They tell us their story. “After we were separated,” Mary rasps, “we got shoved into a locked room filled with card soldiers. People were terrified. They were screaming, there was so much blood . . . We tried to fight our way out, but it was impossible. We couldn’t even hold onto our weapons—there was no way to hold onto one in such a crush. It was hard enough to even stay on our feet.”
When she swallows, Finn takes over. “They had these weird oversized squirt guns that hosed us all down. I don’t remember anything after that. Do you?”
Mary shakes her head, but only a little. Victor takes her hand and kisses her knuckles. “This SleepMist sounds like a handy thing to have. Think about what it would have been like when you guys were in that attic. How quickly they could have subdued Todd and Rosemary had they only had such a weapon. If we could get a sample,” Mary says thoughtfully, “I can try to synthesize it back in Victor’s lab. It could be quite handy to have on assignments.”
“I’ve already asked, love,” Victor says. “I knew you would want some, so one of the Ferzes has promised us a fair amount to take with us. It’s already stowed in my bag and awaiting your analysis.”
You would have thought he’d given her diamonds by the look on her face. But then it darkens and she asks, “Have you been taking the protocol?”
Victor’s face goes blank and then sheepish.
Protocol?
“Dammit, you haven’t, have you!” She’s livid. “Why not?”
“I was—”
Finn says, just as angrily as Mary, “Jesus, Victor! What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking,” his brother snaps, “about you two and how you were abducted. I was thinking about how there are people out there who want Alice’s head. I was also thinking about the bloody people in this camp who need my medical help!”
“Tell me you at least took your pills.” Livid is too kind a word to describe Mary right now. Incensed is more like it.
Victor’s saved when the tent flap pulls back. Ferz Epona peeks her head in. “Your Majesty, the White King is requesting permission to come and verify on his guests’ health.”
I frown. “He ought to be sleeping.”
“An hour’s sleep is often all that we get for days, my lady. Today is no different. He is keen to begin preparations for the journey to recover your crown, as he knows that time is limited to your and your colleagues.”
Nonetheless, I’m concerned. “Very well. Inform His Majesty that we await his presence.”
The Ferz bows and leaves the tent. Two pages appear in his place toting folding chairs alongside two sturdy ones. Once all the chairs have been arranged, the pages help move Mary and Finn into the wooden seats so that they will not need to take the meeting lying down. I’m pleased when Finn attempts to reject their help, because it’s obvious his strength is rapidly returning. The cots are pushed to the side just in time for the flap to reopen. Both Ferzes come in clutching maps, as do the Nightrider and Sir Halwyn. On their heels is the White King.
He asks, “Is there anything we can provide you while you are recuperating?”
Mary’s eyes go wide in appreciation as she takes him in. I don’t blame him—outside of Finn, he is easily the most beautiful man I’ve laid eyes upon. “Well, well,” she murmurs.
“Tequila,” Victor mutters in response.
Mary hisses at him to shut up, but the King isn’t offended in the least. I make the proper introductions before we get down to business.
“Where is my crown?” I ask.
“In a vault hidden below the house in the tulgey woods.”
The muscle in my chest jackrabbits when he tells me this. That was our house, our secret we shared with only a select group of trusted allies, one that we would escape to together.
It was the perfect place to store my crown, even though it will hurt like hell to go there.
“How far are these tulgey woods?” Finn’s innocent question has the King’s eyes falling away from mine. There’s a burning curiosity there as he takes in Finn, one I think only I can see, but it sends my already exacerbated pulse close to exploding my veins wide open.
“If we leave in the morning and are unbothered in our travels, we ought to reach it shortly before the next dawn.” Ferz Eponi holds up a map. “The only problem is that the Red King’s forces lie in that direction.”
I let out a long sigh, which makes the White King crack a small smile.
“He is still just a ridiculous,” he tells me. “Possibly even more so. The last I saw of him, he was wearing a bandersnatch hat. Claimed he wrestled it with his own bare hands and skinned it alive. Like that is even possible. When was the last time he even had to lift a fork, let alone strangle a bandersnatch?”
