Heartless(28)

Though she was curious to know if she would feel as drawn to the Joker again upon a second meeting, there was a part of her that hoped she wouldn’t. Because what options were given to her even if she did feel it again? Her parents would never allow a courtship with him. She still hadn’t decided what she was going to do about the King. And besides, she was supposed to be focusing on how she could persuade her parents to let her have the bakery, the one dream that had consumed her more than all the others … until the lemon tree, at least.

“Good graciousness, what is that delightful aroma?”

She jumped back from the counter. Cheshire—or rather, Cheshire’s head—had filled up the cuckoo clock’s face on the wall, the hands pointing at his left ear and whiskers, indicating it was just past two o’clock in the afternoon.

“Hello, Cheshire.” She frowned. “You better not have just eaten that cuckoo bird.”

He disappeared in a puff before reappearing, fully formed, on the high windowsill above the counter. The orange tint from the pumpkin pasties had faded from his fur. “I’ve done no such thing,” he said, “although I am presently determining how many of those I can eat when your back is turned without your noticing.”

She eyed him suspiciously.

“Oh, fine. I suppose I don’t care if you notice or not.”

“They are for the King.”

Cheshire rolled his eyes—the pupils bouncing around like a child’s bouncing ball. “They are always for the King.”

Grinning, she picked up the pastry bag, wiped a drip of excess batter on a dishtowel, and resumed her piping. “I meant to thank you for causing the distraction at the ball the other night. Your timing was perfect.”

“Most things that I do are.”

“Were the guests quite upset over it all?”

“Lady Mearle did not seem receptive to the distraction.”

“No, I meant about me leaving. Does everyone know that I was the one the King intended to…” She gulped. “… to propose to?”

“I don’t think it’s become widely assumed yet, though only because most people are so very horrid at paying attention.”

She let out a slow breath, finished piping the last cookie, and thwapped the baking sheet on the counter to level them.

“Besides,” Cheshire said, smiling wide as ever, “the King’s failed proposal was overshadowed by the horrors that came afterward. I trust you heard news of the Jabberwock?”

She dabbed a sleeve across her damp brow. “I did. I suppose I shouldn’t be thinking about some stupid proposal after what happened. I wasn’t even sure I believed that Jabberwocky existed until now.”

“It is a dangerous thing to unbelieve something only because it frightens you.”

Cath popped the sheet into the oven. “But how long has it been since one was seen here?”

“Since long before you or I were born.” His grin never faltered, making for an eerie foil to a dark topic. “Perhaps it has been here all along, lying in wait. Or perhaps it came in through the Looking Glass, though it seems an unlikely venture. I doubt we shall ever know the truth of it, but we do know that the beast is here now, and I don’t suppose we’ve heard the last of its brutality.”

Cath swallowed down the bitter taste in her mouth. “What are we going to do about it?”

“We? I have no intentions of doing anything at all.”

“Fine, not you, then. But someone has to do something. The King should appoint a knight to go after it, like in the old legends.”

Cheshire made a guttural sound in his throat. “Know you of any knights here in Hearts?”

She pondered this. The closest thing they had were the Club guards at the castle, and she doubted any of them would fare much better than the Diamond courtiers had.

“Someone has to do something,” she repeated, though most of her fire had turned to smoke.

“Yes, and that something shall be to ignore such a horrible incident and go on pretending nothing has happened at all.” Cheshire licked his paw and dragged it along his whiskers. “As is our way.”

Cath’s gut had tightened. She knew he was right—though she had never before witnessed something so awful, she knew everyone would be willing to pretend it away rather than upset their pleasant lives.

“What about those poor courtiers?” she murmured. “What is to become of them?”

Cheshire’s grin began to slip, just—the—tiniest—bit. “They have already been found, dear Catherine. Two shreds of cardstock were discovered outside the Nowhere Forest yesterday morning.”

She recoiled from him. “No … maybe it wasn’t…?”

“It was them. Part of a diamond was visible on one of the shreds.”

She grimaced and turned away, squeezing her eyes tight. She felt suddenly childish and small. Chastised, though no one had chastised her but herself. Two days spent dreading a run-in with the King and daydreaming over the Joker, and all the while, two courtiers were dead, and a monster on the loose.

“I called on the Duke of Tuskany yesterday,” she said. “He had a wound from the Jabberwock. Was anyone else hurt?”

“I don’t believe so, and quite lucky that. It was very nearly Lady Margaret Mearle.”