by Eva Chase
“Just so you know, your secret is safe with me,” I said under my breath.
Chess pulled back, still grinning, and cocked his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Fair enough.
He touched the side of my face, his gaze turning serious in a way I’d never seen before. “Are you sure about this, Lyssa? All the way into the palace? I liked our White Knight’s plan with its half measures for you a lot better.”
“Theo’s plan won’t work anymore,” I pointed out. “This one will. It’s the whole reason I came back, Chess.” I hesitated, letting my cheek rest against his hand. “Well, one of the main reasons, anyway.”
Something in his expression shifted as our eyes stayed locked together. Something hopeful and maybe a little hungry. He stroked his fingers over my hair, and my heart skipped a beat—and then he pulled back completely, nudging me around.
“And I expect here’s one of the other reasons heading over to say his piece.”
Hatter had taken a step toward us, leaving the cluster of Spades he’d been talking with. When I met his gaze, his jaw twitched. He kept walking, lifting his hat off his head and holding it to his chest as he came. He looked as scruffily handsome as ever, and a little naked with the spikes of his dark blond hair completely on display for the first time I could remember.
I tensed as he came to a stop a couple paces from me, not totally sure what to expect. The last time I’d seen him, after all, he’d been yelling at me about how careless and selfish I supposedly was. He looked down at his hat and then back up at me, so obviously apprehensive himself that I started to relax. I felt more than saw Chess slip away from us.
“I’m sorry,” Hatter said. “Not that an apology seems enough to cover it. I was unfair and unkind to you, and I’ve felt like an ass about it since pretty much the moment after. I can’t make any excuses, so I won’t.” His gaze dropped to my arm and widened. “Is that from—?”
The line of the cut prickled as if his attention had grazed the broken skin. “When I was making my dash for Caterpillar’s mirror,” I said. “One of his guards was a little too eager with his dagger, in my humble opinion.”
He looked up at me again. “And you still came back.”
His expression turned that prickling into a tingling that seeped right through to my chest. “I had things to do. People to see.” What was I even saying? “I wouldn’t have expected to see you here,” I ventured.
A faint smile tugged at Hatter’s lips. “No, I suppose not. It occurred to me that if I was going to yell at people for running away, the person I really should start with was myself.” He shifted his hat in his hands. “I looked for you, after you ran off. I was worried about you. I didn’t mean…” He exhaled roughly and grimaced as if he couldn’t quite put the words he wanted together.
“I think you did,” I said, to spare him his obvious discomfort. I could meet him halfway. “I don’t completely blame you. The only other looking-glass girl you’ve known ran away—at the worst possible time—didn’t she?”
Hatter’s eyebrows rose. “And you know that now because…?”
I patted the lump of the ruby ring where the key had once hung. “I opened up the box Aunt Alicia left for me. There was a letter—she explained some things. Not that I’d guess it helps much, but she felt really guilty that she abandoned Wonderland. That’s the whole reason she left the house to me, so I’d have a chance to come through and… make my own choices. She wanted me to apologize, to you and any of the other Spades she knew.”
“I’m not sure there’s anyone else left who knew her more than in passing,” Hatter said quietly. “The Queen has taken a lot of heads since then.”
I studied him, thinking of all the reactions I’d observed when the topic of my grand-aunt came up, and decided I had to ask. “You yelled at me because you were angry with Aunt Alicia. Did you kiss me because you’re in love with her?”
Hatter stiffened. “Did she say that in her letter?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just making a not-so-wild guess.”
“Well, that isn’t— It’s hardly—” He sighed and set his hat back on his head where it belonged. “I wasn’t in love with her,” he said. “I didn’t know her well enough to be. If it was anything, it was a boy’s infatuation with the girl I wanted her to be. A girl who didn’t really exist. And that has nothing to do with you.”
“No?” I said. The tingling came back, a fizzy sensation that filled my lungs as he aimed his intense bright green gaze at me.
