There was an immediate frown on her red lips, and her face tightened. “Listen, Ali.” Her voice became serious. “Ace isn’t someone you should be around.”
Hareson snorted. “I’ll say—”
Red Queen cut him off with a stern look. “Why don’t you ride back with Lional?” she suggested in a steely tone.
He blinked rapidly, his ears erect. Then he nodded and turned his horse. “Of course, my Queen.” His heels nudged the horse’s flanks.
She watched him go. “He might have more to say, even if he knows I won’t appreciate it,” she explained quietly. “Ace is, after all, a sensitive subject for me.” She turned back to me with a sad look on her perfect face. “You see, Ali, Ace used to be one of my personal knights. And during the Alice Games, he was in charge of all the Alices’ safety.”
Is that why he saved me from the Cheshire Cat and helped me get out of the Cheshire Forest? It also explained why he was so casual with me while the rest of the population treated me like the plague. “Used to be?” I pressed.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Ali, there’s something I want to explain to you. Ace’s full name was Ace of Hearts. That’s because his heart stands alone. Some even say that’s it made of tin. While he can feel affection and amusement toward another person, he can’t actually love anyone. Although many have tried to develop that emotion in him.” She paused and stared at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “I used to wonder if it was because of his Role. He lacks the ability to love, just like I feel love for everyone.”
Her tiny hand reached out and grasped mine. “Either way, don’t be deceived by him. He’s capable of hurting someone without feeling a thing. Even if you thought he was a friend. Or more.”
Her words hurt more than I expected. It’s not that I felt betrayed or anything. I didn’t know him that well. But I’d felt a connection to him during the brief time together. Now I wondered if it was one-sided.
He’d been so relaxed and made me feel comfortable with him. He even gave me a flower just to let me study it. He did throw a knife at me, but I was the one who wanted the knife, and he was on the other side of the room. It wasn’t like he’d hurt me. He certainly had all the opportunities in the world, but he never did. He even saved me a couple of times. Was it an old habit from being Red Queen’s knight?
My eyes dropped to the tiny hand grasping mine as I recalled the way he talked about Red Queen. The affection in his voice had been as honest as the concern she displayed now. A gaping pit formed in my stomach as I glanced at her. “You talk about him very personally.”
Her solid brown eyes flared, and she looked away. “Of course. He was my knight for a very long time, like I said. We grew up together. Ace, me, Hareson, and Lional. We knew each other well. Or at least, I thought I knew him. Recently, I’ve started thinking I never knew him at all.” Her red lips pressed tightly together and she sat up, pulling her hand away. “With his catlike tendencies, Ace is affectionate by nature. It is easy to assume you’re special and respond in kind. That’s what I want to warn you about. There are many Alices who have fancied themselves special, but it’s a farce. One you would be wise not to fall into.”
It was like salt on a fresh wound. So what she was saying was that Ace was a playboy? Why did the idea hurt my heart so much? I wasn’t looking for anything here. After all, I wanted to go home. I needed to go home. But even so, out of all the people I’d met in Oz, Ace was the one I felt most comfortable around. Out of everyone, he was the person who’d helped me the most.
I looked the side, too agitated to find the beauty in the trees around me. My fingers tightened around my flower, needing the feel of it. For all her words, this flower was tangible evidence. Of what, I didn’t know. But it made me feel better. A little.
“You just said yourself that you might not know him that well. What if you’re wrong?” My tone was harder than I meant, the scratched emotion too close to the surface.
She flinched. Her hands clenched together and she glared at me, for once showing a backbone. “There are a lot of things I might not know about Ace. But there is something that everyone in Oz knows, that you should too, before you form any more delusions around him. He might have been my knight once, but now he’s White Wizard’s Cheshire Cat. Which means you’re simply a toy he’s playing with.”
My insides froze. She just called Ace the Cheshire Cat. No, Ace wasn’t the Cheshire Cat. Ace’s hair was orange, not white. He was a tabby cat, not a white tiger.
