The unease in the pit of my stomach grows exponentially, but my words are controlled. “Todd has been neutralized.”
She is unbothered by this. And it’s then that I understand he truly was nothing but that filthy commoner to her, a disposable one that had nothing to do with her end game.
Todd, for so long, has been of great importance to the Society. Todd and Rosemary, Jenkins, even, were the villains. Their crimes were atrocious. Their captures were bittersweet victories.
I know better now. Todd and his cohorts were the small fish in the pond. And the Queen of Hearts? I have a feeling she’s not much better. Her fight is with me. I would lay down my crown that she has no interest in Timelines.
No—someone else does, though. Someone . . . who is using her.
Part of me insists I walk away now. That my goal is to find this person—or persons, if our guesses prove to be incorrect—and wield justice so many innocents so richly deserve and yet can never witness. But there’s something that stops my feet from uprooting, something that holds me back.
The painfully ironic scene of a small rectangle still clutched within a bloody hand.
The Caterpillar would call me a fool. A sentimental fool, to be exact. But this sentimental fool cannot stand by and allow a bitch like Hearts hold onto such a thing.
If she wants a fight, a fight is what she’ll get.
“You’re right about one thing,” I say coolly yet calmly. “My loyalty to my subjects is unwavering. I will always put matters concerning them above my own.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “Are we back to this, then?” She fans herself with the clutch before pressing a loving kiss against it. “Are you really ready to come at me in such a place, during such an event? All by yourself?”
Finn’s fingers tap against my lower back again as she offers Finn what I’m certain she feels is apologetic yet insulting in nature. And then, almost as if it were out of a storybook, or a modern movie, an achingly familiar voice says, “She will not be alone.”
The Queen of Hearts’ mouth closes; her head snaps to the left. Approaching us, still wearing the flannel shirt and jeans from before, is the White King of Wonderland.
I try not to take pleasure in how her face drains of color. Nor do I try to stare too long at how beautiful yet alien Jace continues looks in such garb. He is here, in New York, confronting the Queen of Hearts once more alongside me, and the surreality of the situations is nearly too much to bear.
Was he in the van with the others? He must have been. How else could he have come to our sides so quickly?
The slow dragline of vision between my past and my present leaves the Queen of Hearts in rare speechlessness. I, however, say quietly, “If you expect to exit this building tonight on legs that still function, you will permanently relinquish your barbaric trophy to my care.”
Her lips thin, her eyes narrow. She is calculating her odds. But, in the end, she does what is asked. She knows better than to face two Wonderlandian monarchs at once.
Her bloody hand stretches the short distance between us, flipping up to offer the remnants of my advisor. As if he can read my mind, Finn takes it from her, tucking it into his coat. He then presses a finger against his ear. “QH extraction, T-minus five minutes.”
Her whisper is strangled. “You are stupider than I previous assumed if you think—”
“Here is what I know, not think.” The White King closes in on her. “The King of Hearts has already agreed to testify against you. The White Queen and I are in agreement of your crimes. The Queen of Diamonds will submit written testimony in our favor. That makes an even majority, Hearts. Imagine what they will say when I tell them of your use of a boojum, especially against another Monarch, exiled or no. The accords are still in effect, Hearts. The penalty for any who use them—Monarchs included—is death.”
And then she does something that wipes clean our shared confidence. Faced with her imminent future, she smiles that horrendous, smug smile of hers, the one that triggers every last alarm inside me.
“Finn,” I say, “Jace, we need—”
The room goes black. All the lights wink out, leaving nearly two hundred patrons voicing their loud displeasure in the heavy ink of stillness. A crash of glass sounds, and I’m immediately lunging forward.
Only, the Queen of Hearts is no longer before me.
Finn has his cell phone out, the flashlight function aimed at the empty space I’m groping. There are tables there, and shards from an empty champagne flute lined with red lipstick, but no villainess queen.
To say my heart plummets out of my chest would not be a mild exaggeration.
“She can’t have gone far,” Jace is saying. He’s already scouting the area, his eyes squinting as he peers into the darkness. Around us, hushed chatter ratchets up to annoyance as yet another glass shatters in the distance. More cell phones are extracted; more lights are shot to form pale beams crisscrossing the room. But there is no red and black dress, no dark hair piled high like a teetering mountain.
“Shit!” Finn’s finger presses against his ear. “Marianne, the Queen of Hearts disappeared during a convenient blackout. Get the lights on in this place and figure out just who in the hell is behind this. I want a team looking for her—she can’t have gone far.”
I don’t hear her answer, but I can only imagine the string of polite yet angry words frothing out of her mouth, as many are banging on the back of my lips.
The lights reappear, bringing with them a collective heave of relief amongst the revelers. Victor and Mary materialize in the crowd. “No sign of her,” Victor says to us. “Mary and I will check the back entrance. You three head to the front. Dad will—”
“There.” Jace points toward one of the doorways. “She is there.”
A woman in a gray dress is sent sprawling as the Queen of Hearts shoves her out of her path through the main entrance.
