by Eva Chase
A sudden burst of heat against my chest made me bite my lip. The ring was burning against my skin again. I tore my gaze away from the island, and the sensation faded. The second I looked toward it again, a fresh spot of heat seared my skin.
I’d been sure the wave-like hill was important, but how could I argue with the ring’s reaction? The train was already whirring off the bridge and away. If we were going to investigate, we had to go now.
“There’s something by that river,” I said quickly, pushing out of my seat. “We have to get off.”
Chess leapt to his feet immediately. On the other side of the aisle, the twins glanced at Theo. When he motioned them up, we all hustled to the car’s door. This quest might have been my idea, but some of our companions still saw their White Knight as the leader. That was fine by me. I knew I wasn’t exactly an expert on anything Wonderland.
“No hesitating; just jump!” Chess said, and did exactly that an instant later. Doria sprang after him. I took a deep breath and threw myself toward the tall grass.
My momentum slowed as I left the train behind, as if my body were moving from one plane of reality to another. I landed amid the grass with only a faint jolt through my knees. Four more thumps followed me.
“Where to from here, lovely?” Chess asked.
I motioned toward the far end of the square. “There was an island in the middle of the river, pretty far down. The ring reacted when I was looking at it, so I think that’s where we need to go.”
We fell into step in a loose procession, walking to the bank of the river and then along it. The ground turned moist and sticky beneath our feet, and the cattails at the edge of the water whispered against each other’s fur. Within a few minutes, I was wishing I’d brought boots as well as my sneakers.
“Still finding the adventure fun?” Hatter asked Chess from where the two of them had ended up side by side just behind me.
“It’s certainly a place full of fascinating sounds,” Chess said brightly, with a squelch of his foot into a patch of mud.
The humid air was congealing against my skin. I rubbed the dampness from my arms. “I really hope this ring knows what it’s talking about,” I said. “This isn’t—”
I set my foot down in a shallow silty dip in front of me, and the ground gave way completely.
My body plunged into thick cool muck. I snapped my mouth shut a second before the oozing dirt could have filled it. Then my head was under too, a slimy pressure against my face, my feet still sinking down and down as if I’d fallen into an endless sinkhole. Which maybe I had, it occurred to me with a spark of panic. Or maybe there was something worse than mud waiting for me down here. This was Wonderland, after all.
My arms had shot up as the ground had swallowed me. I groped at the mud around me, searching for something to hold on to, to pull me back up. A prickling burn spread through my lungs as they begged for air.
It might not matter how deep this hole was or what else lurked in it. I might be dead before I had to find out.
My arms flailed again—and my hand connected with something firm. Fingers closed around my palm. I gripped on as tightly as I could, and my rescuer heaved me upward with a sharp yank. My body traveled up through the wet earth with much more resistance than it’d plummeted. But at least I was going up now.
I swept my other hand through the muck and managed to grab hold of my rescuer’s wrist. With another lurch, my head broke through the surface of the sinkhole. I spat and sputtered, clutching Hatter’s muddy sleeve for dear life.
He was totally drenched in mud, from his spiky blond hair to his dress shoes. Only his hat, which appeared to have fallen to the side as he’d dived after me, remained untouched. As he hauled me the rest of the way out, Chess shifted to the side, his own arms tacky with dirt up to his elbows. The imprint of his fingers remained around Hatter’s ankles.
They’d both dived after me, one and then the other. The swift and the strong. A good thing, too, or Hatter and I would both have been lost.
“Are you all right?” Theo said, hovering over us. His expression was taut with concern.
I spat out a little more mud. Hatter produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face on one side of it, leaving it nearly as muddy as the rest of him. He offered the untouched side to me. I took it gratefully, swiping at the worst of the grit. The mud had saturated my clothes—my hair felt leaden with it—ugh.
But it was hard to mind that too much when a minute ago I hadn’t been sure I’d survive to see this minute.
