by Eva Chase
“In that case, I think you’d better have the best lock picker in Wonderland on the job. Count me in.”
HATTER’S FAVORITE HONEY-PINEAPPLE-CORIANDER SCONES
(Recipe makes approximately 8 scones)
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter, cubed
3/4 cup crushed pineapple (for lighter scones, use 1/2 cup)
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk, plus more for brushing on top
Preheat the oven to 425° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Combine flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Using your fingers, massage in the butter until the mixture looks like fine crumbs.
Stir in the pineapple, cilantro, coriander, honey, and salt. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring until the dough is soft. You might not need all of the milk.
Shape the dough into balls about 2 inches thick and roll them on a floured surface. Place on the baking sheet and flatten to about 1 inch. Brush the tops lightly with milk.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.
CHAPTER ONE
Lyssa
Y ou know you’re in Wonderland when you wake up in the morning and the first thing you feel is gratitude that your head is still attached to your body.
I rolled over in Hatter’s guest room bed, rubbing my neck as if some part of me needed extra confirmation. Bright mid-morning sun streamed through the window, but my definitely-connected head was still bleary. We’d been up pretty late last night.
We’d taken on the Queen of Hearts and won—maybe not a full victory, but a big one.
A smile curved my lips. I pressed my face into the plump feather pillow, its chamomile tea scent filling my nose. Say whatever you wanted about Wonderland’s downsides—tyrant queen, regular beatings and beheadings, weird monsters lurking around the fringes—no one could deny the beds were freaking comfortable.
Part of me wanted to drift off into another hour or so of sleep. But because I was responsible, practical Lyssa Tenniel, a larger part of me was pointing out that I was lucky I’d gotten to sleep at all. The White Knight had given us a device to provide a warning if the Queen’s guards came charging up the stairs to Hatter’s apartment. It might not have gone off overnight, but it still could at any moment.
We had an awful lot to do before I could feel safe here. Or before I could get back to my real home, where beheadings weren’t even a thing.
With a grumble at myself, I pushed back the covers and hopped out of bed. Pain prickled up my forearm along the stitched-up cut I’d gotten when under attack by a guard a few days ago.
I’d slept in the tank top and khakis I’d been wearing when I’d arrived in Wonderland yesterday evening, and the thought of leaving them on any longer made me cringe. I eyed the borrowed dresses in the wardrobe in their bright colors and bold patterns that my best friend Melody would have swooned over, picked one of the less flashy ones, and headed to the bathroom.
We didn’t even know yet whether everyone who’d been part of last night’s mission had made it back. Sally, the woman who’d come with us into the palace gardens and run off to distract the guards, hadn’t met up with us at the wall during our escape. If she’d made it home, it’d been alone. Theo was probably already checking on her.
Across the hall from the bathroom, Hatter’s bedroom door stood a few inches ajar. I hesitated, hanging the dress on the hook beside the sink. Every other morning I’d been here, Hatter’s door had either been firmly closed, because he was up and marking that room off limits, or wide open, because he was still sleeping and that was how it always reset, like the fateful night ages ago just before the Queen had trapped Time to quell the growing rebellion, when he’d fallen asleep in his armchair waiting for bad news.
We’d freed Time in the wee hours of the morning. This might as well be his first brand new day in Wonderland in decades.
I couldn’t resist. I padded across the hardwood floor and eased the door farther open.
The only other time I’d looked in on Hatter sleeping, he’d been slumped in that chair beside the bed, fully dressed, as apparently he’d woken up every morning across all those decades Wonderland remained stuck repeating the same day. The position hadn’t looked all that comfortable.
Last night, he’d made it to the bed. He lay on his back, the covers bunched across his chest, his angular face tipped into the pillow and the spikes of his dark blond hair veering this way and that in even greater disarray than usual. He’d bothered to take off his hat and his suit jacket, at least, but his maroon tie still hung loose beneath the rumpled collar of his dress shirt. Old habits were hard to break?
The sight of him brought a flutter of warmth into my chest. Well, the sight of him and the thought of what he might or might not be wearing under the covers. It was hard not to think of his smile last night when I’d asked him to kiss me and the intensity of his mouth claiming mine.
I wavered, torn between the urge to climb right into that bed with him and the uncertainty about how he’d respond. We hadn’t done anything more than kiss yet. And the last time I’d been in his bedroom, he’d ushered me out very quickly.
Hatter was obviously a light sleeper. I didn’t think I’d made a sound more than taking a breath, and he stirred. Raising his head, he stared at the bed around him, totally bewildered. Then the light of understanding dawned on his face, taking him from scruffily good-looking to pulse-thumpingly hot in an instant.
His gaze darted up to find me, and his expression turned wary but not unwelcoming. I guessed I couldn’t blame him for being a little uncertain too. We’d had a chaotic time together.
“Um,” I said. “Good morning.”
“It is, isn’t it?” he said, pushing himself higher on the bed. He considered the covers with an awed chuckle. His shoulders had relaxed when he looked up at me again. “We really did it.”
I had to grin. “We did.”
“I suppose this is going to take some getting used to.”