Victor informs Van Brunt of our shared directions. We fight our way through the crowd best we can, but there are many within the library’s walls tonight. People stare as we rush past, some indigently so. Elegant people in a sophisticated setting do not appreciate such behavior, even though one of their own was recently attacked. Once out of the hall, a flash of red turns down another corner; a scream follows.
It ought to be noted it is difficult to sprint in modern shoes.
The lot of us round the corner just in time to see a glowing doorway appear at the end of yet another hall. A security guard is on the ground, blood squirting from his neck. Floating there, book and pen in hand, is a young man dressed in green and brown. Standing next to him, impossibly, is Sweeney Todd.
How—?!
As Victor and Jace sprint faster toward the doorway, Finn pulls out his gun and shoots.
The Queen of Hearts roars when his bullet strikes her shoulder. She stumbles through the glowing doorway, disappearing out of view. I send a blade whistling through the hallway.
The floating man hits a nearby wall and slides to the ground. His eyes are wide in shock as he peers down at the blade jutting from a bleeding shoulder.
The man-boy’s book and pen on the ground, the doorway winks out of existence. Todd has a book out, though, and a pen to write in a new destination. Finn is running, so am I. “Don’t let the bastard get away!” Mary shouts, and Jace and Victor are so close.
The doorway opens. Todd grabs his cohort and yanks him through the door.
Jace and Victor fly through behind him, Mary close on their heels. Finn and I barely are through when it disappears behind us.
I HAVE NO IDEA where we are. It’s . . . somewhere in the past. And . . . also somewhere in Asia. Japan I think. Maybe early Twentieth Century? We’re running through a street and there are people everywhere. Cats, too. Like, lots of cats. Cats that look like they’re shrewd and assessing. Todd and the Pan guy are ahead of us though, the crowd giving them a good head start. How in the hell is Todd here? The last I saw, he was strapped to his bed in the medical wing of the Instit
ute, still heavily drugged from all the truth serum Victor and Brom used on him. But the man ahead of me doesn’t look like he’s been heavily sedated. Batshit crazy, yes, but not sedated.
If Todd is here and not there . . .
The Pan guy lifts off the ground and floats, and the women and children around us scream bloody murder. People scatter, terrified, and the closer I get, the more I see why.
The Pan guy is brandishing a wicked, curved knife with a glowing purple blade. Alice’s dagger, though, is ripped out of his shoulder and thrown to the side.
My gun is out, but I can’t risk the collateral damage. Todd is already causing enough all on his own, sending children and innocents flying as he slashes his way through the crowd with his switchblades. Pan, because I don’t know what else to call the bastard, is hacking away at people, too—only his movements are far clumsier thanks to Alice’s ministrations. We catch a break, though—the street we’re on narrows down on a dead end, buffered by a wall.
Or so I think, because all of a sudden, an explosion lights up the sky.
I’m flying back at least a good ten feet, it’s so strong. My breath is wicked clean from my chest, the pain from pavement slamming against my ribcage is so intense. Hot rubble rains down, smoke fills the air.
Alice.
I push myself up, wincing as pain sluices through me as I shout her name. All around me, screaming and sobbing weigh the air. I can’t—where is she? Victor? Mary? The White King? Anarchy reigns in this moment. The smoke is thick, the panic even thicker. I do my best to help people up and check to see if they’re okay, but my God.
So many people are hurt.
“Finn!”
I stumble through the chaos and find her comforting an elderly man who is clutching an unresponsive woman. It’s a sucker punch to see, and one that fills me with so much rage I can barely handle it.
The wall, the one that was going to block Todd and Pan in, is now gone.
As soon as Alice lets go of the man, my arms are around her; hers wrap around me tightly.
“I’m okay,” she tells me. “Just banged up. Nothing to worry about. You?”
Compared to some of these people, I’m doing damn good.
We find Victor about ten feet away, kneeling over a young child so he can check her pulse. My brother’s jacket has been torn, his shirt, too, down to bare, bloody skin of his shoulder. The White King is nearby, doing his best to carefully help up an old woman. Alice squeezes my arm, retrieves her dagger, and then jogs over to him.
I search for Mary.
As the smoke begins to dissipate, I find Victor’s love sitting next to a little boy who is sobbing. Her face is dirty and bloody from several scratches down her cheek. She’s got tears in her eyes, too.
“Did Todd do this?”
“I don’t know.” I kneel down before them. “I think so. Him or Pan.”
Just as she sucks in an outraged breath, a woman runs over and snatches the boy up. She says something to us, something I think is along the lines of thank you. Gratitude and sadness fight for space in the mother’s eyes.
Everyone is in shock and pissed to all hell. And yet, we know we don’t have time to waste. We have to find Todd and Pan before they edit elsewhere.
Shit. A thought occurs to me. I dig into the inside pocket of my dress coat, praying I was smart enough to bring my Institute book and pen. “Does anybody else have their pens on them?”
Mary and Alice shake their heads. Victor claims yes, digs into his own pockets, and then admits sheepishly that he thinks he left them on his dresser while he was getting ready.
The five of us have a single pen between us.
