His words dug into her chest. She stared past him, seeing the white rose tree where she’d seen him that first night. He’d brought her to the gardens.
They would be followed. Probably the guards were already searching for them. She doubted it would take long for them to be found.
Stomach twisting, she shoved Jest away and scrambled out of his hold. She tried to stand but her legs were too weak and she collapsed back down to the grass. “You gave me a choice and I made it. How could you even suggest I change it now?”
Jest tried to string his hands through his hair but found his joker hat in the way. Ripping it off, he threw it on the ground. The bells clinked once, dejectedly, before falling silent. “Because you have to be sure. Because it will kill me if you come to regret this, to know that you gave up everything the King was offering and it was my fault.”
The cold air stung her throat, but she couldn’t stop gasping for breath. Clenching her jaw, she shoved him as hard as she could. Jest fell onto his side in the grass.
“You idiot. I don’t want him or what he’s offered me, and I never have. I don’t want to be the stupid Queen!”
“I know. I know that, Cath. That’s why you might regret this.”
She gaped at him and started to shake her head. “It won’t take them long to find us here. Just tell me. What was this idea Raven had?”
Jest glanced up and Cath startled upon spying Raven among the roses.
“There is a law in Chess,” Jest said, drawing her attention back to him, “that a pawn who can make it through the enemy’s territory, all the way to the border, can become a queen.”
She frowned.
“Come back with me.” Jest pushed himself back to his knees and wrapped Cath’s hands in his. “We can get you to the border—Hatta, Raven, and I—and you can be a queen, and you can lead us to victory, Cath, I know it.”
“But…” Her throat dried and it was a struggle to wet it again. “But you said … I could have my bakery, and…”
Jest chuckled, a warm sound that surprised her. His grip tightened. “That’s just it. Once the war is over, the White Queen can take over again—we won’t need two queens, after all—and you can be anything you want. And you and I—”
He was interrupted by the sound of marching in the direction of the castle. Cath tensed and looked back, spotting two rows of Club guards making their way down the steps. The Ace of Clubs stood at their helm, shouting orders to spread out and search the grounds.
Jest was staring at her when she faced him again. “I know you never wanted to be a queen,” he said, apology lacing his voice.
A humorless laugh burbled out of her mouth. “It seems I was going to be a queen either way.” She wriggled one hand out of his hold and traced the painted heart on his cheek with the pad of her thumb. “I love you, Jest. I want to be with you, any way I can.”
His breath formed crystals on the air. Boots echoed, hitting the gravel paths. Overhead, Raven let out a warning caw.
Jest grabbed her suddenly, crushing his mouth against hers. Cath threw her arms around his neck, delighting in the way her heart expanded as if it could consume them both.
“I love you too,” he whispered in the spaces between another kiss, and another. “I love you too.”
It was impossible, and she absolutely believed it.
He was kissing her again when Raven coughed, loudly. “They are coming. We mustn’t tarry any longer.”
Cath and Jest looked up into the tree boughs.
“That didn’t rhyme,” said Cath.
“Who has the time?” Raven snapped.
“He’s right, of course,” said Jest, beaming. “Yet this interlude has been sublime.” He grabbed his hat and pulled Cath to her feet.
With a nod from Jest, Raven swooped down to join them, just as Cath heard the first guards clomping through the rose gardens. No sooner had Raven landed on Jest’s shoulder than the earth quaked and a tower of stone burst up from the ground, swallowing them back down.
* * *
CATH DID NOT KNOW IF this magic could be called a tower, a tunnel, a bridge, or some other impossible passageway, but she was relieved when it deposited them into the meadow outside Hatta’s shop. She was trembling, though Jest and Raven looked as though traveling through the earth was the most natural thing in the world.
“And to think,” she gasped, pushing herself up onto wobbly legs, “I’ve been bothering with carriages all these years, when there was such a more reasonable way of traveling.”
Jest was grinning as widely as ever as he laced his fingers with hers. “It’s a favored trick of us Rooks,” he said. “You get used to it.”
