Page 15

Chapter

Thirteen

A white fluffy tail disappears into the landscape of giant flowers. Our guide is apparently done now that he lured us down to his domain. Wow, that was dramatic. Poor guy has been trying to persuade us down here for many, many turns. He’s likely hungry. I can relate.

“Why isn’t this world part of ours?” Charming asks as he takes a step closer to one of the flowers. He tilts his head, and the flower tilts with him. Cute.

“This isn’t just a single narrative,” Gwyneth supplies. “It’s an entire realm of complex narratives, too much to be contained in ours.”

“I think I must come from another land,” Genie laments as he hovers next to us. “I’m too big to share with all those fairy folks and sidekicks.”

That’s quite a declaration.

I raise a brow at Gwyneth as we continue down the sunlit path shadowed by the petals. “You did a little reading around Wonderland?”

She squints as she holds her thumb and index finger close together. “What I know of this land is a smidgen of the knowledge it holds. But I have a lifetime to learn.”

“Can you summarise it?” Nash asks from up ahead, where he and Hart are taking the lead. Behind them is Charming, flanked by my giant capons, while Theo and Malachi take up the rear, grumbling quietly to each other. Something about keeping control of his dragon.

Gwyneth tilts her head to the sun and smiles. “Wonderland is unlike any place you’ve been, yet exactly as you’ve imagined in your wildest dreams. It’s pure chaos—where rules bend, wonders abound, and the impossible is simply another adventure waiting to unfold.”

Nash glances over his shoulder. “This sounds like Daphne’s world.”

I smile as Sir Sweeps-A-Lot zooms ahead and dusts any stray leaves and petals from the path. “See, my chaos has a place. Conquering the norm is so last annus.”

“Perhaps you should start with the norm, Calamity,” Hart adds. “Before venturing into the unknown.”

I wave him away. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

A bright yellow flower bends down so low, its large bell-shaped head kisses my hair. I pause and turn to smell the beautiful thing, which makes my nose twitch. “You are beautiful, but your scent is a little heady,” I decide.

The bloom stretches farther, and pain explodes across my nose. I yelp and jump back, stumbling into another flower.

“Watch it, clumsy,” the delicate pink flower snaps.

I cup my nose and pull my hand away, finding a little blood. “You bit me,” I accuse, pointing at the yellow flower.

It turns, and I startle at the smirking face that appears inside its petals. “You insulted me.”

Our gang falls back to form a group, and I park my hands on my hips. “How?”

“You said I stink.” The flower turns its head up, like it’s snubbing me.

“That doesn’t call for violence,” I point out. “And I only meant your fragrance was a little heavy for my tastes.”

“She insults us once more,” the pink one snaps.

There’s a muttering of discontent around the overgrown meadow of flowers. I take a step back, and Malachi draws his sword.

“Stay back,” Nash warns.

“Or what?” another flower sneers.

Wow, they are snooty. Who knew? “I always imagined flowers would be kind beings,” I grumble.

“The fact you imagined what the personality of a flower would be like says everything about you,” Charming drawls.

I arch a brow. “At least I have a personality. Your entire world centers around a shoe.”

“How about we all just calm down, and we’ll be on our way,” Gwyneth reasons.

“We are calm. It is you that drew your weapons,” the yellow one states.

“You drew first blood,” Nash reminds them about my stinging nose.

“Only the worthy shall pass,” another flower declares.

I roll my eyes. “Again with the worthiness? Have we not evolved at all? Worthiness isn’t something one person can determine. It isn’t in an act of fitting into a shoe or rescuing a damsel. Worthiness has to start from here,” I say as I tap my fist against my heart.

“That’s not how worthiness is decreed,” another flower shrieks. I wince as their voice grates on my nerves.

“She must be assessed,” another deeper voice murmurs.

“The queen, or the hatter?” another answers.

Hatter? Like someone who makes hats? What an odd job for a person. I guess someone needs to make them.

“Let the girl decide,” the high-pitched one says.

The whispers die down and everyone turns to look at me. I don’t understand what is happening, but royalty tends to be a bad thing for me.

“We should talk about this,” Malachi says.

“Hatter,” I shout at the same time. Oops.

Hart snorts. Charming mutters something about queens and kings being far more qualified to decide worthiness. I disagree, but his tiny Prince Poopfloof brain can’t think beyond his conceitedness.

The flowers gasp like I murdered all their seedlings.

“That’s not worrisome,” the genie grumbles.

“Fuck this,” Malachi says. He dives forward with a war cry and breaks into a run. I glance at Gwyneth, shrug, then run after my crazy knight and capons who joined the sprint.

The flowers weave on their stems, shouting insults and slapping us with their leaves as we weave around them.

Theo sneezes, and my heart beats double time as fire erupts from his mouth and catches one of the flowers. It screeches loudly, and the other flowers lean away from it, but it’s no use—the fire spreads to the flower’s neighbor, followed by the next, and the next.

“At least it wasn’t me,” I mumble between pants. Running, it turns out, is hard work. I do not recommend it.

“Should we help them?” Gwyneth wonders.

Sir Sweeps-A-Lot darts forward and waves his bristles in the air, wafting the flames higher.

“Ahh, Bernard, my love, make it stop,” a flowers cries. I think the broom is trying to help. Bernard?

I slow and stop, turning in a circle to view the shrieking flowers. Oh my Idols, they need to stop swaying and panicking. It’s spreading the fire faster. “How can we help?”

“Sing,” one of them shouts.

“Sing?” Nash repeats. Maybe they will enjoy a tune while their entire kind is wiped out by an errant dragon flame.