“Speaking of,” the White King says, “I am fully cognizant that this is a difficult request at a moment such as this, but it is best for me to return to Wonderland immediately. The Queen of Diamonds and I are in agreement—the most assured bet is that Hearts will go back to Wonderland to hide, if that wasn’t already her destination at the party. I will hunt her on that front. That way, we can divide and conquer these villains. It is obvious they are in league with one another.”
“You’ll need someone to edit you into 1865/71CAR-AWLG,” I say.
“I’ll do it.” Mary squares her shoulders. “Of the lot of us, you know I’m weakest in a fight. You three go track these sonofabitches down. I’ll lead the White King back and then figure out what in the hell happened at the Institute that allowed his escape.” She turns to the King. “Your Five of Diamonds is still there, and Alice’s assassin. Plus, the Institute was filled with trained agents and a wicked security system that Marianne has completely overhauled. How did he get away?” To the rest of us, “Is Rosemary gone? Jenkins? Is—”
She’s so worked up she can’t even finish except to unleash a string of shouted cuss words that have people all around us staring. None of us have answers to her questions, though.
We’re able to find a nearby alley that is surprisingly empty. I write them to the floor all our apartments are on; Mary is going to need her pen to send the White King home. As the door flashes open, Alice turns to her former lover.
“Stay safe.”
He places a fist over his heart. She matches the motion. And then he gives me a look that both says, “You stay safe, too,” as well as, “Keep her safe or else.”
Mary and Victor hug briefly. And then Mary and the White King are through the door. Our remaining trio jogs down to the end of the street, to where the wall once sat, only to find an empty field in one direction and a row of houses in another.
“Shite!” Victor grabs at his hair as he looks around. “I bet they’re long gone, those bloody bastards. Should—”
A blood-curdling scream erupts from one of the houses.
Alice rips off her heels and then we’re all off, toward the homes. Another scream that ends abruptly sets our destination. We’re inside the house quickly, both my and Victor’s guns out.
A pair of children huddle behind a chair, their eyes filled with tears. A woman in a kimono lies dead next to them. The boy lifts a shaky finger and points toward the back of the house. And then we’re off again.
The house empties into another alley. A new scream rings out and we’re heading toward the left. Finally, up ahead, I spot Pan. He’s flying erratically, but more importantly, he’s injured more than just with the hole in his shoulder. The children playing in the alleyway scatter in fear as he hacks away at them, shouting unintelligible things.
“He’s gone mad!” Victor shouts.
Within reach, I launch myself at Pan. He and I smack into a wall with a nasty crunch, but it does nothing to slow the bastard down. Sharp, blackened teeth snap at me while he growls like a feral dog. Even worse, he fights like one.
What the hell?
I have no handcuffs. Nothing to hold him back. My best bet is to knock his ass out and haul him back to the Institute. He’s a beast for something so small, though. I’ll give him that. His teeth tear at my shirt and arms, all the while he bucks like a bronco.
“I see Todd!”
Not taking my eyes off the wild child, I yell at my brother and Alice to go. The indignity of not being able to subdue Pan quickly is getting to me. Eventually, I land a good punch in his jaw that leaves him howling, but he manages to kick me squarely in the nuts.
Which, you know, hurts like a motherfucker.
I reel back, hunched over in pain. I am going to kill this man-boy if it’s the last thing I do. Pan growls again, and the next thing I know, he’s got a hold on his weird, glowing blade. I swing out an arm, but it’s too late.
He slides it straight into my body, through my side.
I—I—
I’m down on the ground. And then Pan is, too, and Alice is standing above us, wielding a broken piece of wood.
“Finn!” She’s on her knees next to me. “Are you all right?” And then, once she gets a better look, “That little pissant stabbed you!” She’s so outraged she kicks his prone body.
“It’s
—” I pull my hand away. Excruciating, is what I ought to say. Instead, I tell her, “I’m fine. I don’t think it hit anything.”
Pan gurgles and lifts his head. Alice takes my gun from me and slams the butt down against the back of his head. The boy slumps back to the ground.
“You—” I gasp as she presses her hands down upon the wound. “You should get this asshole back to the Institute.”
She looks at me like I’m insane. “Do not be ridiculous. I am not leaving you, Finn. If anyone should get back to the Institute, it’s you.”
Victor shouts something from farther on down the alley. People have spilled out of their houses and are watching the fight go down between my brother and Todd. Victor is good in a fight—one of the best—but I am not going to leave him alone to face Todd.
“I’m fine. Please. Take this sack of shit back and Victor and I will be right behind you. Help Mary figure out what happened. I have a bad feeling about all of this.”
“Me, too.”
“Go.”
She digs her feet in, but Pan makes the choice for me. A hand grapples clumsily for his nearby sword.
“Son of a jabberwocky! What does it take to bring this fiend down?” She snatches his sword and uses the hilt to strike across the base of his skull once, twice. Then her daggers are out and she’s shoved them both into his sides.
The little man-boy squeals and then shudders.
Victor shouts my name.
“Alice, please. You need to go put that poultice on, too. We can’t risk any lingering boojum infection taking over.”
She takes a deep breath, no doubt ready to argue. But then she kisses me swiftly. “Fine.” A finger juts out toward me. “If you do not follow within a quarter of an hour, I will come back.”
The Hidden Library Page 26