by Eva Chase
“From what I heard, here and there, the second Queen of Hearts brought him around to act out that poem with Lion, and the Diamonds simply never tired of it,” Chess said. “I’ve got no idea what he occupied himself with before then. But I’m quite certain he’s plenty tired of the gig he’s got now.”
He motioned us off the road into the underbrush when the giant pink-and-purple mushrooms came into view up ahead. “We don’t want any of Caterpillar’s harvesters spotting us,” he murmured. “Follow me, and keep quiet.”
We eased between the fluffy fronds of the ferns, a herbal scent tickling my nose, until Chess decided we’d gone far enough. He led us off into a dense evergreen forest where the golden pinecones squirmed and wriggled across the branches like fat bristling worms. I set my feet carefully, avoiding any stray twigs that might crack, pebbles that might rattle.
We heard Unicorn before we saw him. There was a snort, just like a horse, and then the thump of hooved feet against the ground. We crept closer until we could make out the field between the trees without Unicorn noticing us.
The wide clearing was ringed by trees on all sides, which I guessed was why Unicorn had picked it. The grass grew so short it was barely more than moss, reminding me of astroturf with that vivid green shade. Good for running on, presumably. And that was what the equine figure was doing right now. He’d left all his clothes in a pile near the trees except for a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of gray short-pants similar to the red ones I’d seen him in for his fight with Lion, and he was galloping around the clearing on all fours. Muscles rippled in his shoulders and legs beneath the sheen of the coarse, pearly horsehair that covered his body.
“We’ll go together and talk to him as we discussed,” Chess whispered to me. He raised an eyebrow at the Red Knight. “You stay right there, unless it looks certain someone needs running through. Someone other than the two of us.”
“Well, you don’t need to clarify that,” the guardian of the Red royal family muttered.
“It protects me more if he doesn’t see you,” I reminded the Red Knight. “You’re the secret advantage I have in my back pocket.”
“Yes,” he said, drawing himself up with his narrow chin high. “They will never see me coming.”
I didn’t know about that, but if we could keep him away from his armor, at least no one would hear him coming.
Chess shot me an amused grin as we walked together to the edge of the field. My heart started to thud almost as loud as Unicorn’s hoof beats when we emerged from the shadows that had hidden us.
Unicorn was just loping around the curve in his makeshift racetrack. He jerked to a halt, yanking himself onto his hind legs in an instant, having to wheel his forelegs—arms?—to keep his balance.
“Unicorn!” Chess called, his grin widening. “No judgment here. That’s not my style. You remember me, don’t you?”
Unicorn strode a few paces closer, his mouth curling into what looked like the horse version of consternation. “Chess?” he said, and stiffened. “You’re a Spade. A criminal.”
Chess rolled his eyes. “When the laws are mad, aren’t you mad to accuse by the laws? You know me, Unicorn. When have I ever worked all that hard at anything?”
Unicorn took another hesitant step forward. “Why are you here?”
“To introduce you to someone I thought you might like to meet,” Chess said. “I saw your battle last night. He got you again, didn’t he? How would you like to get them all, hmm?”
Unicorn couldn’t suppress the spark of interest that lit in his dark eyes. He turned them toward me. “Who are you?”
I started where Chess had told me too. “I heard you might be tired of the role you’ve been given,” I said. “I think you’re worthy of so much more than that. And I can give you a straight path there if you help us open up a path in turn.”
The glint of hope didn’t die, but Unicorn snorted in frustration. “I can’t listen to this,” he said to Chess. “You know it’s a fool’s—”
“You can listen,” Chess said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And believe me, you want to. You haven’t let her answer your question yet.”
Unicorn paused. I drew in a breath to steady myself.
It would be okay. I wasn’t committing to anything other than helping to take down the Queen of Hearts. What I did after—that was still up to me.
“I’m the thing the Queen fears the most,” I said, “and the thing she has the most to fear from. I’m of the line of Alice. I’m the Red Queen, and I will see her off my throne.”
