by Eva Chase
There was only one way out of this mess. And it was the way I wanted to go anyway.
One of the movers let out a shout as I dashed past him toward the open back of the truck. My legs swayed, but adrenaline carried me up the ramp and into the dark interior. Tables, chairs, and bookcases were tightly packed all around me.
A prickling pull ran over my skin and down into my chest, tugging me forward. Around a stack of boxes. Over a bedframe.
There. The mirror’s glossy surface glinted faintly near the back of the truck. I gasped in relief—and heard the thump of car doors slamming outside.
No time to think. No time for doubt. I leapt at the mirror with arms outstretched.
With a hitch of my lungs, it yanked me through its cool surface and sucked me down.
Chapter Three
Chess
A person could move across the city of Wonderland far above the streets simply enough with the right companions. I was plenty spry on my feet, and Dum could jump from one side of an intersection to another without breaking a sweat. Here and there, Dee would vault me over with his springy arms, and I’d attach a rope for him to swing across on.
We mostly stuck to the middle of the roofs, away from any eyes on the roads below. Our destination, the Tower, gleamed silver against the sky up ahead. We didn’t need any maps or signs to figure out where to go. Every time we had to cross to a new block of buildings, we scanned the street for members of the Hearts’ Guard first. Their scarlet helms made them easy to pick out even amid the revelers dancing on the sidewalks.
I tugged the scarf wrapped across my lower face tighter at the sight of a heap of roses on the pavement. The palace workers had been coming through the city every morning tossing fresh blooms here and there throughout the city. Their cloying scent prickled faintly through the fabric even this far up. Down there, it seeped around door frames and down chimneys. The Clubbers couldn’t escape it.
And so the whole city had become a vast version of Caterpillar’s Club.
The thump of bass and a tinkling of strings carried from one of the speakers on the corners as we hurried on across the next roof. My steps fell into the beat of their own accord. The epic dance party going on all through the city would have been a welcome celebration if it’d been happening because those people wanted to party and not because the Queen was pulling out all the stops to keep them distracted and sedated.
At the club, at least we’d been able to choose whether we went and how long we danced, even if that choice had sometimes felt inevitable.
“It just never wears off, does it?” Dee said through his own scarf with a muffled laugh, peering over the edge. “That guy there fell asleep right in the middle of the street! Never tell a Wonderlander it’s time to go to bed, right?”
He winked at me, but his cheer sounded a tad forced. The last couple weeks had been a strain on us all.
“I guess it’d be too much to wish for a blight on all the roses in the land,” Dum muttered. His demeanor hadn’t changed much in recent times, but then, he’d always been more on the gloomy side.
“Oh, she’d cook up some other way to screw us over.” Dee shook his head. “Whatever I might say about the Queen of Hearts, she is resourceful.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s already lost her head,” I said, matching his light-hearted tone. “A pity that isn’t the case.”
Dum snorted. “In every way that makes things worse for us, she has. I wonder—”
He stopped himself with a furtive glance my way. I suspected I knew what he’d been thinking of. Or rather, who. Grinning fiercely behind my scarf, more for myself than anyone else, I leapt from one set of slanted yellow singles to another of mint-green tiles veering in the opposite direction.
I wondered too. What had happened to Lyssa after she’d disappeared into the Hearts’ palace those weeks ago? How long had she lived before the Queen had tired of the game of questioning her and—?
No, I wouldn’t think about that part.
Mostly I wondered what Wonderland would look like right now if our lovely Otherlander had been sitting on that palace’s throne. The thought stuck with me like an ache in my bones, easily forgotten if I was focused on other things, but always there if my mind wandered.
If we’d fought a little harder— If I’d gotten to her faster in the fray—
“Chess!” Dum called, as loud as he dared, and I realized the twins had gotten quite the lead on me. I picked up my pace to catch up.
The silver spire of the Tower loomed over us. We stopped on top of the building across the street from it and considered the challenges ahead.
Two guards were stationed directly outside the Tower door. The roses pinned to the collars of their pleated uniforms contained some sort of antidote to the drug the others were laced with, so that they could keep their wits, such as any of them had, while keeping an eye on the city.
A couple more guards with similar blooms beneath their chins marched by as we watched, but after a minute they passed out of view amid the dancers around the corner. I tipped my head toward the twins.
“Ready?”
“Piece of cake,” Dee announced, and tied a rope around a jutting weather vane so he and his brother could scramble down into the alley on the other side of the building. I fixed one of my ropes to the random railing at the Tower side. I couldn’t drop it yet, or the guards might notice it. For now, I reached toward the in-between space where I could move without being seen. The music below dulled.
The twins had to work fast once they hit the ground. Roses scattered the streets here too, more than our scarves could hope to protect us from for long up close. With a faint thump, they set their feet on the wall and skidded down one right after the other. Then they dashed through the scattered revelers toward the Tower.
Dee aimed a punch at one shop window. Dum aimed a kick at another. The guards shouted, and the twins took off—in opposite directions. The guards charged after them, giving me my opening.