“You’re different,” he said simply. “You’re real, not just a hopeful figment I’ve attached to someone who’ll never live up to it. All the courage and compassion and fire I wanted to believe in—you’re it. You’re here.”
Guilt clogged my throat even as my pulse fluttered. “I wasn’t sure. I hesitated. I could have ended up staying back at home.”
Hatter made an incredulous sound. “Are you saying I should judge you based on what you could have done but didn’t, rather than by what you didn’t have to do but did? We’re the choices we make, not the options we had. I should know that as well as anyone.” He paused. “Not that my estimation of you revolves around the fact that you came back. Even with what I said before… I’d have understood, Lyssa. You never asked to be part of this. You never acted like anyone other than who you are. I liked you already.”
The guilt faded; the fluttering stayed. I suddenly wasn’t sure what to do with any part of my body.
Maybe he wouldn’t be saying any of this if he realized everything that had happened after the last time we’d spoken.
“Hatter,” I said, forcing the words out, “that night, I went to see Theo. I—We—”
When I faltered, the corner of Hatter’s mouth curved up at a crooked angle. Maybe he’d already put those pieces together. Chess had seemed to guess in an instant.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “monogamy is a pretty rare concept in Wonderland. As you may have been able to guess from everything you’ve seen here. I don’t think any of us are likely to judge a person on that basis. I’m saying what I wanted to say. What you make of it is up to you.”
Oh. A surge of affection stole my voice. I opened my mouth and closed it again, and noticed the other Spades were moving toward the stairs. It was time to go.
If I was going to say anything that mattered, I’d better spit it out now.
The words tumbled off my tongue. “Is there any chance you’d like to kiss me again? I hear that’s a thing people do before risky situations, for, er, luck or whatever.”
Hatter gave me one of those brilliant smiles that crinkled the corners of his eyes. With a nimble flick of his wrist, he caught my hand and lifted it to spin me around like he had on the dance floor my first night in Wonderland. Only this time he spun me right up against him and then lowered his mouth to mine.
He kissed me with all the intensity of that morning at the breakfast table, if not the same urgency. My fingers curled around the lapel of his jacket and clung on while I lost myself in the firm heat of his lips. Yes, this was a reason to have come back. Too bad it couldn’t be the main one.
“Show-off,” I murmured when he drew back.
Hatter kept smiling. We fell into step behind the other Spades, and he leaned in to speak by my ear in a low voice. “Just for the record, I’d like to do a lot more than kiss you.”
A spike of desire shot through me. “Noted on the record,” I said with a grin that was probably giddy, and noticed Theo bringing up the rear of our procession. He scooped his devices off the table and caught my eye with an amused expression. Not a hint of disapproval or jealousy or anything other than pleasure at seeing the two of us together.
Three cheers for Wonderlandian open-mindedness!
Now all I had to do was pull off a feat the Spades hadn’t managed to accomplish in fifty years of trying.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lyssa
Theo had brought a watch of his
own on the mission, one that as far as I could tell had no magical qualities. He checked the hands by the moonlight that streaked between the leaves of the tree the six of us were perched in, just a short leap from the wall to the palace gardens. The thickest branches stretched out like spokes of a wheel from the center-point I’d settled into. Each of the others was braced against one of the branches.
The rest of the Spades, including Doria, had dispersed before we’d reached this spot on their own supporting missions. Now only Theo, Chess, Hatter, the red-haired twin named Dee, a sinewy woman whose name I’d gathered was Sally, and I remained for the main event.
Ten minutes to cross the gardens. Ten more to get to the room from which we could reach the Queen’s pocket watch. Five to retrieve it, and five more to get the hell out of there before the guards caught on. The second the day flipped over, we had to be moving.
“Ten to midnight,” Theo reported with reined-in impatience. It was the fourth time he’d checked the watch this hour. Now he didn’t even bother tucking it back in his pouch.