The words gained resonance as I forced them from my throat. An unexpected conviction gripped me as I held Unicorn’s gaze.
A queen’s blood ran through my veins, whether I was prepared to follow it or not. And I was sick and tired of seeing Wonderland’s people crushed by that horrible woman.
Unicorn blinked slowly. He snorted again, but it sounded more like awe this time.
“Well,” he said. “I think I do want to hear more about this.”
Chapter Eighteen
Chess
Insomuch as I was like a cat, I would be one of those types that prowls around getting into scraps and yowling loud enough to wake the whole street. I would definitely not be the type to curl up on a warm lap and spend the rest of the evening there. Which was probably why I had the White Knight’s entire luxurious apartment to loll around in, and after a few hours the white walls all over the place were starting to feel like a cage.
Thankfully, my mind was as swift as my patience was short.
“You know,” I said where I was sprawled on my back on one of the White Knight’s sofas, “we should go to Caterpillar’s. It’d be good for Lyssa.”
The White Knight glanced up at me through the steam rising off the cup of tea he’d just poured. He’d also been doing quite a lot of poring over the map one of the twins had brought him, though all he’d told me about it was that he wasn’t sure yet what it would do for him, if anything at all.
“What makes you say that?” he said in the tone indicating that he was open to suggestion but that I’d better start stringing sense into it quickly.
“She’s still nervous about the whole queenly bloodline this and that, isn’t she?” I said, stretching out one leg and then the other. “Even with Unicorn pitching in to clear her path to our goals. We’ll say it’s for her to dance out some tension, get back to the joys of Wonderland, which would be good for her too, but it’ll also remind her of all those people she could be saving.”
“You’re a wanted man,” he pointed out.
I shrugged. “In that crowd, with that lighting, no one’s likely to notice me—or her. They’re even less likely to take a mind to tattle if they do. Caterpillar might be another story, but if he comes out onto the floor, we can always scram.”
The White Knight ran his thumb across his square jaw, his dark brown eyes turning thoughtful. “That’s true. You do raise a good point, Chess—and paying a visit to the club might help with my own end of our plans as well. Caterpillar must still be sending Rabbit through a looking-glass somewhere to get his Otherland ingredient, or the Clubbers would be getting even more restless than they already are. I’d like to know which one and how they’re getting to it.”
“Perfect!” I sprang up. “Where has our royal Highness gotten to, anyway?”
“She went up to talk to our White Queen-who-is-not-actually-a-queen,” the White Knight said with a quirk of his lips. “They must be getting along well. She’s stayed quite a while.”
He started to get up too, but I motioned him back. “I’ll retrieve her. You finish your tea, your Knightliness.”
He chuckled, but he let me go. I hustled through the apartment to the elevator with a grin I couldn’t have restrained if I’d wanted to. There were many things I enjoyed doing with our Otherlander, some of them very recently discovered, but dancing was up near the top of the list.
When I reached the White Queen’s pastel-filled apartment, Lyssa had
already come to the door, the White Queen trailing behind her. Lyssa’s face was tight with worry.
“What is it, Chess?” she asked. “Is there more trouble?”
My dear lovely woman. The fact that she reacted to my arrival assuming the worst was exactly why we needed to break the stressful cycle we’d dragged her into.
“Not at all,” I said, and held out my hand to her with a mock bow. “I wished to request your company at the Caterpillar’s Club. You’ve had a dreadful stay in Wonderland this time, fleeing for your life and trudging through mud and strangling grasses and the rest. Letting loose might help clear your head. The White Knight will be joining us too, with plans of his own.”
Lyssa hesitated, but then a small smile crossed her face. “Maybe that would be a nice change of pace,” she said. “If Theo thinks we’ll be safe enough. Just for a couple hours—to clear my head, like you said.” She turned to the White Queen. “Would you like to come?”