I tossed the rope and threw myself after it, only gripping it to slow my fall. The second my feet touched the ground, I sprang toward the Tower. The music and the aimless chatter farther down the street completely muted the sound of my steps. The guards hollered somewhere farther off, and I hoped the twins made it to the Spades waiting for them before the toxins in the air took over. All I could concentrate on right now was in and up.
I slipped past the Tower door—by the lands, let none of the Clubbers catch its brief swing—and hurtled into the elevator shaft.
“Twenty-seventh floor, Chess coming calling. The White Knight gives his blessing,” I said quickly.
The cushion of air propelled me upward. Thank the lands the White Knight had thought to include that failsafe for his closest associates so we could still access his apartment if he wasn’t in it.
Although, how close to him could I really say I’d been, current revelations taken into account?
The whisper of the elevator door closing behind me was so familiar, the gleam of the pale walls on the other side so familiar, I could almost have believed I’d find him sitting behind his big white desk in that big white room. But the White Knight’s office stood empty, as did the rest of his apartment.
Would he ever come back here? I’d thought I’d seen a true joy in his expression when he’d fit the pieces of one gadget or another together to make it something real, but maybe that had all been pretense, like so much else.
For now, we needed those gadgets. He’d had a few days in here planning for our next efforts after Time had been freed—he’d talked about preparing equipment. Let’s hope he’d prepared something that we could benefit from in our present time of need.
I started with the built-in shelves along the walls, picking up various devices and eyeballing them to determine whether they were finished or only works in progress. Ah, here was that extendable metal rope and the spinning cutting tool he’d put great use to on the Checkerboard Plains. I stuffed those into the sack
slung over my shoulder and moved on.
The drawers in the worktables offered up a few more goodies. One held a contraption in the shape of a gun that he’d assembled before, during the freeze. It could melt metal in a matter of minutes. Here was the funnel that could throw one’s voice up, down, or around corners. Here some treads that could be fixed to our shoes to allow us to climb almost any surface.
None of it was exactly what I’d come for, though. But then, his most useful inventions were also the ones that would have looked too suspicious if left easily accessible. Where would he have hidden those away?
I poked around his desk feeling for secret compartments, but none revealed themselves. Perhaps not in his office at all? I prowled farther into the apartment.
I’d been in the more private areas of the White Knight’s home plenty of times. When a woman at the club or in the park had particularly caught my fancy, unless I’d already had company with me I was pleased to share with, I’d generally brought her over here to “meet” the Inventor. More often than not, if he was in, he’d been game. Those might have been the only times he’d indulged himself in that side of life in general. I’d never seen him making moves on anyone on his own, although who knew how various private meetings with the other Spades might have ended, without me there to witness?
He’d been discrete, and he hadn’t pursued anything continuous. Until Lyssa. How much had he already known, before the Red Knight had even laid out the Hearts’ torrid history? He must have known something, mustn’t he?
Because he wasn’t really the White Knight or the Inventor. He was Jack, Prince of Hearts.
Even now, trying to connect the man I’d known as the White Knight to the boy I’d caught glimpses of around the palace, I couldn’t quite make the pieces fit. But I hadn’t ever seen more than occasional glimpses of Prince Jack, after all. The Queen had kept her youngest son apart from the Diamonds’ leisure activities as if he were her most prized possession. Actually, not just as if. He had been. I’d seen the way the sheen in her eyes would almost glow when she so much as mentioned his name.
She’s fucking obsessed with that kid, I’d murmured to the Duchess once. The Duchess had laughed and not argued even a little.
I definitely didn’t want to think about either of those women. I narrowed my attention down to the task at hand, rifling through the White Knight’s closets and wardrobes and cabinets, checking under the sofas and the bed. My mind did enjoy a good wander, though. Thankfully it managed to wander in a more useful direction this time. I stepped back into the hall, and my gaze came to rest on the door to the games room.
The White Knight would want to hide incriminating inventions somewhere no one would think to look for the instruments of rebellion. Like in a room devoted to play.
I didn’t go much for Inventor-style games, so I hadn’t spent much time in that space. I nudged open the door and considered the gray shelving units that lined one wall. The other three walls were the same blank white as in his office. All the better to not intrude on the fantasy challenges the gaming gear could invoke.
Any of the tools lying on those shelves could call up a host of translucent images at a touch. The White Knight had once told me that the White Knight before him had said this space had once been more of a training room to help people learn new skills. The younger Spades had come up with systems of ranking and points that I didn’t know much about. But…
These egg-shaped devices tucked away on the back of one shelf looked familiar. I picked one up and sniffed it. Yes, that was the burnt smell of singe powder, all right. These were the White Knight’s smoke bombs, which had served us well on more than one mission. I’d take all of those, thank you very much.
If any of the Queen’s people had come sniffing around here themselves, he could have explained it away as part of one of the games. Very clever.
I scanned the other shelves and pocketed a few more things, my stomach starting to sink until I crouched down by the far end of the room. A real grin leapt to my face. I picked up the heavy cloth the White Knight had wrapped across his face on our mission into the palace grounds last month.
