Playing Hearts by W.R. Gingell Page A

room. It even had a couple of glasses by
it. More worryingly, it had a tag on it that read: Drink Me.
    “Never mind,” I said,
lifting the frosted-glass cover I’d found.
    I knew right away that
I’d found Sir Blanc’s wits. There were about six of them, and they looked like
little beans. Well, little beans with...little shoes. And little feet in them,
with little legs. I heard one of them squeak, and then they were off, tearing
across the table and leaping to the floor. They were so quick that I could only
catch one of them, its legs windmilling madly as it tried to catch up with the
others.
    “Hah!” said Sir Blanc in
some satisfaction. “They were ever quick wits! Post-haste, child! Seize them!”
    I thrust the
frosted-glass cover at him, upside down and with the single captured wit in it,
and chased after the other five. They were quick and nimble, and they had the
advantage of being able to run under the furniture that I had to run around,
but I was quick and nimble too. I captured another two of them when they made
the mistake of crossing a rug that was even deeper than the carpet, and I was
closing in on a third that was running for the door when someone thumped on the
wooden panels. Sir Blanc and I both froze: it wasn’t a loud thump, but it was
very distinct. It sounded as though someone had leaned against the lintel and accidentally
bumped their elbow against the door. I motioned at Sir Blanc to be very quiet,
but he was too busy playing with the three captured wits to notice, so I
pounced on the one I had cornered and added it to his bowl before I crept back
to the door. When I cracked it open just a little the first thing I saw was a
sleek red jacket. I went limp in relief. It was only Jack.
    “What do you want?” I
hissed.
    Jack barely glanced over
his shoulder, which was blocking the other room from me as much as it was blocking
me from the other room. “Are you finished? Mother Dearest won’t be long.”
    “I’ve got four of them,
but the other two are hiding behind one of the cabinets and won’t come out.”
    “Well, hurry it up,” said
Jack, peeling himself away from the door and straightening his cuffs. “She
won’t be away forever.”
    I’d rounded up the last
two wits with enough time to be impatient by the time I heard a soft knock on
the door again. I’d even managed to stuff them all into my pockets, where they
wriggled and squeaked and generally made me feel uncomfortable. I could have
put them in my backpack, but I was afraid they would escape. I cracked the door
open only to see Jack’s shoulders again, so I slipped my finger through the opening
and poked him in the ribs.
    “Oi! We’re ready to go!
Better start singing again.”
    He stiffened, but didn’t
jump. “My voice is tired,” he said over his shoulder.
    “What do you mean?” I
demanded, in deep suspicion.
    “I do wish you wouldn’t
run at things like a bull at a gate!” complained Jack. “Where’s your subtlety,
Mab? I’m clearly trying to extort something from you.”
    “Well, I wish you wouldn’t
talk like a dictionary,” I said grumpily. “But I don’t reckon that’s going to
change, so why should I? What do you want?”
    “I need something from
you, you need something from me. How about a trade?”
    I gazed at his shoulders
with an open mouth. “You waited until we were in here to bargain!”
    “Of course I did,” said
Jack. “I’m not a fool. Are you ready to listen?”
    “Listen to what ?”
    “My mother picked you out
when I was a child–”
    “Picked me out? You mean
kidnapped!”
    “–for the purposes of an
engagement,” continued Jack, as if I hadn’t spoken. “That engagement is pretty
widely known around Underland, and it’s as widely known that we’ll be married
on my twenty-fifth birthday.”
    “ Engagement ,” I
said bitterly. I still had nightmares about that night. “She took my blood. People
don’t swap blood when they get engaged. They swap rings. Why did she mix