“I’m okay,” I said with a shaky breath, and then my arms threw themselves around Hatter of their own accord. I hugged him tight, not really caring that the collar of his jacket was getting my face muddier again.
“I suppose we’d better steer clear of the clear spots,” he said in a dry voice, but he hugged me to him just as tightly.
I let go of him to grab Chess in a similar embrace. Chess chuckled and pressed a kiss to my forehead despite my current dirt-infused state. “No more taking side adventures without inviting us along first,” he teased.
“Sounds good to me,” I muttered.
Theo touched his hand to my head as if he needed that contact to be sure I really was all right. Then he strode ahead, giving the silty dip a wide berth.
“I’ll take lead from here on,” he said. “And everyone, hold on to this. I intend to make it back to the city with exactly the same number of people we started with.”
He passed the end of his stretchy rope to me as I scrambled to my feet, and I passed it back down the line, keeping one hand loosely around it. Walking along in a rope chain felt very kindergarten, but I’d take that over drowning in mud any day, thank you.
My drenched clothes shifted against my body as I started walking. So gross. At least the mud shouldn’t have had much time to seep into my bag. And maybe I could clean off my current outfit—and my hair—when we had to swim to the island.
By the time the river widened, the mud caked on me had dried into a crust that cracked and flaked off in bits of dust with every step. At least the sun baking down on us had warmed me up.
We treaded carefully through the thick grass right up to the bank. The cattails had thinned. We had a clear view of the island, floating there like a massive treed barge. It had to be twenty feet across and at least ten times as long.
The ruby ring burned beneath my shirt as if to say, “Good job; here we are!” I stepped forward to dip my foot into the water, deciding I’d rather walk in squishy shoes than take off my sneakers and expose my bare feet to whatever was down there, but Theo held out his arm to block me.
“It’s surrounded by razorweed,” he said, pointing. When I squinted, I made out dark sinuous lines wriggling just beneath the surface of the water all along the island’s rocky shoreline.
“Razorweed?” I asked. Just from the name, I was going to assume that wasn’t good.
“It can slice straight through bone,” Dum said with a shudder. “I’ve never seen it myself before, but I know a man who lost all the fingers on one hand to a clump of it.”
“Okay,” I said. “So swimming isn’t a great idea. How do we get over there? Whatever we’re looking for is definitely on that island.” According to the ring scalding my breastbone, anyway.
Dee cocked his head. “It’s not that big a leap,” he said. “I can toss you all over easily enough, then stand guard here. I don’t know how you’ll get back, though.”
A smile crossed Theo’s face for the first time since we’d set out. “I can handle things from there.”
Dee planted himself on the edge of the river and intertwined his fingers to turn his joined arms into a sort of slingshot. “Shout if you see hide or hair of anyone,” Dum told him, and his brother nodded before launching him into the air. Dum soared in a neat arc and landed at the foot of the island’s nearest tree.
One by one, Dee propelled the rest of us over. I had to swallow a yelp as I careened through the air, but I managed to brac
e myself for a good landing, and Theo caught my arm before I could even wobble.
Closer to the island’s edge, a faint sound reached my ears from the water, like hundreds of teeth gnashing. It rose and fell in time with the slithering of the razorweed. I shuddered and turned to peer between the trees.
Nothing stood out, but the ring blazed against my skin even hotter. Restraining a wince and watching the ground carefully, I set off into the pocket of forest.
Tall spindly shrubs had sprouted up around the trees. I brushed past one, and its round leaves twitched toward me, all of them opening to reveal human-looking eyes. Dozens of eyes, staring at me. A thinner leaf parted with the swipe of a tongue.
I nearly bit my own tongue. Holy shit, that was disturbing.
“They won’t hurt you,” Theo said. “I’d imagine they function like a scarecrow—designed to make you think twice about continuing.”
Yeah, I could see how that could work. Even Doria looked a bit green around the gills taking in those plants.
