Heartless(133)

“That is enough!”

The Hatter hesitated, the cane prepped for another swing.

“Anything is not possible,” she seethed. “If it were, you would have already brought him back.”

He recoiled. His eyes had gone crazed. The pocket watch on the table was growing louder, the tick-ticking a constant buzz.

Catherine snatched the cane away. He let it go without a struggle.

“Whatever you say, these creations of yours are unnatural. I won’t allow them—not anymore.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Beginning this moment, all travel to and from the lands of Chess is strictly forbidden, by order of the Queen.”

His eyes narrowed.

“You started this, playing with things you didn’t understand. You created a monster and it’s your fault Jest is dead. You brought him here and you brought the pumpkin and you gave Mary Ann that hat, and it’s all your fault!”

He inhaled sharply. “Yes. So it is.”

She jerked back, surprised at the levity of his admission.

“I know it is, and I shall pay for it with my sanity, just as the Sisters said. I’ve seen the drawings too, Lady Pinkerton. I’ve seen them all.”

Her blood pulsed beneath her skin. “If you ever return to Chess, you had better intend to stay there, for I will not suffer a single grain of sand to cross through that maze again.”

A sneer twisted his once-handsome face. “You cannot stop me from coming and going. This is my business. My livelihood. And as soon as Time should find me—”

“I am a queen, Hatta, and I can do as I like. I will imprison the Sisters. I will destroy the treacle well. I will burn the maze to the ground if I must. Do we have an understanding?”

She held his gaze, letting their wills battle silently between them.

His cheek started to twitch. Just slightly at first, but it continued to flutter until one side of his mouth lifted into a painful grin. “Why,” he whispered, watching her with glossy eyes, “why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Shaking her head, Catherine tossed the cane onto the table, satisfied with the crash of porcelain and silver. “It’s a shame, Hatta. Truly it is. Madness does not suit you.”

“Of course it does,” he cackled. “Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad. It runs in my family. It’s a part of my blood. Don’t you remember? I know you remember.”

The watch was ticking so fast now she thought it would burst, crack wide open—gears shattering across the table.

“Good-bye, Hatta.” She swung toward the door, but his desperate laughter followed her. A shrill giggle. A sobbing gasp.

“But why? Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Her hand fell on the doorknob. “It’s not,” she spat, ripping open the door. “It’s just a stupid riddle. It is nothing but stuff and nonsense!”

Suddenly, inexplicably, the pocket watch fell silent.

Hatta’s face slackened. His brow beaded with sweat.

“Stuff and nonsense,” he whispered, the words cracking. “Nonsense and stuff and much of a muchness and nonsense all over again. We are all mad here, don’t you know? And it runs in my family, it’s a part of my blood and he’s here, Time has finally found me and I—” His voice shredded. His eyes burned. “I haven’t the slightest idea, Your Queenness. I find that I simply cannot recall why a raven is like a writing desk.”





CHAPTER 53

SHE WAS GROWING IMPATIENT. Her hatred was burning a hole through her stomach, and it flared hotter every day that passed. Her fury burbled beneath the surface of her skin, often flaring in bouts of unexpected temper. Servants began to avoid her. The King dwindled into nothing more than a babbling idiot in her presence. All the members of the gentry that had doted on her after the wedding stopped making their calls.

Cath despised court days the most. She was the Queen and she had envisioned her iron word falling down on the people of Hearts. Laws would be executed, wrongdoers punished.

Instead she was trapped in a courtroom of absurdity and pandemonium. The jury, which had no purpose other than to squawk at one another and interrupt the proceedings, was made up of herons and badgers, kiwi birds and otters and hedgehogs, and not one of them with a bit of sense.

Not that it mattered, given the cases. A mouse who thought it was unfair that his brother had gotten a longer tail, a stork who thought it species profiling that she was forced to be the kingdom’s sole baby carrier, and so on and so forth. Court days were agony.

Catherine spared a sympathetic look for Raven, who was perched on the rail that boxed in the thrones. His head was tucked between his neck feathers, his beak tight with disgust.

The Rabbit blew his trumpet. “Calling to the court the Most Noble Pygmalion Warthog, Duke of Tuskany, and Lady Margaret Mearle, daughter of the Count and Countess of Crossroads.”

Cath lifted an eyebrow and watched as Margaret approached, her arm linked with the Duke’s. They both appeared nervous. Margaret was wearing that stupid rosebud hat.

They bowed. Margaret’s eyes darted to Catherine before lowering again.

“Good day,” chirped the King, who looked extra absurd wearing an enormous powdered wig beneath his lopsided crown. “What is your request?”

“Your Majesty,” said the Duke, “we wish for you to marry us.”