“You think I was too quick to blame Redd for the Glass Eyes’ attack?” Dodge asked. “Yes.”
“Well, it’s been confirmed that The Glass Eyes were manufactured in Boarderland. Maybe I did rush to judgment. If so, it was a mistake and I admit it. I’m trying my best not to let revenge dictate my actions, Alyss, but…I don’t know. I can’t promise what’s going to happen if I see The Cat again. I only know that if I am to conquer these vengeful feelings, I have to be the one to do it, not you or anybody else.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, it’s just…everybody knows I was angry after our parents were murdered. But there was also…something else. I came to believe that I’d spend my life alone.”
“Dodge, I’m-”
“There was nothing to pity in this,” he said quickly. “It was just the way things were. But when I found out you were alive…” he shook his head, “…you have no idea what living under Redd’s rule can do to you, Alyss. It was unbearable.”
“We have all borne things we never imagined.”
“Most of life is unbearable. It’s unbearable but we bear it. That’s what I believe. But right now, Alyss, here with you, I don’t feel it.”
She’d been trying not to cry almost since she’d stepped into Dodge’s rooms, but she could no longer stop herself. “Maybe one day,” she said, “when Homburg Molly is safe and things are peaceful enough that the queendom can run itself, we’ll take a trip to together. Somewhere quiet. There’s no reason we can’t do that, is there?”
Dodge didn’t say what he knew to be true: The queendom would never run itself. There would always be some emergency that required the queen’s attention. There always had been. And he knew that Alyss knew it.
“You’re the queen and can do you as you wish,” he said. From his inside coat pocket, he removed his
packet of letters and handed it across the table. “These are for you.” “What are they?”
“Letters I wrote to you during Redd’s rule, when I believed you were dead. There aren’t many. I didn’t have much peace for writing.”
Alyss stared at the packet.
“I still think it’s possible that Redd is involved,” Dodge said. “It’d be just like her to do something we’d never expect her of doing, such as leaguing with Arch. What will you do about the Diamonds?”
“Have them taken into custody.”
Dodge rose from his chair and walked over to her. “That’s enough of unpleasant topics for now. Did you enjoy your breakfast?”
“I loved it,” she said, turning her face up to his.
“Good. I hope you’ll forgive me, being just an upstart guardsman and all, but…” He leaned down and kissed her lips.
“I could have you reported for that,” she smiled. “Yes, you could.”
He lifted her to him and kissed her again, was still pressing his lips against hers when Bibwit Harte, four
General Doppels, and an equal number of General Gangers stampeded into the room. Dodge stepped away from his queen, stood at attention.
“He’s gone!” the Doppels cried. “Hatter’s gone!” “What do you mean ‘gone’?” Alyss asked.
“We think he’s on his way to Boarderland-” started the Gangers. “-to rescue Homburg Molly!” finished the Doppels.
“He wouldn’t.”
“All card soldiers patrolling the demarcation barrier have been notified,” said Bibwit, “but I’m not sure how much good it’ll do.”
The more Alyss considered it, the more she believed it likely: Hatter had gone after his daughter in direct opposition to her commands. I was right not to send him. His emotions are already getting the better of him.
Bibwit, Dodge, and the generals were waiting for instructions. Alyss quickly scanned along the demarcation barrier with her imagination’s eye, seeking Hatter until-
There. He was stepping out from the trees of the Everlasting Forest and approaching the barrier with determined strides. Busy with their luggage and passports, the civilians waiting to cross the border didn’t notice him until he reached into his backpack with both hands and-fli-flink! fli-flink flink flink!-pinned the patrolling card soldiers to the ground like specimens on display for a curious giant, blades piercing
their uniforms but not their flesh. The Milliner passed his hand over the control box that was at every official checkpoint; a door-sized opening formed in the impassable weave of sound waves that separated Wonderland from Arch’s kingdom. Without slowing, Hatter M. stepped through it and crossed to the other side.
CHAPTER 25
F OR GENERATIONS, Boarderton had attracted those who felt foreign among their own kind, those wanting to escape the suffocating customs of their birth tribes to enjoy the more varied, expansive life one inevitably finds in a major metropolis. With the exception of Arch’s royal entourage, Boarderton was the only city in the kingdom that consisted of mixed tribes. While a Maldoid would never be caught
socializing with a Kalaman anywhere else, inter-tribal doings were commonplace in the capital city, where one didn’t survive long without being tolerant of otherness.
Nowhere was the array of the populace more apparent than in the Sin Bin Gaming Club, a ratty establishment usually located in a ratty quarter of laborers’ tents. On any given night in Sin Bin, a stranger could find Onu mingling with Astacans, Awr tippling with Scabbler, Gnobi engaged in philosophical debates with Sirk. Such Boarderlanders might have been born into warring tribes, but they now belonged to a single tribe: Boardertonians, foremost and above all.
When Hatter set foot in the Bin, representatives from each of the nation’s twenty-one species were there, along with several from the remote regions of Morgavia and Unterlan. Loud and raucous, four-fifths of them were drunk, the remaining one-fifth working hard to get drunk. Hatter wouldn’t have cared if there were twice as many and they were all hopped up on artificial crystal. He’d have fought the entire crowd for even the slightest chance of securing Homburg Molly’s release.
In the corner, seated on low benches and sharing a bottle of viscous liquor with a couple of Maldoids and a Scabbler: four Ganmedes.
Were they his contacts? Hatter waited but they paid him no attention, so he passed on, made his way around the drinkers packed three deep at the bar to the seating area beyond, where too many tables scarred from the bottles and goblets of former carousals were crammed into too small a space. When he reached the far end of the tent, he started back. A male from the Fel Creel tribe stepped away from the bar and faced him. Hatter had no way of knowing that the tribesman was actually a former Fel Creel who now traveled with Arch as a member of the Doomsines.
The Boarderlander stood with his arms at his sides, his palms facing out. He flexed; the serrated blades of his fingerprints pushed through the skin and caught the light. Hands moving faster than shuttering eyelids, he snatched a cap off a sullen Astacan at the bar and shredded it into countless scraps. The Astacan spun around, ready to fight, but thought better of it when he saw what had become of his cap. He turned back to his drink, and Ripkins thrust his chin at Hatter, challenging.
Fwap!
Hatter’s top hat was off his head and flattened into spinning blades, the Milliner’s arms moving like those of an Earth-ninja expertly wielding nunchucks, his blades zinging up and down and around his body in tight, artful circles, then-
Fwap!
He was again wearing his top hat.
The club’s regulars made room for the fighters, then went back to blearing their senses, accustomed to
these sorts of disturbances. “Hunh!”