“Yah! Hi-yumph!”
At the sight of Hatter, a mixture of shock, wonder, joy, and confusion appeared on the faces of the chessmen and General Ganger.
General Doppel spotted him just as-
“Hooah!” Jack of Diamonds lurched out of the chair, massaging his bruised buttocks and cursing the detestable piece of furniture that had held him captive. “You’d have to be the size of a gwynook to fit in that thing!”
Then he too saw the mythic man.
“Hatter Madigan,” Generals Doppel and Ganger said simultaneously. “Get the surgeon,” said Dodge.
The knight hurried from the tent, returned in half a moment with the surgeon, who, although in awe of Hatter like everyone else, did a commendable job of hiding it and going about her business. She touched at Hatter’s wound with a glowing rod to clean it and stop the bleeding, then slipped a U-shaped sleeve of interconnected NRG nodes and fusing cores over his shoulder, giving it time to repair his broken bone, torn ligaments, muscles, veins, and tendons. She removed the sleeve and cauterized a patch of lab-grown skin over the open wound.
Hatter tested his shoulder, moving his right arm in circles. With his strength slowly returning, he explained what had happened after he and Alyss had plunged into the Pool of Tears.
“So Alyss Heart is alive?” Generals Doppel and Ganger breathed.
“This is absurd,” Jack of Diamonds sputtered, having listened to Hatter’s account with growing concern. “Mr. Madigan, I am Jack of Diamonds. Doubtless you remember me. I was a boy before your untimely exit from Wonderland. I mean no offense when I say that I mourn for Princess Alyss as much as anybody, but things have reached a crisis here. We have no time to go chasing after phantoms.”
“I’m supposed to be dead and yet here I am,” said Hatter. “I’m telling you that Alyss Heart is alive and she’s old enough to return and claim her rightful place as queen.” He stood. “I’m going back to get her.”
“No. Let me go,” Dodge said.
“My duty is to protect the princess.”
“So as to ensure a future worth having for Wonderland, if I remember rightly. But look at you. You’re not exactly at your physical peak.”
Hatter said nothing, only swiveled his arm in its new socket.
“With your skills and experience, you’re more valuable to the Alyssians than I am,” Dodge said. “Stay and help the generals. Prep arations have to be made. Alyss will need an army behind her.”
“Isn’t everyone forgetting?” Jack of Diamonds whined. “We’ve agreed to stop all Alyssian activity.” “If we have Alyss, there may be other options,” Generals Doppel and Ganger said.
Hatter considered: The surgeon’s handiwork aside, it would take at least a day or two for his shoulder to feel normal. A little strategizing and a bit of meditation might do him some good, and the queendom even
more so. He handed Dodge the soggy newspaper detailing Alyss’ upcoming engagement party. “To find the return portal, look for water where no water should be.”
Dodge nodded, paused as he was leaving the tent. “A lot’s happened around here and none of it good. There are things you should know. Ask the generals to brief you.”
There were indeed things Hatter needed to know: The Millinery dissolved, its studies illegal. The Millinery had always been a staunch supporter of White Imagination and it had been too much of a risk for Redd
to leave it functioning. Students and graduates of the place-Caps, Brims, Cobblers, Girdlers-had been ambushed in the night by Glass Eyes and unceremoniously slaughtered. Among them a woman of
ordinary birth who, though not herself a member of the Millinery, had overseen its administrative necessities, and for whom Hatter had cared more than any other.
CHAPTER 28
T WENTY-YEAR-OLD ALICE Liddell flitted gracefully from one group of well-wishers to another, her long silk gown trailing on the ballroom’s parquet floor, her black hair rippling down past her shoulders,
her skin like smooth, unblemished ivory in the light of the crystal chandeliers. The most prominent members of British society were on hand for her engagement party-dukes, duchesses, knights, earls, counts, viscounts, and country squires-and all of them hid their faces behind masks, as did Alice. In the morning, newspapers would print detailed accounts of the masquerade for the benefit of the city’s washerwomen, footmen, tavern keepers, cooks, and maidservants, the lower-class folk who struggled day after day to make ends meet and liked to gossip about a world in which they could hardly believe, a world of such rare privilege and comfort as Alice Liddell’s had become.
“Why, Miss Liddell.” The Duchess of Devonshire stopped Alice on her tour across the ballroom. “Your dress is as stunning as one would expect of you. And your mask too-only, what are you supposed to be, dear?”
Alice’s mask was as featureless as could be: wax paper on a wire frame, with holes punched in it for eyes, nose, and mouth.
“I’m everywoman,” Alice replied. “Neither ugly nor beautiful. Neither rich nor poor. I could be any woman, any woman at all.”
Leopold approached for a dance. He wore a mask similar to Alice’s in simplicity, although not as perplexing to guests. It was a mask of his own face, rendered in oils by a local artist.
“My dear,” he said, offering his hand.
The orchestra struck up a waltz, and the couple danced around the room, the guests leaning against the walls to watch. Along with the many pairs of eyes cast on them, there was yet another-a stranger watching through the window. Prince Leopold was not a good dancer, neither light on his feet nor easy with his turns. Alice was almost thankful; it somehow lessened her guilt for not loving him. Dancing was the only activity in which he appeared less than perfect.
The waltz drew to a close and the prince noticed the queen frowning in a corner of the room. “I think I’d better pay my compliments to Mother,” he said, kissing Alice’s hand.
Leopold took off his mask and set it on a table. The stranger who’d been watching through the window entered the ballroom and, unnoticed, scooped up the mask.
Alice had barely finished refreshing herself with a few sips of wine when she felt a tap on the shoulder. She turned and saw her intended husband wearing his mask, holding out his hand in request of another dance.
“Already?” she said. “But what about the queen?”
The man in the mask remained silent. The orchestra swelled into another tune and he led her out to the dance floor. With an arm around her waist and a hand at the small of her back, he moved her easily this way and that, twirling her here, dipping her there. They were in perfect step with each other, as if they had been dancing together all their lives. The guests couldn’t fail to notice; they cleared a space for the couple and applauded.