I pushed on, clambering over a fallen log and dodging another sinkhole dip. A few steps later, I emerged in the midst of a thick ring of those staring shrubs. They surrounded a pool of water that was only seven or eight feet across but so deep I couldn’t make out the bottom.
I had just enough time to register that, and then the staring shrubs started to shriek.
All around the pool, they leaned their unblinking eyes toward me and vibrated their leafy mouths with a sound that perforated eardrums. I clapped my hands over my ears, my nerves scattering. But while I stood there frozen, the shrubs didn’t move, didn’t do anything other than stare and shriek.
Like scarecrows, like Theo had said. Trying to frighten me off by giving the impression they were a threat when really there was nothing they could do.
The ring lay against my chest like a molten ball. This was where I was meant to be. I scanned the water for any sign of razorweed and stepped into the shallows by the edge.
The water swirled around my legs, cool but not unpleasantly so. Theo, Chess, and Hatter moved to follow me. Chess made a face as he sank in up to his knees. “By the lands, I do hate getting wet.”
The comment struck me as so fitting for a man who could turn into a cat that the tension inside me cracked with a laugh. “Really?” I said. “How strange.”
He grinned at me sharply as if he thought I might need reminding that his secret was meant to stay secret.
Hatter shook his head at both of us. “I should be the one complaining. I’ve got the nicest clothes here, and they’re getting ruined twice over.” He pulled his hat more securely down on his head.
“Wash them off, then,” I said. A tugging sensation ran through my chest as I stared into the pond’s depths. “I think I need to go down again. At least the coming back up should be easier here.”
“Are you sure you want to be the one to do this?” Theo asked.
My gut clenched, but I nodded. I wasn’t sure whatever lay down there would release itself to anyone without the ring, and the thought of handing the ring over made every particle in my body balk.
It was mine. It had lit up for me.
Theo didn’t argue. “Then, in case the coming back up isn’t so easy…” He handed one end of his rope to me. “Tie it around your waist. I’ll hold onto the other end. Give it a hard tug if you need help swimming back up.”
“Thank you.” I tied the jointed rope and tested it to make sure it was secure. Then, dragging in enough air to fill my lungs, I jumped from the shallows into the dark center of the pool.
The water coursed over my dress and hair as I plunged down. When I slowed, I jerked my head and shoulders downward, pulling myself deeper with my arms. There was nothing around me but a haze of murky water, the debris so thick I couldn’t see more than a foot in any direction.
Where was the bottom? I kicked and swept my arms again and again, my lungs starting to ache with fresh strain. Then my reaching fingers grazed a powdery surface.
I dragged my hands across the floor of the pond, and my other hand snagged on a hard edge. Even in the cool water, the ruby flared hot where it was floating beneath my shirt. A ruddy light glanced off the murk.
I curled my fingers around the edge of the object and yanked. Whatever it was held and then popped free. Wrapping my arms around the thing I’d retrieved, I righted myself and pushed off the bottom back toward the surface.
The guys were waiting to tug me back into shallower ground. I gasped, refilling my lungs, and held up the thing I’d unearthed to see it.
My lips parted. The shrubs around the pool kept up their shrieking, but I could barely hear it, and not just because my ears were full of water.
I was holding a piece of armor, like a fancy version of a chainmail vest. Strands of a shimmering dark gray metal wove together to form a garment that would have covered me from shoulders to stomach. They bent beneath my testing fingers, but those pliant fibers felt as hard as steel at the same time.
A crescent of rubies glinted across the chest, just above the swell that would accommodate my breasts. This was armor meant specifically for a woman.
“Wow,” I said, but even as the word slipped out, my awe started to dim.
I’d found one of the artifacts the ruby responded to. It was beautiful and impressively made. But a piece of armor wasn’t going to defeat a tyrant queen.
