Page 68 of Wondrous
We sat perplexed for a moment, which was as long as it took for the Queen of Hearts’ impatience to overtake her confusion.
“If we keep at this much longer, it will be too dark to play any croquet at all,” she snapped. “Let’s name the Alice and be done with this.”
I heard murmurs of discontent at this, mostly from the Alices, and I understood why. Several of them were bandaged or bruised; one girl seemed to have had all her hair singed away, apart from a single lock above her forehead. To hear the Queen speak so dismissively of our efforts to save her kingdom was completely unsurprising, but it still stung.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the general said. “Multiple witnesses have claimed that this Alice defeated all three of the mock dragons, and thus her testimony will be—”
“Testimony!” the Queen of Hearts cried. “I am not sitting here and listening to testimony. Let’s name her the Alice and throw the rest of the imposters out.”
I gaped at her, hardly daring to believe it. I looked at the audience, my gaze moving from one Alice to another. Several looked bitterly disappointed and did not meet my eyes, but the rest appeared merely resigned. A few even smiled at me.
I didn’t understand at first. And then I did.
The other Alices cared about saving Wonderland. They cared more about saving it than they did about winning the competition, even if they never saw Wonderland again. It was why so many of them had teamed up to hunt the mock dragons, though it went against the Queen’s decree.
I felt a prickle of shame at how I had clung to my solitary quest, refusing even to consider allying with Alex and Maria until the decision was forced upon me. Yes, I loved Wonderland, and I had saved the realm with my chalice, but was I truly the most deserving Alice in the room? It didn’t feel that way.
“Your Majesty,” I said, then had to clear my throat, because I was so nervous barely any sound had come out. “It wasn’t just me. I had—”
Someone abruptly stood up. It was Maria—she and Alex had been half hidden behind a taller Alice with a lot of red curls. “It’s true, Your Majesties. This Alice cast a sleep spell on the first mock dragon and put its fire out. She cast another spell on the second, one that trapped the monster in a daydream, then put her fire out, and she used a jabberwock, whom she blackmailed into helping her, to kill the third. She was brave and clever, and she deserves to be named the Alice.”
The Queen looked as if she was about to turn even redder with rage—fortunately, the King was attuned to her humors and said with an unusually stern note in his quiet voice, “Speaking out of turn! We’ll deal with you later. I’d like to hear from this supposedly brave and clever Alice, to ensure she isn’t a cheat or imposter.”
The rage in the Queen of Hearts’ face changed to savage delight, and again I was reminded of a river skillfully diverted to a safer channel. I wondered briefly if this talent for manipulating the Queen’s moods made the King as dangerous as the Queen in his own way.
“If she is,” the Queen said, “she certainly won’t leave this room with her head.”
By this point, the Queen had promised to behead me so many times that the threat was almost old hat, which wasn’t to say that I didn’t take it seriously. I swallowed and opened my mouth.
“Wait.” The Queen of Hearts leaned forward, curiosity sparking in her eyes. It was the first time she’d truly looked at me since entering the throne room. “Does this one seem familiar, my love?”
The King gave a low hmm. “Familiar? It’s hard to say—children look so alike.”
The Queen didn’t look away from me. “What’s that in your pocket, girl?”
I was sweating by this point, as if the Queen’s fiery gaze gave off actual heat. I was horrified to realize that Hedgewitch—whom I had, of course, stolen from the Queen herself—was changing positions mid-nap.
“Oh, that’s—that’s only a mome rath,” I said, putting my hand in my pocket to shove Hedgewitch deeper. “They make quite agreeable pets.”
Before the Queen, who was still eyeing me beadily, could speak again, I hurried to add, “What Maria—the Alice over there—said is true, Your Majesty. I did capture a jabberwock, and I did use my enchanted teacups against the mock dragons. But I had help. I wouldn’t have caught the second mock dragon without Maria’s net, and I would be dead if Alex—another Alice, sitting over there—hadn’t distracted the third mock dragon with her fireworks. And Jack—”
I stopped myself, realizing I was beginning to ramble, which would surely throw the Queen of Hearts into another fit. “What I’m saying is that, yes, I stopped the mock dragons from destroying Wonderland. But Alex and Maria—”
“I am not interested in details,” the Queen of Hearts thundered. “Does this ludicrous child think that we have all day? Throw her out! Throw them all out!”
This elicited a murmur of dismay that swelled to mutiny in some corners of the room—while it was clear that most Alices agreed with my victory, not all of them were resigned to losing Wonderland and had clearly been hoping someone would step in to save the day. But a cool voice cut through the din like a blade.
“A Queen of Wonderland cannot be thrown out,” the White Queen said. “Thrown over—yes. Overthrown—also yes.” Here she leaned around the walrus and fixed the Queen of Hearts with a piercing enigmatic stare. “But not thrown out. It’s undignified.”
“A Queen of Wonderland!” I cried. “But that doesn’t—how can I be a queen?”
“You’ve risked your life to save Wonderland,” the general said in her matter-of-fact way. “Of course you’re a queen. How else are queens made?”
“I—I didn’t know they were,” I said, staring at first the White Queen, then the Queen of Hearts. Had she truly, at some point in the past, saved Wonderland from destruction? I couldn’t imagine her lifting a finger to help anyone, including the kingdom itself.
The Queen of Hearts didn’t enlighten me. She merely returned my gaze with a dark expression, drumming her fingers on the arm of her throne.
“You keep insisting you never gave the prophecy about this child saving Wonderland,” she finally spat, glaring at the White Queen.