She sniffed and straightened her gown. “That remains to be seen.”
They approached the Marvelous Millinery with their hands fiercely entwined. The windows of the traveling shop glowed warm and gold, but the forest was quiet.
Jest reached for the doorknob on the shop’s round door but found himself holding a furry striped tail. A cat yowled.
Jest jumped away, bracing his body in front of Cath’s.
Cheshire’s head appeared next, grinning enormously despite the way his slitted eyes glared. He licked at his injured tail. “Well,” he said, “that was uncouth.”
“Cheshire, what are you doing here?” asked Catherine.
“Tending to my wounds. I fear he may have bruised me.”
She fisted a hand on her hip. “I mean it, Cheshire. Have you been following us?”
He stopped licking and his tail vanished, leaving only his bulbous head hanging where there might have been a door knocker. “Following you? I was here first, dear girl.”
Catherine lifted an eyebrow.
Cheshire’s vivid smile widened even farther. “I heard a rumor that you had fled the masquerade in the arms of our most-wanted criminal. Well, our only wanted criminal. I wanted to see the truth of it for myself.”
“And now you’ve seen it. Please move aside.”
Cheshire’s eyes narrowed, peering into the distance. “Is that bird friend or food?”
Cath and Jest glanced back. Raven had claimed a spot on a low-hanging tree bough. He puffed up his feathers until he was the same size as Cheshire. Or, the same size that Cheshire would have been had his entire body been visible.
“Friend,” said Catherine, turning back. “What do you want?”
Cheshire’s head turned upside down. “I suppose you haven’t any idea what’s been about this evening. Been awful preoccupied, what with your proposal and such and such. Do you want to hear about it?”
“Not particularly. I have a few preoccupations of my own, you may have noticed.”
“It involves the pumpkin eater.”
Her gut tightened. She’d all but forgotten how Sir Peter had accosted her earlier that evening. “Why would I have any interest in him?”
“And also Mary Ann. And even the Jabberwock. A zesty new rumor that might be even more scandalous than our King’s bride running away with the Joker. I’m positively dying to tell someone”—his eyes turned to silver coins, like those placed upon the dead—“and you were the first person I thought who would want to know.”
A chill scurried down her spine. She could sense Jest peering at her, could imagine his concern, his curiosity, but she shoved her own curiosity down into the pit of her stomach, right beside the angry pit where lay Mary Ann’s betrayal.
“You were wrong. I don’t want to know. Go bother someone else with your gossip and leave us alone, or I’ll bruise much more than your tail.”
The coins turned back into glowing eyes. “I see,” he said, drawing out the words. “It appears I was incorrect about you, Lady Catherine. After all these years.” His gaze shifted to Jest. “He’s handsome enough, I suppose…” His ears and eyes and nose vanished then, leaving only his smile—hanging downside up so it became a frown without a body to tether it. “If one cares for that sort of thing.”
Then he was gone.
Jest was
still looking at her.
“It’s fine,” she said. “He won’t tell anyone where we are.” She didn’t know if it was true, but she hoped they would be far gone before it mattered.
With the cat gone, Raven left his perch in the trees and flew down to join them as Jest pulled open the door.
No longer a tea parlor, no longer a shop—the little room was a messy workspace, a hatter’s studio. The long table was littered with ribbons, feathers, felt, buttons, needles, and thread. A dozen mannequin heads were lined up, wearing unfinished hats of varying styles, blinking bored eyes at the newcomers.
The Dormouse slept curled up on the table, wrapped in velvet ribbon like a present.
The March Hare was stringing different-colored buttons onto a thread and draping them around his neck like a pile of beaded necklaces. There were enough on him that they reminded Catherine of a noose.
Hatta sat on his throne, wearing his plum top hat, one leg strewn over the chair’s arm and his chin propped up on his knuckles. An incomplete lady’s hat sat on a mannequin’s head before him, half done up with yellow rhinestones and half done up with seashells, but his eyes were on Jest and Catherine and Raven.