The idea that the Red King could do anything with his own bare hands is ludicrous. He would never dare to get his hands metaphorically or physically dirty. That man always has his minions carrying out his wishes while he sits back, reveling and preening in comfortable non-accountability.
“Is the King’s Council still convening?”
“We have had two meetings since your departure, both under the cloak of secrecy. It will come as no surprise that Hearts is still sniveling and terrified of voicing the wrong thing in front of his counterpart, and that Red feels as if he’s in charge of all the land.”
“Has he directly attacked you, though?”
“He knows better than that. His forces, however, did attack the Red Queen’s a month prior.”
I nearly fly out of my seat.
“What?”
“The Red Court has fully splintered—they have taken to different castles and have separated the army. It is the goal of both to drive the other into submission.”
“Why didn’t you
tell
me?”
“Because,” the King says quietly, “you asked of me two favors, and those took precedence.”
Frustration builds so strongly within my chest that my chair clatters to the side when I abruptly stand up. I am livid. Absolutely livid. I was forced to yield my throne and for what? For Wonderland’s Courts to become even more divided? The Whites are not speaking. The Reds are at war with one another. Half of the Hearts is weak out of fear. The Diamond is solitary and now abandoned. I gave everything up, and this is how I am repaid? I nearly tear my hair out in rage as I push my way out of the room.
I wish the Caterpillar was here.
I wish—
“Alice, wait.”
It’s not the White King that says this, though. It’s Finn.
He’s standing. Walking, albeit slowly, but he’s upright, and he’s followed me out of the room. “Talk to me.”
I do not know if it’s in me to do so. I am mute in my desolation.
Finn glances back at the flap behind us. “Let’s take a walk.” He sees the incredulity on my face, so he clarifies, “I need to stretch my legs. Come with me?”
I slip my arm through his.
Outside of the tent, the sun drifts perilously close to the horizon. Purpled golden clouds float below inky skies, and the trees and toadstools around us erupt in the ancient wailing of hidden nightsingers. Nocturnal flowers awaken, and their chattering carries over the hum of soldiers gathering around fires.
A perimeter of avian bowmen exists in the trees surrounding the furthermost outskirts of the clearing, so I know we’re in no danger from straying into the first ring of silver-barked trees. The air is cool, but it does nothing to dampen the bleakness crawling through my veins.
“I imagine it must be really frustrating for you to be back and feel both connected and disconnected all at the same time.”
I watch how Finn trails his fingers across the dew decorating a large red and white mushroom cap. “Be careful. Some of those can make you grow or shrink.”
“I read the book, remember?”
I nudge a rock from nearby and roll it next to the mushroom so I can climb up and sit. Finn joins me, and for many minutes nothing is said between us. We simply listen to the forest’s music.
Eventually, I give in. The pressure of it all is too much. “The Caterpillar favored mushrooms as chairs.”
“I can see why,” Finn says. “They’re squishy and kind of comfortable. Maybe not for hours, let alone the length of a football game, but I can see not minding sitting up on one of these every so often.”
A hint of a laugh escapes me before a sob chokes my throat. Finn reaches over and tugs me over against his warm side. Burrowing in his arms feels safe, and that throws me because how can somebody I’ve only known a few months instill such a sense of peace in me when everything else is chaotic?
I lean my head against his chest. For being asleep and then paralyzed for most of the day, his heartbeat is strong and steady. “We sat upon on these things for hours. I can guarantee you that they cease being comfortable after an hour.”
“He seemed like an asshole in your book, to be honest. A know-it-all. Was that different, too?”
“No.” Another sob/laugh beats its way out. “He
was
an arsehole. He was the epitome of a know-it-all. But he was always here for me—even when I was the worst of disappointments, he didn’t leave.” I wipe at my damp cheek. I need to get myself back under control.
“I
left, though. And he died because I left.”
One of his hands comes up and twists into the strands of my hair. “From what you told me, it sounds like you didn’t have a choice.”
I didn’t, and that’s the problem. My choices were stripped away from me. No, that’s unfair. I was given a choice. Stay and be selfish and watch my people suffer. Leave everything I know and love behind, and give them a chance.
