by A. K. Koonce
“Konstance possesses scribing magic. When she engraves dates or numbers into a person’s skin, it’ll bleed the truth about who we’re looking for. She’s a true asset to Wanderlust. Just like Kais. Kais has always been our man of judgement. A trusted advisor above all others.” My lips purse harder when the King calls him their man of judgement. It’s an infuriating title that just means he’s their abused fucking prisoner of this world. He adds one more explanation that catches me off guard. “It has always turned black,” he whispers.
“Always?” I can’t help but repeat that word.
“It’s never stayed red before.”
A beat passes by with the thrumming of my heart.
“What does that mean?”
Kais turns, giving Konstance the span of his back as he faces me with a serious gaze that’s hard to look at. It strikes nerves all through me.
“It means you’re the One-est One we’ve ever received in Wanderlust.”
“She’s The One.”
“The One-est One.”
“She came for us.”
“The One has come for us.”
Shouting and chanting fire up from all around the open room. And I stand, staring up into those empty blue eyes.
“The One-est One. So I’m not The One, but I’m the best you’ve gotten?” I blink. I blink again. I try to make sense of all of the nonsense these people live in.
Alice is the final newcomer. This red number indicates I’m their Alice. I’m going to bring peace between two Kingdoms… I don’t even know what the hell is wrong with the two Kingdoms aside from the moth lady and the centipede man. All I know is they have some kind of bug problem, and I don’t have a clue how to fix that.
I am not equipped for pest control, folks.
“At the moment, yes, you’re the One-est One.” Kais’s features are this smooth, careless but considering appearance. It’s like his mind is turning, but there’s so much he won’t say.
He’s a censored man in this Kingdom. My gaze flickers over the crowd.
Maybe they all are.
“What happens now?” Something bad. Something bad always happened to Harry Potter. Even when it was something good, it was always followed by something bad.
“If the red stays, you’re her.” Constantine keeps his perfect posture, but his attention is completely kind. He isn’t a dangerous or cruel King. My gaze slips to his sister for only a moment. “We’ll wait.”
They’ll wait. They’ve been waiting for hundreds of years. What’s another few decades, right?
Shit, what if this takes decades? What if they insist I stay here, and it’s a constant waiting game of wondering if that number against Kais’s neck will ever fade to black?
I’m sick. I need medical attention too frequently to linger here. But the way they’re looking at me, I know I can’t leave.
It’s no longer an option.
This isn’t a land of Wonder like I’ve read in a thousand books before. This is a prison.
“I-I’m rather tired.” The amount of effort I put into being polite and proper is ridiculous. “It’s been a tiresome journey.”
“It certainly looks like it,” the Profit says as he gives a once over of the blood and mud caked to my skin. I cut a hard glare toward the boy, but it goes unnoticed.
“Of course.” Gentle gray eyes meet mine. Is he the King of Hearts? Knave? The White Knight? What role does he play if his sister is the Queen of Hearts?
King Constantine brushes his palm against the back of my hand, and it’s a testing touch. An almost intimate touch, but I feel it. I feel the draw of his skin against mine. It’s an unsettling tingling thing that coils energy all through my body.
Fuck, what if I am The One?
Six
King Constantine’s sister dismisses us in a rush. I stand there watching her usher her brother through a door on the far side of the room. At the last second, she pulls the blond-haired boy along with her. He staggers behind them. She speaks in a rapid spew of quiet whispers. Constantine looks back at me once, his silver eyes searching for mine—just long enough for her to shove him along and slam the door shut behind him.
What a royal romance he and I are off to.
This is the shit fairy tales are made of, I’m sure of it.
Steady footsteps and booming voices sound through the room. Men close in from all corners of the room. Stiff black uniforms line their bodies. Only a single red heart on the left side of their coats interrupts the stark black jacket. I take a step back at the sight of them until my heels collide with sandy boots. The warmth of Kais’s body bleeds into mine, but we never touch.
The guards guide the crowd out the massive double doors. The gold trim around the room, the cream-colored walls, and the shining lights accent the touches of red that are scattered here and there.
The Kingdom of Hearts.
This is definitely a fairy tale world, except I can tell by the misery on everyone’s faces that there are no happy endings here.
Not at all.
“Let’s go. It’s getting late.” Kais’s warmth slips away from me, leaving me cold and damp as he strides toward the dwindling crowd, taking his time to walk behind them.
I’m slow to follow after him. Everything about this place is bizarre. Congratulations, you’re The One we’ve been awaiting for hundreds of years.
Now leave.
I’m only more confused than I was before.
It only makes sense to me because I think I feel the same way about them as they feel about me: they don’t trust me. Alice is the legendary final newcomer. But she’s a newcomer all the same.
“Konstance is probing him and the Profit for what their next move will be. I bet it’s killing her self-control to wait.” Cat appears out of nowhere and walks on gliding steps at my side. Her hair is a pale pink color, making her eyes appear even brighter in the warm lighting. It’s all just small details that I couldn’t see when we first met in the darkness.
