Wanton Wonderland

by Eva Chase

  The second chime sounded a minute later. Lyssa had instructed the jabberwock well. It didn’t even wait for a signal from me, just leapt into the air with a flap of its new artificial wings. I could have sworn from the glimpse of its face I got as it shot a quick look toward the city that it was grinning.

  The cool wind warbled against the taut material of the wings and licked over my clothes. My fingers tightened around the feathers along the creature’s shoulders as we rose up toward the sky. The lights of the city and the palace up ahead fell away beneath us. My pulse raced, but as much from exhilaration as nerves.

  This was… actually pretty amazing.

  The jabberwock soared forward, its body hitching slightly with each flap. After the first couple minutes, I adjusted to the rhythm enough to release my death grip on its feathery shoulders.

  We left the city behind, making straight for the glittering lanterns that dotted the royal gardens. Lights glowed from several of the palace windows and along the parapet over its main door. I could already make out dozens of guards patrolling the grounds, as aware as we were that the deadline was fast approaching.

  Beneath me, Lyssa would be making her way up the road with Theo and Chess and a handful of other Spades. Dum was leading the rest of our force, including Doria, through the forest, stealing the guards’ tactic from this morning. Lyssa would present herself supposedly for surrender but would demand to see that her loved ones were still alive before she came through the gate.

  I wouldn’t be able to hear any of that conversation, as far up as we needed to stay to avoid the lights catching on the jabberwock’s form, but the moment the three Otherlanders stepped out of the palace, we’d have to move in an instant.

  The road between the city and the palace was so shadowed I couldn’t even track Lyssa’s progress that way. The jabberwock wheeled high above the palace, its wings holding steady as Theo had promised. What did it make of this, deep in that strange monster brain of its?

  “Good work,” I said, giving its neck an encouraging rub like I might have a horse. Then more lights flared on below around the gate.

  As we circled back that way, figures darted between the gate and the palace. The lights along the wall glinted starkly in Lyssa’s white blond hair where she stood on the road just outside. My lungs constricted. If they laid one harsh hand on my lover, my queen…

  The main doors to the palace were opening. This was our moment. I leaned forward, peering down as the jabberwock swept in a tighter circle.

  The Knave strode out, flicking a hand over the striped fur of his face. Several guards joined him, the three Otherlanders held between them. They strode forward and halted where Lyssa would have been able to make them out from the now-open gate, but not close enough that she could have hoped to reach them.

  They weren’t prepared for me.

  “Now!” I said with a nudge of my fingers.

  The jabberwock dove. The wind shrieked past my ears and whisked away my hat, but I didn’t have time to miss it. We were hurtling toward the ground, so fast I left my stomach behind. For an instant I thought we might smash right into the hedges.

  The jabberwock banked at the last second. Its feet slammed into the ground just a foot from the nearest Otherlander, crushing at least one guard under it, kicking others to the side, spewing a burst of flame at a couple more.

  “Here, here,” I shouted, grasping the older woman’s elbow, the younger’s wrist, heaving them and the man onto the jabberwock’s back and fastening the straps around them so quickly my arms ached with the effort. The man almost fell when the jabberwock lurched around to belch more fire at the Knave, but I snapped the buckle in place just in time.

  “Go!” I cried, tapping the creature’s shoulders. As it shoved off the ground, a shriek rang out above us. My head jerked up.

  The Queen had come out onto the parapet over the palace’s front door. Her face blanched white with rage at the sight of her bargaining chips being swept away from her.

  Seeing her, it occurred to me with a thump of my pulse that I could end this right now. My hand darted to the straps holding my legs.

  The jabberwock knew where to go with its precious cargo. As it soared upward, I could spring from its back onto the parapet, stab the Queen of Hearts through the heart she barely knew how to use with one of the hatpins up my sleeve, like I had the old Knave before, and there’d be no one to stand between Lyssa and her throne. The guards she must have nearby would kill me for it in turn, but wouldn’t that sacrifice be worth it?

