Chasing Princes

by ERIN BEDFORD

  “Are you going to have him released, then?” My voice was hopeful and thankfully only had a bit of desperation in it.

  He shook his head, his blond hair swaying slightly. “No, no. I can’t do that. I don’t have that kind of power, but you do.” He pointed a finger at the mirror. “If anyone can release Cheshire from the bowels of the Bandersnatch it would be you.”

  “But how can I? I’m in the human world, remember?” I gestured to the room around me. “It’s not like I can easily get back over there. The portal to your world is closed to me, and I wouldn’t begin to know how to make a mirror active that wasn’t already that way before. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  The mirror in my room was completely smashed from when my Fae mother kidnapped Chess. I had gone to every thrift store I could find, looking for a full-length mirror that I could use to get back to the Underground, but no matter how much I tried, I could never get the mirror to activate. There had to be some kind of trick to make it a portal between worlds, I just wished I knew how.

  “Ah.” He held up a finger and then gestured off to the side to someone. “That is why I’m here.”

  A short man, with a head full of wild, peppered hair, stepped up and into the frame. His even larger ears only offset his large nose. He wore a set of goggles that he pulled down off his forehead to set over his eyes, and he squinted to get a good look at me.

  “Pat here’s talent is creating portals, he can make a portal out of anything with a reflective surface. He set up all of the mirrors in our world and made it possible for you and Chess to use them.” My father stood behind Pat letting him take up most of the mirror.

  “Nice to meet you.” I smiled at him, he kind of reminded me of Mop in a way. Though, Mop had a thick accent and was a brownie, he and Pat seemed to be kindred spirits when it came to being just down right grumpy.

  “Nice? Not really.” Pat grimaced and nodded. “But it’ll do.”

  “What will do?”

  “The mirror of course. I haven’t created a portal this small in a while, but I believe I still have what it takes to pull it off. Now, stand back and let me do my work.” He cracked his knuckles and shook his shoulders as if ramping himself up to do something big.

  “Wait! Now? You want me to come through now?” Panic filled my chest and my eyes searched around me as if there was something there that could help me.

  “Of course, silly girl. Why else do you think we are here?” Pat rolled his eyes and looked behind him. “I thought you told me she was brave?”

  “She is.” My father pressed his lips together in a frown, and then an apologetic smile crossed his face as he glanced back to me. “I’m sorry this is such short notice, but really, the sooner you are over here the better. Time is really of the essence, and we can’t wait for the Shadows to make their next move. Plus now is the best time, your mother is off visiting the UnSeelie Court, comforting the queen over her loss.”

  My heart clenched at the thought. Poor Mab, she lost her son because of me, and when she just got him back, lost him again, because of me. I wouldn’t be surprised if that woman hated my guts. I certainly deserved it.

  “Fine. I get your point,” I cut him off and held a finger up. “Just hold on a second.” I darted out of the hallway and into the living room where Alice sat munching away in front of the television. “Hey, Alice.”

  She glanced up from the TV, her hand pausing mid-bite. “Who was that?”

  “My father has found us a way back into the Underground, but we have to get going now if we want to save Chess, and get out before my mother gets back from the UnSeelie Court.” My hands moved in rapid flourish as I tried to get everything out in one breath. Taking a deep breath, I waved her over. “Are you coming?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She shook her head with a definitive movement. “There are plenty of Fae who need me here. I can’t just take off whenever I feel like it.”

  Alice was starting to make me look bad. I was supposed to be the savior, and here I was only thinking about myself and getting Chess out. I hadn’t even thought about the other Fae here in the human realm.

  While I saw her point, I really didn’t want to go alone. Plus, if I had any chance of getting Chess out, it would be with her help. She knew about the Bandersnatch more than I did.

  “But what about Hatter? Don’t you want to see him again? I’m sure he would be happy to see you, especially now with Hare and them gone.” I watched her to see if she would take the bait. One thing I had learned from my time with Alice and the Fae was if they didn’t want to do what you wanted the first time around, make it all about them, then they were more than happy to pretend like it was their idea in the first place.

  She seemed to think about it for a moment, and then without a word, rolled the bag of chips up, set them on the coffee table, and stood from the couch. Her sensible heels clicked on the floor as she walked across the room. Before she reached me, though, her dress pants and blouse were transformed into the blue and white dress I had first met her in, except less moth-eaten and stained.

  “What?” she asked when I arched a brow at her. “I can’t very well see Hatter dressed like that, he wouldn’t even know how to react.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” I held my hands up and fought the smile that threatened to creep up my face. There was definitely something going on between those two, and I was bound and determined to figure it out before we left the Underground.

  “Are you about finished?” Pat’s voice called out from the hall. “We haven’t got all day.”

  “We’re coming, hold your horses.” Coming around the corner, I stopped in front of the mirror once more, this time with Alice by my side. “We’re here. Now what.”

  Pat’s nose stuck up in the air as he looked down at us. “While you were dilly dallying, I already set up your mirror here to act as a portal from your house to my workshop.”

  “And where is that?” I craned my neck trying to see around the edges of the frame but could only see a few sets of shelves around my father and Pat’s forms.

