The Sage licks a finger before plucking one of her stone planets from the miniature orbit circling her head. “What she has cast is more than just love. This is revenge, lad. She will own you, body and soul. You will be a tool for her, the strongest yet to wield against her enemies. The spell is nearly complete. Once the planetary convergence occurs tonight, then—”
Van Brunt, the Librarian, and I simultaneously stand up. Along with Finn, we all shout, “Convergence?”
The Sage plucks another stone from above her head, tucking it in her tote. “Well, more like align, but yes. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will form a line across the sky from twilight to sunup.”
Van Brunt thrusts his teacup out; one of the disembodied hands takes it. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning now. If it takes twelve hours to march to Cor Castle. . .”
Finn grabs hold of his hat. “Then we better move our timeline up.”
“Wait.” The Sage reaches out for the Librarian. “Sister. We must talk. Our deal.”
“Go,” the witch now known as Baba Yaga tells me.
TWELVE HOURS OF TRAVEL are cut down to eleven, simply through the sheer stamina, will, and badassery of Wonderlandian soldiers. Granted, a special poison is administered, one that helps overcome exhaustion, but still. After the Sage’s bombshell, it took the White King less than two hours to mobilize the armies, and, more importantly, the other Wonderlandian monarchs. Once we brought them to the Librarian’s tent to consult with the Sage, and she confirmed what she had told us about the Queen of Hearts, the rest were out for foreign blood.
“This is our land,” the White Queen told the others. Her whip coiled around her arm, pearly white and serpentine, was ready to strike at the slightest movement, but for the first time in our short acquaintance, she was more rational than maniacal. “These are our peoples. Wonderland has and always will choose what is best for it. To use alien magic to change the order of life is a perversion. It is a crime against nature. Our nature.”
Reasonable discussion went downhill from there, but all centered around the need to destroy Hearts. To get to her, the Wonderlandian monarchs are more than happy to mow down any and all Chosen that step into their paths—which is fine by me.
During the journey, an army of Spiders works overtime to spin as many earplugs as possible for the card soldiers and pikemen. Brom and I have no worries about the Chosen anymore. It’s only a matter of time before Wonderland brings them to their ancient knees. But the Queen of Hearts was seen with the Piper and the thirteenth Wise Woman. If Hearts is an actual witch, and she is aligned with the couple from hell, I don’t know how even an army as talented as the one I’m promised is at my back will take them down.
Even if Baba Yaga is on our side.
Talk about a mind fuck.
I’d heard stories of her, of course. The Widow Douglas and her sister told me a few, and then in college, in one of my folklore classes, I read about her. The infamous Baba Yaga was the most feared of all Russian witches. She dwelled in a house built upon chicken legs and traveled in a mortar and pestle, like it was a damn boat she could paddle through forests in. She punished those who ventured to demand favors. Occasionally, she rewarded the kindhearted and generous. She was a cannibal and a trickster, a benefactress and a grandmother. She was a boogeyman and a goddess rolled into one. She didn’t hail from a singular collection of stories—instead, her fame arose from years of people never forgetting her name and deeds.
Baba Yaga helped found the Collectors’ Society.
I still didn’t know why, and the eleven hours of travel left no time to ask questions. Each minute is devoted to revising our attack plans.
The Sage chose not to journey to Cor. Before we departed, she spit on a few more rocks and bequeathed them to Baba Yaga. “I will not beckon Death’s scythe. I watch life, not destroy it.”
When we reach the Hearts’ stronghold, the rain has lessened to a mere shower. Everyone is clammy, soaked straight through. The clatter of teeth rattles through the ranks. As we crest the hill, black and red turrets peek out of smoke and clouds. Card soldiers and pikemen from all four Courts take another dose of their poisons, ensuring their effectiveness for battle.
I’m tempted to steal a dose for myself.
The Hearts soldiers lining Cor’s battlements crowd along the carved stone pillars, ogling the thousands of soldiers flooding the path, gardens, and forests before them. This isn’t my castle, I can’t help but think. I feel no loyalty toward it, no interest in learning its secrets other than how to get to Hearts. At the main gate, pikemen ready their weapons, but the Queen’s patrolling card soldiers almost look lost as they shuffle back and forth in an effort to figure out where they ought to be.