  Except I couldn’t guarantee killing the Queen would stop the guards swarming the gardens, not in the crucial early moments when the most blood would be shed anyway. I couldn’t even guarantee that I’d land my leap in time and close enough to end the Queen’s life before her guards took mine.

  And I promised Lyssa I’d see her again, after.

  Get the hell out of there, she’d said. We’ll handle the rest. I’d had her back, and now she had mine, like Chess had said. Lyssa had her own plan, a plan that didn’t involve my death if she could help it, and that was the plan she’d want me to follow.

  She’d want me to trust her that she could bring down the Queen without me throwing my life away. She’d want me to be by her side when the battle was over.

  Damn it, I wanted that too. I wanted to be there to worry about Doria and banter with Chess and love my rising queen.

  My hand stilled on the strap. The jabberwock soared up, past the palace, into the night sky. A pang filled my chest, but I welcomed the sensation, the strange sense of having lost and gained something at the same time.

  Perhaps this was what love was meant to be, really. Not holding the one you loved back from the fray or throwing yourself in front of them, but facing it together, side by side, with all the faith you had.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lyssa

  The jabberwock’s bright feathers flashed against the night, lit up by the palace’s lanterns. The smoke of its fiery attack tainted the thick scent of the garden’s roses. As the creature rose up, Hatter’s form showed as a dark silhouette between its crafted wings with three figures clinging on just behind him.

  That was all I needed to see. I yanked my sword from its scabbard and swung it toward the gate.

  “Now!”

  The Spades and Clubbers who’d been gathering behind the treed slope beside the road broke from that shelter and rushed down to join me with a volley of cries. I charged ahead toward the gate with Theo and Chess at my side. The guards who’d eased it open so I could see the Knave’s hostages leapt forward to shove it closed again, but I slashed out with my sword before they’d heaved it more than a couple of steps.

  The blade’s power thrummed through the air and smacked into the gate and the guards. The door careened open, the men in their pleated uniforms toppling in its wake. I barreled onward with the thumping of hundreds of determined feet behind me—and the burbling moan of the other jabberwocks I’d summoned, now loping over from where they’d been waiting by the city.

  The guards from all across the palace grounds raced to meet us. I stopped with a hitch of breath and thrust my scepter out in front of me. My gaze caught dozens of glazed eyes and blank faces beneath those helms. I focused on them, on the need to wash away the Hearts’ horrible influence.

  “I am the Red Queen,” I called out with all the force of my lungs. “The guardian and ruler of Wonderland. I dismiss every order you’ve been given from the tyrant who stole my throne. May your heads clear and your minds go free. Get yourselves away from here, to the ends of the garden, to as much safety as you can find!”

  A pulse of energy rolled off the scepter. The ruddy glow flowed over the horde of guards descending on us. Within the space of a breath, many of them stumbled and lurched to the side. They wavered on their feet for a second before my last command sunk in. Their heart-shaped helms tumbled off their heads as they dashed out of the fray.

  When we’d discussed this plan earlier, Theo h
ad suggested that I could ask the pearl-headed guards to fight for me instead of the false queen who’d made them. Maybe that would have made this battle a little easier. But most of those people had never asked to serve the Queen of Hearts; had given their lives to her cruelty only to be battered with blades all over again. I wasn’t going to use them the same callous way she had.

  I did not intend to build my reign on a foundation of suffering.

  I shoved my scepter back into its bag and tightened my grip on my sword as I hurried onward. The city people who’d joined our cause flooded into the gardens around me, everyone with some kind of weapon in their hands. The Spades wove along the edges of the crowd, tossing smoke bombs and skitter cubes to disorient the guards that were closing in. The jabberwocks dove into the mass of uniformed figures with slashes of their claws and gnashing teeth.

  Theo, Chess, and Dum moved to flank me as we pushed down the center of the path. Some of the guards skirted the wider fray to come down the middle of it at us. I knocked them back with the power of my sword. Dum sprang ahead to kick the ones who’d toppled to the side with his elastic legs. Theo and Chess fended off the few who sprang closer, Theo with the sword he’d found for himself and Chess with his fists flashing in and out of sight.