Chapter Nine
Chess
One of the upsides of traveling through wilderness with the Inventor was getting to sleep in a tent that was really more like a tiny cabin. Somehow our White Knight had been carrying the entire structure I’d just woken up in folded inside his pack along with food and other supplies. The twins had each carried one as well.
The panes of wood-like material that made up the walls were thick enough that no light penetrated them, not that there was much light out there anyway in this square of night. Only the crackle of a fire and the sizzle of what smelled like sausages told me and my stomach that it was morning.
One of the downsides of this trip was the variety of terrain we’d already had to deal with, and how much of it was wet. I really shouldn’t have complained about stepping into the pool to my thighs. We’d had to outright swim across the awful river to get back to Dee, after the White Knight had cut away a swath of razorweed to clear a safe path with a whirling blade he’d also constructed himself.
I had the urge to shake myself just thinking about it, even though I was perfectly dry beneath my blanket. Perfectly dry and much hungrier than I was still sleepy. I kicked off the blanket and emerged from the cabin-tent-whatever I’d shared with the Hatter.
Lyssa was just emerging from the “girls” cabin where she and Doria had slept. The others were already sitting around the firepit we’d made by the light of the moon, the shining orb which appeared to have slid to one side of the sky and was now yoyoing its way back to the other.
Lyssa’s hair shone like moonlight come to earth. When she’d rubbed the rest of the mud out of her pale waves during our swim, the dirt had taken most of the dye with it. She’d have to cover her head when we returned to the city, but I couldn’t say I was sorry to see it back to its normal state. It was best when people looked like themselves.
Dum was the one cooking the sausages. Hatter was cutting a few apples into slices with swift flicks of a paring knife. “I’m sure your skills are up to more than that,” I said with a grin as I sat down beside him. “Trim out a rosette or a bird like you adorn your many hats.”
“If we were going to wear them rather than eat them, maybe I would,” Hatter retorted.
Theo passed around halves of rolls toasted over fire, and then Dum the sausages and Hatter the apples. It was as satisfying a breakfast as I’d ever been able to count on. As I licked the mingled grease and apple tartness from my fingers, Lyssa shifted forward on the rock she was using as a seat.
“What do you think is our best route from here?” she asked. Her gaze traveled around the whole circle, but
it stopped on the White Knight. He had shown he knew more about this place than the rest of us did. “We could keep walking across the Plains to head directly to that hill I saw, or we could go back to the train and keep going around.”
“The Knave might have caught whatever train comes by next,” Dum said. “Soon as we left the first one, we gave up the lead.”
“But he doesn’t know that,” Dee said. He chuckled. “Let him chase all around the tracks thinking he’s just behind us.”
The White Knight slid the frying pan—which also folded, somehow or other—into one of the packs. “Dum raises a valid concern. It will take longer to reach the other end of the Plains on foot, but there’s no way for the Knave or his guards to determine where or even if we got off the train. The question is whether we’re safer facing him or dealing with the potential dangers the Checkerboard might present.”
“Sinkholes and some weeds?” Doria said. “We handled those. I want to see what else this place can throw at us. I vote for walking.”
“Of course you do,” Hatter said, but he didn’t look upset about it. I imagined he’d prefer to keep his daughter as far away from the Knave as possible, no matter what the rest of the Plains might have in store. He sighed and leaned back on his hands. “I’d say we walk too. We’ll have more control over our route, more flexibility about how we deal with any problems we run into. Unless you know of some danger up ahead that we wouldn’t want to face, White Knight?”
The last question came with a bit of bite, the way Hatter often talked to the leader of the Spades these days. Which side of him was more the real Hatter? This one who prickled at the White Knight’s presence or the one who’d used to laugh with him and egg him on when I’d first stumbled into their rebellion?
“Nothing I’m aware of,” the White Knight said. “But we should still stay on guard. Wonderland may be stretching itself a bit after so long in stasis.”
“I’m happy to go by whatever way will take us to the place we’re wanting to go,” I said.
