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Morte had allowed her to ride him a few times in the last few days, but only when she had grown so exhausted from walking that she found herself leaning against each passing tree to keep her balance. With an annoyed snort, he would saunter beside her and lift his leg. Dinah would climb up with a grateful sigh and feel the wave of relief that came with settling onto the already warmed bear pelt, her legs draped over Morte’s neck.
One day, lulled to sleep by his easy rhythm, she was jerked awake by the feeling of a cool shadow passing over her. Dinah looked up before letting out a small gasp. The trees had converged in a thick canopy of flowering branches, interweaving with each other to create a solid tunnel of flowers. The ground beneath, deprived of sunlight, had a soft and somewhat muddy texture and was covered by a thick maroon moss. The flowers looped down through the tunnel—pinks, purples, and glossy greens, swallowing the sky. Strange white insects buzzed within the tunnel—completely rotund, they fluttered by on petite wings that barely seemed to hold them, nesting on the dewy orchid petals, waiting for their mate. Once the mate arrived, the two little creatures somehow hooked themselves together and created a warm light that glowed from both of them. Together they would float drunkenly through the tunnel.
Dinah was watching them in wonder when Morte gave a rough lurch under her—she was almost sent sprawling past his hindquarters, and would have been if she hadn’t had her hand wrapped in his mane. Without warning, he was running—that pure gallop she had only experienced when she was fleeing for her life. Did he sense something? Her body tensed, hunching down, but he wasn’t being chased—his steps had a lightness to them that she hadn’t felt before. He was running because he could; from his mouth erupted happy whinnies. His body flowed like water beneath her, his speed unmatched by anything Dinah had ever seen. This time she was able to enjoy it—the world flying past, the greens and purples of the tunnel blending together as they raced through. His hooves barely graced the ground. Dinah felt her black hair flying behind her, her gray cloak flapping in the wind. For the first time since she had been awakened that night by the stranger’s hand, Dinah allowed herself to smile, a smile that stretched into a laugh as Morte plunged farther and faster through the tunnel. I’m flying! she thought.
Daring to reach one hand above her head, she let her fingers trail the heads of thousands of fuchsia orchids, their swollen tongues dripping down around her. The glowing lovebugs guided their way with subtle iridescent light, bouncing off branches and flowers, occasionally whapping Dinah across her cheeks and brow. She didn’t mind. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the swift wind on her face as Morte’s speed intensified. The tunnel ended abruptly, with two tree trunks lying squarely in the middle of their path. Morte easily leaped over them and then began to canter at a normal speed. The air was frigid on her face, which Dinah was surprised to find soaked with tears.
Morte let her ride a bit longer that day. The more Dinah observed him, the more she understood why he had not heeded the king that day as her father had bellowed out Morte’s name in a blind rage. Morte wasn’t anything like a normal steed. He didn’t come when called, and he wasn’t to be coddled and loved, as he wouldn’t give it back. Sure, Dinah gave him any apples that she ran across, but only from a distance—tossed in the air. When her father rode him into battle, he had made the mistake of thinking Morte was fighting for him—he never understood that Morte wanted to fight for himself, that he had no loyalty to the man.
Morte slept the nights away without a care, and Dinah watched him enviously as he slipped into the depths of slumber. At night, her thoughts wandered into dark places or even darker memories. Charles’s body, lying broken on a stone slab. His beloved servants, Lucy and Quintrell, their throats open and bloody. The sound of the trumpets blaring from the castle and the Cards who had swarmed out of it, so ready to kill their princess. The stranger, his black figure silhouetted in front of her balcony, the way his hand had wrapped around her mouth, truly the most terrifying moment of her life. She thought about Wardley and his brown curls. Wardley, who had saved her. Wardley, who was probably in the Black Towers, black roots twisting into his body, into his brain, hollowing him from the inside out.
When she finally did fall asleep, she drifted from one bizarre nightmare to another. The night before, Dinah dreamed that she had awakened to the sound of someone crying softly. Curiosity propelled her forward, and she came to a large clearing in the trees, where one of the Heart Cards she had killed sat on a log, softly playing a lute, a cat lounging lazily on his shoulder. Dinah had sat at his feet and listened to his weeping song as blood flowed down his chest, a crimson river creeping closer and closer to her white nightgown. She woke up screaming, covered in a cold sweat, and was unable to fall asleep until dawn began its slow rise.