  “In Summerville, of course, silly girl.” He fiddled with some gadget with several gears and levers, only half paying us any mind. What kind of Fae was he? He couldn’t be a Higher Fae; he wasn’t tall enough or attractive enough. Most Lower Fae tended to be animals, or like in Mop’s case, a brownie. I was about to ask, but Alice jumped in before I could.

  “But Summerville is all the way on the other side of the Seelie Court,” Alice whined, stomping her foot against the wooden floor. “How are we going to get to Cheshire in time?”

  “Well, if you want to be that way.” Pat reached up to the mirror his hand beginning to glow. “I can just take back my portal and you can just—”

  “No!” Alice and I cried out in unison.

  “I mean, no.” I cleared my throat and glared at Alice. “Thank you. Summerville will be fine.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Pat sniffed, the glow on his hand dimming as he lowered it back down.

  “All right, so…” I trailed off eyeing the mirror. “It would be difficult to just walk through it, but we could probably crawl through it on all fours or something. What do you think, Alice?”

  “I’m not getting my clothes dirty.” She crinkled her nose. “I know how often you clean these floors.”

  “Well, if someone else would help me with the chores they’d get done more often,” I said between clenched teeth.

  I swore if there was a list of the worst roommates ever, Alice would be number one, or at least in the top five. She didn’t do chores. She didn’t pick up after herself. I found chips all over the couch and floor every other day, and I was lucky my mom had given me money, or I’d have been eaten out of house and home within the next few days. With her figure, it was a wonder where it all went to, even Fae had to worry about getting fat, didn’t they?

  “You two are worse than a pair of rabid dogs. Just put the mirror on the floor.” P
at waved his hand at it, impatience littering his voice. “Then you can just step into it.”

  Alice and I looked at each other and shrugged. I grabbed the mirror off the wall and carefully placed it on the floor. Sliding my hand along the edges to activate it, I stood up as I waited for the surface to ripple.

  Standing by the frame, I gestured to Alice. “After you.”

  She took a step backward, a wary frown on her face. “It’s your portal, you go.”

  “Fine.” Taking a deep aggravated breath, I stepped into the swirling liquid. “Here we go again.”

  Chapter 5

  Portals And Gadgets

  IT WAS WEIRD going through the mirror feet first. Instead of being fully engulfed in the cool liquid, it was a slow climb that started at my toes and crawled up my legs, like I was sinking into quicksand.

  When I came out the other side, I ended up on a dusty floor in a heap of junk. My back ached and hands burned from being jabbed by random bits of metal. I turned around just in time to see Alice’s feet coming for my head. I jumped to the side, so as not to get turned into a Kat pancake but fell into another pile of junk.

  Really?

  “Uck!” Alice lifted her arms, her nose crinkled up at the dirt coating her skin. “Don’t you ever clean in here?” She shifted around in the pile, pulling out a corkscrew-like mechanism from behind her back.

  “Who has the time?” Both our heads turned to look at Pat.

  In person, Pat was even smaller than he was in the mirror. He barely reached my father’s waist, and my dad was more than a foot taller than me. Pat wore a pair of overalls that had different tools hanging on a belt wrapped around his waist and random parts stuck out of every pocket. He had his goggles up on his forehead once more as he eyed us on the floor.

  The Seelie King stood beside Pat, his hand behind his back looking as regal as any King could standing in the middle of a mountain of junk. His cream shirt fell over his muscular frame and landed just below the top of his matching pants that covered his plain shoes. Unlike the rest of the Underground, who was bound and determined to look obscene and sexual, his was more professional and inviting. Which I was thankful for honestly. If I had come in to see him in one of Chess’, or God forbid one of Jewels’ outfits, I would have needed some extensive therapy.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Pat gestured at us, breaking my train of thought. “I didn’t bring you here to take a nap on my floor. I have work to do, and so do you.”

  Easing up from the ground, my eyes scanned the room. Just like its owner, it was filled with different tools and gadgets. And mirrors. There were mirrors on every surface and wall, of every shape and size, some of them even without frames.

  “So, you make all the portals in the Underground?” I stared in awe at the amount of mirrors surrounding us. “How?”

  “What do you mean how?” he said it like it was the worst question I could have possibly asked. “How does anything magical work?”

  Was that a rhetorical question?

  “It just does.” I shrugged, answering anyways.

  “Exactly. So don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.” He sniffed and turned his back on us, going to a workstation to fiddle with a mirror he had separated into pieces.

  “Speaking of glamours.” My father stepped in. “You and…” he glanced to Alice and frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we have met.”

  “We have actually, but it was a long time ago, I’m not surprised you don’t remember.” Alice gave him a small curtsy; smiling at him with so much delight it was almost scary. “I’m Alice. Alice Liddell. Your wife had me imprisoned for your daughter’s death.”

  “Oh my, that was you?” Horror covered his face, and he took a step back in surprise. It would have been funny had we not already been in a hurry. We didn’t really have time to be rehashing old problems.

  “Is that really important right now?” I stepped up between them, breaking the weird tension that had begun to fill the room. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

  “Yes, yes. You are quite right.” He nodded, giving Alice one more cursory look before he turned to Pat. “Did you give them that thing?”

