“I shouldn’t…” she said, looking glumly at the weapons. “I can’t be trusted. I’ve already messed up enough.”

Hatter stepped over and snapped the bracelet onto her wrist. “No more than any one of us,” he said, then unstrapped his AD52 and-

Fi-fi-fi-fi-fith! Fi-fi-fi-fi-fith!

He spun 360 degrees, dealing razor-cards at the surrounding tent, severing it in two-the wind blowing away the top half, the bottom half dropping to the ground.

Arch’s warriors were filling the street and adjacent tents. Hatter slammed projectile deck after projectile deck into his AD52’s ammo bay, dealing razor-cards at them until the last of his limited supply was gone and the weapon clicked empty. He used his one set of wrist-blades as a shield, their high-powered rotary action knocking the kill-quills, crystal shot, poison bullets, and razor-cards of his enemy toward unsoughtfor targets. Molly, wearing his other set of wrist-blades, apprehensively shielded their backside, and Weaver kept snug between them, firing her AD52.

“Follow close behind me!” Hatter yelled.

He charged straight at the Doomsine warriors in the street, his whirring wrist-blades held out in front of him. Doink! Patingk! Ping! The enemies’ missiles ricocheted off his blades, which stuttered and slowed when one of the warriors failed to get out of his way. But now they were on the move, he and Weaver and Molly hurrying down the street, and the Milliner might have considered this an improvement in his family’s situation if enemy fire hadn’t been coming at them from every direction, blasting out of heavily covered positions.

A flash of light: An orb generator came rocketing toward them. “Take cover!”

Father, mother, and daughter dove to the ground as one. Krachboooooooooooooooooooooooffffsh!

The quiet that settled after the explosion might have belonged to the grave, but soon they heard the thump of debris raining down around them. Every tent in the camp had collapsed. The Doomsines they’d been battling just a moment before were standing in stupefied silence, looking off at the horizon.

Hatter motioned for Weaver and Molly to crawl under the nearest tent and he crawled in after them. Whatever was going on outside, if it lasted long enough, they might be able to slip from one tent to another, unnoticed, and escape to the edge of camp.

Arch was being entertained by wives numbered nine, sixteen, twenty-three, and thirty-two when a minister rushed in and-

“Your Majesty,” the minister said, the rest of his words lost in the roar and rumble of an engine that grew increasingly louder until it was directly outside the tent. The minister finished speaking, the engine cut off, and Redd flounced in followed by The Cat, Vollrath, Siren Hecht, and Alistaire Poole.

“What, back already?” Arch said, not quite hiding his annoyance.

“Grouchy because I interrupted your family frolic, Archy?” Redd smirked. “I think I feel a pang of jealousy.”

“They’re my wives, Redd. They mean nothing to me.”

“Really? Then you won’t mind if I…” Redd made as if to throw her scepter as she would a spear. Boils and hairy cysts and mustaches shot out from its shriveled heart and lodged on the faces of the four wives, spoiling their pretty looks. “There, that’s better.” Redd turned back to Arch and wiggled her scepter.

“Do you know what this is?”

“It looks like a rotten bedpost that should have been incinerated long ago.”

“Close. It’s the scepter meant for me as queen, retrieved from my Looking Glass-”

Gunplay erupted outside. Arch whistled for Ripkins and Blister, but they were not at their usual posts. “Looking for these two?” Redd asked, and in rolled the bodyguards, contained in a ball of clear,

impenetrable glass she had conjured. “I assume they have special talents if you’ve made them your personal guards, Archy. I’m going to keep them secure until I know what these talents are and how I can

exploit them to my own purposes.”

The battle outside was gaining momentum: the warrior calls, the overlapping grunts of the dying. A bloodied minister stumbled into the tent. “My liege, Homburg Molly has escaped.”

“What do you mean escaped?” Arch shouted. “How could she have escaped when her every movement sent her dizzy to the floor?”

“Pardon, my liege,” said the minister, “she didn’t escape so much as she was rescued. By her mother. And Hatter Madigan.”

“Hatter Madigan is here?” Redd asked.

But Arch was too busy railing and cursing to answer. He stomped and punched the air, and after a particularly forceful flogging of his invisible foes, Redd said, “Your rage is impressive, Archy, but the pressures of ruling are clearly too much for you. I think I’ll take control of Boarderland and let you get some rest.”

Arch’s tantrum was gone in a moment. When he spoke, he had the tone and manner of an indulgent

uncle. “Redd, I ask this with utmost respect to your imagination, but…” He made a show of counting The Cat, Vollrath, Siren, and Alistaire. “…I see only four supporters. Even with your imagination, you can’t defeat my forces.”

“Quite right,” Redd said, and with a dip of her scepter, the tents of the entire Doomsine encampment fell to the ground.

They were surrounded. Armed warriors from all twenty-one of Boarderland’s tribes had encircled the camp and stood awaiting their orders.

Redd raised her voice loud enough to be heard by all. “Arch, I introduce you to my army! Army, this is your former king!”

“With Redd at our head, we are all equal!” the tribes called in unison. “This isn’t possible,” Arch breathed. “It’s one of your imaginative tricks.”

“Is it?” With the speed of an orb generator exploding from a cannon, she shot a black and thorny rose vine from the raisin-heart crowning her scepter. Seeking a victim at random from amid her new army, the vine wrapped around an Onu and strangled him.

“Constructs of my imagination are not able to die,” she said. “So you see how wrong you are, Archy.” “But how?” the king whispered. “How did you-”

“You have me to thank,” said a voice, and out from under a collapsed tent crawled Jack of Diamonds. “You?” Arch said.

Jack bowed. “I’m ecstatic to be the instrument of your ruin, Your Former Majesty. It’s the least you deserve for betraying my family.”

“Yes,” Redd sighed, “as much as I like to take credit for other people’s accomplishments as well as my own, in this instance, Archy, I have to admit, it was Jack’s idea to convince the tribes to fight for me and his efforts that brought it about. But all annoying fops must come to an end. I have no more use for Jack,

and so-”

“No more use?” Jack of Diamonds said in disbelief. “But I’ve always been useful to you, Your Imperial

Viciousness! I can and always will be! I’ll-”