Dinah’s days, however, in the untamable wood were consumed with thoughts about her mother. Dinah had always tried her best not to think on Davianna. Her father had forbidden her to speak Davianna’s name in his presence. In a way she was grateful to him for the excuse—it was easier than facing the raw grief, the gray wave of nothingness that would roll over her if she lingered on her feelings for just a moment. But here, she was at the mercy of her memories during endless hours of walking. The good thing about Morte was that he didn’t care if Dinah wept as she walked, or if she spent an hour staring off into the hazy wood. Remembering Davianna was a gift that Dinah gave herself—she needed to feel close to someone out here in the wilderness.
Her first memory of her mother was the tips of her fingers, trailing over Dinah’s face, tracing her cheekbones and lips with absolute devotion. Her mother had loved to be touched and to touch others. She was constantly resting her hands on the shoulders of those below her—Cards, lords, ladies, merchants, but especially children, whom she adored. People were originally struck by her beauty, but the touch of her hands left them overwhelmed by her grace.
Davianna had been born the child of the Duke and Duchess of Ierladia, the largest and richest township on the Western Slope. Ierladia lay just south of Lake Todren and was the Wonderland stronghold in the North. Negotiations between Dinah’s grandfather, the King of Hearts at the time, and Davianna’s father, ensured her place on the throne. From the time she was born, Davianna was groomed to be the Queen of Hearts, much like Dinah.
As a child, Dinah got the distinct impression that her mother loved being queen. She wore the crown with ease. As a mother she was gentle and loving, patient with her precocious daughter who was always yanking on her crown and smudging her dresses with chocolate-covered hands. Their relationship had changed when Charles was born, but Dinah never felt neglected; rather, she saw the large amount of care that Charles took and longed to be included. And so she was. Instead of croquet or watching ostrich riding, Dinah and her mother would feed and bathe Charles, or spend the day trying to teach him to walk, or take him outside on the balcony so he could watch the ever-changing stars. Dinah didn’t see her father from age three to five, when he was off fighting the Yurkei wars, and in that time she grew fiercely attached to her mother and Harris, her adviser and teacher.
Unfortunately, as Dinah grew older, she spent more time with Harris and less and less time with Charles and her mother. There were so many things to learn before one became queen, but every night Harris and Emily, her servant, had looked the other way when Dinah slipped out of her bedroom door and ran past the Heart Cards all the way to the Royal Apartments to tell her mother about her day.
Davianna would always be preparing for bed, brushing her thick black hair with her pink shell comb and staring at herself in the mirror, her tear-filled blue-black eyes staring back at her. Dinah knew she had a secret. She could see it in her eyes, in the way she held her body. Together they would climb across Davianna’s heart-shaped bed and her mother would pull her close and listen as Dinah whispered to her all the tiny details of her day—what Harris wore, what Emily said, the things she had learned, how she had cried after she broke a one-hundred-year-old teapot. Every night would end with her mother whispering softly,
“Someday, my love, you’ll understand everything.”
Dinah’s father had returned from war a changed man. He was angrier and increasingly cruel toward them both. She saw less of her mother, and when she did, Dinah was alarmed at her shrinking figure and the dark circles under her eyes. The care of Charles was taken from her and given to Lucy and Quintrell. Dinah would still occasionally visit her mother’s chambers at the end of the day, but Davianna would often be sleeping, unable to take her visits, and Dinah would be sent back to her room like a child without supper.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, Dinah stumbled across a scene that she would never forget. Her daily lessons in the library had been cut short due to the sneezing of Monsignor Wol-Vore, the language tutor, and the princess found herself with a few free hours. Running happily down the hall, her pink dress in tatters behind her, Dinah made her way to her mother’s apartment. The Heart Cards who normally stood guard at the queen’s door were oddly absent, and the door was cracked open a few inches. As she laid her fingers on the cool knob, Dinah could hear her father’s angry voice. She paused at the door.
“How dare you? You are nothing more than a common whore, lowborn trash that washed up from the sea on the beaches of Ierladia! I am the King of Wonderland, and I will not be made a mockery of. Is this how you repay me? Who is he? Tell me! I should take your head for this!”
Dinah heard the sound of something crashing—dishes, perhaps. Something hit the door with a loud thud and Dinah leaped back, afraid. She could hear her mother murmuring, attempting to calm her father.
Then: “Don’t tell me it’s NOTHING!” roared the man who wore the crown. Dinah heard the sharp snap of skin against skin—a slap. She desperately wanted to help her mother, but she was afraid of her violent father. Her hand lingered on the door as she heard her mother weeping behind it. Dinah walked back to her chambers, a coward.