  “Thing?” Pat’s brow bunched together, and then he held a finger up and recognition filling his eyes. “Ah hah. That!” he went over to one of his shelves and dug around in a drawer.

  The shelf he was searching was one of many shelves in the room. There was a multitude of them lining the walls where there weren’t mirrors, each with some kind of gadget or a drawer full of items. Piles of glass from what could have been mirrors waiting to be put together sat on some of the shelves, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much bad luck he had acquired over his years. He had to have smashed a few of them by now since he left them lying around like that.

  After a moment or so, he turned back to us, blowing the dust off the surface of what looked like a small metal compact. “Here we are.”

  “What is it?” I took the item from him and turned it over in my hand before clicking the small metal latch, opening it up to reveal a mirror inside.

  “It’s a mirror, silly girl.” He growled, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

  “I can see that,” I snapped back, closing the top of the compact with a click. “Why are you giving it to me? I can’t exactly fit through the surface of it.” The mirror was barely bigger than the palm of my hand, and I’d be lucky if I could fit a faerie through the frame let alone a grown person.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s for communication, not transportation.” He rolled his eyes like I should have known that as he moved across the room.

  “So, then, how do I make it work?” I tapped my foot getting impatient with the way he was talking to me. If I wanted someone to talk down to me I could have stayed home with my human mother.

  “Just like anything else in the Underground. You use your magic,” my father spoke up, drawing our attention away from the grumpy Fae and to him. “This mirror will allow you to communicate to any mirror that has been activated as a portal.”

  “Really?” Alice asked, stepping close to me so she could see the compact in my hand. “Even between worlds?”

  “Wouldn’t be much good if it didn’t now, would it?” Pat snorted from his place by one of the walls where he was messing with some of the mirrors on a shelf.

  I stared down at the metal in my hand. Being able to speak between worlds could be handy, especially now that so many Fae were in the human world. I had better make sure to keep it close.

  “You can use that to call here if you get into trouble. I can create a portal so you can get back here in a snap.” Pat snapped his fingers and then narrowed his gaze. “But only if you are in trouble. Not because you are missing home or need something else petty like that. My powers aren’t parlor tricks for your amusement. Though, some seem to forget that.” His eyes slid to the king, accusation clear in his eyes.

  “As I was saying before.” My father stepped forward, ignoring Pat’s glare. “You might want to think about using a glamour. Alice might cause a couple of curious glances but you,” he pointed at my jeans and t-shirt, “You do nothing but scream human world. Plus, your mother has everyone on high alert looking for you. A full glamour wouldn’t be a bad idea about now.”

  Pursing my lips, I looked at myself in one of the many mirrors around Pat’s shop. I did kind of stick out. I thought about it for a moment, and then a slow smile crept up my face. I knew just what to do!

  As my magic swept over me, my hair shortened into a fashionable bob, the color changing from white blonde to a light strawberry. The glamour on my eyes switched from green to a robin’s egg blue and a sprinkle of freckles scattered across a newly elongated nose.

  I slid my hands down my sides, taking in the dark brown leather pants that were tucked into knee high boots. The waist of the pants had a crisscross tie that was just barely hidden beneath the edge of my avocado colored spaghetti stra
p top that hung nicely over my A cup chest.

  “Very nice indeed.” Pat nodded in appreciation, his eyes scanning up and down my figure with a weird look that made me uncomfortable.

  The look I had gone for was one I’d seen a friend from college use back in New York. The outfit was actually something Lydia had worn one night when we went to a frat party. I had always envied her small chest, and now I had the chance to try it out. Not needing a bra was a fucking fantastic relief!

  “You’re not one for being subtle are you?” Alice wrinkled her nose at me, her displeasure at my choice of outfit not even remotely hidden.

  “If I’m going to pretend to be someone else I might as well go all out.” I shrugged, an unapologetic smile on my face. “Now it’s your turn. While I like the dress, there’s no way anyone will believe you are just hanging out in the Seelie Court for no reason.”

  Frowning, Alice viewed her image in the mirror. Even though, I had just changed my own face I was still filled with awe when her hair flickered to a deep brown and her eyes became a darker shade that enveloped her pupil until it was practically nonexistent. Her cheekbones arched up higher on her face, and her lips changed from bow shaped, so top one was a bit fuller than the bottom.

  Finally, her blue tea dress was morphed into a knee length, blood red sheath dress, and her black Mary Jane’s were replaced with a low-heeled, strappy sandal. All in all, she looked good.

  “Geez, Alice. Who did you use as your inspiration?” I cocked my head to the side, looking her over. She didn’t look like anyone I had ever seen before, but the clothing was too close to that of something I had seen in the human world for her to have come up with it on her own.

  “There was this woman on the television, who wore a dress like this. I have wanted to try it ever since.” Her hands smoothed down the sides of the dress. She turned this way and that. She had a satisfied smile on her face as she admired her handy work.

  “Well, good choice.” I gave her a thumbs up, earning me a curious look in return. Turning back to Pat, I tossed the mirror back and forth between my hands. “So what now?”