The other woman looked startled by the invitation. She curled a strand of her pale hair around her finger, her mouth working. “No,” she said in a distant voice. “I don’t do that. But thank you.”
“Okay, well, maybe another time then,” Lyssa said. She slipped her hand into mine so easily my heart skipped a beat. I twined my fingers with hers, relishing just that simple contact as we went down a floor to collect the White Knight.
She knew everything. All the twisted, painful parts of my past I’d tried to forget—and her desire for me, her caring for me, hadn’t faltered in the slightest. I still wasn’t sure I was whole enough to be everything she needed, but I didn’t have to be. She had Hatter and the White Knight too.
I could make her laugh. I could make her gasp with pleasure. If that was enough for her, then it’d be enough for me too.
When the White Knight stepped into the elevator, he slipped his arm around Lyssa’s waist. “Did you have a good chat with Mirabel?”
“Well, she didn’t tell me anything that I’m sure can help us get the prisoners free,” Lyssa said. “But it sounded like the Unicorn is trustworthy. If I got the gist of that part right. And then she showed me her knitting—she offered to make me a dress—and we talked a little about Wonderland in general. I asked her if she wanted to come with us to the club, but I guess she wasn’t up for it.”
Just for a second, the White Knight looked as startled by the idea as the woman herself had been. “That was kind of you,” he said warmly. “It isn’t any comment on whether she enjoyed your company, you know. Mirabel never leaves the Tower.”
Lyssa blinked at him. “Never?”
“Not for as long as I’ve been here, at least. My people bring by food and whatever else she needs. You’ve seen her scar…” He motioned to his temple. “Her attacker was never brought to justice. She’s afraid if she’s discovered, the next attack will be worse.”
“That’s awful.” Lyssa winced in sympathy. “I hope someone does catch him so she can feel safe again.”
“We’ve certainly tried,” the White Knight said. “You’ve seen how easily violence can lurk beneath the surface here.”
She nodded with a sharp exhalation. “Oh, we’d better bring the Red Knight along too. He’ll freak out if he checks in on me and I’m no longer in the building.”
When we’d stopped by there, the White Knight had set up his sort-of counterpart in the third floor apartment that various Spades used from time to time. The Red Knight preferred to keep up his “watch” closer to the ground floor. First line of defense! he’d declared, without any explanation of how he expected to determine anyone needed defending, but I thought Lyssa had been glad to take a little break from him shadowing her. He couldn’t provide any protection the White Knight couldn’t offer tenfold.
True to form, when Lyssa told the Red Knight where we were off to, he blustered about crowds and secure settings. But he was also loyal to the core, so he came along, muttering his continued complaints under his breath.
As we came up to the club, I was glad when he came to a halt and remarked, “I feel I can be of most service guarding the outside of the building. Should any threatening figures make an appearance, I will reach you and usher you to safety before they can carry out their evil deeds.”
“Perfect,” Lyssa said. “But if you change your mind, feel free to come in even if there isn’t any evil to warn me about.”
As soon as we stepped through the spinning walls onto the vast undulating dance floor, most of the tension that had been gripping me fell away. The thump of the bass oscillated through my bones. Red and orange strobe lights flashed over the mass of dancers, making them look like a churning wave of human flame. No one gave us a second glance.
If the Clubbers had even heard about the Queen’s call for me, they didn’t give a shit. Keep your head low, dance your heart out, and don’t let the darkness touch you—that was the way things worked here. These were my people as much as anyone in Wonderland was.
The Duchess could sic however many guards she wanted on me. I wasn’t letting her own me again. I could live my life exactly as I had been before.
The White Knight gave Lyssa a quick kiss and turned to me. “I might need you later,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear despite the music. For my vanishing skills, no doubt. I tipped my head to him.
My gut pinched at the same time. Finding another looking-glass meant offering Lyssa a way to her home in the Otherland. But she’d found out that this was her true home. She’d see that we were better for her than anyone in that dreary place could be, wouldn’t she? Once she was on the throne, everything in Wonderland could be joyful.