Our troops pull away from the front to reveal the cluster of Wonderlandian monarchs. All, save the Queen of Hearts and recently deceased King of Hearts, are present.
A burly Gryphon pushes his way past his pikemen. “What is the meaning of this? Who dares invade Hearts territory?”
The Red Queen slips a shuriken from her ridiculous Elizabethan collar and flicks it toward him. The jeweled star strikes the soldier between his eyes. He crumples to the ground as she pulls out a second. “How dare this commoner speak to us in such an insolent manner.”
The Queen of Hearts’ soldiers’ unease spreads like an ugly disease, visibly hopping from one to the next. Just twenty-four hours before, the entirety of Wonderland was at war with one another. Now, all of the Courts, save their queen’s, are banded together at their gates?
Jace nudges his white stallion forward. Garbed entirely in white that somehow managed to not become transparent in the rain, his crown glints in the torchlight held by nearby soldiers. “If your loyalty remains with Wonderland—and Wonderland alone—our fight is not with you. We will give you five minutes to lay down your arms and revoke your allegiance to the sorceress, or we will cut you down where you stand.”
A young card soldier has the audacity to yell, “What sorceress do you speak of, Your Majesty?”
The Red Queen readies her shuriken, but Alice snatches it from her before it flies free. The youth darts behind a large pikeman, quivering so hard his knees knock together, just like in a cartoon.
“The Queen of Hearts,” the White Queen trills, “is no Wonderlander. She is a sorceress, come from another land, and is defiling our home and people with evil magic! She stole her crown. Wonderland did not give it to her! We will take it back, so our homeland may give it to its rightful owner!”
A deafening cheer lifts around us, crashing through the dense fog. If the Chosen didn’t know we were here yet, they do now.
“Pardon my questioning, Your Majesty,” the youth continues, hands gripped on the pikeman’s shoulders, “but isn’t the Queen of Diamonds a foreigner, too?”
I’ll give it to the kid. He’s got balls of steel.
Fury mottles the Red Queen’s delicate features. Her eyes cut to Alice. “I cannot believe I am forced to say this.”
Alice lifts both eyebrows, amused.
The Red Queen looks as if she’s swallowed a whole lemon. She shouts, “The Queen of Diamonds was rightfully chosen by Wonderland. She was prophesied. The sorceress calling herself Hearts was not.”
The youth ogles the monarchs, and then the vast army before him. He emerges from the safety of the pikeman, his sword clattering upon the wet wood of the drawbridge. “I am a proud Wonderlander. My family has lived in the Hearts lands for generations. If what you say is true, Your Majesty, we deserve our rightful queen.”
The majority follow suit, either dropping their weapons and leaving or coming to join our side, but the so-called victory is hollow. These soldiers aren’t our enemy. Hell, they’re nothing but window dressing. They’re decoys. The point is proven when hundreds of new faces take their places on the battlement and in front of the gate. Many are children, some are still youths. Their smugness showcases painful sets of rotten teeth. The rest are clearly Wonderlanders: Goats, Unicorns,
Lions, pikemen, and others, their eyes black and soulless, their weapons farming tools or kitchen utensils.
The Queen of Hearts insignia decorate each lapel.
How many Wonderlanders has Hearts corrupted?
Jace signals the for the battle horn. The moment metal touches lips it’s yanked away, though. Soldiers spill from the castle and from the sides—real combatants, card soldiers and pikemen, all black-eyed and wearing Hearts’ insignia.
Jace pulls his horse back, swearing. “She allowed the Chosen to convert her entire army.”
Our odds on the battlefield just got a whole lot lousier.
A horn blows, long and clear. A second horn trills, three notes high before jumping around. Our soldiers stuff their ears with their silken earplugs and shift into formation. Those of us readying ourselves to fight our way into Cor fit Marianne’s special communicators into our ears.
