The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

time. The card soldiers stepped forward to attack the queen, but Redd stopped them. She yanked the jagged bolt out of The Cat and twirled it like a baton. It turned red in her hand.
    ―Well, sister, what can I say? I‘d be lying if I didn‘t say that I‘m tickled to death to see you go.‖
    She slammed the bolt into the floor. Dozens of black roses sprouted from the point of impact, their thorny stems wrapping themselves around Genevieve, pricking her skin and binding her fast. The rose petals opened and closed, toothy mouths eager for a bite of royal flesh.
    ―Off with your head,‖ Redd ordered, pulling the energy bolt out of the floor.
    ―No!‖ Genevieve struggled against the stems of the roses. Her people would be abandoned to Redd. And Alyss…just a child.
    Redd swung the bolt hard. Genevieve‘s head went one way, her body another, and her crown rolled along the floor like a dropped coin. Redd picked up the crown and put it on her own head.
    ―The queen is dead. Long live the queen…me.‖
    The platoon of renegade soldiers cheered.
    Redd kicked The Cat where he lay on the floor, tongue lolling in his mouth, the picture of death.
    ―Get up! You still have seven more lives.‖
    The Cat‘s eyes fluttered open.
    ―Find Alyss and kill her.‖
    With a wave of her hand, the looking glass was once again whole. The Cat jumped through, in pursuit of the only living Heart besides Redd.

CHAPTER 11
    C RYSTAL TRANSPORT, also known as looking glass transport, was not unusual in Wonderland. Most looking glasses served as portals to the Crystal Continuum, a network of byways that enabled any and every Wonderlander to enter through one looking glass and exit from another. Focused looking glasses led to specific destinations (like the corner of Wondertropolis Way and Tyman Street). Unfocused looking glasses allowed travelers to choose their own destinations, provided that there were looking glasses at those destinations out of which they could be reflected. In Queendom Speramus states: ―As a body underwater tends to rise to the surface, a body entering a looking glass wants to be reflected out.‖ It took practice to stay inside the Continuum and master basic navigational skills. An inexperienced traveler might enter a looking glass in his own home, thinking to pay a visit to a friend across town, only to be reflected out of a looking glass at his next-door neighbor‘s house.
    The traveler might then enter his next-door neighbor‘s looking glass, only to be reflected out at the house next door to his next-door neighbor, and so on and so on until he reached his friend across town. Given time and experience, he would be able to make the trip with fewer stops.
    Covering long distances in the Crystal Continuum was tough, nearly impossible for all but the most experienced traveler. But short trips were within the skill range of everyone.
    The looking glass in the queen‘s private rooms, however, was not linked to the rest of the Continuum. It was a focused glass, to be used for emergencies by the royal family and their intimates. It deposited the traveler deep in a forest. The exit glass was well camouflaged by a tight-lipped shrub.
    Having entered the Continuum, Alyss glanced back to see the wavering image of her mother growing progressively smaller among the brilliant, crystalline surfaces along which she and Hatter traveled. Her mother exploded into a thousand fragments, jagged bits of Genevieve fluttering separately—―Mother!‖—and then there was nothing but blackness. It seemed like the end of everything. A black void rushed up behind them, as happened when a focused looking glass was destroyed, its path to a specific destination obliterated.
    Where was she being taken? Where, where, where?
    Closer and closer the void came, gaining on them, and then—
    She awoke, still in Hatter‘s arms, her cheek bouncing against his shoulder. Portal Sleep was a side effect of looking-glass transport among the young and