Thinking they had split their uniforms from laughing so hard, the soldiers laughed even harder.
Alyss’ anger drained out of her, leaving her sad and doubtful. Could it be that her mother hadn’t been in the carriage? Hadn’t she seen her mother burst into a thousand fragments, leaving only blackness, nothingness in her place? And why had her imagination failed her?
Without realizing it, she walked away from the soldiers. “Hatter?” she called.
But there were only strangers, clots of them conversing on the pavements, others hurrying on their way to who knew where. There was only the grime and soot and horse-dung stink of the streets.
“Hatter!”
She had to get back to the puddle that had landed her in this world. It could reunite her with Hatter, maybe even return her to Wonderland. She retraced her steps. But the street was mottled with so many puddles. What if she’d gone too far and passed it? Everything appeared equally unfamiliar. Could she have covered so much distance while chasing the carriage? What if she never found the puddle? What would happen when the sun broke through the clouds?
If she stopped to think about what she was going through…No, don’t. Her father murdered. Her mother most likely dead. Sir Justice Anders’ throat torn open. And Dodge, her best friend…But don’t think about it. Don’t! Stuck in this alien place. Alone. Don’t-
She had to be strong. She was a princess, the future Queen of Wonderland. She shouldn’t weep like a baby.
She took a running start toward the nearest puddle, jumped, and landed in the middle of it, splashing herself and a lady and gentleman walking past.
“Oaf! Good heavens!” the woman protested.
The man made as if to chase after Alyss, but she had already stamped out of the puddle and was sprinting toward another. She jumped into it and thoroughly soaked a dapper young chap who’d just come from a visit with his tailor.
“Ugh! This cravat alone is worth more than you, you beastly thing!”
Alyss splashed from puddle to puddle, squeezing shut her eyes as she took to the air and imagining hard that she was back in Wonderland, opening her eyes as she came down, sprays of water going every which way, only to find that she was still in this alien world.
I’ll never find my way home. Never ever EVER!
All hope gone, she jumped up and down in a single puddle, yelling, “No! No! No!” until it was impossible to tell which were her tears and which splotches of street water.
“You taking a bath or what?” said a boy watching from a safe distance, out of splashing range.
She stopped jumping, sniffed. The boy wore gray breeches patched at the knees and thighs, a frock coat much too big for him, the tail of which reached down practically to his heels, and cracked leather boots with no laces.
“I’m Princess Alyss Heart of Wonderland,” she said defiantly.
“Yeah, and I’m Prince Quigly Gaffer of Chelsea. That’s one loony outfit you’re wearing.”
She looked down at her damp, dirty birthday dress: a flouncy thing, tight at the waist and poofing out below her knees in a cumbersomely wide circle, its collar high and floppy and ruffled. It was decorated with appliqued hearts, in colors only available in Wonderland, and the dress was a rare sight even there, where it would be taken from the princess’ wardrobe and aired only once a year, the royal tailors refitting it to accommodate Alyss’ growing body.
“It’s all I have,” she said, which started her crying again.
Quigly considered her for a moment. Even smudged with dirt and scum, and with tears leaking out of her eyes, there was something about the girl that intrigued him. She seemed brighter than everything around her. It was as if she were lit from within by a lantern that shone faintly through the pores of her skin.
“Better come with me if you want dry clothes, Your Majesty,” he said.
He started to walk off. Alyss hesitated. Half a block away, Quigly turned. “Off we go!” he called, waving for her to follow.
She looked around one last time for Hatter, then abandoned her puddle. She couldn’t afford not to have a friend.
CHAPTER 13
N O AMOUNT of Millinery training could have prepared Hatter for getting sucked through the Pool of Tears. Having somersaulted out of a puddle and landed on his feet with the agility of…well, of a cat, he let his instinct for self-protection take over. His backpack sprouted its usual array of weaponry. His steel bracelets popped open and spun in propeller-like action. He reached for his top hat but it was gone,
which was bad news. Really bad news. The top hat was his signature weapon, the one he had worked the hardest to master. And he was probably going to need it, judging by the shocked and alarmed faces all around him. He had emerged from the exit portal in Paris, France, 1859, and found himself standing in the middle of a wide thoroughfare known as the Champs-Elysees. Parisians spilled their cafe au lait at the sight of him. His sudden appearance upset traffic, carriages veering left and right. One carriage knocked over a fruit stand, another crushed baskets of baguettes and loaves. Horses whinnied and neighed, edgy.
Who was this strangely attired man with knives and oversized corkscrews jutting out of his backpack and rotary blades on his wrists?
Hatter kept an eye on the puddle, expecting The Cat or Redd’s soldiers to spring from it at any moment. “Alyss?”
But she was nowhere to be seen. This was worse than not having his top hat. In the Pool of Tears for hardly any time at all, with only one job to do, one simple job-to look after the future Queen of Wonderland-and he’d let her fall away from him. She must have been sucked through the portal to another location.
Men were coming toward him-men in uniforms and small, firm caps with brims, looking confused and more than a little frightened. He snapped his wrist-blades closed and ran, not because he was afraid of them, but because he was afraid of what he might do to them. Even here in another world he would abide by the codes of Wonderland’s Millinery, which stated that combat skills were not to be used on a person until he was a proven enemy, and even then only to the extent that they were necessary. Plus, it was best to draw as little attention to himself as possible, to disappear into the underground in order to find
Princess Alyss.
His Millinery coat swooped out behind him as he cut across the Champs-Elysees and down a residential street. He was faster and more agile than the Frenchmen and would have easily escaped their pursuit if he’d known his way around Paris. Time and again he thought he’d lost them, that they were no longer following him, only to discover that they must have taken a shortcut through an alley, because now they were in front of him.
He had to get rid of them for good. He stopped running and let them approach. When they were within ten paces of him, he flicked open his wrist-blades, feinted at them, and they scattered into cafes, brasseries, patisseries, and boulangeries, lunging for safety anywhere they could find it. Hatter snapped shut his wrist-blades and ran, and this time they didn’t follow.
He hid under a bridge on the banks of the Seine until nightfall, when he could more easily move through the city undetected. He planned to canvass the streets, search every lane and alley for the princess before moving on to another town or city. He would get maps, systematically scour this entire world if