She never told anyone about that day, not even Wardley. It was strange to think of it now, as she stepped over root after root, the muscles in her thighs clenching with fatigue. A tiny stream crossed in front of them, and Dinah stopped to fill her waterskin. Morte lapped at the water, and Dinah sat down on the muddy bank to rinse off her sore feet. The tinkling of the stream had a lulling power, and Dinah raised her face to take in the warm sun, resting for just a minute, just one more memory.
Her mother had died on a winter afternoon, when huge mounds of pink snow were piled high against the Iron Gates outside the palace, and inside everyone was trying to stay warm. Her illness had been violent and sudden. One day, Dinah’s mother had been there, her face thin and worried, but alive. The next she was lying in her bed, drenched with sweat so hot that it steamed in the cool air. Her lips, once the color of a ripe fig, were blue and withered, and her eyes were somehow gone already. They looked past Dinah, as if the queen were seeing someone else. The White Fever had raged through Wonderland proper that year, a quick illness that turned a person’s nails white before it swiftly delivered them to the grave. Although it was curious that no one in the palace had gotten it, aside from her mother.
Dinah hadn’t been allowed to touch her mother, or even to go near her bedside. She stood sobbing in the doorway, Harris’s arms wrapped firmly around her, holding her back, as she watched her mother’s body convulse and twist in pain. Charles was not allowed in the room, and the king was nowhere to be seen as Davianna took her last breath, her eyes finally trained on Dinah as she whispered her good-byes, her body shaking with the effort.
“Dinah, oh my wild girl. You so are smart, just like him. Be gentle, my dear, take heart. Be a good queen. Take care of your brother.”
Dinah wept, her fat tears dripping off her chin. “I will, Mother. I will. I love you. I love you.”
The hint of a smile brushed across Davianna’s face. “I love you too …”
The conversation had exhausted the queen, and it wasn’t long after that she fell into a heavy sleep, never to wake again. The rising of her chest slowed until it ceased. The queen was declared dead. Her father, her servants, Harris, everyone who had known her mother, wailed. Even Cheshire’s dark eyes filled with clever crocodile tears. The Cards came and went; a priest, wearing long red robes covered with hearts, rang a tiny silver bell outside her window. Another bell from somewhere down below rang in return. Suddenly bells were ringing throughout the kingdom, and the sound of them rose up through the courtyard and in through the open window as a swirl of pink snow rested on her mother’s lips.
Dinah screamed and flailed in Harris’s arms when the thin ruby crown was removed from her mother’s head. The priest held it over open flames until the crown glowed a dim red, as if lit from within. She realized with a start that it was a precautionary measure, to cleanse it from the fever. He walked over to Dinah as he blew on the crown to cool it.
“The queen is dead. Long live the future Queen of Wonderland.” He placed the crown on her head, the heat of it scorching the tips of her ears. Harris carried her out of the room, and as he turned, Dinah was given one last glance at her mother’s face, her beauty siphoned away by death.
Taking a cue from her father, Dinah had built a wall around that memory, thick as stone and impregnable to wandering thoughts. But here, in the depths of the Twisted Wood, it had been so easy to remember. She could smell the putrid air of the bedchamber, could see the fear in Harris’s eyes as the hot crown was laid on her head.
Dinah wiped her eyes as she pushed her blistered feet into the cool stream. The relief was instant, and it occurred to Dinah that she could possibly stay here forever, in this tiny lovely part of the wood where all the trees were white and the huge dark blue and deep green veiny leaves stretched out over the ground. But she couldn’t. Not yet. After a few moments, Dinah pulled her feet out of the stream, delicately wrapped them with the remaining strips of linen, and pushed them back into her boots, now instruments of torture. She watched silently as a fiery red hawk danced and dipped over the horizon, such a thing of beauty. She looked hopefully over at Morte, wishing he would lift his leg and have mercy on her. He did not, but rather stared off into the distance, his massive black head tilted with interest.
“I guess we’ll be walking, then,” groaned Dinah. It was nice to hear a voice—any voice, even if it was her own. They continued walking northeast. Her march to starvation, as Dinah had begun to think of it, dragged on.
The tracking hawk continued to circle lazily overhead.
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All day Dinah had felt strange. She had just eaten her last loaf of bread and there were only a few pieces of bird meat left. A creeping feeling made its way from her spine to her forehead. She convinced herself that it was just the sinking feeling of having no more food. Her time was up—she would either need to learn how to hunt or begin eating only fruit that she could find along the way, but that wouldn’t sustain her for long.
Dinah was losing weight rapidly—already she had tightened her belt loop two notches, and when she had splashed her face in the stream that morning, she was shocked at how thin her face looked, how tired. Her hair was a raggedy tangle that would probably take years to work itself out, and her skin was marked with dozens of small cuts from thorny branches. The cut on her hand was healing well, but her two broken fingers still ached whenever she put pressure on them. The shocking thought that she might not survive this ordeal washed over her like a cold wave. I cannot die from something as simple as a lack of food, she told herself.