“Put a little butter in it,” Hatter murmured. “Maybe it’ll run faster.”
A flicker of a smile passed over Theo’s face. “You and March,” he said with a fond shake of his head.
Hatter’s expression stiffened, but only for a second. I guessed it was some kind of inside joke. Hatter had worked with Theo before, clearly. How long had he associated with the Spades before he’d cut off that part of his life? From the way Doria had talked and the familiarity I could see between him and the others, I was starting to think he’d been a Spade a lot longer than he hadn’t.
This wasn’t exactly the best time or place for an in-depth conversation on that subject, though.
Resting the watch on his knee, Theo reached into his pouch and pulled out the heavy cloth I’d worked my powers on earlier. He unfolded it and attached it around his face, and I realized it was a sort of mask. It covered the base of his nose all the way down to his chin with fabric darker than his hair. “There, ready to go,” he said through it, with a faint rasp to his voice.
Sally gave him a startled look. “Are you coming through to the palace?”
“I know the way best. You might need my guidance on the ground.” Theo set his hand on my shoulder. “And I’m not sending our Otherlander in there while I hang back here. This mask will filter out the scent.” He added in an explanation I assumed was for my benefit, “I’m allergic to roses. A rather inconvenient weakness in our current situation.”
No kidding. But he’d found a way to work around that weakness so he could stay at our sides—at my side. A tendril of warmth unfurled in the pit of my stomach.
It didn’t quite chase away my nerves, but it made me even more determined to master them. These people had been building their rebellion for decades. Giving them one night of my life was barely anything.
It was a new feeling, preparing for a struggle with allies just as determined to fight as I was. Matching strength with strength instead of holding together everything as well as I could on my own. I wanted to remember this feeling, no matter what happened or where I ended up afterward. I wanted to find it again.
“Five minutes,” Theo said. “Lean in.”
I held out my hands, and the other five of them eased off their branch seats to clasp their fingers around mine, Dee snagging only a thumb, Chess catching my ring and baby finger with a hint of a caress. They all shifted closer at the same time, a shin or a thigh or an arm coming to rest against my body. It was a little suffocating, but we had to be sure there was enough contact between me and them to keep them here with me when the day flipped over.
“The moment I give the word,” Theo said, and we all nodded. His hand, tucked around two of my fingers, gave them a gentle squeeze. I braced myself, wondering what the flip would feel like.
The breeze rustled through the leaves overhead. The lights beyond the palace wall blinked and swirled. Then all five of the figures around me winced. I didn’t feel anything at all.
Hatter sucked out a breath hoarse with awe. Theo was already springing to his feet. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
We leapt after him. He bent for just an instant to attach one of his devices to a knob on the branch. With a jerk of his wrist, he sent the steel plates unfurling out across the space between the branch and the wall to form a narrow bridge.
It wobbled but held as Theo dashed across it. He turned and held out his hand to me, and I bolted after him with my heart thudding in my ears. It only took three steps, and then he was helping me down the side of the wall.
The others leapt down around me. Chess and Sally darted off through the gardens in opposite directions. Their job was to divert the few guards who were brought back into the gardens by the flip of the day—the ones who’d been patrolling the night the Queen trapped time. The rest of us ran for the palace.
Theo led the way. We skirted a cluster of benches and veered away from one path through the hedges and down another. His shoulders tensed as we sprinted beneath the arch of the Queen’s massive rose bush, but his steps didn’t falter. The cloyingly sweet perfume flooded my nose and stuck in my throat with my ragged breaths.
When we broke from the shadows, the scarlet palace loomed right in front of us. Theo motioned us to the left, around it. Dee, hustling as fast as his short legs could carry his stout body, came up beside him. The White Knight pointed to a wide balcony on the second floor, and the young redhead positioned himself beneath it with his arms outstretched.
