by Eva Chase
“We have the three masks. I want us going out in shifts and bringing two or three people back to the caves each time. We’ll set up another camp where they can rest while the drug leaves their system. And then they can decide whether they want to stay with us and fight for their freedom, or head back into that stupor again.”
Mallo frowned where she’d come up by the twins. “If they go back up, they might tell the guards where we’ve taken shelter.”
“I think we’ve got to take that chance,” I said. “We’ve got to believe in the people of Wonderland. The Queen has shown how far she’s willing to go. Once they’re here, and they see how much safer they are than they were up there… I think it’ll turn out we have a lot more allies than we did before.”
Chapter Eleven
Chess
I’d had conflicted feelings about using my ability to disappear in the past, but only when it was for self-serving reasons. Prowling around the walls to the palace gardens, watching the guards’ eyes slip right over my invisible form, I got nothing but satisfaction.
The knowledge of how my special powers could be of use was why I’d gone to Hatter, out of everyone, when I’d needed shelter and security after my torture at the Duchess’s hand. It was why I’d asked him to introduce me to the White Knight when I was sure my head was going to stay on my shoulders, and why I’d put myself at the disposal of the leader of the Spades ever since. The Queen of Hearts and the people who carried out her will had been a poison in Wonderland long before she’d sent her guards to strew drugged roses in the city streets. In this one way, I could provide a bit of help no one else could.
It was the least and the most I could do.
There hadn’t been much activity in the gardens earlier this morning, but as I passed the west gate, the whir of what sounded like an air trolley caught my ears through the muffled atmosphere of the in-between. It came from farther along, by the north gate. I hustled along the grassy hill, glancing toward the wall to see if I could catch any glimpse of the vehicle from my slightly elevated position.
Its hunched, plated roof, like the silvered shell of an immense beetle, glinted beyond the hedges. I reached the road that stretched out from the gate just as the iron-barred door swung open. The air trolley hissed out, hovering half a foot over the ground, bits of dirt flying up in its wake.
The things could hold about fifty people if they packed in tight. This one today held maybe thirty. Several of them stood by the openings that let in the air between the silver posts, all in the uniforms of the Hearts’ Guard. The others, sitting on the benches, wore garish Clubber clothes, their eyes pinkish and expressions vague enough to convince me they were still at least a little drugged.
My gaze stopped on a figure just straightening up near the back of the trolley, which the guards had otherwise kept clear. I’d never talked to Carpenter, but I recognized him from his rounded gut encased in those canvas overalls, his jowly face partly hidden by a grizzled brown beard. A chill whispered over my skin.
What was he doing with this crowd? And why were they heading along the road that led to the sea?
My mind was quick enough to put together the obvious answer, but the rest of me balked at accepting it. Carpenter had been looking at something at the back of the trolley. I couldn’t make out what from here. That might be proof in one direction or the other.
I set off after the trolley, speeding from a jog to a lope to a sprint. I wasn’t as fast on my feet as Hatter, but I could cover ground in a good amount of time when I needed to—and the trolleys didn’t move all that fast anyway.
I caught up with it still in sight of the palace. Carpenter had gone to sit on a bench just behind the city folk. I pushed myself a little faster to come up beside the trolley, and then slowed to gracefully catch a bar at the back. With a hop, I swung myself onto the step at the back of the trolley without more than a slight hitch to the vehicle’s constant hiss. No one looked my way.
A salty, watery, near-rotten odor reached my nose before I’d even leaned over the back wall. I braced myself.
Between the back benches lay heaps of a ridged greenish-black material. Empty oyster casings, heaped on top of one another. At least enough for every Clubber on that trolley, I’d estimate.
My stomach turned over. That was the proof I’d expected but hoped to find false. I leapt off the back of the trolley before it could carry me any farther from home and watched it whir off toward the Oyster Cove, my legs unwilling to move.
The Queen was turning all her captured city folk into pearl-heads. Fresh as possible, I guessed—their heads to be severed moments before they were shoved into those casings and cast into the workings at the sea bottom. Would the new dull heads grow faster that way? I didn’t know enough about the process to have any idea.
Possibly the Queen didn’t either. Possibly it was simply easier to have the bodies she’d collected walk to their doom. She wouldn’t want to parade those heads, the heads of citizens who’d done nothing wrong but happen to be in the guards’ path at an unfortunate time, through the streets, putting her clearest villainy on display for all to shudder at.
What was she pearling all those people for? I couldn’t think of any purpose that sat remotely well with me.
My stomach still churning, I forced myself to turn and head back toward the city. Lyssa and Theo—and all the rest of the Spades—needed to know about this development.
As I reached the edge of the city, I pulled my mask up over my face against the stink of doctored roses. I was meant to wait for the Spades who were attempting to usher a few of the city folk down to the caves by the exit we’d decided on, in case they needed assistance. Freeing them from the Queen’s influence in dribs and drabs might not make much of a difference to the larger battle, but I couldn’t blame Lyssa for wanting to try. Especially after I’d seen what was happening to their neighbors.