That day she kept a very sharp eye out for things that looked edible. She found a Julla Tree, but most of its spiky fruit had gone rotten. Dinah managed to grab three fruits that were edible and stashed them in her bag for the following day. She found a strange plant in the ground that sprouted something similar to the cabbage they ate at the palace. Tentatively, she rested a leaf on her tongue only to spit it out immediately. It was bitter and numbed her tongue, and she quickly rinsed her mouth out with water. I’ll die from poisoning much faster than starvation, she thought.
The wood was filled with such fascinating and terrifying plants: huge rubbery vines that gave a shiver when she passed, and when she touched them, they released a puff of sparkling yellow powder; tubal roses that grew long instead of wide, whose petals collapsed inward when the sun set; carnivorous plants that feasted on small rodents—and once attempted to bite Dinah’s ankle and would have broken the skin if she hadn’t been wearing boots. There were thousands of ever-changing plants and flowers woven among the trees—those trees, always knowing—and none of them to eat. Damn it.
Grumbling to herself while ignoring the sharp pain in her stomach, Dinah walked on, watching the blazing sun creep from west to east as dusk settled in like a thick blanket. Without warning, she found herself in a small clearing, marked by a unique tree that had small, perfectly round holes drilled into its impossibly wide trunk. Dinah walked up quietly to inspect the tree, noting that it was at least twice the width of her bedchambers. She padded slowly around the smooth trunk, letting her hand linger on its surprisingly glossy surface. The bark had the texture of marble. It shimmered in the setting sun, the light playing across it like a warm ember. Dinah watched with amazement as rays of sunlight shot through the tree, and suddenly it hummed with life, as if lit from inside. The tree was transparent and filled with a frozen golden sap. She could see everything inside it—every fiber, every bubble of air. This was an amber tree, something she had only seen in her picture books, valuable because they were so rare. Once found, they were immediately hacked down and turned into jewelry, furniture, and hand railings for the wealthy. The base of her tea table was made of this rare amber wood.
Dinah ran her hands over the trunk. It was so beautiful it took her breath away—why would anyone ever chop it down? There was so much more beauty in a living tree than a pendant wrapped around some noblewoman’s neck. The tree pulsed with warmth that Dinah suspected didn’t come from the sun, but rather from inside the tree. Her fingers trembled with the knowledge that its texture was changing underneath her skin. Whereas before it had felt like cool marble, it now was soft, like the jams she spread on toast. When she pulled away, her hands were covered with a dark, drippy syrup the color of molasses. Without thinking, she licked it. After weeks of stale bread and dried bird meat, the syrup was heavenly—rich and sweet, the best thing she had ever tasted. She licked her hands dry, covering her face in syrup, and went back for more until she felt sluggish with the sugar, drunk on this rush of goodness. She stumbled away from the tree past Morte, who had also been licking the trunk.
Dinah was wiping her hands on the damp grass when she looked up in surprise, her eyes catching a strange form in the trees. There was a house in front of her. Dinah leaped back in shock, her hand on her sword hilt. How had she not noticed it? The house sat snugly between two trees, their roots twisting up through the roof. It reminded her of the Black Towers, of that root twisting itself into her mouth, up her nostril … Dinah heaved up the syrup onto the ground, the thick sludge puddling at her feet. Afterward, to her relief, she felt much better without its weight sitting in her stomach.
Dinah gaped at the house as she crouched behind the liquid tree. There was no visible light coming from the house, no candles flickering in open windows, no guards against the approaching night. Morte flattened his ears back against his head and gave a loud huff. Dinah felt that familiar dread that had plagued her all day. While longing to plunge back into the safety of the wood, Dinah found herself drawn to the man-made structure. It had been so long since she had seen anything related to humans, and she longed to run her hands over the walls, to feel timber and bolts, blankets and cups. Also, she reasoned, there might be food in the house, something she could not ignore.
Scrambling on her knees, Dinah found a small rock and threw it at the door. It bounced off with a loud thud and landed beside an empty bucket. Dinah waited a few minutes, but nothing happened, other than the wind tossing the branches of the trees overhead in a lulling whoosh. She drew her sword and approached cautiously, on silent feet. Dinah crouched low beneath the window and raised her head to peer through the beveled glass. She could see nothing through the thick glass, but she could sense that everything was still. With a deep breath, she turned the door handle. The door swung open and rocked on its hinge. Dinah stepped inside. The house was one large circular room with a beautiful high-vaulted ceiling and a dirt floor. On the right, an unmade bed had been overturned and books were scattered about, their pages flapping in the wind. At the front of the room sat a cold fireplace, cozied up to a sitting area that featured a well-worn rocking chair resting against the wall. A blanket had been ripped to shreds and tossed about the room.
