by Eva Chase
It didn’t matter if Lyssa’s comments earlier today had affected me more than I’d have liked. I’d accomplished my goals with her all the same. I’d forged a deeper connection, and now I had her.
As long as I made sure to keep her.
I knew what I had to do. I knew what I had to say. It would be that simple if I let it be.
Hatter showed up at my office first, with a scowl and shadowed eyes. He took me in with a glance and propped himself against one of my worktables. “Do you have a whole closet full of that damned outfit, or do you just re-wear the same one every day?” he asked flatly.
I smiled, relaxing into my role. I was the Inventor and the White Knight. And Hatter was easy.
“It is always the same day,” I said. “Are you offended I’ve never come shopping for a hat? It seems like a waste when I’ll lose it at the stroke of midnight.”
Hatter glowered at me. “I really couldn’t care less what you put on your head.”
“I’m glad you still feel you can be totally honest with me,” I said.
He sucked a sharp breath through his teeth.
Chess diverted whatever acerbic remark might have left Hatter’s mouth next by sauntering through the doorway. “You called, your Knightliness?”
“Good,” I said. “Now we can talk.”
“About what?” Hatter muttered. “I shouldn’t have come at all. I don’t jump at your whistle. Doria and Lyssa are asleep back at the apartment—there’s no one there if anything should happen.”
“Nothing will happen,” I said. “If you thought it would, you wouldn’t be here. But you raise a good point all the same. That’s exactly why you both are here: to discuss Lyssa.”
Chess grinned. “Always happy to discuss a pretty girl.”
I ambled over to my desk and sat against the front of it, giving them a moment to consider what precisely I might need to address.
“The three of us are the only three people in Wonderland whom Lyssa both knows and will heed,” I said, resting my hands on the slickly polished surface. “So I believe we need to be on the same page. I’d like all of us to commit, right now, to protecting her here, by which we’re protecting all of Wonderland.”
“It wouldn’t occur to me to do anything else,” Chess said breezily.
I fixed my gaze on him. “Then perhaps you should avoid taking her on any further excursions by the palace grounds.”
“You did what?” Hatter snapped, spinning on Chess. “Are you out of your mind—more than usual, I mean?”
Chess didn’t look particularly perturbed, but then, he rarely did. He couldn’t be surprised that I kept a close enough eye on the area around the palace to have found out he’d ventured there with our Otherlander. It was my business to know everything that happened in Wonderland, or at least to give the appearance that I did where my reach faltered.
“The guards never got close,” he said. “She asked me to take her—said she wanted to understand what she was getting into. A difficult request to argue with.”
“Then don’t argue with her,” I said. “You’re all but made of cleverness, Chess. You can produce a dozen excuses out of thin air as easily as you can produce yourself. Use them on her, not on me.”
He had the loyalty to look chagrined. “Fairly stated and duly noted.”
“I’m not your lackey to order around,” Hatter said. “I’ve looked after her anyway. I kept my mouth shut when I thought that’s what you’d want, for all of Wonderland. Why am I here?”
I looked at him without shifting my stance. “You’ve made her feel unwelcome.”
A truly fascinating play of emotions crossed Hatter’s face. Somehow he managed to look vexed and startled and distressed all at once. It was intriguing. He wasn’t easy when it came to Lyssa. What exactly had been going on between them?
Lyssa had implied that he’d expressed some irritation about hosting her, but she’d dodged the subject when I’d attempted to learn more. I’d thought it was simply her apparent propensity to defend everyone around her, but perhaps the situation was more complex than that.
“Did she say that, or are you just assuming I’d be a poor host?” Hatter said after a moment. He’d managed to school his expression back to its previous disgruntled state.
“She expressed some concern that you might not want to continue sharing your apartment now that her stay has been extended,” I said. “And I know you well enough to guess that she didn’t make up that worry completely out of thin air.”
“I’m not going to fawn over her,” Hatter said. “She has a room; I’ve made sure she’s eaten; I took her all the way out to the damned Topsy Turvy Woods. If she’s not satisfied with that, the problem’s with her.”
“I don’t think it is,” I said. “She’s a perceptive woman. I know you’ve divested yourself of any allegiance to the Spades. I know you disapprove of some of the activities we carry out. Your opinions are yours to own, and I won’t waste your time trying to argue you out of them. But when it comes to Lyssa, you need to accept that she’ll be working alongside us and at least act as if you’re on board, or I’ll have her move into the Tower and you can wash your hands of this situation completely.”
Hatter wet his lips, his stance tensing even more. “I haven’t tried to talk her out of it,” he said. “I haven’t criticized you. I just want what’s best for Wonderland too. For Wonderland and for her.”
“But you don’t think our best route involves her aiding us in storming the palace, and you’ve no doubt let hints of that disapproval show. I heard you encouraging her to go home last night at Caterpillar’s. You know what you’re doing.”
“Do you?” Hatter demanded. “You weren’t here for the last looking-glass girl, but you must have heard stories, just like the stories I’ve heard of the two before that. The moment the Queen finds out she’s here—if she finds out the Spades have drawn her in—we could lose lands more than just the passing of time.”