My gaze is drawn to her clothes. The designer part of me thrums to life the moment I see the gorgeous gown. A tight silk dress hugs her chest, letting loose layers of the material act as sleeves against her smooth shoulders. An assortment of sheer black cloth and pale purple cascade down the back of her thighs, but only a triangle of fabric covers her front. It looks slightly like elaborate lingerie, but it makes her legs seem endless.
“Konstance isn’t the Queen?” I ask in a quiet voice. Fewer people are in the room now, the crowd being herded out by the dozens of guards.
Unladylike laughter shakes out of Cat, making her nose scrunch as her amusement grows louder.
Kais glances over his shoulder at the two of us with a stern look.
“Oh, she definitely wishes. No, she’s just an advisor to the crown. The King’s most trusted advisor, really. Even above Kais.”
“Stop.” Kais waits for us at the door, and though his tone is more of a growl than a whisper, we both pause.
“Stop what, pretty Rabbit?” Cat tilts her head slowly at him. It’s a taunting look that only makes him glare back her.
He is the rabbit. The time obsessed rabbit. I knew it.
They’re nearly the same height with her towering black heels. And Cat doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the brooding man’s attitude.
“Stop gossiping within castle walls. She’ll have your furry head for your tone of voice alone, Catrice.”
The cat woman flicks her long pink hair over her shoulder, her ears flitting with the movement, and sways past him, letting her heels click nicely against the tile as she goes.
“No one touches my hair. Even the King’s sister knows that, Rabbit.”
We watch her glide past the guards, raking her long pink nails down the front of their fine coats as she passes. She smiles sweetly when they squirm under her alluring attention.
She’s beautiful. And a tease. Who was she before she came here? Was she the opposite of the sexy, confident woman testing the King’s men?
; I look up at Kais and consider the exact same thing.
We can be whoever we want to be here. That intrigues me in an unexplainable way.
I guess there’s just more. I want more. I deserve to know more. And Kais is my guide. It’s his job to tell me. He hasn’t lied to me yet.
Still I stare up at him. His gaze drifts to me, searching my features for a moment while we stand in tense silence. There’s a tension between us since the very moment he pulled me from the sea. Some of it is made of distrust, and some of it is made of conflicting admiration. I’m both skeptical and appreciative of the man standing at my side through all of this.
There’s so much I want to ask him right now, but I can’t find a single safe thing to ask him while we linger between the doors of the castle. His warning echoes through my mind. Right here, right now, is not the time to ask questions.
“Ready?” I ask in a small voice.
The look he gives me is almost regretful. It’s a soft gaze that trails over my features like he’s trying to figure me out as much as I’m trying to figure all of Wanderlust out.
His fingers press to the small of my back, and he lifts his other hand to gesture forward. And so we go.
The darkness washes over us, and he searches through the evergreen trees. My heels meet the wooden boards of the stairs that lead down the cliff. A hesitancy strikes through me, but I stiffen my shoulders and force myself to take the next unsound step. Since remission two years ago, I’ve made a lot of reckless decisions. I traveled the country with next to no money, I missed my mother’s funeral because of traveling the country with next to no money, and now I’m here, trailing after a cat and my captor in a strange land.
I have got to work on my poor decision-making in the future.
A little part of me has grown careless of my mortality, especially since I’ve gotten diagnosed. Again. But there’s just something about heights like this. It’s too out of my control, I guess. I hate it.
A small whine comes from the board beneath my foot, but I pretend it didn’t just threaten to collapse into a thousand tiny pieces into the terrifying waves far, far below.
I secretly consider attacking Kais once again just to see if he’ll carry me down the rickety stairs. But I don’t think that’s the kind of thing Harry Potter would do, so it’s probably best if I just continue on in a fearless way. My fingers dig into the railing with every step I take.
Completely fucking fearless.
“You’re a slow thing, aren’t you?” A black spike nearly stabs between my fingers as Cat slinks by, striding in her heels on the two inch hand railing as if it were a runway. The wind catches her long hair and the sheer ends of her beautiful dress, and her reckless image alone claws terror into my bones.
“Come along. Rabbit would never let you fall, darling.” She turns the corner, so sure of herself and life that it leaves me stunned.
“She’s right.” His voice comes out as a rasp that fans against the back of my neck, forcing me to look back at him. A warm feeling passes through me from the sound of his sureness. I fully believe he’ll never let anything happen to me. “The King would never forgive me if I let something happen to Alice. I’d be dead before you hit the ground.”
I blink up at the carelessness of his words. The wind sweeps up my hair as I stare at him and the smirk that’s teasing his lips.
“You’re so sweet.” I pull my attention slowly back to the stairs, and I start to make my careful way down them once again.
Several minutes pass and we’re somewhere on the side of the cliff when I realize it’s probably safe to talk here. Kais and I are secluded on this trapeze of deadly stairs.
“Can I leave? When we reach the bottom, will you take me to the Dismay Forest?”
“No. It’d be impossible to get a newcomer into the other Kingdom even if I wanted to.”
I stumble at the sound of his abrupt negativity. My foot slips through the stairs, and my heart falls right out of my chest, I swear it.
Warm hands wrap around my waist. His chest is hard against my back as he pulls me to a steady standing position.