To the left was a kitchen but it had been recently ransacked. Milk dripped from an overturned jug onto the floor, where a basket of food had been tossed aside. Hunger making her impulsive, Dinah raced toward it. She pushed past the overturned table, stepping over the blue-and-white-spotted teakettle smashed on the floor. She didn’t care—all she saw were two loaves of bread, some onions, carrots, and what looked to be a burnt husk of thick deer meat. Ravenous, Dinah threw these things into her bag as the sun dipped behind the cottage, filling the room with a shadowy light. She gnawed at the bread. Who had been here? Yurkei? Had an animal gotten in—a wolf? Something worse? Dinah looked around. No. The chaos seemed a little neat for an animal, a little too intentional. What animal would leave food but rip pictures off the wall and flip a bed over?
Morte gave a nervous whinny from outside and pounded the ground with his heavy, spiked hooves. The dishes inside rattled. Dinah took one last glimpse around the kitchen before ducking out of the round house. She said a silent thanks to whoever baked this bread and grew these onions as she made her way behind the house, back into the wood. Morte dutifully followed behind her before they both stopped short. There was a long field that stretched hundreds of feet behind the garden, and a body was there, lying facedown in the dirt. He had been quite large but obviously strong—huge muscles, still as stone, looked as though they had been carved out of his back. He wore a floppy hat and a lavender linen tunic, his feet bare and dirty. A farmer, Dinah thought, pressing her fingers across her trembling lips. Broken jars of the amber tree syrup littered the ground around him. Dinah felt all the air rush out of her lungs as she comprehended what she was seeing. Out of the man’s back arched a long arrow. It nestled between his great shoulder blades, a small blotch of blood surrounding the entry point. He had bled out from the front, the ground stained a deep red all around him. The blood was still wet, but it was cooling quickly and becoming one with the sticky syrup, a sickening, swirling mixture of red and amber.
The fact that this hadn’t happened long ago alarmed Dinah, but not as much as the red blown-glass heart that topped the end of the arrow. She had seen these arrows before, adorning the backs of many Heart Cards that guarded the outer gates of the palace. She stood, the world spinning around her. It wasn’t the Yurkei who had been here. The Cards had found her. Dinah swung the bag around her back and ran straight toward Morte. “Up!” she barked. Her panic was evident and for this he didn’t hesitate, lifting his leg as she neared him. Dinah stepped without fear onto his spikes and vaulted herself onto his back, her legs curling around his massive neck.
From what she could tell, the tracks of the Cards (huge, impossible not to notice once she was looking) were heading north, and so she turned Morte east. From there, they ran. Her heart thudded in her ears as Morte raced through the ever-blackening wood. Farther and farther in they dashed, making an incredible noise, yet what chance did they have not to? Dinah could barely see, but Morte seemed to have perfect night vision—he easily navigated branches and deep holes in the earth without trouble. Every few seconds, she would glance back, praying that she wouldn’t see a white Hornhoov emerging from the darkness. They had made it a few miles from the house when she heard the first faint shouts and clinking of armor. Fear surrounded her and made it hard to think. The sounds seemed to be coming over a dark ridge in the distance.
Tears welled up in her eyes and her hands shook as she clutched Morte’s mane, turning him around, racing away. As he ran, the sun disappeared over the Yurkei Mountains and all was black. The Twisted Wood became nothing more than shadows, an inky shade of trees and branches. Dinah could barely see Morte’s head in front of her as he dived through the trees, straining to outpace the growing sounds of horses and men. The cacophony was coming from all sides now, so foreign and abrasive to her ears after so much silence. Morte’s arrival desecrated the quiet wood, violating the peace of the trees, the hum of the insects. She couldn’t see where her pursuers were, but they were getting closer—and there was nowhere to run where they wouldn’t hear Morte crashing through the brush.
Dinah drew her sword and the ring of metal echoed through the trees. She wouldn’t be able to fight through many of them—any of them, maybe—but she would not be taken to the Black Towers. She would force them to kill her, and she would try her best to kill her father. That was her only purpose on this night; if this was going to be the way it ended, so be it. She would avenge her brother, his keepers, and lastly her mother, slowly killed by her father’s neglect and cruelty. Dinah sat still and held her breath for a moment. Then her father’s voice carried through the darkness, commanding his troops, the sound sending a dagger of fear straight through her.
