Blood of Wonderland (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(59)

The Spade gave her a hard shake, and Dinah’s glassy eyes finally connected with his.

“Yer Majesty! Dinah! What’s happened?”

Her lips trembled into an ironic smile. “He doesn’t want me. After all this time.”

Sir Gorrann’s eyes filled with sympathy, and he let Dinah lean against him. “I’m sorry, Yer Majesty. He’s a bloody fool. Come on, let’s get you back to your tent.”

She felt raw inside, stripped, and she followed without thought. Only the anger was left behind, and it was a raging current, Dinah helpless in its flow. She let Sir Gorrann help her through the bramble back to where Morte waited for her. He pawed the ground impatiently until she mounted him.

With a click of her tongue, they were flying over the landscape, leaving Sir Gorrann trailing far behind. With each pound of Morte’s hooves, she felt her sadness turning to anger. Her rage was boiling over, spilling out until she seethed with fury. She clutched Morte’s mane, driving him harder, faster, until the two of them moved over the earth in a blur of blackness. Disjointed thoughts began to twist in her mind, shadowy tendrils of skewed reason.

A dark smile crept across her face as she let the rage she had held back for so long consume her.

If she could not quench the fire burning within her, she would set Wonderland ablaze.





The Black Towers


Water dripped down from a small, rotted hole in the ceiling, trailing down the stone walls and into a tiny rivulet between two roots. The harmonic sound of the water was soon interrupted by a scream, spiraling up from the depths of the Towers. Harris shuddered, his shudder leading to a coughing fit that racked his ribs and left him heaving. Shackles of iron slinked across the floor as he made his way toward the tiny little puddle in his cell. His ancient fingers, once used to turn the pages of glorious books of history and language now struggled to fold a tiny piece of paper that a guard had dropped earlier. It was nothing, just a wrapper, but here in the Towers, an unexpected gift.

“Curses!” he mumbled out loud. There was no reply, not from another prisoner, not from even a guard. A voice would have been so welcome, even if it were full of menace.

He focused back on the task at hand, consoling himself with his own voice. “Remember, my dear, it’s not the size of the paper, but the size of your skill that matters.” He folded the top of the paper down until the edges aligned with the bottom of the paper and his withered fingers creased it. He continued to work, licking his dry lips from time to time as he struggled to remember what he had taught her all those years ago.

He remembered her sitting in the crook of a tree as he tried to teach her history, rolling her dark eyes and fiddling with the bark. “Harris, how long is forever?” she had asked.

Harris had smiled. “Sometimes, just one second.”

He folded the paper wings down so that they were perpendicular to the body, crest, and tail, and then with a final flourish, he creased the head. Harris smiled and held his creation up in the waning light of the Towers before setting it down in the dirty puddle of water. The crane stared back at him, bobbing slightly.

The queen was coming. He knew it. That was not the question.

The question was who would she be when she got here.





Acknowledgments


In every novel, there is a point where the author must bridge the cavernous gap between the magical, bright-eyed beginning of the novel and the exciting, steely-eyed ending. I remember feeling inadequate as I moved into what would turn out to be the second novel in the Queen of Hearts series, wondering if I could connect the beginning to the bloody ending that loomed in my future.

This novel was the result of that pressure, but also the unleashing of an imagination that I had pushed away for years because I thought imagining was not something grown-up people did. For too long I ignored it, despised it, and let it manifest itself in other, unproductive ways. When I wrote the Queen of Hearts series, and in particular Blood of Wonderland, I let it flow out through every pore. I let it consume me. That is why we have trees that know, that is why there are giant stone cranes and curling blue smoke that takes you to the stars. To the readers out there, I hope you hear that imagination isn’t just reserved for our fleeting childhoods. It is essential to our hearts.

With that being said, another truth I learned is that had it not been for some incredible people (and lots of coffee consumption), I may not have made it through the Queen of Hearts series.

So, please accept my deepest gratitude and thanks to the kindhearted people who made this novel happen. You have the soul of the Yurkei with the determination of the line of Hearts.

Ryan Oakes, for his endless feedback, support, and the sheer power of his belief in this novel—thank you for your unflagging love, your creative mind, and your amusing nerd knowledge; I’ll never stop needing it.

For Maine . . . I wrote this book when you were nothing more than the brightest dream. Now that you’re here, I know that even my imagination couldn’t fathom something as awesome as you are.

Tricia McCulley and Ron and Denise McCulley, thanks for always coming to the book signings and pretending like it’s the first one in all of history. I feel it’s important to note here that my own father is a very nice man who has never tried to kill me, not once.

Cynthia McCulley, getting to be your sister never gets old. Thanks for agreeing to be a horse.