“Quickly, and loudly.”

“Any requests?” Nash asks.

“Just do it in tune,” one cries.

The knights turn their eyes to Hart. My lips twitch as he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Then he belts out a perfect rendition of a famous ballad. My mouth falls open, and my eyes go wide. Hart Stirling can sing.

The sky darkens, and clouds form in the sky. The louder Hart gets, the faster they form, growing pregnant with the weight of rain. When he hits the crescendo, they dump their water, extinguishing the fire and drenching us at the same time.

“Thank you,” one of the flowers whispers. “Now please leave and don’t return.”

“Quickly, they come,” another says ominously.

The genie makes a show of wringing his top knot onto the ground as we continue down the path, taking fast but measured steps. A few brave flowers hiss at us, and Theo snaps his teeth in warning. That’s right, my fire-breathing knight is intimidating the plant life.

“Do you hear that?” Charming asks, tilting his head.

“You got an intelligent thought for a hot tempo and it made a funny noise. Don’t worry, Charming, it will pass,” Hart says.

I smother a laugh, but then I too hear a strange noise. Hopefully, this is not the sign of a smart mind, because it’s annoying.

Charming spins to face us and his eyes flick to the sky before going wide. His mouth drops open, and he points. Everyone turns. Above us is an army of giant butterflies and bees, and they seem pissed.

“What do we do?” I ask as my heart flutters in my chest.

“Act casual,” Malachi decides. “Like we had nothing to do with the destruction.”

“It was them,” a flower shouts. Them? That could be anyone. “The group with the two females, a gang of men, and a strange floating being with a murderous broom.”

I scratch my forehead. Again, there could be two... nope.

We break into a run for the second time, and while it’s not easier than the first, I’m finding that being chased by giant insects is a great motivator for enforced exercise.

The first bee dive bombs Nash and he punches its face, causing the huge bumbling thing to go careening into the flowers who are busy pointing out where we are. Rude. They could at least give us a head start.

A butterfly skims the top of my head, and its legs get tangled in my hair, yanking on the wild curls. I slam my hand down to stop my scalp from being torn off.

Gwyneth gasps in horror as the butterfly breaks free and loses one of its legs in the process.

“She’s a monster, delegging one of our warriors,” one of the flowers shouts.

Delegging? One, I don’t think that’s a word, although it could be. Two, it suggests premeditation, when it was, in fact, self defense.

“Stop attacking us, and no one else has to get hurt,” Theo roars. A bellow of smoke pours from his nostrils, causing the horde of insects to back off.

I point ahead. “There’s the end,” I shout.

A stone archway appears up ahead, leading into a dense forest. Instinctively, I know they won’t follow us once we are in there, because their bodies are too big.

Charming falls over and slams to the ground.

Eugene picks him up with her beak without breaking stride.

It’s strange how I’m managing to remain upright.

All these fast movements aren’t normally conducive to me conquering gravity. But these are strange times.

As we approach the arch, I notice the words etched into the stone. “Abandon sense, all who enter.” Well, I never had any sense anyway, so there’s nothing to abandon.

We dive under the archway and into the darker forest, the angry buzzing lessening behind us as we stop to catch our breath.

Hart bends over, placing his hands on his knees and laughs. I follow, and the rest join in until we’re all howling.

“Giant talking flowers that get insulted,” Gwyneth says as she wheezes.

“Huge murderous insects.” Theo chuckles.

“And Charming being protected by capons,” I finish.

Charming snorts as Eugene pecks his shoulder like she’s checking him for injuries. I laugh harder, my head a little woozy. Must be from all the exercise. It’s more than I do in an annus.

Laughter, not our own, filters through the trees. Our group quiets as I pass a look from Nash to Gwyneth. Where is it coming from? I frown as my feet move of their own volition through the thick, lush grass and over gnarly tree roots.

The sound of clattering pots reaches us, and Malachi puts an arm out to stop me. “Daphne, let me go first.”

I shake my head and push forward, stepping out into a chaotic scene, even by my standards.

A long table sits beneath a sprawling oak, draped in a crisp white cloth that billows gently in the breeze.

Its surface holds a chaotic feast, with vibrant platters piled high with an array of delightful delicacies—towering stacks of fluffy scones, glazed pastries glimmering like jewels, and teetering towers of savory finger sandwiches.

An assortment of delicate teacups, some adorned with swirling patterns of blues and golds, sit askew amid the culinary disorder, each one filled to the brim with steaming tea that releases fragrant wisps of rosemary and lavender.

From one end of the table, a jovial hare with a pocket watch dangling from his waistcoat erupts into such raucous laughter that he tumbles sideways off his chair, sending a plate of tarts skidding across the grass.

His merry guffaws send tremors through the tabletop, causing a teacup to wobble precariously.

The White Rabbit, whom we’ve been trailing, blinks in disbelief and shakes his head, his ears twitching.

“You’re late,” he huffs, indignation rippling in his voice.

“How could we possibly be late when we had no inkling we were expected?” I point out, arching an eyebrow.

The rabbit narrows his eyes, his little nose quivering. “That’s exactly what she always claims,” he mutters.

“I assure you, I’ve never once uttered those words,” I retort, glancing around at the peculiar scene.

At the head of the table, perched regally upon a mismatched chair, sits a man in an extravagant black top hat. His fitted waistcoat hugs his frame, and a slow, mischievous grin spreads across his face, illuminating his sharp features as he leans forward, the very air shimmering with his charisma.

“Well, well, well… I was beginning to think you’d never show up.”