Images of the Cheshire Cat raged in my head. Appearing at the top of the stairs and snarling. Standing triumphant over a pile of dust that had been Lional. Staring at me with dark, dead eyes. The pictures battled with my memories of Ace. His teasing smile and the light of mischief in his brown eyes. His warm hands holding mine as he laughed while running through water. How wonderful he looked, gazing out over the water lilies.
They were not the same creature.
My heart constricted painfully. I wanted to call Red Queen a liar. But why would she lie? She needed me to get to the Emerald Castle as badly I did.
So that meant that the liar was Ace. But he never really lied to me. Everything he’d said had been true, including how to get back to Red Queen. He saved my life and offered information for just a small—albeit embarrassing, at the time—price in comparison. Why would he lie? It didn’t make any sense.
Red Queen cleared her throat, distracting me.
“Now, I really must apologize to Hareson. Excuse me.” She leaned forward and tapped the seat next to the coach.
Instantly, a guard trotted up with Red Queen’s horse in tow. She placed a foot out and fit it into the footholds of the red saddle. With the carriage and horse still moving, she shifted her weight over and sat sidesaddle on the horse.
I watched her go, impressed despite my battered emotions. As much as I wanted answers to these new questions, I was also glad she left. I hated arguments. They always made my insides twist in barbwire knots. Besides, I didn’t want to fight with her.
With a moan, I rested my now-pounding forehead forward against the side of the carriage. Would anything in Oz make sense? My eyes dropped to the ground and the Yellow Path my ride straddled. Lional had called it the Alice Route, right? A lot of Alices must have gone this way. The dirt was compacted and the driver knew the way without being told.
As my eyes fazed out of focus, my hearing heightened. Red Queen’s, Hareson’s, and Lional’s voices drifted over me.
“Are you all right, Red Queen?” Hareson asked. “Things were getting … uncomfortable.”
Red Queen sighed. “Yes. I shouldn’t have done that. Said it like that. I just,” she paused. “Ali is so different from the other Alices. I don’t know what to do with her. Everything in this Game is different. I’m worried.”
Lional snorted. “Why did that cat let her go? We all know where she was. She was wet with water. I’d almost forgotten those cursed flowers used to shoot something as innocent as water. Last time someone touched one, his face got melted off. And she’s carrying one around like it’s a harmless rose.”
They lapsed into silence for a couple of seconds.
“You don’t think this is about Blood, do you?” Hareson asked, his voice hesitant and worried. “Ali is the only one who can enter the Emerald Castle. Hasn’t he tried to convince other Alices to get Blood for him?”
The trio fell silent again.
“Let’s hope that isn’t the case,” Red Queen finally said. “Blood should stay where it is.” She took a deep breath. “Oz is changing. Somehow. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of Ali. If it is, let’s hope that girl’s common sense will prevent her from doing anything rash.” She took a breath. “Either way, I do apologize, Hareson.”
“Think nothing of it, your Highness. We both know it’s a subject we’ll always disagree on.” Hareson’s voice was very sensible. “If that’s been settled, Red Queen, the town elders on the Alice Route have responded, and they …” His
voice faded until it was too quiet to hear.
I opened my eyes and focused on the dirt road under me, mulling over the conversation I overheard. So that was it. Ace was using me to get something out of the Emerald Castle. All the charming smiles, the warm hands. It was all another game.
What was Blood? It was obviously a name for something, but what? Sometimes it seemed they were talking about a person, but then they called Blood an “it.” Lional had said the only thing in the Emerald Castle besides the wand was death. So, did he lie? I couldn’t see Ace sending a girl to get something that would kill her. Even if he was the Cheshire Cat. Right?
My mind ran in circles, stewing over the situation for a while. Maybe the distracted look on my face discouraged anyone from approaching me. The men around me made casual conversation to each other but I was left alone as the morning ticked by.
Suddenly the Yellow Path veered off to the left, pointing into the short dense trees that lined the road.