The White Queen stands in her stirrups, roses tangling in her hair. She traded her billowing gowns for white-leather breeches and coat: a glowing, insane angel of death. She holds her whip aloft as the pipers on the battlements lift their flutes to their lips. She unleashes her coil, snapping it through the air, sharp and high, just as lightning strikes the southern turret.
The heavens weep for Wonderland’s civil war. Soldiers from both sides crash into one another, swords flashing in the dim torchlight. All of the Wonderlandian monarchs surge into the fray, even the Red King, still surrounded by his guard.
No mercy is offered from either side.
Static hisses in my ear. “I will clear you a path.”
I look over at Jace and nod. He urges his horse forward, rearing up to trample a non-friendly Hearts’ pikeman. Watery red mixes into the mud on the White King’s snowy coat. His stallion sustains some damage from the pike’s spurs, but shows no signs of slowing down when Jace shoots a pink flare soaring into the sky.
A team of elite soldiers from all four Courts peels away from the fracas. Bloodshed is a tame way of describing what they do as they, the White King, and the White Queen slowly carve a passageway for Alice and me. Brom, the A.D., and Baba Yaga, whom I don’t know if I can ever just call the Librarian again, are close behind. The rest of the Society team is on and around the battlefield. Marianne and Mary are manning computers set up in a small tent not too far away; Victor is providing coverage for their safety. He may be one eye down, but I still trust him over just about anyone to take out targets when it counts.
After I shoot a pikeman, I peer up into the sky. There are too many angry, murky clouds to see the planets lined up. We weren’t able to pick out any during the journey, and it set Baba Yaga’s teeth on edge. She kept muttering, “I should have known.”
The thing is, there’s a spell on me that comes into effect during the convergence. Does Victor? More importantly, we know that the Piper called his followers to Koppenberg for the convergence, but why? What did—does—he and the thirteenth Wise Woman have planned?
There are too many variables to leave me feeling easy about any of this. What if the so-called wall breaks?
Alice kicks back a card soldier, her daggers dripping the blood of her enemy in the rain. Grymsdyke scuttles back on her shoulder, fresh from his latest kill. I push on the button in my right ear. “It’s taking too long.”
“The Hearts’ soldiers are clustered at the front,” Jace snaps. In the distance, I watch as he tears his hand away from his ear in order to slam the vorpal blade straight through a man’s skull. A pair of men, dressed in identical White uniforms, move completely in sync as they take down six soldiers. “We are presented with a living wall. Be patient. We will get you through, Your Majesty.”
Alice catches my attention, but loses it just as quickly when I shoot a pikeman charging her.
Bodies pile up before we make our way to the gate. Entering isn’t any easier. Junior pipers mingle with Hearts soldiers, and our elite team is halved by the time we gain the upper hand.
“I will hold the hall,” Jace tells us. “Hurry.” And then, to Alice, “Stay safe.”
She presses her fist against her heart. “Stay safe.”
Half of the team, including the twin assassins Alice tells me are the Tweedles, follows Alice, Brom, Baba Yaga, and me as we weave through the corridors. Both Alice and I did our best to memorize the route to the dungeons during the journey here, and it pays off when we find the stairs leading into Cor’s bowels with no difficulty.
Alice warned us that the cells would be filled, and her instincts were spot on. The stench alone nearly drives me back up the stairs. After the Tweedles and Grymsdyke take out the few guards at the entrance with hardly any exertion, the A.D. nicks a ring of keys off one of the deceased men’s belts. Broken men and women wail and scream from behind the bars, undoubtedly begging us to let them out. But when the A.D. moves to the first cell, Alice pulls him back.
She taps on her earpiece. “We do not know if any are Chosen.”
I don’t hear his response, but I can imagine it wasn’t pretty. I refocus him, telling him to get the drone ready. He crouches down and removes the small plane from his backpack, along with a video monitoring system.
It only takes a minute or two to get the drone in the air. Many of the prisoners press their faces against the bars, terror gripping the already frightened. None of our Wonderlandian soldiers pay the technology any attention, though. The Tweedles spend their time standing perfectly still, as if they are wax figures. The A.D. sends the drone down the hallway and around the bend, sticking close to the ceiling. Marianne reworked it to be quiet, undetectable by human ears. If Hearts has some other kinds of guards down here, though, maybe Dogs or something. . .