He scanned Jest’s dark motley and smirked. “Still playing the part of the royal idiot, I see. Or maybe that’s an effect of the girl who has you so neatly wrapped around her finger.”
Jest tipped his hat, letting the bells tinkle around his face. “Everyone always underestimates the idiot.”
Hatta waved his hand at them. “Come in, come in. Haigha, stop mucking with those buttons and put on a pot of tea.”
“That won’t be necessary. This isn’t to be a long visit.” Jest tugged Catherine around the table, like he was afraid to release her.
Hatta’s eyes lingered on their entwined hands a beat longer than Cath thought necessary. “What’s your hurry? If the rumors are true, the only place you have to be right now is His Majesty’s prison.” He squinted. “Speaking of His Majesty, does he know that you’re about with his lady fair?”
Jest pulled out a chair for Catherine. She felt too anxious to sit, but she did anyway.
“The King proposed marriage to Catherine tonight,” he said, claiming the chair between her and Hatta—what would once have been the performer’s chair.
Hatta’s eyes swept toward her and he lifted a teacup from a saucer, like a toast. The rim was stained with long-ago drips of tea, and she wondered how long it had been sitting there untouched. “Congratulations must be in order, Your Queenliness.”
She scowled. “Are you congratulating me or yourself? I know you wanted to see me become the Queen as much as anyone, though I now understand you didn’t exactly have my best interests in mind.”
There was a moment of silence, the cup hanging in the air. Then Hatta guffawed and slammed the cup back to the table. It was empty.
“If you know that, then you know I was not alone in the plot.” He swung his leg off the arm of the chair and leaned toward them. “She is a rose, Jest. Lovely on the eyes, yes, but such thorns are not to be ignored. She belongs in a King’s garden, not yours.” As an afterthought, he tipped his head toward Catherine. “No offense meant, milady.”
“None at all?” she deadpanned.
He shrugged, a flippant one-shouldered shrug that made her blood run hot.
“I love her, Hatta,” said Jest. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with her, but I did.”
She squeezed his hand beneath the table.
Hatta slid his gaze back to Catherine. She returned it, though she felt as insignificant before him as she had the first time they’d met. There was little cruelty in his expression, though. More like a mild curiosity. Like he was trying to determine what it was Jest saw when he looked at her. “That is a problem, isn’t it?”
“I love him too, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He shook his head. “Oh no, that much is plain to see.” He ran a finger along his lower lip. “I suspect you didn’t come here to allow me the privilege of sharing in your mutual happiness.”
Jest removed his hat and tossed it amid the table’s mess. “Cath is not going to marry the King and we are not going to steal her heart.”
“I thought that might be where this was heading.” Hatta cut a quick glance at the March Hare, who was watching them like a fascinating match of lawn tennis. “Prepare yourself, Haigha. It will not be any fun informing the White King that our dear Jest has failed.”
“I have not failed.” Jest cocked his head toward Raven. “Raven has reminded me of the law of promotion.”
Hatta’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. “Queening,” he murmured. His gaze swooped to Cath, studying her with new intensity. “Why steal a queen’s heart when you can steal the queen herself?”
“She isn’t a queen yet,” said Jest. “But she could be. It solves everything, Hatta.”
Hatta sat back and shut his eyes, his brow tight. “Not everything,” he said, but it was whispered so low Cath thought he was speaking to himself. When he looked up again, he was shaking his head. “We are a parliament of idiots. A murder of fools.”
“No,” said Jest, his voice soft. “That would be an unkindness.”
“So it would.” Hatta sniffed, and glanced wryly at the March Hare again. “What say you, Haigha?”
Haigha was peering at Catherine, his nose twitching. “Are we sure she can do it?”
“That’s a legitimate question.” Hatta leaned forward. “Once we cross through the Looking Glass, you’ll no longer be the daughter of a marquess, but a lowly pawn, like Haigha and me. If you fail to defeat the Red Queen, you are accepting many lifetimes of servitude. Are you willing to risk that, Lady Pinkerton?”
