But the universes created by the HATBOX had their limits. Puddle portals that would have carried Homburg Molly back to Wonderland in the real world here only connected to other portals. And she made the most of it-jumping into one, splashing out of another, using them to serially ambush the Glass Eyes until she emerged from an inkblot-shaped splotch of dirty water, on the verge of adding to her body count, flicking her homburg at whoever would be her next casualty, but-
The unmoving bodies of her enemies littered the street. She had killed them all. “You forgot this.”
Shwink! Every weapon activated, Molly saw an ordinary-looking woman approach with something cupped in her palm. She retracted her weapons when she realized what it was: a luminous paperweight in the shape of a top hat. She touched it and the London scene dissolved into darkness, all black as pitch save a life-sized hologram of Hatter Madigan, who smiled approvingly at her.
“Today you’ve shown the courage, skill, and intellect required to be a first-rate Milliner,” he said. “Let’s see how you fare tomorrow.”
For two blinks of a spirit-dane’s eye she thought it was really Hatter, that he’d returned. But the image faded and the lights came on.
“Impressive,” a voice echoed.
Molly turned to see the Lady of Diamonds emerge from the control booth. No one but Milliners were allowed in the BOX. “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said. “How’d you get in?”
“When will you learn, child, that as a member of a ranking family, I can find a means to do whatever I
wish?”
“When will people stop calling me a child?” Molly shouted.
The Lady of Diamonds looked quizzically at the girl. “I didn’t realize you were so sensitive. Don’t you want to dry off? You could catch cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“You should at least have those tended to.”
What was the Lady of Diamonds talking about? Have those tended to? Have what- “You’re bleeding.” The lady gestured at Molly’s torso, right shoulder, and left thigh.
She had a few cuts, scrapes. Who cared? They were just superficial wounds. “I’m all right,” Molly said.
The Lady of Diamonds sighed like one used to having her advice go unheeded. She held up the ornately carved chest King Arch had entrusted to her husband. “I came to give this to Queen Alyss. I’ve been told she’s here with you.”
“She’s not.”
“No?” Worried wrinkles crowded the Lady of Diamond’s brow. “That’s odd. I could’ve sworn…I guess I’ll have to leave it with Bibwit Harte or Dodge Anders then. It’s too important to leave with anyone else.” She turned to go.
“I can take it,” Molly said. “You?”
Molly nodded. “I am the queen’s bodyguard.”
The Lady of Diamonds pretended to consider it. “Well, I suppose if she trusts you with her life, I can
trust you with this. Be sure to tell her that it was given to me by her mother, Queen Genevieve, just before her death, and that, as her mother requested, I have faithfully kept it safe from Redd.”
“Uh-huh,” Molly said, suspicious, “and why’re you only giving it to Queen Alyss now? I mean, why’d you wait?”
The Lady of Diamonds adopted a sweet, kindly expression. “Because, clever girl, Genevieve left strict instructions that if Alyss ever returned to rule the queendom, it should be given to her after the sixth lunar cycle of her reign had passed. Obviously it contains something of great value to the queendom that requires Alyss to have occupied the throne for a time-intelligence or instructions, I assume. I’ve been curious about what’s inside, but…” the Lady of Diamonds grew sheepish, “…I haven’t been able to open it.”
“I’ll present it to the queen with all possible speed,” Molly said, bowing, acting every bit the professional
Milliner and bodyguard that she was.
With a great show of reverence, the Lady of Diamonds surrendered the chest to the girl’s care. “Will you be returning to the palace through the Crystal Continuum?” she asked.
“It’s the fastest way.”
“That it is,” agreed the lady, “although I can’t be seen taking public transportation myself, being of high rank as I am. I’m sure you understand.”
Molly didn’t understand but kept her mouth shut, not wanting to spend any more time with this snob than was necessary.
“Tell the queen I said hello,” the Lady of Diamonds cooed, and before Molly could respond, she was alone in the massive open space of the BOX, the pneumatic hiss of the door lingering after the exit of Wonderland’s most self-important lady.
She gazed around at the empty room, its blank walls and faraway ceiling, all void of evidence from her recent battles against jabberwocky, card soldiers, Glass Eyes. It was just a big impersonal room. What had felt like a tremendous accomplishment only a short time before-her completion of level Z-now felt small.
Without bothering to dry herself off or bandage her wounds, Molly hurried out of the Millinery to the looking glass portal located outside a sandwich shop on Bandersnatch Avenue. She entered the glass and zoomed headfirst through the kaleidoscopic, tubular-shaped passage until it linked up with another, larger one-the Crystal Continuum’s main conduit. She was adept enough at continuum travel to focus on her destination while mulling over her interview with the Lady of Diamonds. Queen Genevieve had trusted her? No way. From everything Molly knew, the Hearts and Diamonds had never been on great terms. The whole story sounded like a lie. The pretty little chest she was carrying to Alyss could be part of a
trap. The Lady of Diamonds might be trying to ensnare the queen in a scheme designed to cost her the respect of government officials and the general population. It was easy to believe: the Lady of Diamonds conniving to gain advantage over Alyss in political dealings that a needless bodyguard was not allowed to know anything about.
And if it were a trap? Well then, she might be able to prevent it, because what was so hard about opening the chest as the Lady of Diamonds had claimed? It had a single clasp and…there, she unlocked it. Now all she had to do was lift the lid. If she could protect Alyss from the Lady of Diamonds’ intrigue, whatever it was, she would thus ensure the still fragile stability of the queendom. Then Alyss would have to let her take a more active part in military and other important meetings. She would have proven
beyond all doubt that, halfer or not, she deserved the most the queen could grant in the way of responsibility and honor.
Impatient, careening past commuters toward Heart Palace, the continuum’s prismatic surfaces a smear of twinkling colors, she lifted the lid of King Arch’s weapon no more than a vein’s breadth and-
Whoomp!
CHAPTER 9
A TOP THE second-highest peak in the Snark Mountains, at a military base overlooking the Valley of Mushrooms, card soldiers armed themselves with AD52 projectile-decks, fortified the grounds with orb cannons and whipsnake grenade launchers. The latest communication from Doppelganger’s headquarters had informed them that there was no discernible pattern to the attacks on other outposts, no strategic principle by which the general could deduce which base would next come under siege.
Seven other outposts had already been destroyed; the card soldiers had no intention of becoming the eighth. They cautiously walked patrols, stood their lines. Yet there was no sign of Glass Eyes or anyone else, no sign of life whatsoever unless they counted the wind, the scudding clouds. They were remote enough from civilization that, if not for the shadow cast over them by Talon’s Point to remind them where they were, they might have supposed themselves the lone community in the world, isolate in the vast, unpopulated upper reaches of the sky.