I crowd the thief as I peer down at the screen. So far, only darkness and the faint orange blur of occasional torches appear. But after the drone creeps around another corner, we find what we’re looking for: a dozen pikemen and a pair of pipers standing before a closed door, their blank stares made even eerier by their black eyes.
“This is only the entrance,” Alice says. “There could be more—many more—beyond the doorway.”
“Some doors open to other doors,” Grymsdyke says unhelpfully.
I take inventory of the two-dozen soldiers still with us. They’ve got to be beat after what it took just to get this far, even though the stimulant poison must still be coursing through their system.
Alice touches my arm. “We have to finish this before the last planet shifts into place.”
None of Marianne’s computers knew exactly when that would be, as she didn’t load any astronomy programs ahead of time. The Sage mentioned something about dawn, but it’s anyone’s guess right now.
We reload our guns and clips and check our weapons. The soldiers take another small shot of the poison after the A.D. fills them in on the dozen soldiers. The Tweedles knock their heads together. As I’m loading my holsters, Baba Yaga pulls Alice to the side, which is unnecessary, as all our earpieces are linked.
“Do you remember what you agreed to?”
What agreement?
Alice shoves a pair of daggers into her boots. “Yes.”
But Baba Yaga blocks her from rejoining us. “Do not be persuaded by Abraham’s sentimentality, if it comes to that. Is that clear?”
I don’t have to be a lip reader to know that my dad is pissed at that comment. Baba Yaga heads over to where he is. She says for all of us to hear, “I must break my promise now.”
His large hands engulf her small ones, tan skin covering tawny. She is so tiny next to him, a dwarf to his giant. When he speaks, none of us can hear, as he doesn’t activate his earpiece. She reaches for his face, and he has to stoop. They hug, and it’s a real one, a friendly one, and I’m taken back to years of watching Katrina and the Librarian hugging. They were such good friends. The best kind. And now she’s hugging another good friend, and we don’t know what the hell is about to happen tonight. By morning, we could all be dead. The world as we know it could be over.
Baba Yaga
wipes her eyes when she pulls away. She crouches, legs tucked beneath her, and pulls out a mortar and a pestle. Several items from her pockets are added to the worn, stone bowl. She grinds as she chants, occasionally spitting into the mixture. Shadows crawl down the walls, shrouding the already gloomy dungeon. She dips the pestle into the bowl and touches her tongue to it. A burst of blackness blinds me and, when it clears, the woman I met on my first day in the Institute is no longer with us. In her place is an elderly woman, stooped and gray-haired, her face heavily lined and her nose sharp as a beak. Narrowed, wicked eyes laser in on all of us as she sweeps the room.
My skin crawls as her magic pulses from every pour.
The real Baba Yaga has joined our party.
If any of the others have a comment, I don’t hear it. For once, the A.D. is tactful enough to not blast his shitty opinions out on full volume. None of the Wonderlandian soldiers even blink, but then, they’re probably used to seeing bizarre shit all the time anyway.
Baba Yaga tucks her mortar and pestle into a bag tied to her waist. She taps on her earpiece. “It’s time.”
Brom nods, slipping a rifle into a holster on his back. The A.D. sends the drone back down the hallways. Once we find nothing changed, Brom signals the soldiers. He tells his assistant, “Stay here.”
The A.D. reaches up to tap on his earpiece, his face screwed up like he wants to argue, but, faster than the blink of an eye, Baba Yaga darts over to where he is and shoves him down into a chair I’m not so sure was there just a few seconds before. One of those terrifying disembodied hands materializes with the drone scanner.
Chances are, the thief just crapped his pants. Maybe I did, too.
I keep my gun out. Alice has her blade. We follow the soldiers down the hallway, Brom and Baba Yaga bringing up the rear. The skirmish with the guards and pipers is bloody and brutal, but thankfully quick. I have to give it to the Tweedles—they’re damn effective. And I particularly appreciate the piper’s frustration when their music does nothing to anyone in our party.
The Lost Codex Page 32