“If it had been me, I would have done the same thing. Sometimes, no matter how you may feel differently, things just do not work out. They are just simply not meant to be.”
How ironically, painfully applicable that is.
“You did the right thing. You put,” he swings a hand at the vista around us, “the lives of all of the people here before your own. God, I could not be more impressed or proud of you. Do you know how hard that is for most people? They would think of themselves first and others later. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. But you?” He nudges my cheek with his nose. “You didn’t. You walked away from everything that meant anything to you to give them a fighting chance. I know it’s hard right now. I know it must be frustrating as all hell. I know every impulse in you, now that you’re here and seeing and hearing about all these atrocities, is to pick up that sword of yours and go out there and do your damnedest to make things right. Hell, I feel that way right now, too. But, our best way to help your people is to ensure that Todd and company do not get their hands on this catalyst.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. The Society’s goals are not any less noble than those I’d face here. “It’s hard to walk away again when so much is in chaos.”
A soft kiss is pressed against my forehead. “I know.”
He understands me. There is no judgment here, not condemnations of my actions. There is only support and concern.
The ground beneath me turns solid. A fixed point I never thought I’d find steadies me.
My fingers curl into the soft fabric of his shirt. “You must be going crazy, wondering if your father has apprehended Todd.”
“It may have crossed my mind a few dozen times in the last hour.”
For years, I have been so strong. I rarely faltered in my path, even when I was ousted from Wonderland. But in this moment, with so much uncertainty raging in all directions, on multiple Timelines, I succumb to weakness.
I tell Finn, “I have no idea what to do.”
“It’s okay to feel like that, you know.”
I shake my head.
“It is. Nobody is strong one hundred percent of the time. Nobody.”
“Queens are,” I whisper.
“Not even queens. Nor kings or emperors or the guy who fixes cars down the street or the person who tears tickets at the movie theatre or presidents or teachers or army generals.”
“You’re never weak.”
His laugh is bitter. “I was weak yesterday.”
I pull away. “What?”
“The Hearts soldiers took me down with no effort.”
I blink. Blink again. “But—”
“I was sent with you to protect you, and to retrieve the catalyst for this Timeline. And somebody sprayed something in my face before I could even draw my gun, and I was out like a light.”
“They drugged you!”
He shrugs, and it hits me. He thinks he’s failed me again. And it makes me want to break everything in sight because isn’t it obvious? I’ve failed not only him, but so many others here in Wonderland. “Don’t be ridiculous. How could you have known? Prevented it?
I
didn’t even know about SleepMist until the Ferzes told me just this morning. Until today, the White Court didn’t even have a sample to verify its existence.”
“He’s coming with us, isn’t he? To get the catalyst?”
Something stumbles and trips right in the middle of my chest as his voiced change of subject. “The Ferzes?”
“Them,” Finn says carefully. “And the White King.”
I haven’t the slightest idea what to say. Do.
He scratches at the spongy flesh of the mushroom. “I meant what I said. It doesn’t matter to me. Not as long as
this
still means something to you.”
It does. Somehow, despite all of the valid feelings still raging about inside of me toward the White King and our shared past, this means more to me than I could put into words. I have no future with the White King, not if we wish Wonderland to thrive. But this man here? This one, who I couldn’t help but let in? I tug his face down and slide my lips across his. I whisper, my breath hot against his, “I think you are my north star, Huckleberry Finn Van Brunt.”
I feel, rather than see, his forehead scrunch in confusion.
I press a gentle kiss against the side of his mouth. “Wonderland doesn’t have one. The stars above move on a nightly basis. One night’s sky is always different from the next’s. It’s hard to anchor yourself when you can’t find a north star. Sometimes, you feel like you’re floating, lost in space. I was lost, without purpose when I left Wonderland. I feared I would never find my footing again. Never find anything that would help me move past the confusion and desolation and helplessness of my past. But then I came to the Collectors’ Society. I met you. My feet found solid ground. A fixed star shines in my sky.”