Music warbled around me, punctuated by giggles and sighs. I stuck to the smaller streets and alleys where the Clubber crowd wasn’t generally drifting as much as I could. Even invisible, dodging those swaying, dazed bodies wasn’t much fun. When I had the chance, I ducked into a shop the owner had abandoned and grabbed what food I could to bring back for our stores along the River Down.
I reached the crimson-and-blue rear end of the candy shop that had a hidden trap door in its basement just as a similarly masked figure came into view down the back alley. Doria was urging along a couple of young women who didn’t look much older than she was—friends from the days when we could enjoy Caterpillar’s Club at least a little, I suspected.
“I want to go back to the music!” one of them said in a slurred voice. “I wasn’t done dancing, Doria.”
“Mmm. I just want to lie down a moment,” the other mumbled.
“There’s lots of room to lie down where we’re going,” Doria said. She had her chin high, but even through her face mask, I could hear the waver that had crept into her voice. It was one thing to see the Clubbers in their constantly high state from the sidelines and another to try to reason with people you’d really known face-to-face. “And there’s more room to dance over here. Don’t you hate constantly bumping into people? Let’s mix things up.”
The first woman made a disgruntled sound, but she didn’t appear to have the motivation to put up more of an argument. I eased back beside the building and drew myself into being fully present, the sounds sharpening and shapes steadying around me. Then I stepped out to greet them.
“This way, this way,” I said with a grin, motioning them to the shop’s back door with an entertainer’s air. Might as well make the trip seem as appealing as possible while I could. “An exclusive lounge only for the most select patrons. Let’s keep it hush hush so it stays limited to our special guests.”
“Oooh,” the second woman said, her eyes going overly round. “This does sound cool. How did you get in, Doria?”
Hatter’s daughter shot me a grateful look. “You just have to know the right people,” she
said. “So aren’t you lucky you know me?”
They were, more than they knew. Doria led them through the door and down to the basement. One of the other Spades would be waiting below in the caves to help take the Clubbers the rest of the way. Doria must have decided her part of that job was done, because she poked her head out a minute later.
“Should I stick around up here?” she asked. “Do you need me for anything else?”
Did I need her? The question sounded so bizarre that I didn’t immediately know how to answer it. What did any of this work have to do with my needs?
She meant whether I thought there was any other way she could pitch in with the mission Lyssa had sent us on, of course. As I considered, Kip ducked into the alley, nudging along a middle-aged man who appeared already half-asleep. Kip’s face looked pinched.
“I had two,” he said under his breath as he reached us. “But a bunch of guards barged into the street while I was convincing the other—I think they’re taking more people now, just over there.” He jerked his head back the way he’d come, and a dazed sound of protest filtered to us at the same time.
Doria stiffened. “Should we do something?” she asked. She glanced not at Kip but at me. He did too.
I blinked at them, and it struck me like a bucketful of water in the face. Oh. She had been looking for actual orders—from me. It made an odd sort of sense, now that I’d cottoned on. They’d seen me at our true queen’s side regularly from the moment they’d learned of Lyssa’s heritage. I’d stepped up as well as I could when we’d been gathering everyone in the caves. Now the other Spades took me for one of the leaders of this rebellion.
The thought provoked much the same emotions as a dosing of water might: a discomfort at being out of my element twined with a weird sort of thrill in the new sensation.
Was I a leader? I’d never meant to be, never thought to be. I’d served as one of the White Knight’s tools, and that had been plenty involvement for me.
I supposed I’d better contemplate this unexpected turn later. Right now, two of my comrades were looking to me for an answer, and I had to come up with one quick.
What would the White Knight have said? What would Lyssa want us to do? Those two guiding impulses merged into a course of action that sent a nervous quiver through me even as I felt the rightness of it.
“Send him down quickly,” I said to Kip. “Then we’ll scout out the street. If we see an opportunity to put the guards off, we will, but no jumping in if we’re too outnumbered.”
The two of them nodded as if they’d been following commands from me all along. Kip hurried his Clubber into the basement, and then the three of us set off in the direction the shout had carried from.
We stopped in the shadows at the end of the alley. The urge prickled over me to slip back into the in-between, out of view, but the awareness that my companions were looking to me for guidance kept me in place. I wasn’t sure how much I liked the weight that responsibility came with, but I’d taken it at least for now, so I’d better own it.
Eight—no, nine—guards were weaving through the scattered crowd of revelers on the wide street ahead of us. A few Clubbers already paced in the back of the cart parked near the corner. My hands balled as I watched the guards grab a couple more, not too old or too young and in reasonably good health, like we’d observed before.
I couldn’t see any way we could intervene that would help anyone, though. They had three times our numbers, and given the compliant way the Clubbers were going along with them, I suspected the city folk would push back against us before they’d turn on the guards. The drug hadn’t made them any braver.
Hatter would never forgive me if I led Doria into a skirmish with the odds so far against us.
“I don’t think we’re in a position to stop them,” I murmured. “But watch everything they do. It may be useful in defending against them later.”