The White Knight moved off through the crowd to get eyes on Rabbit or Caterpillar. The hulking owner of the club with his turnip-shaped head and segmented, quadruple-armed body was nowhere to be seen in the main room. All the better for us. I grasped Lyssa’s hand tighter and spun her around with me, merging with the throng.
Lyssa laughed as her body settled into the rhythm. She let her head fall back and swayed her arms in the air. Her dress, another of May’s old ones I thought, swished around her thighs. With her hair darkened and pulled back, she didn’t look like quite the free spirit she had when I’d first brought her here, before she’d had any idea there was anything to this land other than joyful self-indulgence, but her eyes shone brighter when they met mine again.
Yes, this had been the right idea, for both of us.
The songs bled from one into the other like they always did. Lyssa stayed with me, her fingers brushing over my chest as we swayed together, her body easing even closer when I rested my hand on her hip. I leaned in to kiss the crook of her neck, teasing the tips of my sharpest teeth over her skin to make her breath catch. Her fresh scent filled my nose. Hearts take me, how could I want her this much when I’d just had her last night?
I’d been holding back before, afraid to offer what I couldn’t really give. But she wanted me as I was. And I wanted her, every night, over and over again.
Maybe I could have her tonight. I had the feeling the White Knight would be game once we were done here. We’d played together enough times that I wouldn’t have to think at all when he was the other one there. Just feel and enjoy.
I wasn’t sure how many songs we’d danced through when I spotted the White Knight’s pale shirt catching the sporadic lights as he made his way over to us. I slowed down, loosening my hold on Lyssa, mentally preparing for whatever mission he might be able to send me off on.
A hand grabbed my sleeve, jerking me toward the edge of the room. “Here he is!” the guy who’d grabbed me shouted, waving his other arm in the air. “Cheshire’s here!”
My pulse hiccupped. As I tried to yank my sleeve from the guy’s grasp, two of the queen’s guards hustled over around the fringes of the crowd. Had they been lurking at the far end of the room the whole time? Or had our supposed guard outside been even more useless than I’d expected?
The man hauled at my arm, and panic shot through me. I kicked h
im in the side with everything I had. The second his grasp broke, I slipped away into the in-between, where the music was dulled and the edges of every form around me turned stuttered and sharp. Where no one could see me at all.
They could still feel me. A dancer’s foot jammed down on my toes; another’s elbow caught my ribs, sparking a fresh wave of panic. I threw myself away from them, out of the crowd, past the cursing informant and the guards rushing to meet him. In the gap of open space near the wall, I spun around.
Lyssa had come after me, maybe without any clear idea what was going on. I hadn’t even stopped to warn her. A shamed chill trickled through me as I watched her freeze at the sight of the guards. The White Knight caught up with her, grasping her shoulders from behind.
He’d get her out of here. He’d protect her, when I’d been the one who brought her here, when I’d been the one the guards were looking for.
The Duchess had won after all, hadn’t she?
Even as my throat tightened with that thought, one of the guards whirled around and snapped at a young guy—a boy, really—who’d accidentally bumped into him. The boy paled under the dappling of the lights. He held up his hands.
“I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean—”
“You need to learn proper respect for the Hearts’ Guard,” the other guard bellowed, and whipped out his baton. He smacked it across the boy’s skull so hard the kid reeled.
“No!” another voice shouted—a voice I knew so well my heart stopped before my eyes even registered Lyssa shoving the rest of the way forward. She threw herself between the guard and the cringing boy.
They could see she had a queen’s blood running through her veins, couldn’t they? She stood straight and steady, her chin raised and her eyes lit with determination.
Oh, lands, what did she think she was doing?
I took a step toward her, wanting to intervene, but if I showed myself, even invisibly, I’d only make things worse for both of us. As soon as they knew she had anything to do with me, they’d take her whether they realized she was the Alice their queen was looking for or not.