Page 2 of Cheshire’s Smile (The Crimes of Alice #3)

The four heads bobbed above me with agonizingly slow movements, as if it were painful for them to even float there before me. My head tilted to the side as I surveyed them.

These were the creatures who tortured Hatter and Chess? They hardly seemed like they had the power to harm an opalaught, let alone suck the magic from a Chess or Hatter. Unfortunately, that didn’t keep them from trying to feed on me.

Remnants of the dream swept through me. Pleasure pooled between my thighs. Then there was that...

“Is this how you spend your time?” I drawled, the adrenaline from my dream slowly drifting away. “Using sex dreams to lull the guilty into giving you their magic? Seems a bit too gauche for my tastes. But what do I know?”

“You,” they spoke as one their voices echoing in my ears, “do not belong here.”

I snorted, tugging on my gloves. “That’s where you’re wrong. If anyone deserves to be tortured for their crimes it would be me. So...” I brushed my skirt off and stood, staring them down with my hands on my hips. “Where’s Hatter?”

“You do not belong here,” they repeated, swaying back and forth. Their eyes blinked slowly.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were about to pass out.

“Yes, you said that,” I huffed. “Let’s not get into the whole who belongs and who does not. Though, you had no problem trying to feed on me.” I shot them a glare. “I can only imagine how you feed on the others who are sent here. Now. Where. Is. Hatter?”

They seemed to think on it for a moment. Their heads turned tortuously slowly toward one another before back to me. “No Hatter here.”

I tugged on a golden curl. “Obviously.” I twirled around, my arms outstretched. “There’s nothing here. Just you.”

Taking a moment to wallow in the fact that, once again, I was at a dead end in finding my love, I watched the Bandersnatch with discerning eyes. Kat had described them as terrifying. Booming and with an overpowering presence.

The creature before me was barely hanging on by a thread.

My brows rose. An idea formed in my head.

I stepped closer, nose pointed toward the air in front of them. They bobbed slowly, not aware of what I was intending.

My nose scrunched at the acrid smell coming from them, and I craned my head back to stare up at them. I rubbed my nose and stepped back a step. The scent cleared.

“You have the sickness.” A statement not a question. The scent of sickness was unmistakable to me now that I’d been around Cheshire.

The four heads turned to one another before looking collectively back at me. “We do.”

Nodding, I hummed to myself.

They weren’t the all-powerful Bandersnatch that had tortured Chess and Hatter.

If Hatter had been here long enough, they would have fed as normal, but the sickness must have made it impossible for them to feed and feel better.

Something about the sickness kept them from absorbing the magical essence of the fae.

“I’m going to ask you again. Where is Hatter?”

The heads shook, a rough sound coming from them.

“Are you... laughing at me?” I gaped at them and then scowled. “I don’t see the humor here. You can’t feed. You have the sickness. Don’t you understand? You’re going to die. There’s nothing I can do for you. So just tell me what I need to know, and I can leave you in peace.”

The heads laughed once more before the older man spoke alone. “You do not need Hatter.”

I stomped my foot, fingers curling into fists.

“Do not tell me what I need. I’ve been all over the Underground trying to find him.

Everything has led me here. The queen even said she put him here.

And yet...” I spun in a circle arms and hands out to my sides.

“He is not here. So that means he must have gotten out somehow unless... you killed him?”

My eyes narrowed on the heads, magic crackling in my fists.

The Bandersnatch’s eyes widened and they bobbed rapidly in the air, faster than it had moved the entire time I was here. “No, we did not kill your Hatter.”

“Then. Where. Is. He?”

My patience was running paper thin. I did not like to be led around by the nose. The fae had me by the tip, and I had enough. No more running around. No more games. I wanted Hatter, and I wanted him now.

The heads exchanged a look between them before the younger woman head spoke. “We do not know. He was here one moment and then gone.”

“Not before the rambling creature gave us the sickness.” The older woman spat with a snarl on her face. “Reaper take him.”

“He didn’t give you the sickness.” I rolled my eyes, plopping my hands on my hips. “You can’t catch it.”

“Yes, he did,” the head argued back. “We did not have the sickness and then he came. Now after a millennium of existence, we are going to die.” The two females broke down into the tears, their heads shuddering as if they had a body to go with it.

“Calm yourselves,” the younger male face snapped. “We are not going to die.”

“No,” the older male calmly stated. “We are not.”

I arched my brow, head cocked to the side. “You’re not? How do you know?”

The older male’s lips curled up into a knowing grin. “Because you are going to save us.”

“I certainly am not,” I scoffed, crossing my arms. “You’re that bitch queen’s torturer. Even if I knew how to save you, I wouldn’t.”