He’d said it was to filter out the smell of the roses. As far as I knew, Prince Jack hadn’t been allergic, so this might not serve our purpose after all, but it was worth a try.
There were two more of the masks folded just behind the one I’d spotted. That was a start. With a flash of victory in my chest, I dropped them into the sack with the rest of my loot.
I hurried back to the office. Leaving would be much easier than entering had been, since as soon as I was out, I could just run, and the guards wouldn’t know where I’d gone. But someone might decide to come up and check on the apartment, and it wouldn’t do to be caught here. The Knave had ways of making the elevator do his bidding, proper commands or no.
Stopping there by the elevator door, my momentary good mood deflated. I’d stood right here with Lyssa when I’d first brought her to meet the White Knight. I’d taken her to him. It’d been Hatter’s suggestion, yes, but I’d gone along with it without a second thought…
How much of this catastrophe was my fault for not looking harder, not paying more attention? For having spent all those years visiting the palace lolling around and thinking only of self-satisfaction, not bothering to think much about anyone who might matter later?
How much were a few masks and other tools going to change anything now? She was gone. The lovely woman whose smile had lit me up inside was—
I gritted my teeth and brought back the fierce grin that had steadied me on the rooftop. Maybe this expedition would get us nowhere. Maybe it’d been pointless. But whatever had happened to Lyssa, she hadn’t let us down, not one bit. I wouldn’t let her down either. We’d fight until we couldn’t anymore. That was the only path I cared to follow now.
Chapter Four
Lyssa
My body spun through the vast shifting tunnel that would spit me out into Wonderland, and I clutched the tote bag with my metal vest tight to my chest. The fall was long enough for a few pangs of guilt to find me—what would Mom and Melody think, with me fleeing the hospital and then somehow disappearing on the moving truck? How were they going to cope, not knowing what the hell had happened to me?
I’d come back. When things in Wonderland were settled and safe, when I knew I wasn’t leaving everyone there in the lurch, I could hop back through the mirror and clean up the mess I’d left behind as well as I could.
Right now I had to be ready for the mess that might be waiting on Wonderland’s side. I dragged in a deep breath and braced myself for the smack of the pond’s salty water.
The cool liquid shot over me, and like every time before, I found myself abruptly floating upward rather than tumbling down. The muted light playing across the shifting surface above me suggested it was daytime. Harder to hide.
I spread one arm to slow my ascent and kicked toward the edge of the pond so I’d be close to the shelter of the vegetation when I emerged. The strain trembled through my weakened muscles.
Fucking truck. Fucking Wonderland mirror that had decided to drop me in the middle of the highway just because I hadn’t pictured a place to arrive. Maybe a little of the Queen of Hearts’ hostility had rubbed off on it.
I managed to reach the dark rocks with their glittering specks of mica before my lungs demanded air now. As quietly as I could, I lifted my head from the water and sucked in the tang of salt and ferns.
A figure was moving through the brush along the other side of the pond. I froze, gripping the gritty-slick side of the rock. A flash of a red helm showed between the fern fronds. It eased away farther away from the bank, out of view. I didn’t see any other guards around at the moment. This might be the best chance I got.
Clenching my jaw against the protests of my limbs, I hauled myself out of the water with as careful a balance between haste and quiet as possible. After a few stumbling steps, the ferns had closed around me. I sank down on the damp soil and ga
ve myself a moment to rest and take stock.
The vest would do me a lot more good on me rather than in this bag. I squeezed as much water as I could out of my drenched T-shirt and pulled the flexible armored bodice over my head. It was a bit of a struggle working my arm through with the brace around my wrist. I considered the padded gray fabric for a moment and decided I’d risk removing it. It would make me stand out more as someone not of this world than even the armor would, and I might need that extra bit of mobility.
I eased the brace off and tucked it into Melody’s tote bag. That bag might draw attention too… After a moment’s indecision, I hid it under a fallen frond.
Tentatively, I crept through the densely clustered ferns. The fronds tickled over my bare arms. My feet only made a faint murmur on the ground between them. I kept my ears perked and my body tensed to run if I had to.
Hopefully I wouldn’t have to. I wasn’t sure how far these legs would carry me.
Maybe I was being over-cautious. If Theo had gotten through to his mother, that guard might have been ambling around waiting to see if I’d appear so he could help me back to the city. But after everything I’d seen of the Queen of Hearts and her court, I didn’t want to take any chances.
The ferns gave way to the forest of trees with jade and emerald-brilliant leaves. As I slunk on, a rustling reached my ears from up ahead. I stopped, gripping a nearby branch, every nerve on high alert.
A pale figure moved into view between the trees. I stiffened when I recognized her.
It was Mirabel, the woman the Spades had called the White Queen. She was wearing one of her typical woolly white dresses, but the fabric had grayed, patchy with smudges of dirt and other stains. Her golden curls spilled over her shoulders in disarray, only a few coils still pinned on top of her head. The curls almost hid the dark pink ridge of the scar that peaked from her hairline at her temple.
