Heartless(101)

Catherine’s insides writhed. Her eyes began to well with tears, but she blinked them back and turned to look at Mary Ann again. Her lifelong friend stood beneath a copse of trees, looking stricken and so very, very sorry.

A hard knot of anger tightened in the base of Catherine’s stomach.

Following the look, her mother waved her hand at the maids. “Abigail, Mary Ann, go back to the house and draw a warm bath for Catherine. She’s been through quite an ordeal tonight.”

They dropped into fast curtsies.

“I’m so glad you’re all right, Ca—Lady Catherine,” Mary Ann said, her voice barely a breath before she followed Abigail toward the house.

Cath’s anger twitched and grew. She was not right at all.

“I trust this criminal will be taken to a prison cell?” said the Marquess.

“He had better!” said the Marchioness. Some of her spittle landed on Jest’s cheek, but he barely twitched. “For the safety of our daughter! I don’t want him to be able to ensorcell anyone but prison rats from this day forward!”

“O-o-of course!” stammered the King, forcing himself into their circle. He was wringing his hands and Cath could see he was desperate to have this whole situation behind him. “I cannot begin to convey my remorse for … for all that’s happened.” His eyebrows bunched in the middle of his brow as he gestured toward Jest. “He just seemed so trustworthy.”

Cath sneered. “You are all idiots.”

“Catherine!” her mother snapped.

The Marquess placed an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Now, now, dearest. She’s not herself, can’t you see?”

Catherine crossed her arms over her chest. “Then who do you think I am?”

“Er, well.” The King cleared his throat, changing the subject. “The Joker will be, er, dealt with.” He tugged his collar away from his throat. “And then we shall forget any of this unpleasantness ever happened!”

Cath turned to Jest. He held the look, and there was something insistent in his gaze. Maybe he was telling her this was all for the best, but she refused to believe it.

Suddenly, the King started clapping, an impulsive, anxious sound. “Ah yes—that’s what we’ll do! Let’s have a party!”

Catherine’s attention swiveled back to him. “A party!”

“You were right what you said at the theater, my sweet,” said the King, and Catherine cringed. “I am the King, and I must do something to make the people of Hearts feel safer. None of this Jabberwock and kidnapping nonsense. We’ll have a great masquerade and then we’ll all dance and eat and be quite merry, and we’ll forget anything bad has ever happened, ever.”

“That is a terrible idea!” Cath screeched. “Don’t you remember? The Jabberwock attacked the last party you—”

Her anger was muffled by her mother’s hand, slapped over her mouth. “Brilliant, Your Majesty. Positively brilliant!”

The King bounced on his toes, pleased with her approval. “Tomorrow night, then! And—and—” He grew suddenly bashful, his cheeks reddening behind his curled mustache. “And perhaps I shall have a special announcement to make?” He waggled his eyebrows at Catherine, and if she hadn’t been caught in her mother’s firm grip, she would have screamed.

“Now then,” the King chirped, “back to the castle we go. Bring the prisoner. That’s all right, then, uppity-up.”

The guards had begun to move into formation when Jest cleared his throat. “Actually, Your Majesty, if I might say one more thing?”

The clearing quieted. All eyes drifted to Jest. Wary, except for Cath, who was panicked and hopeful.

Any spite he’d had before was missing from his expression. All signs of discontent gone. He smiled at the King with an abundance of charm, and said, “You have been good to me, Your Majesty.”

The King’s chest lifted and he tugged on the fur trim of his cloak. “Ah—why, thank you, Jest.”

“Which is why it pains me to have betrayed you so, and to now betray you again.”

His yellow gaze found Cath, brimming with unspoken words.

Jest’s body dissolved—a shadow, a flutter, a wisp of ink-dipped quills. Raven cawed and dropped down from the trees and two identical black birds stole away into the night.





CHAPTER 38

CATHERINE BARELY MANAGED TO SMOTHER her grin as she was coaxed back to the house—for her safety, they told her—while the King was ushered into a carriage and carted away and the guards set up a method for searching the perimeter and recapturing Jest.

“He will be found,” the Marquess said, again and again, as Cath was loaded into the foyer of their home. “You needn’t worry. I know he will be found.”

“No, he won’t,” she said, gliding up the steps. “And I’m glad for it. You’re all wrong about him.”

“Halt right there, young miss,” her mother barked, and Cath’s obedient feet halted on the first landing. She turned back to her parents. Their relief had settled into some sort of frazzled frustration. There was a shadow on her father’s brow, and a twitch at the corner of her mother’s mouth. “I don’t know what that boy has done to you,” she said, planting her hands on her hips, “but it’s over now and we are never to speak of him again. We shall go on as if none of this has happened, and you are to start showing some appreciation for all we’ve done for you, and some gratitude toward His Majesty!”