“He found me by accident, Hatter!” The folded arms, the head tilted slightly forward while she eyed him from beneath the overhang of her brow: She was getting mad. “I owe Arch my life,” she said. “He’s been nothing but kind and helpful.”
“When has King Arch ever been kind and helpful without an ulterior motive?”
“Being a Milliner makes you suspicious of everybody. You’re so smart when it comes to military things, why doesn’t it translate into being smart about others? I don’t want you to accuse Arch again. He’s my friend.”
He would get nowhere arguing with her. Either she’d been brainwashed or the stress of the past years, of giving up her daughter, had made her susceptible to a faith in the goodness of others, even in those who’d exhibited no special affinity for goodness.
“You truly believe we need Arch if we’re to get Molly back safe?” Hatter asked. “Yes.”
“And you trust him?”
“Almost as much as I trust you.” He kissed her. “Wait here.”
He hadn’t decided what he was going to do even as he stepped outside the tent, where Arch, Ripkins, and Blister were waiting. Kill or defer, kill or defer, he couldn’t make up his mind. But then he was standing in front of the king and his body seemed to decide for him. Just as he had done in the past, whenever showing reverence for Genevieve or Alyss Heart, he prostrated himself.
“If your invitation still stands, Your Majesty,” he said, “I would be honored to join your tribe.”
CHAPTER 28
R EDD HEART had been born to attract attention, and no garment from any universe, known or unknown, could have prevented the eyes of lesser creatures from being drawn to her. Finding that all attempts to blend in with the sorry specimens of Earth were futile, she stopped trying. In London’s Crystal Palace, she donned her dress of flesh-eating roses and twirled before a reflective glass, a renegade Heart pleased with what she saw.
“I now consider myself officially introduced to Earth society,” she pronounced.
A cheer went up from her recruits-a cheer more akin to grumbling thunder than a hearty outpouring, which for the thousand or so earthlings and ex-Wonderlanders enlisted to Redd’s cause in the past months, was the closest they could manage.
“Scatter,” Redd commanded.
So they did, dispersing to explore their new home and to idle away the hours with petty scams and
abuses, eager for what Redd had promised would be the most unwholesome adventure of their lives-their attack on Wonderland, when whatever cruel talents each possessed were to be indulged to their fullest. They were still spilling out of the palace’s Italian court when Vollrath offered himself up to his pupil.
“It isn’t clear that your Earth clothes have helped in our recruitment process, Your Imperial Viciousness,” the tutor said. “Therefore, I’m ready for whatever death you have in mind for me. Whether mercifully quick or agonizingly slow and torturous, I readily give myself up to it, as I said I would.”
Redd stared at the bald head bent down before her. How refreshing Vollrath’s sacrifice was. He didn’t beg for his life. He didn’t embarrass himself with groveling or sniveling, or appeals to her nonexistent mercy. Thinking that he might still be helpful in finding her Looking Glass Maze, she said, “I’m feeling generous today. You get to live.”
“I thank you for your leniency, Your Imperial Viciousness.” “Leniency is for the weak-minded. Do not goad me with leniency.”
Vollrath bowed. “I apologize, Your Imperial Viciousness. But if I may overstep my bounds and impose further on your by no means lenient generosity: Since you are going to let me live, could you perhaps imagine for me…oh, let’s say a fistful of money, with which I and a few others can celebrate?”
“You’ll find it in your pockets. Now leave me to my brooding.”
The recruitment search had taken Redd across the European continent-to Africa, Asia, Russia, and back to Europe, Vollrath and Sacrenoir serving as her constant companions, her guides and recruitment officers. And just as had happened with Hatter Madigan during his thirteen-year search for the exiled Alyss Heart, wherever Redd went, stories began to circulate that in time would become legend, myth. Redd passed through Germany and tales of a kobold resembling her description were whispered. In Scandinavia, she was turned into a trollkonor with a bit of the huldra about her, and like every trollkonor, she was said to have a tail. In Spain, she became an evil temptress of Moors. In Constantinople, she was transformed into one of the most powerful alkiris ever heard of, immune to steel and particularly spiteful
in her killing of newborn babies and their mothers. In Egypt, she was said to be a female demon, a devourer of souls. In Hong Kong, a new goddess cursed her way into the immortal pantheon, to be trusted less than Lei-zi, the goddess of thunder, and to be feared as much as Chu Jiang, king of the hell reserved for thieves and murderers. But as these stories passed from lips to lips, imprinting themselves on the public consciousness of various cultures, so too through derelict districts and select upper-class
salons did the truth become known: Redd Heart, displaced evil Queen of Wonderland, wanted soldiers to fight with her for her queendom.
“P-Potential recruits seem more than w-willing to come to you, Your Imperial Viciousness,” Vollrath had noted, shivering on a street corner in Saint Petersburg. “All you n-n-need do is choose somewhere to
r-reside until we return to W-Wonderland so that would-be s-s-s-soldiers will know where to f-find you.”
Redd, unlike her followers, was immune to the cold, the stinging wind. “Then we will live in the same city where my niece once lived,” she had said, “to sour whatever lingering effects of White Imagination her presence might have had on the place.”
So Vollrath and Sacrenoir had carried Redd to Oxford, England, where they escorted her around the provincial streets, the quads of Oxford University. It hadn’t taken long for Her Imperial Viciousness to see that she couldn’t live there.
“I’m nauseous from all of these picturesque lanes and quaint shops,” Redd had announced. “It suits my niece perfectly. She can have it.”
Soon thereafter, Redd had arrived on the streets of England’s capital city. A haughty-faced woman with cottony edges, a purring cat riding on her shoulders, and over one hundred international rogues massed behind her, Londoners had gaped and gawked as she called Vollrath and Sacrenoir to her side in Trafalgar Square to discuss where to live.
“There’s always Buckingham Palace.”
“Beneath me,” Redd had scorned. “I won’t acknowledge their ‘queen’ by taking over her hovel.” “Then you’ll no doubt find the mansions of their dukes and duchesses beneath you.”
“No doubt.”
“There is another possibility,” Vollrath had said. “It’s an enormous structure, predominantly of iron and glass, the size of which suggests to many the strength of a mighty empire as well as boundless imagination. They say it houses the marvels of the age, from steam hammers, hydraulic presses, firearms, furniture, pianos, pottery, perfumes, diving suits, fabrics, and-”