  Despite the cool night air, sweat was trickling down my back by the time the palace doors came into sight through the chaos. I readied my sword and fixed my gaze on the dozen or so guards assembled in front of the entrance.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m just here to take back what was stolen from my family. Go, and I won’t have to go through you.”

  The furor of the battle and the powers they’d already seen me demonstrate must have finally overcome their fear of the Queen of Hearts. Half of them scattered. The others charged at us, weapons drawn. I propelled them backward with a slice of my blade. Its power rattled the hinges and sent the door bursting open.

  Theo stepped into the lead, pointing the way with his sword. “This hall will get us to the Queen’s chambers fastest,” he said. The rest of us hustled after him, leaving the worst of the fray behind.

  We dashed down the hall, dispatching a few more guards who rushed at us along the way. Theo gestured us up a staircase.

  Just as we reached the top, the Knave marched out to meet us. His tiger lips were curled in a sneer that showed his vicious teeth, and he was shoving Dee in front of him, his dagger pressed against the young man’s throat.

  The once-cheerful twin’s red hair lay lank on his head. His face sported a black eye and a split lip. Whether the Queen had ever planned to keep up her end of the bargain or had decided their deal was forfeit when the Spades had escaped the tunnels, I didn’t know, but it looked like he’d spent the last two days in the dungeons.

  “There are no jabberwocks to swoop down in here,” the Knave snarled, looking at Dum. “How much is your brother worth to you?”

  He hadn’t even gotten his final words out when Dum was springing at him with all the force of his sprightly legs. Theo gave a shout of warning, too late. Another guard had been waiting in the shadows. He leapt out in front of the Knave and stabbed his sword into Dum’s gut.

  A cry broke from my lips. As Dum’s body slumped on the floor, the pool of blood spreading beneath his belly stark red against the mauve carpet, more guards threw themselves at us. And Dee threw himself against the Knave’s hold.

  He slammed his fist, driven by his springy arm, into the Knave’s hand. The dagger still raked across his throat, drawing a gush of blood, but the wound wasn’t deep enough to stop Dee. The Knave stumbled backward, and Dee hurtled toward his brother, pummeling every guard in the way.

  “No,” he rasped out. “Brother, stay with me, dammit.” The last word came out with a choked sob. He gripped his brother’s shoulders, but Dum’s head only lolled against the ground.

  My heart wrenched. Dum had loved his brother so much, even after that traitorous turn. He’d given up everything for him after all.

  With my teeth gritted, I lashed out at the rest of the guards. The sword’s magic slammed them back into the wall. Theo flung himself ahead of me, his face tight with anguish, his sword singing in the air. He rammed it straight into the Knave’s heart.

  The Knave barely managed to spit out one last gasp of a snarl before his body crumpled. Theo yanked out his sword, looking no more satisfied for the kill. The Prince of Hearts wasn’t one for revenge. But nothing we did was going to bring back the young man he’d promised to protect from childhood.

  We didn’t even have a moment to grieve the loss. Every minute that passed before I ended this war, more of my people were dying out there while the guards fought on.

  I had to get to the Queen.

  We left Dee hunched over his brother’s body and hustled down the hall. I knew we were almost at the Queen’s quarters when the rose smell thickened again. Theo’s shoulders stiffened, but his steps didn’t falter.

  “Out of the way!” I shouted when the door came into view up ahead, more guards clustered around it. “I’d rather go around you than through you. It’s your choice.”

  I brandished my sword. A few of the guard’s expressions wavered, and they broke from the bunch. The others braced themselves, knuckles whitening where they clutched their weapons. My stomach clenched, but my resolve didn’t shake. I swung the sword’s sharp magic into them.