The older male chuckled. “You do know how to save us. You just refuse to see yourself for what you are.” His dark eyes bore into me until the hair on my arm stood up on end.

I rubbed my hands across them as I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only way to fix the sickness is for the Tree of Life to grow back which, by the way, it has a fledgling already, so it’s well on its way —”

“Not fast enough.”

I had thought my life was finally going to go back to normal. Or as normal as it was before being imprisoned. Then Hatter disappeared and the sickness started to spread through the Underground.

I wish I could put all the blame on Kat for this mess I was now in. It was her altercation with the shadows that caused the Tree of Life to die in the first place.

Unfortunately, she was just cleaning up the mess I made by making the agreement with the Shadow Man in the first place. At least, the Tree of Life was regenerating itself, though, even with the help of me and the Unseelie Queen, it was still just a fragile sapling.

“Yes,” I huffed. “I’m well aware it is not growing fast enough. So while it will eventually fix the sickness spreading those who are already infected...” I slowly shook my head. I hesitated to give them the tragic news.

“Will die.” the younger male finished for me. “Yes, we know.”

“But there is another way,” the older male added on, staring me down.

“A high king or queen, I know.” I pulled my curls, annoyance starting to grate at me. “But finding one is the hard part.”

“You’ve already found one,” the older male stated, those eyes trying to tell me something I didn’t want to know.

I backed away a step. “Nope. No. As Kat would say, hell fucking no. I’m not the queen of anything.” My hand grasped my chest. “I’m the villain in this story. Not the hero. No one wants me to be High Queen. They wouldn’t even listen to me if I was.”

“They would.” This time, the four heads were in sequence, the females having pulled themselves together.

My foot stopped on the ground like a petulant child. “I can’t be the queen. I don’t even have all my memories. I’m incomplete. There’s no way I could even handle being the queen, let alone be strong enough.”

“You can. And you will,” the older male crooned with a mysterious tone.

“The only thing I want to do is find Hatter and get him out of here before the sickness takes him. Cheshire already has it, which I can only hope won’t kill him before the Tree of Life grows into maturity.

What I’m not going to do is pretend for even a nanosecond that I’m worthy of being the High Queen, even If I wanted to be, which I don’t.

So stop telling me to be the hero when I’m not! ”

My chest rose and fell as I took large heaving shuddering breaths. A mixture of feelings swirled in my stomach. Anger. Frustration. And above all else, panic.

The thought of me being the only hope to save the Underground scared me to my very core. I wasn’t a hero. I was selfish. Self-centered. I only cared about me and my people. I couldn’t care less what happened to the rest of the Underground.

What had they done for me?

Nothing.

The queens had imprisoned me. The shadows had used me. Everyone else had spurned me, called me names, spat on my very being. I was not going to save their asses now. In fact, I hoped they all died gruesome deaths.

I felt something burn beneath my skin, zipping over me, electrifying every inch of my being. Something glowed in the dark space.

The Bandersnatch reared back, their eyes wide with fear and awe. It took me a moment before I realized the glow wasn’t around me. It was coming from me.

Sucking in air through my nose, I blew it out of my mouth. Each breath calming the buzzing in my veins until the glow faded and it was only me.

“You have more power than you think,” the older male calmly stated. “You can save us all, if you would take the step.”

I growled.

“But, perhaps,” he continued, glancing at the others, “you need to be completed before you can accept your destiny.”

I didn’t know what they were talking about. Nothing and no one were going to make me take on the responsibility of being High Queen. The only thing missing from my life was Hatter, which was beginning to be a lost cause.

My heart ached. There were few things in my life that made me feel complete, and Hatter was one of them, though for some reason, Cheshire was beginning to feel like mine as well.

Everything in me wanted to sink down onto the ground and sleep. Everything was all so... tiring.

The Bandersnatch watched me with a mixture of expressions. Curiosity, disgust, fear, and surprising patience.

The older male’s voice went low. “You are incomplete. The shadows.” The heads shuddered at the words. “They took more from you than you think. You must get them back. Once you are complete, you will see your path for what it is.”

I tugged on my gloves and shifted my weight. “So you keep saying. I just want to find Hatter. If you don’t know where he is, then it’s pointless for me to be here. So just point me in the way of the exit, and I’ll get out of your... hairs? Hair? However that works.”

The rumble of their laughter shook the ground. Space. Void. Whatever it was.

“Only the Reaper knows where Hatter has gone.” Before I could ask them to elaborate, the Bandersnatch faded into the blackness. My eyes squinted. My hand came up to cover my eyes. A long vertical strip of light appeared where they had once been.

I sighed. At least, they gave me a way out.