“She’s here! Bring her to me, dead or alive. A lifetime’s worth of wages and a position in the court will be given to the Card who finds her. Do your duty and avenge your innocent prince! His blood will not be in vain!”
The voice stopped Dinah cold—Morte as well. They stood perfectly still as the roar of soldiers echoed all around them in the darkness. They were surrounded. A leaf crackled directly behind Dinah, and she heard deep breathing.
“Hide,” whispered a voice in the darkness. “If you want to live, don’t fight. Hide.”
Dinah didn’t need to be told twice—or have time to consider the source of her advice. She quietly dismounted Morte and bid him to follow her into a densely leafed area of the trees, stumbling many times over things she could not see. Something slithered over her boot and she forced herself not to scream. It was a consuming darkness. The stars must be on the other side of the sky tonight,she thought, hiding from this terrible noise. The sounds of the Cards were all around her—the violent breaking of tree branches, the clanking of cups against thighs, horses pawing the ground, and a singular sound that chilled her blood—the thundering sound of another Hornhoov.
She stood still, considering how best to hide—and to hide Morte. She looked over at him through the night but could see almost nothing—the black of his coat blended effortlessly with the trees and night. I have to disappear, she thought. Disappear into the night. The dress. Moving as quickly as she dared, Dinah untied the flaps on her bag and rummaged through it, her hands feeling for the thick, heavy fabric. When it seemed she had touched everything in her bag except for what she needed, Dinah’s hand felt it. She pulled out the dress, unfurling it against the starless night. Dinah could barely see her hand in front of her face, let alone the pitch-black fabric of the dress. Dropping her sword to the ground, she pulled the dress over her head. It slipped over her easily, the ends of the dress brushing the ground. Reaching back, she felt that the dress collar was lined with a hood. Dinah pulled the black wool over her dark hair and face. It was long enough to cover everything, and the fabric reached her chin. She pulled her hands into the sleeves so that they would not show and inched up next to a particularly wide tree, leaning into the trunk.
The voices were almost on top of her now—they would be on her in seconds with their swords and horses and torches. She looked over at Morte, who stood as still as she was, white steam hissing out of his nostrils. It was taking every inch of his control not to leap into the fight. Dinah reached out and felt for his nostrils. She gently and carefully laid her hand over his muzzle. Her voice shaking, she murmured, “Still … still …” The steam stopped and Morte knelt on the ground, becoming one with the thick foliage around him. Perhaps the animal knew he could not win this fight, not tonight, not while he was still recovering from the bear attack. Either way, Dinah could no longer see him. She pressed her face and body up against the tree and waited for them to come. Quivers of fear crawled up from her legs and infested her chest. Her knees felt weak. She clutched at her heart.
“Don’t move,” whispered the same voice from before. Was it above her? “Don’t move, don’t breathe, and the Cards shouldn’t see you.” Dinah froze, a black statue in the wood. She closed her eyes as the Cards swarmed around them. Several Cards trampled right past her—it sounded like one almost tripped over Morte before he suddenly changed direction and veered to the right. He should be thankful to be alive,she thought, as that would have ended in his very gruesome death. Two brushed past the tree she was leaning against, and Dinah clenched her hands inside the sleeves to keep from fainting. Unable to raise her head for fear of being seen, Dinah kept her eyes glued to the ground. She could see nothing except the occasional flash of a torch as it was waved in the darkness, the wood swallowing the light in their vast space.
The voices of the Cards flowed past the trees. “She was here!” “I heard her, Your Majesty!” “She’s over there!” The echo of the Cards bounced through the wood, making it very hard to tell where each man was—and she could see that the Cards were disoriented and scattered. They were unaccustomed to the trees, to the starless night. To Dinah’s horror, she felt the earth shake beneath her feet and heard the singular plodding with which she had grown so familiar. She dared to raise her face a few inches. The white Hornhoov carrying her father had entered the trees, with Cheshire’s sleek stallion following behind him. Her father sat proud and furious atop a female half the height of Morte but still gigantic. He carried a torch, so clearly visible in the darkness that surrounded the rest of the Cards. He wore his red armor, a black heart slashed boldly across the chest. The gold of his crown glinted in the firelight, his eyes lit up like flames. He held the reins on the Hornhoov in one hand and his Heartsword in the other, ready to kill. He seemed to stare right at Dinah, right through her. Beside him, Cheshire sat with his dagger clutched loosely as he scanned the wood, his black, catlike eyes searching each tree, his purple cloak draped over the flank of his steed.
