message retrieval system. A recorded hologram of Bibwit projected on to the air:
“Hatter, Molly, I apologize for intruding upon you so soon after your return. You have my sympathy as you cope with your recent loss, but unfortunate developments require your immediate presence at the palace. National security prevents me from disclosing more in this message. Please hurry.”
Hatter found Molly sitting on the edge of the sleep-pod in her room.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Here was an enemy against which his blades were useless: his daughter’s pain and resentment, her confusion. “I’m sorry, Molly.”
“For what,” she snorted, “doing your Millinery duty?”
He felt a spike of temper. “You’re not the only one . . . with feelings. Bibwit has requested us at the palace.”
“I don’t feel like going.”
Should he make her go, as a father demanding obedience? She would have to see Alyss sometime, but maybe it was best that she stayed in the flat. For now. Because whatever Blue’s historic visitation meant, the queen had to be informed. Bibwit Harte and General Doppelgänger had to be informed. And Hatter was pretty sure he preferred Molly not being there to hear it. She’d seen more violence and suffered more heartache than any Wonderlander ever should, but—as he guessed from Blue’s prophecy—she was due to see and suffer yet more.
Because he hadn’t lied. He just hadn’t admitted the entire truth: Caterpillars didn’t always act so weird; but when they did, it was never good.
CHAPTER 11
R EDD STOMPED toward the green smoke rings that funneled out from behind the dormouse hawker’s stall, The Cat and others following at a short distance while Arch and Vollrath hurried to keep pace with her.
Arch, and all his coy talk about her blurriness.
He never flirted without an ulterior motive, Redd knew. He’d been trying to lull her into complacency, to disarm with soothing words in order to extract information he might find useful. She usually admired his deviousness, even when practiced upon her, but something in his tone . . . he’d been goading her. As if he knew something she didn’t. As if . . .
Could he have guessed she was without imagination?
Every other stride, she jabbed her rusty scepter topped with shriveled gray heart into the ground. Doubly irksome was the subject of Arch’s flirtatious babbles. She had noticed it too—the edges of her body and The Cat’s gradually becoming more distinct. She and her assassin now looked as they used to, before they had passed through the Heart Crystal and an amateur painter birthed them on Earth with his soft, smeary palette. Maybe the longer she and The Cat lived in actual flesh and blood, the less dependent they were on the imagination from which they had sprung? What did she care, so long as she’d gotten her old hard-edged self back?
She stepped behind the hawker’s stall. The green caterpillar was alternating nibbles of double-fried dormouse snout with tokes from his hookah.
“Not a tarty tart,” he said, his mouth full of crunchy bits, “but it’ll have to do.”
Arch showed neither surprise nor awe at being so close to an enormous larva. Vollrath, however, bowed.
“You honor us with your appearance, all-seeing oracle.”
The tutor sneaked a glance at his mistress, knowing how much she disliked the creatures, but she seemed hardly aware of him, her jaw squared, her eyelids half closed in suspicion and ill-concealed disgust.
The caterpillar motioned toward Redd’s scepter with a front leg and the legs immediately behind it mirrored the gesture. “I see you navigated your Looking Glass Maze and retrieved your scepter.”
“A great, wise oracle has come to point out the obvious, has he?”
The Cat, Sacrenoir, and the rest of Redd’s most senior military rank were gathering round. Boarderland’s tribal leaders moved closer to listen while the common troops lingered at the sparring arena, curious to witness this
“Hatter, Molly, I apologize for intruding upon you so soon after your return. You have my sympathy as you cope with your recent loss, but unfortunate developments require your immediate presence at the palace. National security prevents me from disclosing more in this message. Please hurry.”
Hatter found Molly sitting on the edge of the sleep-pod in her room.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Here was an enemy against which his blades were useless: his daughter’s pain and resentment, her confusion. “I’m sorry, Molly.”
“For what,” she snorted, “doing your Millinery duty?”
He felt a spike of temper. “You’re not the only one . . . with feelings. Bibwit has requested us at the palace.”
“I don’t feel like going.”
Should he make her go, as a father demanding obedience? She would have to see Alyss sometime, but maybe it was best that she stayed in the flat. For now. Because whatever Blue’s historic visitation meant, the queen had to be informed. Bibwit Harte and General Doppelgänger had to be informed. And Hatter was pretty sure he preferred Molly not being there to hear it. She’d seen more violence and suffered more heartache than any Wonderlander ever should, but—as he guessed from Blue’s prophecy—she was due to see and suffer yet more.
Because he hadn’t lied. He just hadn’t admitted the entire truth: Caterpillars didn’t always act so weird; but when they did, it was never good.
CHAPTER 11
R EDD STOMPED toward the green smoke rings that funneled out from behind the dormouse hawker’s stall, The Cat and others following at a short distance while Arch and Vollrath hurried to keep pace with her.
Arch, and all his coy talk about her blurriness.
He never flirted without an ulterior motive, Redd knew. He’d been trying to lull her into complacency, to disarm with soothing words in order to extract information he might find useful. She usually admired his deviousness, even when practiced upon her, but something in his tone . . . he’d been goading her. As if he knew something she didn’t. As if . . .
Could he have guessed she was without imagination?
Every other stride, she jabbed her rusty scepter topped with shriveled gray heart into the ground. Doubly irksome was the subject of Arch’s flirtatious babbles. She had noticed it too—the edges of her body and The Cat’s gradually becoming more distinct. She and her assassin now looked as they used to, before they had passed through the Heart Crystal and an amateur painter birthed them on Earth with his soft, smeary palette. Maybe the longer she and The Cat lived in actual flesh and blood, the less dependent they were on the imagination from which they had sprung? What did she care, so long as she’d gotten her old hard-edged self back?
She stepped behind the hawker’s stall. The green caterpillar was alternating nibbles of double-fried dormouse snout with tokes from his hookah.
“Not a tarty tart,” he said, his mouth full of crunchy bits, “but it’ll have to do.”
Arch showed neither surprise nor awe at being so close to an enormous larva. Vollrath, however, bowed.
“You honor us with your appearance, all-seeing oracle.”
The tutor sneaked a glance at his mistress, knowing how much she disliked the creatures, but she seemed hardly aware of him, her jaw squared, her eyelids half closed in suspicion and ill-concealed disgust.
The caterpillar motioned toward Redd’s scepter with a front leg and the legs immediately behind it mirrored the gesture. “I see you navigated your Looking Glass Maze and retrieved your scepter.”
“A great, wise oracle has come to point out the obvious, has he?”
The Cat, Sacrenoir, and the rest of Redd’s most senior military rank were gathering round. Boarderland’s tribal leaders moved closer to listen while the common troops lingered at the sparring arena, curious to witness this
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