Page 16

T HE DAYS LEADING UP to the tea party were agony. Catherine was filled with dread at what would happen when she saw the King again. Her mother was anxious too, though they were hoping for very different results from the meeting.

It felt like trickery of the worst sort to be making a batch of macarons with the intention of capturing the King’s heart when Cath had no interest in capturing it at all.

Nevertheless, she was glad for an excuse to spend a day in the kitchen, where she didn’t have to worry about being ordered to go practice some useless skill, like embroidery.

Oh, if only, if only the King were fickle. If only he’d been so embarrassed by her disappearance that he wouldn’t dare attempt it again or, at the least, he would have the sense to propose in private this time.

Although that thought, too, made her shudder.

Despite her growing trepidation, as the tea party approached, Cath also started to become fidgety with impatience. She tried to deny it, even to herself, but she was looking forward to the afternoon. Not for the King, or the lawn games, and not even for the mini cakes and sandwiches.

She was anticipating another encounter with the court joker.

Having had no more sightings in her dreams, she was longing to see him again, fantasizing over every potential facet of their next encounter. She wanted to witness another buoyant smile, to be the source of his easy laughter, to feel the brush of his fingers on the nape of her neck.

She paused, lifting the pastry bag away from the baking sheet, where fifteen piped disks of batter were waiting to be baked into almond meringue cookies. Her skin had a new flush to it that wasn’t from the oven, and her hands had begun to tremble—unacceptable for such a delicate task.

She shut her eyes and tamped the thoughts back down, as she did every time they drifted in the direction of illicit caresses. Her mother would implode if she knew Cath was having such improper thoughts about the King’s Joker.

The King , for goodness’ sake. The one she was supposed to be dreaming about.

Her nerves were in tatters over it all.

Setting down the pastry bag, she swore that she would not allow herself to be carried away during the tea party.

She was a lady, and he was a novelty. If she should see him again—which was unlikely in itself—she would entertain only civilized conversation.

None of these flirtations that had carried her away before. There could be nothing improper at all.

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.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the great beast crashed through the window, it seemed—why, I hate to sound self-absorbed, but it seemed as though it were heading for me. And I was still on top of the girl’s head, you see. So I vanished… as prompted by instinct, not at all cowardice, I assure you.”

“Naturally.”

“I came to on the other side of the ballroom just in time to see Lord Warthog launch himself in between Lady Mearle and the beast.”

Her jaw fell open. “How heroic!”

“Fascinating, isn’t it, how often heroic and foolish turn out to be one and the same. That beast had claws like carving knives and nearly took off the Duke’s head. He’s most lucky it was only a surface wound, I daresay.” He scratched behind one ear. “Rather pigheaded he can be.”

“But the Jabberwock didn’t kill him. ”

“No. It turned its attention toward the feasting table and the two courtiers standing beside it. Grabbed them and took off, flew right over the balcony. It all happened very of-a-sudden.”

She slumped against the baker’s table. “I never dreamed such a thing could happen here.”

Cheshire’s yellow eyes slitted as he held her gaze for one beat, two. Then he began to unravel from the tip of his tail, a slow unwinding of his stripes. “These things do not happen in dreams, dear girl,” he said, vanishing up to his neck. “They happen only in nightmares.”

His head spiraled and he was gone.