His tone was warm enough that I decided to just go for it. I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed just a foot away from him. My heart beat faster, but the spark of desire in his green eyes encouraged me. I curled my fingers around his loosened tie.
“Just as a tip,” I said. “Generally people take these off when they go to bed.”
“Hmm,” Hatter said. “It’s a good thing I have you here to advise me on these matters. I seem to be out of practice.”
“Happy to help in any way I can.” I tugged the tie looser, and Hatter leaned toward me. He smelled amazing, like lime and wood smoke, bright and dark at the same time. Like Wonderland.
“Amazing that I ever managed without you, looking-glass girl,” he murmured, his dry tenor dropping low enough to send an eager shiver down my spine.
“It really is,” I said, a little breathless, and then our lips collided.
Hatter tucked his arm around my waist to pull me even closer. His mouth was so hot and sure I nearly drowned in the wave of need that swept through me. All I could do was hang onto his tie like my life depended on it.
He kissed me again, more deeply, my lips parting with a pleased sound to let his tongue sweep over mine. His deft fingers trailed up my side. They teased over the side of my breast, edging closer until my nipple was aching for contact. His thumb flicked over the peak, and I whimpered into his mouth. Heat pooled between my thighs.
I slid my hand down over the taut muscles of Hatter’s broad shoulders and his contrastingly lean chest. I was just a moment or two from discovering whether he wore boxers or briefs when a joyful shout pealed down the hall.
“New day, here I come! New dresses. New shoes. Lands, I can change the furniture in my fucking room now!”
Hatter and I had jerked
apart at the sound of his daughter’s voice. Her bounding footsteps thumped down the hall past the door I’d thankfully nudged shut behind me when I’d come in. My lips twitched in amusement at her solo celebration.
Doria had joined in on the mission last night, but only on the sidelines and at the beginning. Hatter had woken her when we’d gotten back to the house so she’d know we’d returned safely and victorious. She sounded even happier now that the news had sunk in.
“Pops!” she called from downstairs. “There’s no breakfast. We need something special for today.”
Hatter rolled his eyes at the nickname and gave me one last quick kiss that tasted like an apology to both of us. I got up as he scooted off the bed and was a tad disappointed to discover he’d slept with his pants on. He leaned out into the hall. “Give me five minutes!”
“Fine, but I’m only cutting you slack because you were out saving the world yesterday.”
“Teenagers,” he muttered fondly, turning to his wardrobe.
If Hatter had actually been as young as he looked, he wouldn’t have been more than a teen himself when he’d become a father. He’d told me he’d adopted Doria when she was two, twelve years ago. But he wasn’t actually as young as he looked, thanks to Wonderlandian weirdness. I still wasn’t totally clear on the timelines, but I wasn’t sure how much it mattered.
Definitely not as much as the fact that Hatter appeared to be going to change his clothes without asking me to leave the room. Maybe I’d get the answer to that boxers vs. briefs question after all. I dropped into the armchair next to the bed, and my eyebrows jumped in surprise. The padded velour upholstery was so cozy I wanted to tuck myself right into it.
“This chair is actually pretty comfy,” I said. Still not an ideal sleeping spot, but better than I’d expected.
“You can have it,” Hatter tossed over his shoulder. He pulled a suit out of the wardrobe—the dark violet one he’d been wearing the first time I saw him—and set it on the bed. “I never want to sit in that thing again.”
Fair enough. I could move it to the guest bedroom if I wanted to. Either of us could, with time moving properly again.
“I guess you can get rid of things now,” I said. “And not have them pop back to where they used to be overnight.”
“A feature of our new reality that I’m very much looking forward to,” Hatter remarked.
My gaze traveled automatically to the folded paper sitting on one of the bookcases across the room. A folded paper with a charcoal sketch of the house I’d inherited less than two weeks ago from my grand-aunt Alicia.
Aunt Alicia had drawn that sketch for Hatter after she’d fallen through the same mirror I had into Wonderland, some fifty years ago. From the vague letter she’d left for me, I’d gathered our family had a strange tie to this place. I touched the ruby ring she’d also left for me, confirming it was still hanging from its chain under my shirt.
Aunt Alicia hadn’t left Wonderland in the best state. Apparently she’d made promises about helping with the rebellion against the Queen of Hearts and then chickened out at the last moment, leaving the rebel group that called themselves the Spades in the lurch. Hatter had commented the other day that he’d have thrown out her sketch if his room, like the rest of Wonderland, hadn’t been stuck in time.
Hatter followed my glance, and his hands paused around the tie he’d finally taken off.
“You could get rid of that if you wanted,” I said tentatively. I knew he’d been harboring a lot of resentment over Aunt Alicia’s betrayal of Wonderland. I also knew he’d had something of a crush on her back then. It was a little weird, thinking that, even though nothing had ever happened between them.
“I could,” Hatter said slowly, and paused in a way that sent an uncomfortable twinge through my stomach. He’d probably had feelings for dozens of people before me. I had feelings for at least two other men in Wonderland right now, and he didn’t see anything weird about that. It shouldn’t have mattered.
But I didn’t have those Wonderlandian sensibilities by nature, and an irrational little piece of me wanted him all to myself.