Hatter appeared to know exactly what to do. He hopped onto Dee’s arms, and Dee launched him into the air as if those arms were a springboard. My jaw dropped.
“We all have our talents,” Dee said with a grin. “Up you go!”
No hesitating now. I inhaled deeply and leapt. Dee flung me after Hatter.
I caught the balcony’s marble railing with a jolt that knocked the wind from me and managed to scramble over. Hatter was already crouched by a door at one end of the terrace. His deft fingers were wriggling two bits of metal in the lock.
As Theo sprang onto the balcony, managing to land on his feet like he leapt buildings on a regular basis, the door popped open. Hatter waved the hatpins he’d been using, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. “We’re in.”
I guessed no one would think it all that odd if they found him carrying those things. “I didn’t realize your skills included breaking and entering,” I murmured to him as we hurried into the dark room on the other side, Theo taking the lead again.
Hatter let out a soft chuckle. “It doesn’t come up very often in my usual line of work. There are many uses a nimble set of fingers can be put to.”
Oh. Um. Maybe if we got past kissing, I could discover new ones for myself. Add another item to my list of reasons for coming back to Wonderland.
Hatter had still seemed a little hesitant while we were waiting in the tree, but now that we were in motion, the mission had energized him in an unfamiliar but exhilarating way. What must he have been like when he did this kind of thing all the time, before the Queen’s brutality had battered him down?
How could Aunt Alicia have seen him as nothing more than one in a list of several names?
Theo held up his hand to halt us when we reached the hall. He peered through the doorway and then beckoned us onward. He moved for all the world as if breaking into palaces was his main line of work, striding across the thick carpet that muffled our footsteps as if he belonged here even more than in that shiny white office of his.
A row of chandeliers overhead, their crystal fixtures shaped into hearts and roses, lit the long empty hall. Gold leaf gleamed all through the flowery wallpaper, the thorns drawn around the roses so pointed I wondered if they’d prick my fingertips if I touched them. The smell of the garden’s roses lingered even here inside.
We passed a few paintings with heavy gold frames: a man with a doughy face, a red robe, and a plump crown on his white hair; a skeletal old woman with fierce eyes and an even bigger c
rown, and then a sort of family portrait.
Somehow I knew at a glance that the woman sitting in the throne there was the current Queen of Hearts. Her coppery hair looped in coils from her face to beneath her crown; a smile that looked sharp enough to cut stone curved above her square jaw. Her wide-set eyes, which shone with an eerie golden sheen that matched the frame, bored into me in an instant.
A man with pasty skin and a matching crown stood beside her throne, his shoulders stooped as he rested one hand on its side. And at the woman’s feet, his head tipped against the satin draped over her knees, a little boy sat with a gold circlet of his own, only a little brighter than his tawny brown curls.
Was that the prince who’d been murdered? He’d already been a boy, then, when this painting had been hung before time had frozen. Doria had said he’d been thirteen when he was murdered, but I couldn’t stop my mind from picturing that toddler’s head lying in a pool of blood. My stomach lurched, and I yanked my gaze away.
Theo pointed to a door. Hatter dropped down in front of it, the hairpins spinning in his fingers. With a jiggle and a click, he’d popped the deadbolt.
The door swung open into a room like an over-crowded gallery, mahogany frames pressed together all across the walls. As we stepped inside, I realized they weren’t any kind of artwork. They were doors themselves, dozens of them in every shade of wood, fit up against each other from floor to ceiling. Most of them I could have fit through by crawling, a few by standing, but the smaller ones scattered the spaces between those, a child would have struggled to fit through.
Theo tapped his foot against the smallest, a tiny oak door barely the size of my hand, with an even tinier lock. Hatter had to hunker down on the floor to prod its keyhole. Theo turned to me.
“You’d better prepare. He’ll have it open quick.”
I nodded, my mouth gone dry. I urged a little saliva onto my tongue as I reached for the pieces of mushroom Dee and Dum had brought us.
