Page 32

T HE DOOR OPENED and Mary Ann was there, her maid uniform silhouetted in the hallway light, along with a pail filled with kindling and long fireplace matches.

Mary Ann took two steps inside, heading for the fireplace on her silent servant’s feet—until she spotted Catherine standing in the light of the open window.

Mary Ann screamed.

The pail dropped to the floor and toppled over with a clamor, matches scattering across the carpet.

“It’s all right! It’s just me!” Catherine rushed forward, waving her arms.

Mary Ann placed a hand against her mouth and stumbled against the door frame. “Cath! Goodness! What are you—good heavens, my bones jumped right out of my skin! I thought you were the Jabberwock, climbing in through the window!”

Cath shuddered as memories of the monster cascaded over her. She tried to shake them off.

“Do I look like a monster to you?” Scurrying past her, Cath glanced down the hallway and, seeing that no alarm had yet been raised from her parents’ rooms, shut the door.

“What were you doing by the window?” Mary Ann said, her voice warbling. “It’s freezing in here. You’ll catch your death! And… what are you wearing? Are you dressed? ”

“Hush, Mary Ann. You’ll wake the whole house, if you haven’t already.”

Dropping to the floor, Mary Ann started scooping up the fallen contents of her pail, while Cath bustled back to the nightstand and lit an oil lamp.

Even after righting the pail, Mary Ann stayed on her knees with her hand pressed to her chest. Cath felt bad for scaring her, but also glad that she hadn’t been Abigail.

“What are you doing out of bed at this hour?” Mary Ann finally asked, the hysteria gone from her voice.

“I was—I thought I heard something. Outside.”

Mary Ann’s eyes widened again. She stood and crossed to the window. “And you act like I’m a frightened child. It really might have been the Jabberwock, you know.” She stuck her head outside and scanned the shadowed trees. “Or maybe a raccoon bandit—sneaky little things.”

“Perhaps,” Catherine muttered, wondering whether Jest was still out there, sneaking.

Mary Ann shut the window, then turned and eyed Catherine’s dress.

It was the same she’d worn to the King’s garden party the day before, but the hem was now stained with tea and wet with dew and her knees were muddied where she’d scrambled through the brush to try to save the Turtle.

Glancing down, Cath noticed a waxy leaf caught in the lace cuff of her sleeve.

She plucked it off. Chewed her lip. Met Mary Ann’s stare again.

“You heard something?” Mary Ann drawled, suddenly skeptical. “Perhaps you were having another dream.”

“Perhaps?”

Mary Ann crossed her arms.

Starting to shiver, Cath hugged herself tight. “It really is quite crisp in here…”

It was another long, awkward moment before Mary Ann drew herself up to full height and walked with agonizing slowness toward the fireplace. Her suspicious gaze lingered on Catherine the whole time .

Cath swallowed. “Thank you, Mary Ann.”

She picked at the climbing roses, listening as Mary Ann removed the fireplace grate and set up the kindling. Within minutes, a fire had sparked and taken hold.

Cath spotted the single long-stemmed rose that Jest had left on her windowsill, now forgotten on the floor. The petals were already fading. She wondered whether Mary Ann had noticed it too, and whether she’d written it off as another figment from one of Cath’s dreams.

Gnawing on the inside of her cheek, she looked back at her dearest friend. The fire’s orange-gold glow flickered over Mary Ann’s face. Her jaw was set in annoyance, and Cath felt a twinge of guilt.

She padded to the hearth and knelt down beside Mary Ann.

“I lied,” she said.

Mary Ann’s lips tightened as she used the poker and wrought-iron tongs to shift the wood around in the flames.

“I didn’t hear anything outside. I wasn’t going to investigate some mystery.” She took in a long, slow breath, filled with the scent of char and smoke, and let her memory travel back to the beginning.

A sharp glee began in the pit of her stomach and crawled its way up through her chest and burst as a smile across her mouth. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to contain the giddiness that threatened to burst out of her.

Mary Ann was watching her now, her irritation replaced with confusion. “Cath?”

“Oh, Mary Ann,” she whispered, afraid that to speak would be to wake and find that it was all another dream. “I’ve had such a night. I hardly know where to begin.”

“At the beginning would be advisable.”

Catherine looked back, past the curtains and the walls and the Crossroads, to a little hat shop filled with revelry and song… and also a glen where nightmares had come to life .

She shook her head. She didn’t want to frighten Mary Ann with the truth of all that. She would tell her only the joyous things, so she wouldn’t have to worry.

“I was invited to a tea party.” She felt like she was holding a soap bubble in her palms, afraid to say too much, too quickly, or she would frighten it away.

“A tea party? With… the King?” Mary Ann ventured.

Catherine groaned. “No. Good gracious, no. I don’t want to think about the King.”

“Then who?”

“The court joker.” She scrunched her shoulders, protecting her heart. “I went to a tea party with the court joker.”