The Hornhoov turned her head in their direction, and the king began thundering toward them. Dinah clutched the tree, pressing her face against it, fearing that her heart would actually explode.
“Stay still,” ordered the voice. Dinah froze as her father’s Hornhoov walked closer to them, his torch only lighting the few feet in front of him. Carefully, she raised her head and saw her father in the darkness, his face a mask of righteous fury. The king looked confused, as though he were unsure of what he was seeing. He was close enough that she could make out the sweat on his brow and smell the stink of drink clinging to his skin. She was sure he could hear her heart, which thudded with enough power to shake the tree.
Her father climbed off the Hornhoov and began making his way toward the clump of trees where Dinah was standing. Hatred flooded over her fear, and she felt an intoxicating rush of fury circle up from inside her gut. He killed Charles, she thought. And I will kill him now, a shadow in the darkness.Yes, my king, come ever closer. Moving as slowly as she could, Dinah reached for her sword, her eyes trained on his neck, the only open spot in his armor. Suddenly there was a loud crash from the wood behind her.
“There!” yelled a soldier from a distance away, “I heard something over there! I think it’s her!” The king’s face distorted with pleasure, and he vaulted back onto the Hornhoov, turning her in the direction of the sound. Cheshire followed, giving a backward glance at the seemingly empty valley before raising his dagger menacingly and following the king. The king’s Hornhoov kept trying to turn back—it could obviously smell Morte—but Dinah’s father simply yanked the reins and dug his spiked heels in.
“Go, you blasted creature! Find her!” Together they galloped off into the brush, the light from his torch dimming to a dull candle in the darkness.
“Go …,” snapped the voice, and then Dinah heard the sound of a body dropping down from the tree above.
“Who are—”
“No time!” snapped the voice, distinctly male, somehow familiar. “Yeh, go! I’ll lead them south. Quickly, for they will surely come back here.” He was as invisible as she was, a hulking, dark shape in the trees. Dinah flung the bag around her, climbed onto Morte’s back, and strapped the sword across her shoulders. She leaned forward and pressed herself against his black coat, becoming invisible once more. Black on black, a shadow at midnight.
“Quietly now,” she whispered to her giant steed. Morte seemed to understand as they headed east, his hooves gently kissing the earth. They moved far away from the roaming Cards, deeper and deeper into the night, until the sounds of her father’s army were no more. They walked quietly for hours, and Dinah noted that the flat floor of the forest was now increasingly sloping upward, harder and rockier. Hornhoov and rider moved soundlessly through the trees until Dinah spotted a small rock outcropping perched upon a narrow ridge overlooking the forest. Strategically, it would be a great place to watch for the approaching Cards, and besides, the trembles in her legs reminded her that they should go no farther. Without a word, she slipped off Morte and collapsed against the rocks, exhausted from her ride and from the all-encompassing fear. Morte knelt behind the rocks next to her and fell quickly into slumber, leaving her alone with the night sky.
Comforted by the fact that she didn’t think her father’s army could sneak up on them in the dark—or find them in the dark, for that matter—Dinah let her eyelids flicker closed once, twice, and then she surrendered to her voracious exhaustion. She dreamed of a deck of cards on a glass table, being played by a black glove. The hand was detached from an arm, and tiny flecks of crimson dripped across the faces on the cards as they were revealed. Hearts. Spades. Diamonds. The king. The king. The king.
Her eyes opened again in the early dawn and she woke drenched in a feverish sweat, unsure of what had awakened her so suddenly. Then she heard the click of a boot in front of her and felt a cold steel blade pressed firmly against her neck. Trembling, she raised her eyes, her black braid brushing the tip of her sword. A Spade stood before her, his massive frame blocking the sun.
“Morning, Princess.”
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Dinah flew backward, knocking her spine against a rock. Picking up a handful of loose dirt, she flung it at the Spade’s face and felt the ground for her sword. The Spade gave an annoyed cough.
“You won’t be finding that now, Yer Highness.” The Spade raised his other hand, which held Dinah’s sword. He had two swords and she had none. “Yeh know, it’s not very princess-like to throw dirt.”
Dinah paused a second before slowly inching herself toward the Spade, hoping to scramble over the rock to where Morte lay snoring on the ridge above. Why is he still sleeping?Curse that lazy beast! As she moved forward, his blade slid coolly against her throat. She stopped moving.
“Don’t be calling that monster of yours. I just want to talk to yeh, that’s all.”
Her heart galloped wildly in her chest and Dinah glanced frantically around for the rest of the king’s men. “Where are the others?”
“Ah, them. I left them behind.” The Spade stepped forward into the light and Dinah gave a loud gasp.