I blinked out of my thoughts and stood up, wobbling a little, and patted the carriage driver on the back. “Wait, stop.”
He jumped as if stabbed by a hot poker and pulled the horses to a fast stop. I sat down hard, wincing as the wooden seat paddled my butt. Red Queen rode up, Hareson, and Lional on her heels. The rest of the men followed respectfully behind.
“What’s wrong?” the huge man rumbled.
I pointed in the direction of the arrow. “What’s over there?”
Lional and Hareson exchanged looks of surprise.
Red Queen’s brow knitted in concern. “Is that where the Yellow Path is pointing you to go?”
I nodded. Apparently there was more to those innocent trees than first appearances.
“It’s a Domain,” Hareson answered stiffly as the rest of the men looked at the ground. The tension from the group was as thick as cement. “A rarely accessed one. Only three other Alices have ever entered it.”
My brows went up. Out of twenty-seven, that wasn’t a lot. So why was I supposed to go in there? “How many of those Alices went home?”
“Two of them,” Lional said.
Then the odds were in my favor.
Chapter Nine
Red Queen looked around the group. “We’ll stop here to eat lunch.”
The men dismounted and hurried to make up a small picnic area. Red Queen and I sat on folding chairs taken from the back of the carriage. The men sat on the ground, shifting their swords out of the way, as sandwiches and vegetables were passed out.
I ate in silence for a minute, but my nerves were still too fried to have much of an appetite. To distract myself, I asked a question I couldn’t help but think of while they ate. “Why do you guys eat if you can’t die? And do the farmers keep farming even though their lives aren’t dependent on what they till? Do they do it just to keep up the practice or add variety to their days?”
The men glanced at me in surprise, as if this had never dawned on them before.
Red Queen laughed. “Well, eating is enjoyable. And even though we don’t die, we can still grow weak and lightheaded from not eating.”
I nodded. “So your bodies still need to replace the calories they spend.”
No one had anything to say about that. Maybe they didn’t know what a calorie was.
“You know,” I said, “in my world, there are two stories based off of this place. I’m starting to think that each one is a story passed down from an Alice who came back from here. Only they’ve been skewed by the different experiences. One story has a wizard who, though a good person, is not what he seems. The other story has two queens. The Red Queen is evil, and the White Queen is described a lot like you.” I gazed at her, interested in her reaction.
Red Queen cocked her head curiously. “Hmm, that’s odd. Why is that?” She took a bite of her sandwich. Even though she’d taken the least amount of food, she still had the most left on her plate.
The men around us exchanged confused looks.
Red Queen swallowed and clarified. “In the story, why is the Red Queen evil and the White Queen good?”
I nibbled on a red fruit that tasted a lot like a carrot and shrugged. “Well, probably because white is the color of purity and peace where I come from.”
“How odd.” She picked up a couple of pink berries and ate them. “I would never choose white as a color of peace.”
I swallowed my bite. “Why?”
“It’s a color of chaos,” she said. Her red lips pursed as she collected her thoughts. “If you have a white bowl of paint and you add yellow to it, what color do you get?”
“Yellow,” I answered, wondering what she was getting at. “Well, a pale shade of yellow.”
“Exactly. But the paint wanted to be white, the color of absence. White is so brittle, it can’t adapt. It’s white or not white. The only way to make sure that it stays white is to erase everything that isn’t white.” She looked at the trees. “Just like what the snow tries to do every winter,” she added softly.
I smiled. “How literal.” Satisfied, I polished off my sandwich.
“What does red mean in your world?” Hareson asked.
I blinked in surprise. I didn’t think Hareson was interested in my world. “It means a lot of things, depending on the culture you refer to. There are quite a few where I come from. But most of them associate red with the color of war.” I took a drink of water and wondered how I could get this on Earth. I’d never tasted such fresh water. “It’s the color of blood.”
“The liquid of life,” Red Queen added, and everyone lapsed into silence.