The other two nodded as if I’d offered words of great wisdom. I followed my own instructions, noting the construction of the vehicle, the way the guards moved among the Clubbers. In a matter of minutes, they’d herded several more onto the cart and jumped up themselves to move on.
“Let’s go!” one shouted to the last of the helmed figures, who was still in the crowd.
“I’ve got one more,” he called back, tugging a woman with him. At the sight of her oval face with its billow of red hair, my heart stopped. Doria flinched beside me. She grasped my arm.
“We can’t just let them take her,” she said.
“Wait,” I said, holding her back. Was there a way to dislodge her without this scene turning into a bloodbath? I hesitated, trying to see it, willing my mind to narrow to tactics and logistics the way Theo’s might have. My head started to ache, and the guard had already reached the cart. My lips parted as he hauled the woman up, but I had no useful words to speak.
And then they were rattling away, the remaining Clubbers swaying with the pulse of the music on as if they’d never been disturbed.
“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying. “There wasn’t any— I couldn’t tell—”
“We’ll get them back,” Kip said. “When we’re ready.”
Whenever that would be. I swallowed hard. “Let’s return to the camp,” I said. “We’ve got a lot to report.”
We trudged back to the candy shop and through the trap door into the caves. The sentry standing guard there nodded to us as we passed by. With each step toward camp, my feet grew heavier. Doria rubbed her mouth, unusually quiet.
I hadn’t been quite the leader they’d wanted just now, had I?
The twins were the first people I saw when we reached the alcove. My legs stalled as they looked up from the devices Theo must have set them assembling. The former White Knight himself emerged from one of the cabins a moment later. Lyssa came just behind him, holding her ruby-marked sword. Despite the bad news I was bringing, my heart still leapt at the sight of her, so sure of herself now in the role that was meant for her.
She would lead us right. I trusted in her if not myself.
“I know why they’re rounding up the Clubbers,” I made myself say. The words tried to stick in my throat. I turned my gaze toward the twins. “And we’ve got even more reason to stop them as soon as we can. We just saw—They’ve taken your mother.”
Dum’s face grayed. Dee stared at me for a second. Then he swore and dashed the instrument he’d been working on to the ground as he leapt to his feet. He stalked off toward the cabins, but stayed within hearing.
Lyssa’s lips slanted into a frown. “Tell us everything.”
Chapter Twelve
Lyssa
We walked nearly as far as the oddly shaped hills I’d passed when Hatter had taken me out to the Topsy Turvy Woods what felt like years ago. Theo stopped at the edge of a small clearing surrounded by the vibrant trees and nodded, finally declaring the spot safe enough for the training I was meant to do. Like when I’d run from Hatter’s home, I had the ruby-marked scepter in a bag slung over my shoulder and the sword in my hand.
The weapon’s weight didn’t drag on my arm the way I remembered it doing before. My fingers seemed to fit around it perfectly. But before we started this training, I needed to address a different weight that had filled my stomach since Chess had arrived back from his patrol. I hadn’t wanted to ask these questions in front of Dee and Dum.
“Why wasn’t she with us—with the Spades?” I asked. “The twins’ mother, I mean. She asked you to look after them from when they were kids… She obviously trusted you and believed in the cause.”
Theo grimaced. Before he could answer, Chess piped up where he’d leaned against a nearby tree. “She sent Dee and Dum to the White Knight because she was afraid of the Queen. Saving them was the most important thing. Saving herself, of lesser importance. I heard her say once that if she ran with the Spades and was identified as a rebel, the Queen’s wrath might come down on all of them. Better for her to play along and not draw any additional possible ire.”
And now she’d been drawn right into the palace—to be made into one of those dim “pearl-heads”? I hugged myself with one arm across my gut, my sword hand dipping. The blade brushed the grass.
“You don’t have any idea how quickly the Queen is sending people out to the cove or what she’s using them for after?”
Chess shook his head. “It takes at least a few days, normally, for the pearling to finish. She can’t have been gathering people from the city for very long, or we’d have noticed sooner.”
“No doubt we’ll find out her aims soon enough,” Theo said grimly. He tipped his head to me. “Which is all the more reason to help you find the full extent of your powers.”
“The artifacts’ powers, you mean,” I couldn’t help saying.
One corner of his mouth twitched upward. “They don’t work for me. That sword burned my hand trying to get away from the wrong wielder. It’s your power feeding them.”
“So far that power hasn’t done much more than light up the rubies,” I muttered. I’d spent an afternoon practicing sword strokes and trying to figure out what to do with the scepter after we’d first retrieved them, with the Red Knight who’d served my however-many-greats grandmother guiding me, and hadn’t gotten anywhere. The Red Knight who’d since fallen under a guard’s sword, protecting me when I couldn’t protect him—or even myself.
But as those doubts started to rise up inside me, a sense of iron conviction pushed back against them. I was Lyssa, the heir to the Red Queen. I was the Red Queen, now that anyone else who might have claimed that title was gone. This sword felt right in my hand because it was, by all rights, mine. So was the scepter, and the armored vest I wore, and the ring hanging from its chain around my neck that glowed with my blood in proof of my heritage.