“If we all commit to watching over her, there’s no reason the Queen should have any idea,” I said. “I know you can’t want this endlessly invariable life to continue forever, Hatter. You can’t want that for your daughter either.”
Hatter’s face flushed red. “Leave Doria out of this,” he said. “You’ve drawn her in enough already. Why should I trust in your plans when none of them have gotten us unstuck before?”
“Because even I knew our attempts in the past were only parries to test our reach, to weaken the Queen’s if we could. And I know with Lyssa’s power we can see this one all the way through to freedom.”
“Or maybe we’ll see it through to dozens more heads rolling in the streets. The only certainty you have is a teacup and some crumbs! How many lives would you stake on that?”
“I’m not rushing in. I’m making all the observations I need first.”
“Fuck your observations,” Hatter bit out. “Are you even going to set foot near the palace this time? We all know it won’t be your head rolling if it comes to that.”
I eased myself off the desk, straightening up in a subtle motion, just enough to remind Hatter of the few inches I had on him. “Nor has it ever been yours. Let’s stay honest with each other, Hatter. It’s not me you’re angry at.”
I said the last words quietly and evenly. The fierce light in Hatter’s eyes waned. He looked away and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hat, the tension in his shoulders deflating.
“Are you going to protect her too?” he asked, his tone no longer accusing, only weary. “In this grand scheme of yours, will you make sure she leaves this place with her neck intact?”
The image came back to me of Lyssa standing not far from where he was now, her gaze downcast as she talked about taking responsibility for her family at the delicate age of eight. The quiver in her voice and the iron set of her shoulders, fragility and resilience in striking combination.
So beautiful.
Seeing her like that, the thought had crossed my mind, She deserves better
than this. It hit me again with Hatter’s bald question. I didn’t think he had any idea he was actually landing a blow.
The answer was the same as it had been then. Wonderland deserved better too, and I owed Wonderland first.
“I said the three of us needed to commit to protecting her, didn’t I?” I said. “I include myself in that number. I’d like nothing more than to see her safely home when our work is done.”
“All right,” Hatter said. “I’ll keep on as I have been, and I’ll keep my judgments even more reserved. She won’t hear any reason to doubt you or the Spades from me.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Now go get some rest, both of you. I’m sorry to have asked you in so late.”
Chess bobbed his head and beat Hatter to the door. When they’d left, I retired to the small room down the hall that contained my bed and not much else. It was almost midnight. There was little point in attempting to sleep just yet.
I lay down on top of the cool sheets anyway. I’d never really gotten used to the faint jerking sensation that flinched through every nerve just before the day reset if one had any distance to travel.
I closed my eyes, and then they were popping open to the jangle of my alarm clock.
It quieted at my tap. One minute after midnight. Often times I went right back to sleep after it woke me. But I’d used that small bit of stolen time to rig it for days like this, when I had concerns that needed immediate attention.
If I hadn’t done that, would I have still had some left now so that we wouldn’t have needed Lyssa at all? It was hard to say. At the time I’d thought I had as much stashed away as I could ever need. But I’d let personal feelings cloud my awareness of the greater good, and now it was all gone.
I would not let my people down again.
I padded back down the hall to my office. When I flicked on the lights, my bleary gaze shot straight to the pocket-watch retriever on the worktable.
It was still there. I approached it with a thump of my pulse, taking in the details, the bits still scattered on the tabletop or the shelves rather than attached to the device.
It had returned to the exact state and position it had been in when Lyssa had set it down there.
A smile curled my lips, and the twist of uncertainty that had driven me up to Mirabel’s apartment loosened in my chest.
The rules of engagement were clear. All we had to do now was go forward, and I knew exactly the way.
Chapter Nineteen
Lyssa
The sensation of waking up in Hatter’s guest-room bed was starting to become familiar. I’d slept more times in it now than I had in the bed I’d taken back in Aunt Alicia’s house.
From the thin sunlight that barely managed to creep past the curtain, it was still pretty early in the morning. I pulled the fluffy duvet back over my head and nestled my face into the pillow that gave off a faint whiff of chamomile tea. Part of me wanted to just stay there, hidden from the weirdness of Wonderland and the terror underneath the strange until I could fulfill the role Theo needed me for and then go home.
I’d never been very good at wasting a day away, though. After a few minutes, I exhaled in a huff and pushed myself upright.
The least I could do was help Hatter out a little while I was here. Maybe there was something I could do in his shop that’d be a little useful.
I looked over the dresses hanging in the room’s closet. Hatter had told me there might be something around I could borrow so I wasn’t stuck with just my two Otherland outfits, and then Doria had gone totally overboard, hauling in enough to last me a couple weeks. Anything in the apartment that wasn’t black, I guessed. No one had said it in so many words, but from the way they’d talked, I’d gotten the impression these clothes used to belong to her mother.
The dresses had stayed here in my closet. Because I’d touched them? It was hard to imagine that if I’d been a Wonderlander, they’d have vanished overnight back to wherever Doria had dug them out from. She mustn’t be able to get any new clothes, at least not any she’d keep. Maybe that was why she’d been so enthusiastic about the thought of me having these.