“The thing is,” Hatter went on, catching my eye, “it isn’t Alicia’s house anymore. It’s yours now. It’s where you are when you’re not here. When you were gone, the last time…” He hesitated again as if struggling to decide on the right words. “It made the wait easier, being able to look at that picture and know you were safe there.”
Oh. My throat felt suddenly tight. He hadn’t even known if I’d come back, the last time. He’d yelled at me about the probability that I wouldn’t. But even then, it’d mattered more to him that I’d gotten out of danger.
“Better to keep it, then?” I ventured.
A smile touched Hatter’s face—small, but enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes the way I loved. “I think so.”
I had the impulse to drag him right back into the bed, breakfast be damned, but before I could act on it, Doria let out another shout. A frightened one.
“Dad!”
At the panic in her voice, Hatter blanched. He dashed for the hall, snatching up the top hat sitting on the dresser as he went, as if he’d need it to face whatever trouble awaited. I hurried after him.
Doria was standing by an open window in the living area, peering out. Her fingers gripped the ledge tightly as if she needed it for balance. Her face had paled beneath the fall of her dark brown hair.
Hatter rushed to her side. “What?”
She pointed mutely toward the street outside. He looked, and his expression stiffened.
As I came up behind them, a resonant thudding reached my ears. A voice was hollering something in the distance, too far away from me to make out the words, but something about the harsh tones of it sent a prickle of uneasy recognition down my spine.
I moved toward the other window to get a better view, and Hatter caught my arm.
“Stay back,” he said, worry crackling through his words. “We can’t let anyone see you. The guards are still looking— You need to put that powder Theo gave you in your hair.”
I’d meant to do that during the shower I’d almost forgotten about taking. My gut balled tight. I edged a little to the side but no closer toward the window. From that angle, I could make out a sliver of the street.
Rows upon rows of guards in the palace’s red-and-pink pleated tunics and bulging red helmets were marching by along the cobblestone road. As I watched, one came into view in the midst of the procession with a long pole thrust up in the air.
Doria clapped her hand over her mouth with a squeak of horror. Hatter flinched.
I risked easing half a step forward, and my stomach flipped over. Oh, God.
It wasn’t a pole—it was a pike. And I could now say with total certainty that Sally hadn’t made it home from last night’s mission. With each bob of that pike, her braid swung from her decapitated head.
CHAPTER TWO
Lyssa
I stumbled backward, bile rising up my throat. The image of Sally’s severed head stayed imprinted in my mind: eyes glazed and staring, skin grayed, neck rimmed with raw red flesh.
This was Wonderland, where people cavorted and laughed… and died.
“Lyssa,” Hatter said. My legs wobbled, and he grasped my shoulder. I turned, pressing my face to his chest. Drinking in the bright-and-dark smell of him. His arms came around me and tightened when I shivered.
“That’s what they do to Spades,” Doria muttered, her voice rough. “To anyone who doesn’t fall in line.”
“They only parade them around when it’s a Spade,” Hatter said. “And not usually with the entire damned Hearts’ Guard in attendance.”
The spectacle was horrifying enough when I’d barely known Sally. It could have been Doria’s head up there, or Hatter’s. It could have been mine if I’d been a smidge slower when the guards had chased me the other day.
“It’s not just the Guard,” Doria said, with a hitch in her breath that made me raise my head. I s
till couldn’t see much of anything through the window, but the voice from outside carried to us more clearly now. And I did recognize it. Its throaty, commanding tone cut through the stomp of the guards’ marching feet.
“People of Wonderland,” the Queen of Hearts proclaimed. “This poison calling itself ‘the Spades’ has seeped around us for too long. They break the peace I have prescribed and force you all to suffer. It is time to stamp them out once and for all! We cannot tolerate it. We must not tolerate it! They will not dare trifle with me again.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Doria murmured, but she’d drawn back from the window ledge as if afraid the Queen might reach her even there.
I needed to see the Queen, this villain who’d kept Wonderland’s people trapped in the space of a day for nearly fifty years, whose shrieks of dismay had pierced my ears last night. I eased out of Hatter’s embrace and crept closer to the window. Hatter made a warning sound, but he didn’t stop me.
The Queen of Hearts sat in a golden throne with a heart-shaped back, borne by several of her guards. The immense skirt of her salmon-pink dress billowed out over the narrow platform. Her hair was styled in the same coppery loops I’d seen in a painting of her in the palace, coiled toward the base of her tall gold crown. Her scarlet lips were pursed, and her wide-set eyes gleamed with a metallic shimmer that apparently hadn’t been just the painter’s artistic license. Her gaze roved over the street as if it could have sliced through the walls around her just by looking at them.
When her gaze swept toward the higher floors of the buildings, I backed up with a shudder. Her voice heaved from her lungs again, so loud I’d have thought she was using a loudspeaker if I hadn’t seen her hands were empty.
“You bring this on yourselves,” she said. “You harbor these criminals; you look the other way. These beasts killed my son. They claim they fight for you. Well, let us see how true that is. Are they willing to give up their own lives when it’s merely yours on the line?”
