night. All this time it was you, the man in the shadows.”

  Cheshire smiled up at Dinah grimly, his face shaking with vicious intent. “So tell me, daughter, how does it feel to know that you started a war against a man who was innocent?”

  Dinah didn’t even blink.

  “The King of Hearts wasn’t innocent. He tried to kill me several times, though it’s understandable, seeing how he believed that I actually killed Charles. Though our belief in the other one’s guilt was false, I have no regrets. He was a terrible king, a murderer a thousand times over, and a corrupt leader. He threw those who opposed him in the Black Towers. He cheated and exploited the people of Wonderland. He ordered the slaughter of hundreds of Yurkei and those villagers who lived in the Twisted Wood.”

  Her eyes flitted briefly to Sir Gorrann.

  “The king didn’t protect his people when our armies took the palace. He took Alice from her home and attempted to use her to usurp my throne. Then he killed her mother right in front of her, as a warning to me. Trust me, I have no regrets about killing him.”

  Cheshire’s eyes watched her face. “My little Dinah, so full of fury. But humor me one last time. How did you know that I would be here? A lucky guess?”

  Cheshire’s cracks were starting to show as his eyes darted wildly from face to face: Harris, flush with anger; Sir Gorrann, rippling with fury; and Dinah, cold and as still as stone.

  She clicked her tongue and answered his question. “You are by far the most clever mind in Wonderland, and yet, like any man, you are still predictable. The calling card of Lord C
heshire is that he cleans up his messes. You make sure that anything in your way simply disappears. You and the king made sure that Faina Baker disappeared into the Black Towers, and that Alice disappeared completely into the creation of Vittiore. You killed not only Lords Delmont and Sander, but also their families. You leave no trace behind, and you punish all those who were connected to your plans, even by the slightest margin. I’m going to guess that once you figured out that I was unraveling your plan—which was yesterday—you needed to get rid of those who would stand in your way when something happened to me.

  “You came for Sir Gorrann first because he would be the most vocal and had the most power. I would guess Harris would be your next target, then Wardley.”

  “Wardley would rejoice at your death.” Cheshire grinned. “His hatred for you will never fade.”

  Dinah’s face stayed unaffected. Cheshire seemed to get aggravated by this and began squirming. His words rushed out in a screaming wave as his carefully constructed face fell to pieces.

  “Don’t just stand there, staring at me like that. I created you, Dinah! Without me, you would be no one. From the day you were born, a squalling, screaming child, I had a plan for you, a plan to raise you up to be queen. I protected you from the king’s wrath. And oh, how you were my child. Your black hair, your intelligence, the way you watched people. But you also had your mother’s delicate heart, prone to love. A flaw if I ever saw one. Every single day of my life, I worked so that you might be queen, so that my blood would become royal. I might have been born poor, but I would be the father to the queen someday. My plan unfolded the moment I saw your mother. I crept my way into her heart, so that someday we would create a child to rule. If I wasn’t born into the Royal Line of Hearts, I would scheme my way into it. You have a crown on your head because I put it there. You marched on Wonderland Palace because I arranged it. And if you hadn’t meddled where your nose didn’t belong, we would have ruled the entire kingdom.