“You!” She recognized the Spade instantly—his dark gold eyes, his grizzly gray hair, the tiny black heart tattooed under his right eye—mostly because of the shallow two-inch scar that ran down his left cheek. “I know you.”
The Spade smiled and drew his sword lightly across the mark. “Yes, yeh know me. You gave me this, you may remember, back in the palace when I dared to pluck a silly wooden toy from yeh. Yeh slapped me with a big ring? A big ring for a spoiled princess.”
“It wasn’t my toy. It was for my brother.”
The Spade grimaced. “He won’t be needing that much now, will he? Wings might have helped more.”
Dinah let out an angry scream before she feinted left, twisting past the sword, and managed to grab the Spade’s black breastplate. He roughly shoved her backward with one hand. She tumbled in the dirt. He was so strong. She flung a rock at him, which bounced off his armored chest.
“Do not speak of my brother, you filth!”
The Spade peered at Dinah with fascination. “Just as spirited as I remember yeh! Now shut that privileged mouth and listen to what I say. I’ll need yeh to promise that you won’t try to run from me, otherwise I might have to give you a matching scar. And unlike me, you aren’t pretty enough to make it charming.”
Dinah sat back, her legs collapsing underneath her. The Spade wiped his face with his sleeve and tossed Wardley’s sword into a nearby bush. He then dropped his sword down to waist level, his keen eyes never leaving Dinah’s face. Her eyes met his and there was a moment of silence where they stared at each other. He stroked his goatee, peppered black and gray.
“I’m here to aid yeh. You can’t make it very much longer without my help. Yer father and the Cards will find yeh. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they will. And when they do …” The Spade pursed his thin lips and drew his finger across his neck. “Your father is a king entirely without honor.” His eyes focused sadly upon the wood behind her.
Dinah stared at him, not understanding what he was saying. He wants to help me? She followed his eyes to the side, giving the impression that she was considering his speech before bolting off to the right. She almost made it past the edge of the boulder and opened her mouth to yell for Morte but before she could, the Spade caught her around the waist and flung her roughly to the ground. Dinah’s still-healing fingers vibrated with pain, and the Spade reached forward and boxed her on her right temple, which left Dinah’s head spinning. Blood seeped into her ear.
“Oh, fer gods’ sake …” The Spade picked her up and easily propped her back underneath the rock overhang. “We’ll try again. My name is Sir Gorrann. I’ve been a Spade in the Cards service for thirty years, and I am here to help yeh, if you will just settle down and stop behaving like a wild bear, damn yeh.” Dinah was having trouble breathing, and the world spun around as her hearing slowly returned. She was unsure of what was happening. He gave a loud sigh.
“It makes me unhappy to treat yeh so, but until you stop tryin’ to run, it’ll just be beatin’ after beatin’.” He settled down next to Dinah on a tree stump and pulled off his black gloves, flexing his hands. She laid her forehead against the ground, her hands curled protectively over her head.
“I can’t … I can’t … think.”
“Aye, you’ve never been hit before, have yeh? More reason that you need help to survive. I can teach you many things, Princess. How to cover a track, how to fight, how to find food.”
“I know how to fight,” mumbled Dinah.
“No, yeh don’t. That handsome stable boy might have taught yeh a few things, but fighting wasn’t one of them.”
“Wardley?” At his mention, everything in the world seemed to stop. “What do you know about Wardley? Is he alive?”
“Ah, now yeh want to talk.” The Spade dusted off his black tunic, adorned with a glossy black Spade symbol. “Tell you what, Princess—I’ll make yeh a deal. Yeh stop trying to run, and make sure that horse of yers doesn’t impale me on one of his bone spikes, and I’ll tell yeh everything yeh want to know about Wonderland and what’s happened since yer … departure.”
Dinah blinked in the rising sun, her eyes trained on the Spade’s face. “I remember you. You left the gate open that night. You could have shut it, but you waited. I saw you. You paused …”
The Spade gave a quick nod. “That I did. Now, we best be on the move. If we stay here, the king’s Cards will be on us in less than an hour.”
“How do you …?”
The Spade gave a low whistle, and a reddish-brown mare approached on gently trotting feet. Dinah frowned. Morte would definitely not come if she whistled.
“Answer me this, traitor: Why are you not with the king?”
The Spade gave a snicker as he mounted the mare. “Let’s just say that I have my own interest in helping yeh. But that’s not for yeh to worry about yet. Before I’ll answer any questions, I need yeh to straddle that black thundercloud and ride.”
Dinah climbed unsteadily to her feet. “How long?”