I settled on a smock dress with a pattern of blue and yellow overlapping triangles and not too many ruffles—whoever these had originally belonged to had really been into the frills. Then I slipped into the bathroom to wash up. When I emerged, my gaze drifted of its own accord toward the doorway at the other end of the hall.
The door to Hatter’s bedroom had been closed when I’d gotten up the last two mornings. Now it was wide open. From this angle, coming out of the bathroom, I could see right to the back where he was slumped in an armchair next to a four-poster bed. I stepped closer with a flash of alarm that something was wrong.
No, he was just asleep. His head had tipped to rest against the wall, a sapphire-blue top hat I’d never seen him wear before leaning askew on his dark blonde hair, the tufts of which stood up in even more spikes than usual. The jacket of the matching blue suit he hadn’t bothered to take off hung rumpled on his lanky body. His legs sprawled across the floor, one straight and the other bent.
His face had softened with sleep, but a hint of tension still held his jaw. A pang ran through me. Why was he sleeping there and not in the very comfortable looking bed? What troubles chased Hatter even into his dreams?
I had the urge to go over, ruffle his already mussed hair, and straighten his hat. Okay, and also the urge to lean in and kiss those thin lips to see if that would melt those last lingering worries. I didn’t expect he’d react all that well to the first part, though, let alone the second.
I stepped backward, meaning to leave him be, and the floorboard creaked under my heel. Hatter flinched awake, his hat toppling right off. He snatched it with his nimble fingers and froze with it hovering over his head, his gaze finding me.
“Sorry,” I said, my cheeks heating. “I— The door was open. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
He relaxed a little, setting the hat down on his head and rubbing his eyes as he straightened up in the chair. “It’s always open,” he said matter-of-factly. “In the mornings. Because I left it open the night before that day.”
“The day when the Queen of Hearts trapped Time,” I filled in. He nodded. I hesitated, and then added, “And you went to sleep that night in your chair instead of your bed? Without even taking your hat off? Or is that normal here?”
The last question got me one of those twitch of a smiles. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep in the chair,” he said. “I was waiting for news. That’s why the door was open too. I just sat down for a moment…”
And he’d drifted off, and then the morning after, when he’d woken up like that, had been repeated every day since. Damn. “I guess things must have been pretty tense right before the Queen made that move, huh?” I ventured.
“That’s one way of putting it.” He hefted himself out of the chair. “If you don’t mind… This suit has a day’s wear already.”
My cheeks flared again. I was totally standing here gawking at him when he just wanted to prepare to meet the morning. “Right,” I said. “I’ll just—”
I started to turn, and my gaze snagged on a piece of paper on the shelves that filled the wall on the other side of the bed. A white sheet, folded in half so it stood up, with a delicate charcoal drawing of a house scrawled across its surface.
Not just any house. The house I’d pulled up in front of something like a week ago. Aunt Alicia’s house. And I’d know the texture of those lines anywhere. She’d drawn that.
When my eyes jerked back to Hatter, his expression had shuttered. “I asked her what kind of a place she lived in once,” he said. “She drew me a picture. You were heading out?”
“I was.” I grasped the knob and shut the door behind me for him. Then I hustled down the stairs to the living area, my face still hot, my heart thumping in a disjointed rhythm.
I’d seen Hatter fully clothed and sitting in chairs plenty of times before, but suddenly that encounter felt as much
a private intrusion as if I’d walked in on him getting out of the shower.
I found the teapot and discovered it was both hot and full already. Some weird quirk of the time freeze or of Wonderland in general? I wasn’t sure.
By the time Hatter made it downstairs, I had the table set with two cups of tea—Hatter’s dark and unsweetened, the only way I’d seen him drink it—and what looked like some leftover fruit loaf that was the closest thing to a breakfast food I’d found in the fridge. He must have gone to get those scones fresh from somewhere around here every morning.
Hatter took in the spread with a flicker of puzzlement at the loaf as if he’d forgotten he had it. He’d put on a different suit, a mossy green that matched his eyes, and the tufts of hair that protruded from under his hat—a trilby, today—looked damp from the shower. Perfectly scruffily handsome.
Suddenly my mind was speculating about what I might have seen if I had walked in on him in the shower, which really didn’t help me with keeping my composure.
“I figured it was my turn,” I said, gesturing to the table.
“I suppose that’s fair.” Hatter sat down in the wingchair and took a sip from his cup. Then he gave me one of those rare real smiles that crinkled the corner of his eyes—warm enough that my pulse fluttered. “Thank you.”
Note to self: The fastest way to Hatter’s good graces was through his tea.
He cut a few slices of the loaf, and I took one. It was some kind of mix of pumpkin and cherries, and pretty damn good for a loaf that had to be a few decades old. I managed to wait until Hatter had made it through a slice of his own and about half his tea before I let myself open my mouth.
“You said you didn’t know my grand-aunt that well. You’ve got one of her drawings in your bedroom.” Implicit request: Please reconcile these undeniable facts.
Hatter’s mouth tightened. He gulped some more tea. “I thought it was interesting, knowing what part of the Otherland looked like. And now that Time’s trapped, I can’t move it or get rid of it even if I’d like to.”
