The Hidden Library (34 page)

Finn’s eyebrows lift up in a silent question, but I merely lay a hand upon his cheek for a brief moment prior to stepping away. Guilt over leaving him in the dark is only momentary. Hearts and I have business with one another.

I weave my way through the richly decorated tables and crowds of well-dressed patrons, my eyes never leaving her familiar form. Enrobed in a bright red and black silk dress, her dark hair piled high upon her head, she appears exactly as I remember her: striking and haughty with more than a touch of malice coloring every movement.

She watches my approach as well, her full lips curving slightly upward as she holds her glass aloft in silent yet insulting salute.

The Queen of Hearts, in modern-day New York City. In the New York Public Library, no less—and no doubt to finish what she so foolishly started.

When I stop several feet away from her, she says, “Diamonds.” Her dismay at my still-beating heart is obvious.

As I always have been, I am more than happy to thwart her plans. “Hearts.”

Viciousness and spite make her red lips practically stretch across her face as she delights in taking me in with great exaggeration. “My, my. You’ve gone native, haven’t you?”

Petty retorts that touch upon her inability to dress in any other hue than red or black, shades both patently unflattering to her skin tone, tickle the tip of my tongue, but I know better than to engage. I remain silent. She’s here for a reason—granted, the reason is most likely the extraction of my head, but still. I’ve long learned that it best suits my needs to discern her movements and wishes before taking any action of my own.

“Tell me, Diamonds. Have you gone so soft in your exile that you require a bodyguard?” She inclines her head in the direction I came from, back toward Finn whilst tsking loudly. But then she taps her long chin with one of those bizarrely chubby fingers of hers. “If one of my soldiers touched me the way yours just did, I would have his hand as payment.”

She appears to be alone. None of the nearby men or women are any that I recognize—not that that means much, as the Queen of Hearts burns through employees at an alarming rate, thanks to her infamous temper. Yet still, I highly doubt this woman would attend unaccompanied. Her ego and inflated sense of importance would never allow such a thing.

“I wonder,” she continues over the rim of her glass, “what White would think of your mingling with the help.” She lowers the flute, her eyes going deceptively wide and sympathetic. “But then again, with the White monarchs unified under a joint banner, perhaps he doesn’t have time to ruminate on such unsavory reminders of the past in the first place.”

Her baiting has always been as terrible as her fashion. I offer an exaggerated yawn against the back of a hand. “You’ve come across time and space for that?” It’s my turn to tsk. “Or was it to ensure your boojum did its job?”

“Oh, poppet. I do delight in finding you still just as bratty as before. When I heard you’d languished within the walls of an . . . What do they call them here? An asylum? I feared you were yet another Dumpty.” Her mock sympathy returns. “No matter what, no matter if it’s deserved or not, Queens of Wonderland must be afforded better than that.”

And yet, she thought it best for a fellow queen to have a boojum implanted at the base of her spine, one who slowly drained both mobility and life away from its host?

“It must be a terrible disappointment, knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do to remove me from the Queens’ Council.”
Or kill me.
I mimic her spiteful smile. “That, even in my absence, my rule and sovereignty in Wonderland is valid until the day of my last breath.”

“That’s the thing, poppet,” she coos. “Your last breath is not protected, is it?”

“How amusing it is,” I counter, “that you are here, in New York, at a gala for a house of literacy for the sole purpose of confronting an exiled colleague instead of being back at home, fulfilling your duties as a monarch on the battlefield.”

For all of her—what does Mary call it?
Trash talk?
For all of her petty words, I will admit it appears the Queen of Hearts has matured a bit toward resisting such taunts. “Have no fear over my duties, Diamonds. I am, as I ever was, vigilant in those things I must do to ensure Wonderland’s prosperity.”

Her dress is voluminous, leaving plenty of places to hide weaponry. At least I can reassure myself that her wicked battle-axe is not upon her person, though. There is not enough silk in any world to hide such a monstrosity.

No matter. I have bested this woman before with my hands. I can do it again. Besides, I’ve got a nice pair of small blades strapped to my thighs beneath my gown.

