“Try a dormouse snout,” Arch offered. “I think you’ll find them equal to any delicacy you’ve ever tasted.”

Jack bit into one. “Mmm, more than equal.”

“My chef will be so pleased,” Arch said, a hint of disdain in his voice. He turned his attention to the Lord of Diamonds. “Do you think I’m lacking in intelligence, Lord Diamond? Or that I don’t know enough about manipulating people to get what I want?”

“By no means, my liege. But-”

“At this moment, a gang of warriors from the Onu tribe are being entertained in one of my pleasure tents. By the time they leave this encampment, I’ll have them fully convinced that the Maldoids, with whom they have an unstable peace, are planning to attack them. I fail to see how I can lack the intelligence necessary to my position and yet be clever enough to maintain my dominance over all Boarderland tribes by

keeping them fighting one another.”

“’Cause as long as they’re fighting one another,” Jack interrupted, popping a dormouse snout into his mouth, “they can’t band together to defeat you.”

Arch leaned menacingly toward the Lord of Diamonds. “Stop insulting my intelligence with your excuses, milord. Your son is returned to you. I have fulfilled my half of our agreement. It’s time you fulfilled yours.”

“Yes, um…there’s a maid of Queen Alyss’ who, I believe, is ripe for manipulation…possibly.”

King Arch smirked at his bodyguards, Ripkins and Blister, who were standing off to one side. “A maid, eh? And you ‘believe’ she might ‘possibly’ be ripe? What helpful information. I almost prefer your excuses.”

“We could better identify a target for you, Your Majesty, if we knew what you wanted the person for,”

said the Lady of Diamonds.

Arch looked curiously at this upstart woman, who sat fidgeting in increasingly uncomfortable silence until the king at length addressed her husband: “Expecting your inability, I myself made a reconnaissance mission to Wonderland and have found my quarry-Queen Alyss’ bodyguard, Homburg Molly.”

“But Molly is devoted to Alyss,” said the Lord of Diamonds.

“Her desire to prove her devotion and worth is what I will depend on. Alyss spent a great deal of her

strength and resources against Redd. The more time that passes, the stronger she will become. Therefore, I have decided-very selflessly and courageously-that to ensure a proper future for our world, I must take control of Wonderland as soon as possible. And the Heart Crystal.”

“The Heart Crystal?”

It was no secret that the Lady of Diamonds, as well as Wonderland’s other ladies of foremost rank-the

Lady of Clubs and the Lady of Spades-wanted to possess the crystal, each believing herself more gifted in imagination than she truly was.

“While I don’t claim to gain any strength of body or mind from the crystal,” Arch explained, “its influence over Earth will prove helpful in my charitable endeavors. It’s a burden to care for others more than they care for themselves. But as my intel ministers have informed me, the only way I can prevent Earth from devolving into utter ruination is to take control of it too.”

Jack had by now finished off the platters of gryphon wing and dormice snout and was indulging in a heap of sliced dingy-pear to cleanse his palate. Anyone watching him would have thought him too intent on filling his belly to pay attention to the conversation going on around him. But Jack was a talented listener, ever sifting through what he heard for information that, at some time or other, in some way, he might exploit to his own advantage. Swallowing down the last of the dingypear, he eyed Blister. Was this the fellow who’d freed him from the Crystal Mines?

“You there,” he said. “Instead of standing around being useless, how about you fill my glass with wine?” Blister’s expression revealed nothing. “Certainly.”

The bodyguard made his slow, deliberate way to Jack, reached out to put his hand over Jack’s with the apparent intention of helping to steady the glass as he poured, but-

“Leave him, Blister.” To Jack, Arch said, “Believe me, you don’t want his help.” He snapped his fingers and a servant girl hurried in on silent feet to fill Jack’s glass. “I have already unleashed several regiments of fighters that Alyss and her people should find familiar. It’s merely a diversionary tactic, a ploy to focus their military attentions off into the distance so that the bulk of my forces can enter relatively unopposed into Wondertropolis itself. I can forgive your failure, Lord Diamond, only if you do something else for me.”

Ripkins stepped forward and set an exquisitely carved chest the size of a bread loaf before the Lord of

Diamonds.

“I want you to present this little item to Homburg Molly.” “It’s beautiful,” whispered the Lady of Diamonds.

“Its exterior is nothing compared to what it contains. It’s a small prototype of a weapon I’m developing. A fraction of the strength of what it will ultimately be, but enough to serve my present purposes. Though I warn you all, if you value your lives-”

“Only in so much as they give us power, wealth, and influence,” Jack declared.

“-if you value them for any reason, you will not open that chest. You will leave that privilege to Homburg Molly.” Arch leaned back in his chair, letting himself relax, the end of this pertinent business near. “Tell me, Lord Diamond, what do you think of kings?”

“I think they make the best sovereigns. Much better than queens.”

Arch laughed. “You’re wiser than you look. As a reward for your wisdom, and assuming you don’t

prove inept at delivering my weapon into Homburg Molly’s girlish hands, once Wonderland is in my care, I intend to grant you back your ancestral lands to govern as you please.”

“The Diamond Hectariat?”

The king nodded. “The borders of which will be exactly as they used to be before your ancestors and those of the Club, Spade, and Heart clans formed the coalition that eventually became Wonderland. Who knows? Perhaps I’ll even throw in a bit of the Clubs’ former hectariat for you to govern?”

Well, well. That was something the Diamonds hadn’t expected. The hectariat theirs again? They could always scheme to get control of the Heart Crystal later.

Bloated with family pride, Jack emptied onto the table a pocketful of rhyolite crystals he’d filched from the mines. “Is there a wig merchant in this settlement you can recommend, Arch?”

“In Boarderland, men do not wear wigs,” said the king, thinking he’d have this carved somewhere on his nation’s landscape at the next opportunity. “Now listen well, all of you. Here’s my plan…”

After the Diamonds had been escorted out of the tent, Arch dismissed everyone save Ripkins and Blister. “You know what you’re to do?”

The bodyguards nodded.

“She’ll be unconscious from the blast, but she shouldn’t be too injured. Do not make her more so.” Their disappointment was obvious-they who usually held themselves so taut had slackened somehow. “Scent the seekers with this.” Arch handed Ripkins the button that had dropped off Molly’s coat during