  The door flew open, the guards doubling over around it, the ones who’d been right in front tumbling through. Chess darted ahead to shove and yank them out of my path. More guards charged toward us as we hurried through the interconnected rooms with all their ornate furniture and paintings, but I dispatched them with a few swipes of my sword. The thump of my pulse filled my body.

  I was here. I was so close I could feel it, taste it. This was the palace I should have grown up in, the home that had always belonged to me even while I struggled to find my place in the Otherland, not knowing Wonderland even existed.

  Chess battered through one more squad of guards, blinking invisible and then visible again when they’d fallen. We strode through one last doorway, and I found myself face to face with the Queen of Hearts.

  I’d never seen her this close before. She perched on a throne carved from the same red-brown cherry wood as the staff of the scepter at my back, but fitted with the gold plates Theo had mentioned to me, as if she’d bound the royal seat itself. Magic rippled through the air around her, stirring the copper coils of her hair and the ruffles of her expansive pink dress. Her eyes sparked with their eerie sheen.

  But now, for the first time, I noticed the lines around those eyes that make-up couldn’t completely conceal. The veins that stood out on her hands where they clutched the arms of the throne.

  She’d held onto her illegitimate rule for a long time. And now that time was over.

  “Don’t take one more step!” she snapped at us as I stepped forward. My feet halted. Theo tipped his head. I reached to my belt to press the switch on the device my Inventor had made just for me, to set off the chain reaction he’d planned before he’d even known if he’d make it out of this palace alive or if I’d make it back to Wonderland.

  A sharp hiss cut through the air, and the gold plates burst from the sides and back of the throne. The Queen screeched, lunging forward, and the seat seemed to wallop her at the same time. She staggered rather than flying at us and fell to her knees.

  I was already sprinting forward. I bounded right over her and dropped onto the throne. As if drawn by the power humming through the wood, one of my hands rose to set the sword against the right arm and the other reached to place the scepter against the left.

  The rubies blazed on those artifacts, all across my armored vest, and on the ring beneath it too, if I was going by the blast of heat that washed over my chest. In that instant, I felt all of Wonderland stretching out around me through the base of the throne. I saw the train streaking around the Checkerboard Plains and heard the breeze whispering through the Topsy Turvy wood, smelled the s
cones baking in the city and tasted the salt of the sea. The sensations soaked into my skin and quivered around me with a wash of warmth that made me gasp with joy.

  I was home. I was exactly where I belonged, in a way I’d never experienced before this moment.

  With all those impressions colliding around and inside me, I could hardly focus on what was happening right in front of me in the room. The Queen of Hearts threw herself to her feet and spun on me with a screech. But before she could lunge at me, Theo caught her, clamping her elbows to her sides with his strong arms.

  “No, Mother,” he said, his voice low and firm. “It’s over. The time of the Hearts is done. This rule was never meant to be ours at all.”

  He glanced at Chess, who lifted the crown from the former queen’s head. Chess flashed a brief grin at me. “I think we’ll find or make a new one for our rightful queen.”

  “No,” the Queen of Hearts protested, squirming against Theo’s hold. “It was mine. This was all mine.” But the power that had once reverberated through her had faded the moment I’d claimed my throne. Even the sheen in her eyes had faded, leaving them an ordinary light brown.

  Theo sat his mother back on the ground, keeping one hand on her shoulder to restrain her, and fished a web of dark strands from the pouch he’d been carrying. Chess knelt down to hold her still as Theo set the contraption over the Queen of Hearts’ head. He caught my eye, and I lifted my scepter again, ready for when he gave the cue.

  He pressed a button at the base of the web, and a faint hum carried through the room. “Mother,” he said, his voice even softer now. “I want you to forget all the reasons you think you have to hate and fear. Forget your greed for the throne.”

  “Let it all go,” I murmured, my throat tight and my fingers gripping the scepter’s staff. “Let it fade away.”

  The scepter’s glow spread out to mingle with the device’s hum. The sound rose, the air vibrating against my skin. Theo stared down at his mother, his eyes worried but his expression determined.