“The other queens and I convened recently,” she says casually, “and we were most distraught at how our people suffer. It appears your absence has afforded Wonderland precious little relief.”

Finally, one of her jabs lands true and strong.

“Perhaps it is
you
who has gone soft in
my
absence,” I say flatly. “You foolishly jabber on like the Duchess. If you’re here for a fight, let us fight. Or are you resigned now to others doing your dirty work for you?” I tsk once more. “What would your armies think of that—the mighty Queen of Hearts, enlisting a filthy commoner and non-native to carry out what she is unable to do?”

The gurgling sound that emerges from between her clinched lips is sweet music to my ears.

“Then again, if all you want to do is act like a mimsy and chatter on with toothless threats and innuendos, I have better uses for my evening.”

One of my jabs lands true and strong, as well. Her eyes narrow, her fingers curl tighter around the glass until the skin turns white. And then, just as the veins in her eyes turn blood red, the glass between her fingers shatters. Champagne soaks her silk.

I afford her a falsely sympathetic, sweeping glance of her newly ruined dress. Somebody nearby gasps; another person attempts to pass her a linen napkin.

Fury mottles her skin as she barks for him to leave her person alone. And then she rages incoherently for a good twenty seconds, her face now the exact shade of her dress.

I’m reminded of one of the many skirmishes between us, one in the halls of the Red Queen’s palace. It’d been after one of our monthly Queens’ Council meetings, and she and her axe devastated several statues and cracked the floor after her ridiculous arguments had fallen upon deaf ears. Red had done as she always did, shouting for guards and uselessly lamenting over insignificant things such as broken marble, while White had slipped away like the slithery
tove
she is to whereabouts unknown. It’d been up to me to put this beast of a woman in her place, and I came away with a nasty scar upon my belly for my efforts. Nonetheless, I’d bested her, and now that her recent villainy is so fresh in my mind, I have little doubts upon doing it once more. “Shall I save you the efforts toward screaming for my head?”

She’s nearly choking, so she’s apoplectic.

I slowly run a finger across my throat. “Do you best, Hearts.”

For a moment, it appears as if she’ll fall prey to my baiting. But alas, just as her wound-free hand shifts toward the opposite sleeve, a level head emerges. She sucks in a deep breath, blowing it out of quivering nostrils.

So. A weapon lies within one of her sleeves.

“Are you not going to inquire as to why I am here?”

She’d like that, wouldn’t she? Her eagerness to lord her explanations over me is nearly tangible.

Words allow lies,
the Caterpillar used to say.

“Why should I ask when I already know?”

But then she reaches behind her to reclaim a small clutch from a nearby table, all so she might extract a square of silk out to press against her bleeding hand.

Cold, bitter rage frosts my heart as I stare at the receptacle.

Darkish, mottled green in color, with just a hint of shimmery blue, her clutch is as familiar to me as the skin on my own body.

My hands shake. Fury tints my vision. Not only did she sever the head from my Grand Advisor and place it on a stake outside her palace, but she harvested his beautiful skin to fashion a handbag.

The hag’s mouth twitches into a larger grin. “It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?” She snaps the golden closures shut and holds the bag aloft between us. “A favorite of mine.”

There are shards of glass still littering the ground beneath her feet. It would take little effort to claim a piece, only slightly more to drag it across her undeserving flesh.

“Diamonds, I’m disappointed in you,” she says amiably. “To think you would even consider causing mayhem within these learned walls . . .”

For a moment, I’m taken aback by her silence. The Queen of Hearts, out of steam during one of her infamous monologues? But then she says, her voice low, “It appears I’m not the only one who allows filthy commoners to fight their battles.”

“Is that what I am?” Finn asks from right behind me. “A filthy commoner?”

Hearts looks at me, not him. And it’s an expectant look, as if she’s daring me to prove her right.

“The thing is,” Finn continues quietly, “the Queen of Diamonds doesn’t require me to fight her battles. She’s more than capable of fighting them herself.”

Hearts says nothing. She doesn’t move. But slowly, oh so slowly, the smile across her face spreads until it nearly eclipses her other features.

It’s an uneasy smile, one that sounds alarms. I itch to glance around to find Victor. Locate Mary, or Van Brunt. Because I’ve seen this smile before.