“No?” I turn on him, my breathing still heavy from my near death experience, but this is more important. “You said I could leave if I wanted to.”
“You’re the One-est One.” The seriousness he’s able to hold in place while he says that ridiculous title makes me angrier. “You’d really turn your back on all the people who have been waiting on you for centuries? This Kingdom was made for Alice. And you’re going to walk away.”
“I don’t owe them anything, Kais. I don’t owe you anything.” I’ve never owed anyone a single fucking thing, and this upside down fuckhole of a world is no different.
The moonlight makes his gaze lighter, more intense, washing out any hint of kindness within him.
“You don’t owe me anything. You’re right about that. But if you’re a coward, maybe you should try to leave. You’re not The One if you can turn away so easily.”
A coward?
What are the people of the Kingdom of Hearts waiting for Alice to do? What am I getting myself into?
“What’s the rest of the prophecy?” My arms fold as the cold wind chills my skin with a shivering bite.
The way his eyes roam over me makes me wonder if he’s sizing me up. In my three inch heels, he’s maybe an inch taller than I am, and I don’t know why my extra height gives me confidence. Is he trying to decide if I’m the strong, intelligent woman they’ve all been told about?
I’m not. I’m not the one they’re waiting for. There are people out there with the ability to change the world. To inspire and to progress and to make a lasting impact.
That’s not me. I don’t have the optimism, and I don’t have the health. It takes more than a nice wig and some white socks to make a strong person.
“There are rebels in Wanderlust. Those who are tired of waiting and tired of being neglected. Over a century has passed, and the Kingdom is happy to accept newcomers, but they’re just as happy to forget about them too. They live in shambles. Fucking forgotten poverty.” His jaw twitches, and his anger smooths before his voice can rise any more. “They’re set on creating a new society with or without Alice in the neighboring Kingdom.” He pauses as if it’s hard for him to explain this. I guess he’s never really had to before me.
“The Elders’ Kingdom, Wonderland, they don’t want us. They don’t want newcomers. They don’t like change.” Cat walks by again, her arms out at both sides as if she’s having fun balancing along the railing. “The land here isn’t like the land in Wonderland. Nothing grows here. Nothing prospers. So the Rebel Hearts are willing to take Wonderland. No matter what the cost.” Her heels click against the wood as she pounces by. There’s a strange glint in the cat woman’s gaze. It’s a look of humor, but the words she speaks are anything but funny.
“And Alice will somehow cause amity between the Rebel Hearts and the two Kingdoms?” My attention shifts from Cat to the cold look in Kais’s eyes.
“Yes. That’s what Profit believes. We can truly begin to live once she arrives. She will show the Elders of this realm that we’re alike. We’re just like them. We can all live here together. Alice will show them that.” Kais’s terse answers are harder to handle than Cat’s twistedly happy ones.
“And she has to wed the King?” If I show up here tomorrow, will they throw a white gown on me and toss me into marital bliss?
That’s fucking terrifying.
“No, you don’t—she doesn’t have to marry the King.” Kais sighs a long and tired sound before bringing his attention back to me. “The King and his sister are the youngest Elders. This is their land, and the King thinks that by offering Alice a crown, it’ll make her more likely to stay. It’ll also show unity between the Elders and the newcomers. It’ll ensure the safety of his people. He’s offering her a once in a lifetime life in exchange for her aid.”
Defeat pulls at my shoulders. The events of the day start to dig into me. It does
sound kind of appealing in a way. Maybe it’s the result of all those children’s books drilling happily ever after into my youthful, naive mind. But it does cause an uncontainable spout of excitement within me to think I could be the Queen of…a fantasy realm. The Queen of Lust. Hmm, that sounds a bit like a porno. I’ll have to keep working on my title, I think.
“Doesn’t it seem odd that my name isn’t Alice?” The rational part of my mind doesn’t accept the fairy tale as easily as the absurd optimism that’s trying to infect my thoughts.
“My name was Beatrice Smithson before I came to Wanderlust.” I look over to find Catrice lying flat on her stomach, her feet tilted up and crossed at the ankle while she lounges lazily against the railing.
I try to pull my attention away from her carelessly dangerous position, but I can’t.
“What was your name?” I finally look up at Kais.
He shrugs slightly. “My name was Kais St. Croix.”
“And now it’s Rabbit,” Cat says with a smirk.
“That’s an insulting name, and you know it. I transformed into a rabbit one time. What if I called you Cat Girl?” He tips his head up at his friend, and she ignores the look.
“Hmm, sounds kind of sexy.” She rolls in one swift movement until she’s lying on her back, looking up at the stars.
I’m here in the strangest of company. A woman who couldn’t wait to form a new identity, and a man who couldn’t even think of a new name.
I suppose I’d be more like Catrice, ready to give away my old life without looking back. But there’s too much unknown here. With every new answered question, there are ten more unanswered.
“Are you two shape-shifters?”
“Yes,” says Cat at the same time that Kais says no.
“Okay…” I exhale through my nose and consider just trying to find the Dismay Forest myself.
“I’m a shape-shifting shatter shrew.” Cat lifts her hand and admires her flawless pink nails.