The silence that followed was punctuated by the popping of wood and a tower of kindling collapsing on itself, sending a flurry of sparks up the flue. Catherine stayed hunched over, bracing herself against whatever reaction Mary Ann might have—disbelief or disappointment or a fierce scolding.

“The Joker?”

“His name is Jest.”

“You mean to say… I don’t… Did you go by yourself?”

Cath laughed again and sat back up, beaming at Mary Ann for a long moment, before melting back onto the ground.

She spread her arms out across the carpet and kicked her shoes off so her cold toes could enjoy the fire’s heat.

She traced the shadows on the ceiling tiles and wondered when was the last time she’d lain on the floor.

It wasn’t proper. It wasn’t done by young ladies.

But this viewpoint seemed just right for recounting her story.

She told Mary Ann everything—at least, everything she dared. Fainting in the gardens. Playing croquet. The rose and the rhyming Raven and the marvelous millinery. The Hatter and his guests. Jest and the dreams and his lemon-yellow eyes .

She did not tell her about the Jabberwock and the brave Lion.

She did not tell her that Jest was a Rook for the White Queen, or that he was on a secret mission that could end a war, or that she hoped maybe she would be his reason to come back to Hearts when it was done.

When she was finished, it felt as though her heart had outgrown her body. It was the size of the house now. The size of the entire kingdom.

But Mary Ann was not sharing her smile. She was making a grid of matches on the floor, her brow drawn.

With that look, all of Cath’s happiness started to crumble. She knew that look. She could bet that it was the same look she’d given to Jest when he’d stood here in this very bedroom and asked if he would see her at the Turtle Days Festival.

No matter how spectacular the night had been, it could not happen again.

Catherine propped herself up on her elbows.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I know you’re right.

The King has asked for a courtship and I’ve agreed to it.

I would be ruined if anyone knew about tonight and I…

It won’t happen again. I’m not a fool. Or…

I’m going to stop being a fool. Tonight. Now.”

“That isn’t what I was thinking at all,” Mary Ann said. “Although you’re right. This would cause such a scandal—an embarrassment not only to you, but to the Marquess and the entire household.”

Cath looked away.

“But what I was really thinking was that you talk about him like… like you talk about a piece of decadent chocolate cake.”

A honk of a laugh escaped Cath before she could help it. “He is not a piece of cake!”

“No, but I can tell you’re already anticipating the time you’ll see him again, and you’re flushed and smiling the same way you do when you’re perfectly satisfied. And… your mother would forbid them both. ”

Cath swallowed, her spirits dampened.

“It’s a shame you can’t feel this way about the King.”

“I can’t.”

“I know.”

Cath sighed. “It won’t matter. I can’t do anything until this courtship is resolved.

” She shook her head. “And nothing has changed. It was just a single night, one fun night. I wanted to know what it was like to be… someone else, for once.” Reaching over, she took hold of Mary Ann’s hand, and pulled her down to lie on the carpet beside her.

Even after all these years she was surprised to feel the calluses on her friend’s palm.

“What’s most important is that everyone who was there tonight will be avid patrons of our bakery.

They loved the macarons, every one of them.

So that’s what I need to be focusing on now, and that’s plenty enough to be thinking about without kings and jokers and tea parties getting into the mix. ”

Her statement was followed by a stretched-thin quiet, before Mary Ann turned her head and gave Cath’s hand a gentle squeeze.

“It may be true that you can’t be a baker and a lady, or a baker and a queen…

but there is no rule that you can’t be a baker and a wife.

If you truly are fond of the Joker, perhaps it isn’t so hopeless after all.

” Her brows furrowed. “That is… if he would still want you, if you were no longer the heir to Rock Turtle Cove.”

“For shame, Mary Ann! Do you mean to say that his interest could lie more in my dowry and title, when I’m so utterly charming?

” Cath said it as a joke, though there was also a sting of na?veté in the back of her thoughts.

How had it not occurred to her that her family’s wealth could, indeed, be his motivation?

No, she couldn’t believe it. He seemed to like her. Truly, honestly like her. He had even implied that she could be reason enough for him to stay in Hearts… but he also knew she was being courted by His Majesty. He knew there were people who believed she was going to be the next Queen of Hearts .

And still he had dared to ask to see her again.

Did he want her, or did he want something from her?

She shook her head, shoving the thoughts away. Jest had shared a great secret with her. What reason did she have to doubt him?

“I mean to say,” amended Mary Ann, “that I do not know him. And despite how willingly you’ve gone gallivanting about with him after dark, I am not convinced that you know him, either.”

Cath hummed, thinking of the dream. His dimpled smile, receding farther and farther away. The hollowness in her chest. Her hands reaching after him, trying to take back what he had stolen, but he was always out of reach.

“You’re right,” she said. “I suppose I don’t know him very well at all.”

A Joker. A Rook. A mystery.

Perhaps she didn’t know him, but she was more certain than ever that she desperately wanted to.