“She won’t—” Jest started, but Cath interrupted him.
“I am willing to risk it. There’s nothing left for me here.”
Hatta looked at Jest. “It really would have been so much simpler to just stick to the plan.”
“This couldn’t be helped,” said Jest.
“No, I suppose it couldn’t.” Rubbing his temple, Hatta once again glanced at the March Hare. “So. Which of us is coming and which of us is going?”
Haigha’s ears folded down and he sank deeper in his chair. “I went last time,” he said, his voice warbling. “And by-the-bye, weren’t you just saying you ought to go gather more hatting supplies? I mean, it isn’t that I’m afraid or anything of that sort.” He scratched his neck, looking very afraid indeed. “Just thinking of what’s best for your business, that’s what.”
Hatta scoffed and nudged a teacup toward Haigha with the bottom of his cane. “Don’t get all harried over it. I’ll go.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Time has been running short on this side of the Glass, anyhow.”
Haigha wilted with relief, though he remained half hidden beneath the table, shivering.
“What are you afraid of?” Cath asked, frowning at what little she could see of Haigha’s ears. “Haigha?”
His bloodshot eyes appeared again. He looked at Jest first, then Catherine.
“Nothing,” he spat.
Hatta stood and began gathering his coat and gloves.
“The Sisters,” said Jest. “When we came through before you were … you seemed uncomfortable around them.”
“Uncomfortable?” Hatta barked and whapped his cane on the table. Haigha was hidden entirely beneath it now. “Do they make you uncomfortable, Haigha?”
“Not exactly.” Haigha’s voice floated up through the wood. “More like they make me want to drown myself in a pool of treacle.”
“Why?” Cath glanced at Jest. “What’s wrong with them?”
Jest shook his head. “They’re a little odd, is all.”
Haigha shuddered so hard beneath the table that the teacups shook.
“A little odd?” said Hatta. “You must have crossed over on one of their good days, dear Jest. I assure you, Haigha means what he says and says what he means.” Adjusting his sleeves, Hatta fixed a smirk on Catherine.
“But what can be done to avoid them? Nothing is what.” He grabbed his cane and twirled it through the air. “Let you not say that you weren’t warned.”
CHAPTER 42
HATTA PUSHED HIS CHAIR BACK from the table and stood, adjusting his top hat. “Are you sure you’re desperate enough to come with us, Lady Pinkerton?” he said, eyeing her. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to stay here and live your days in luxury?”
She stood too, facing him over the scattered flowers and felts. “What is luxury if your life is a lie? I can never go back there. I belong with Jest now.”
Hatta’s eyelid twitched, but he turned away and approached the standing mirror Cath had once used to admire her macaron hat. He pulled it away from the shop’s wall and swiveled it on creaky wheels. The back was the same. Another looking glass in a polished wooden frame, except—
Cath stepped around the table, her fingers trailing on the backs of the mismatched chairs.
The reflection no longer showed the hat shop. It showed a glen of grasses and wildflowers and a treacle well glowing in the twilight.
“Step through, then,” said Hatta, and his tone carried a warning. “The Sisters will know how desperate you truly are.”
She glanced back at Jest, but he nodded encouragingly. There was no doubt in his expression, unlike Hatta’s, and that bolstered her. She knew this decision, once made, could never be undone. But what choice was left to her?
She had meant what she said.
She no longer belonged in Hearts.
She would never see her parents again. Or Cheshire. Or Mary Ann. She wondered if she should leave them a note explaining where she’d gone. Maybe Raven would carry it back for her. But when she tried to think of what the note would say, all her thoughts turned bitter. Angry as she was with her parents, she didn’t want that to be the last they ever heard from her. No—Hatta was a messenger who traversed between the Looking Glass regularly. When she was calm and happy in her new life, when she had saved Chess and she and Jest had their bakery … then she would send a letter to her parents and let them know she was all right.
Heartless Page 33