Nothing good has ever followed this smile. Violence has, though. Immense amounts of violence.

“Hello, poppet,” she clucks, but she is not speaking to me. “Aren’t you a delicious tart?”

Finn comes to stand next to me. Upon my back, in a gesture meant to look loving, he taps and slides his finger. Victor and Mary, to the left at eleven o’clock. Van Brunt, to the right at four o’clock. HQ notified.

The meaning is not lost on me. There is someone else who ought to be here, someone else who has a stake in this confrontation.

Someone else I hope is en route immediately.

“Tell me,” Hearts continues, “does it bother you, Finn Van Brunt, that you are nothing more than a consolation prize?”

He laughs at her—not so much in the shared shock we surely both feel at her expanded knowledge of his person, though. This laugh I know. This laugh is all about scorn. “Imagine my surprise,” he says to her, “to find out that the infamous Queen of Hearts is so desperate that she has to resort to stereotypical tropes in efforts to throw her opponents off-guard.” He shakes his head. “Sorry,
poppet,
but I don’t play those school-yard games. Or didn’t your informant tell you that? If you want to get under my skin, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

Hints of anger flare in her dark irises, but then, without warning, that nefarious smile of hers reemerges.

“What a darling plaything you have here,” she says to me. Before I can counter, she turns to him. “In the spirit of our meeting, let me issue you this friendly warning. Collateral damage is a messy yet unfortunately unavoidable casualty in battle. You may want to choose whether or not you want to be in the midst of this one. You see, Diamonds is not your monarch, nor is she your equal. Her loyalty and affections will never truly lie with you. How could they? That’s the thing about Wonderlandian monarchs, even those who are mistakes. Our constitutions are different from yours. Our blood and psyches requires something more. Diamonds’ priorities, even here,” she offers an exaggerated glance around us, “even now, even in exile, are the same as they ever were. And they will be so until she dies.”

For his part, Finn simply looks bored.

“In the end,” she says in a horribly kind voice, “when you look around wondering how it all came down so quickly, I hope you remember that I tried to warn you.” She brushes back a stray dark strand and tilts her head. “If, in fact, you’re still standing. Rest assured, though, sweet tart. My fight is not with you. As for others . . .” Her shrug is infuriatingly charming. “Others and their plans are their own.”

The unease in the pit of my stomach grows exponentially, but my words are controlled. “Todd has been neutralized.”

She is unbothered by this. And it’s then that I understand he truly was nothing but that
filthy commoner
to her, a disposable one that had nothing to do with her end game.

Todd, for so long, has been of great importance to the Society. Todd and Rosemary, Jenkins, even, were the villains. Their crimes were atrocious. Their captures were bittersweet victories.

I know better now. Todd and his cohorts were the small fish in the pond. And the Queen of Hearts? I have a feeling she’s not much better. Her fight is with me. I would lay down my crown that she has no interest in Timelines.

No—someone else does, though. Someone . . . who is using her.

Part of me insists I walk away now. That my goal is to find this person—or persons, if our guesses prove to be incorrect—and wield justice so many innocents so richly deserve and yet can never witness. But there’s something that stops my feet from uprooting, something that holds me back.

The painfully ironic scene of a small rectangle still clutched within a bloody hand.

The Caterpillar would call me a fool. A sentimental fool, to be exact. But this sentimental fool cannot stand by and allow a bitch like Hearts hold onto such a thing.

If she wants a fight, a fight is what she’ll get.

“You’re right about one thing,” I say coolly yet calmly. “My loyalty to my subjects is unwavering. I will always put matters concerning them above my own.”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Are we back to this, then?” She fans herself with the clutch before pressing a loving kiss against it. “Are you really ready to come at me in such a place, during such an event? All by yourself?”

Finn’s fingers tap against my lower back again as she offers Finn what I’m certain she feels is apologetic yet insulting in nature. And then, almost as if it were out of a storybook, or a modern movie, an achingly familiar voice says, “She will not be alone.”

The Queen of Hearts’ mouth closes; her head snaps to the left. Approaching us, still wearing the flannel shirt and jeans from before, is the White King of Wonderland.