Something they lacked, I thought as I remembered watching Lional and the Cheshire Cat attack each other last night. It wasn’t just the memory of fear that twisted my stomach, but the added knowledge that it was Ace who killed Lional. Why would he do that?
With the food finished, the men started to clear up.
I looked at Red Queen. Another question had been bothering me. “Everyone is scared of White Wizard, right?” I could see why. I’d seen his snow monsters, and those strange, hate-filled, ice footprints in the Cheshire Forest were White Wizard’s, not the Cheshire Cat’s. I’d seen Ace’s footprints, and they didn’t leave a raised chunks of dry ice like that. “Why haven’t you guys done something about him already?”
Everyone stopped moving and looked at me.
Red Queen’s brows pulled together. “What do you mean, Ali?” Her voice was low and serious.
Under everyone’s scrutiny, it was hard not to fidget. I reached for my necklace but when my hands touched my bare skin, I tugged on my hair and tried not to look at the ground. “I mean, why haven’t you guys gotten rid of him yet?”
She shook her head. “That’s what the Alice Games are for. Whichever Queen Candidate the Alice doesn’t pick is locked up.”
Queen Candidate? Wasn’t the White Wizard a man? I guess I had always assumed he would naturally be a king when he ruled Oz, and people kept using the word Queen just because it was habit. Was that wrong? Was the ruler of Oz called Queen, regardless of the gender?
I brushed it off and continued the conversation. “Until the next Games,” I reminded her. “Which means that something’s wrong. Why haven’t you, as a people, tried to over throw him? Get rid of him for good? Does he just keep coming back to life too?”
There was a murmur of surprise and unrest among the men.
Red Queen sucked in a breath. “A Queen Candidate has never died before. Are you—” She cut off, her face full of shock. “Are you proposing a war? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Realization dawned on the men’s faces. Some seemed outraged, but others, like Lional, bobbed their heads in agreement.
I was just as shocked. “You mean, after all this time, you’ve never tried to fix it yourselves? You’ve always relied on outside help to put a bandage over the problem? Does White Wizard have that much power?”
Red Queen bit her lip. “Well, yes. He does.” Her hands clutched together in her lap, and her ey
es were luminescent with fear. It was the first time she’d ever looked like the child her size suggested.
Lional stood right behind her and folded his arms like an imposing giant.
“But don’t you have magic?”
She cut me off. “What do you know? What do you know about Oz and how we handle things? Our government, our history?”
“You’re right, what do I know?” I admitted, starting to feel defensive. “And I’m supposed to pick you to be the next Queen? All I know is that you’re determined to stuff me into your mold every time we meet. You love dresses and parties and excel at pretending that everything is perfect. How does that make you the right Queen?”
Red Queen looked like I’d just slapped her, but I was on a roll, finally getting everything I wanted to say off my chest. “Are we even living in the same place? Experiencing the same Oz? I mean, you can’t even die. Do you even know what it feels like to fear for your life? I do now. I learned it last night. When I was all alone and being chased by those ice monsters.”
“Of course I know,” she spat. The dull flush on her neck turned to a bright scarlet burn of anger that crept up to sear her cheeks. The rest of her face was pale as ash and tight with emotion. “I know exactly how it feels to have my death screamed in my face by the worst ice monster in Oz. To have him stare at me with those white eyes full of his twisted hate.” Her hands fisted together and she leapt to her feet, not that it gave her that much height over me. Tears brimmed her dark, hard eyes. “Do you want to know why I do all this? The extravagant parties, dresses—useless things? To help my people forget about how dark and twisted their lives are now. To give them something to look forward to when they’re reduced to livestock and left to freeze in the land that should be protecting them. To help them laugh, even though we know that this will never end.” She flung her arms out, motioning around her.
I glared back, not appreciating how she included me in her ‘this.’ As if it was my fault somehow. “How do you know that it won’t end? What have you done to actually help end it?”
Alice Games Page 8