Page 14 of Wondrous

“Here,” I said, drawing a teacup out of my pocket. I liked to carry one or two of my favorites with me, in case I ever got lost and needed comfort. This one was blue, with a painting of a donkey in a field, and whenever I drank from it, I remembered a different happy memory. Someone had left a pot of tea on the table—it smelled bitter and of poor quality compared to the Hatter’s brews, but it would suit. I filled the teacup and pushed it toward Alistair.

“My mother’s the only one who uses my middle name,” he said. “They must have heard her.”

I patted Alistair on the arm again, wishing I had chosen to sit somewhere else. The boy wasn’t making any sense at all. “Shhh, it’s all right.”

I scanned the hall again, noting several others in similar states to Alistair, including one girl who sat against the wall with her head in her hands, rocking slowly back and forth. On the whole, though, the crowd of mostly girls wore similar expressions—there was definitely confusion there, but also a kind of wary determination. I wondered if this was how I looked, and realized, with an odd shiver, that it probably was.

“They want us to save Wonderland,” Alistair said. He was sipping the tea and looked slightly less unhinged now. “That’s what I heard some of the others saying. Us. The Alices.”

“The Alices?” I repeated. “What are you talking about? I’m Alice.”

“We all are.” He leaned forward. “All of us are called Alice, or something close to it. All of us were brought here as children and had an adventure, and then we went home again. Now we’re back. It must be to save Wonderland. One of the other Alices said that some monster was blasting holes in the world.”

My heart was thudding in my ears. I wanted to ask Alistair more about this monster, or what he meant by saving Wonderland, because surely Wonderland was too strong, too everlasting, to need saving. But what came out was “All these people have had adventures in Wonderland?”

Alistair didn’t have a chance to answer me, because the Queen of Hearts swept into the banquet hall.

Chapter 8

The room fell silent instantly, for the Queen’s presence was like a crack of thunder. She stormed into the room without glancing at the teenagers milling about, without a single doubt that they would leap out of her way, as one would for a rampaging bull. They did, several girls tripping over each other in their haste. The Queen took no notice of that, either—her gaze was turned inward, nursing the flames of her fury. When she reached her throne, she flung herself against it as if it had insulted her.

The Queen of Hearts was not a tall woman—our heights, now that I was grown, were similar—and yet it was impossible not to see her that way. She had a type of beauty that put me in mind of a phoenix, graceful, with coal-dark hair, and a fire burning within her that was liable to explode at any moment, engulfing anyone in its path. I had glimpsed her and the King a handful of times from a distance since she had put me on trial, and I had no idea if she still wanted me dead. The Queen’s whims were capricious, and it was equally possible that she had forgotten all about me once I disappeared from her sight.

Regardless, I slouched in my seat so I was half hidden by Alistair’s shoulder.

So powerful was the Queen’s arrival that it took me a moment to notice she wasn’t alone. The White Rabbit trailed behind her, bugle at the ready, looking dismayed that she had stalked in ahead of him, her steward. His glasses were askew, and perhaps this was why he missed the mouth of his bugle when he attempted to blow into it.

I leaned forward, delighted by the Rabbit’s presence, and I saw quite a few others do the same. Apart from the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit was possibly the most magical person in all of Wonderland—not only could he travel between worlds in a way no other Wonderland creature seemed capable of, but he made the doors himself. According to the Mad Hatter, the first door the Rabbit made had been pure accident; he’d burrowed too deep and kept burrowing and burrowing until he hit another world. I’d always wished to befriend the Rabbit, though he’d been chilly toward me whenever he visited the Hatter, likely on account of my having nearly destroyed his house on my first visit to Wonderland.

I felt a pang of pity for the Rabbit as he fumbled with the bugle. He had always been an anxious person, but now he looked exhausted, his ears drooping and his eyes puffy. Clearly the Queen had been running him ragged.

Behind the White Rabbit came the King of Hearts, a soft-spoken man who had always struck me as a tad shallow-minded, due to his unvarying air of good cheer. He took up the throne next to the Queen’s, arranging his robes delicately.

I often had difficulty picturing the King in my memory. He was on the short side but quite handsome, with thick waves of golden hair. Yet it was difficult to pay him any mind with the Queen right there, as if he were a moon cast into eternal eclipse.

The other person accompanying the Queen was almost as startling as the Queen herself. She was a card soldier, and a woman.

She was somewhere around forty, perhaps, and unlike all the other soldiers, she had clearly visible hair, which she wore in a long braid over one paper shoulder. I had never seen a woman amongst the card soldiers, but it was clear she was high-ranking—her card was a queen of diamonds.

“Shall we have some refreshments?” the King said in his quiet voice, leaning back in his throne comfortably. As always, he seemed not to notice the storminess emanating from his wife, which had the rest of us sitting frozen in our seats like mice having an audience with a cat.

“Absolutely not,” the Queen snapped in a voice that seemed to have the crackle of flames in it. “I wish to get this nonsense over with. We’re interrupting the archery tournament.”

The King shrugged, tucking a stray golden lock behind his ear. “As you wish, my love,” he said. “But don’t you find victory even sweeter when it is delayed? You know none of us can beat you with a bow and arrow.”

The Queen’s dark eyes fixed upon him with a look that made me quake. “You are trying to appease me again. Have we not talked about this?”

The King made no response, only leaned his golden head against the chair and gave her a narrow-eyed smile.

“Infuriating man!” the Queen said in a scolding yet warm tone that I’d only ever heard her use with the King. Smiling a little to herself, she waved a hand at the card soldier to her left. “Well, get on with it, General. Only be concise. If only the White Queen were here to recount the prophecy herself—it was hers, after all. But no, she’s off wandering the wilderness without a care in the world, leaving me with the dirty work.”

At the mention of the White Queen, I started. What did she have to do with any of this?

I thought back to our meeting during my second visit to Wonderland. The only prophecy she had made on that occasion involved pricking her finger on her brooch.

The general stepped forward. “Some years ago, the White Queen prophesied that our great Realm of Wonderland would come under threat, and that one of you would save us all. That time is now. Three mock dragons have invaded Wonderland. Whoever slays them shall be named the Alice.”

This speech, delivered in the sort of voice you might use to comment on the weather, was greeted by a perfect blank silence. The general’s explanation had indeed been concise, but it had been the kind of concise that felt like being run over by a carriage.