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“I’ M SORRY. I’ M SO SORRY ,” she said, her voice muffled against Jest’s shoulder, her arms like vises around his neck.

She didn’t know where he was taking her to.

She could feel the evening air on her hot skin.

She could hear his heavy breathing—he was running, with her and all her crinoline in his arms. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could marry him and give you what you want, but it’s not what I want, Jest, you must know that—”

“It’s all right, Cath. It’s going to be all right.”

He came to a stop and sank down to his knees, cradling her in his lap.

Untangling her arms, Catherine looked up. At her Joker. Her Rook. Cath pressed her hands against his face and saw it instantly. The openness in his eyes, the tenderness.

“I choose you,” she repeated. The words tasted like sugar.

His jaw twitched and with his free hand he grasped her fingers, keeping them pressed against his face.

“Cath, you have to be sure.” His voice was thick, practically choking.

“Raven gave me the idea. I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise, and I…

I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say.

It isn’t too late. They already believe I have you under some spell, it would be easy to persuade them—”

“Wait.” Cath’s hands slid down his cheeks, reaching for the collar of his tunic instead. “You said we could be together. We can save Chess and I’ll have my bakery and—”

He nodded. “It’s true. I think it will work.”

“You think?”

Tilting forward, Jest buried his face into her neck.

He was shaking as hard as she was. “It won’t be easy.

And you can still change your mind. The King will still want you, I know he will, and I’ll leave you be, you and your heart, I promise.

I couldn’t do it anyway, Cath. I couldn’t take it from you. ”

His words dug into her chest. She stared past him, seeing the white rose tree where she’d seen him that first night. He’d brought her to the gardens.

They would be followed. Probably the guards were already searching for them. She doubted it would take long for them to be found.

Stomach twisting, she shoved Jest away and scrambled out of his hold. She tried to stand but her legs were too weak and she collapsed back down to the grass. “You gave me a choice and I made it. How could you even suggest I change it now?”

Jest tried to string his hands through his hair but found his joker hat in the way.

Ripping it off, he threw it on the ground.

The bells clinked once, dejectedly, before falling silent.

“Because you have to be sure. Because it will kill me if you come to regret this, to know that you gave up everything the King was offering and it was my fault.”

The cold air stung her throat, but she couldn’t stop gasping for breath. Clenching her jaw, she shoved him as hard as she could. Jest fell onto his side in the grass.

“You idiot. I don’t want him or what he’s offered me, and I never have. I don’t want to be the stupid Queen!”

“I know. I know that, Cath. That’s why you might regret this.”

She gaped at him and started to shake her head. “It won’t take them long to find us here. Just tell me. What was this idea Raven had? ”

Jest glanced up and Cath startled upon spying Raven among the roses.

“There is a law in Chess,” Jest said, drawing her attention back to him, “that a pawn who can make it through the enemy’s territory, all the way to the border, can become a queen.”

She frowned.

“Come back with me.” Jest pushed himself back to his knees and wrapped Cath’s hands in his. “We can get you to the border—Hatta, Raven, and I—and you can be a queen, and you can lead us to victory, Cath, I know it.”

“But…” Her throat dried and it was a struggle to wet it again. “But you said… I could have my bakery, and…”

Jest chuckled, a warm sound that surprised her. His grip tightened. “That’s just it. Once the war is over, the White Queen can take over again—we won’t need two queens, after all—and you can be anything you want. And you and I—”

He was interrupted by the sound of marching in the direction of the castle. Cath tensed and looked back, spotting two rows of Club guards making their way down the steps. The Ace of Clubs stood at their helm, shouting orders to spread out and search the grounds.

Jest was staring at her when she faced him again. “I know you never wanted to be a queen,” he said, apology lacing his voice.

A humorless laugh burbled out of her mouth. “It seems I was going to be a queen either way.” She wriggled one hand out of his hold and traced the painted heart on his cheek with the pad of her thumb. “I love you, Jest. I want to be with you, any way I can.”

His breath formed crystals on the air. Boots echoed, hitting the gravel paths. Overhead, Raven let out a warning caw.

Jest grabbed her suddenly, crushing his mouth against hers. Cath threw her arms around his neck, delighting in the way her heart expanded as if it could consume them both .

“I love you too,” he whispered in the spaces between another kiss, and another. “I love you too.”

It was impossible, and she absolutely believed it.

He was kissing her again when Raven coughed, loudly. “They are coming. We mustn’t tarry any longer.”

Cath and Jest looked up into the tree boughs.

“That didn’t rhyme,” said Cath.

“Who has the time?” Raven snapped.

“He’s right, of course,” said Jest, beaming. “Yet this interlude has been sublime.” He grabbed his hat and pulled Cath to her feet.

With a nod from Jest, Raven swooped down to join them, just as Cath heard the first guards clomping through the rose gardens. No sooner had Raven landed on Jest’s shoulder than the earth quaked and a tower of stone burst up from the ground, swallowing them back down.

***

C ATH DID NOT KNOW IF this magic could be called a tower, a tunnel, a bridge, or some other impossible passageway, but she was relieved when it deposited them into the meadow outside Hatta’s shop.

She was trembling, though Jest and Raven looked as though traveling through the earth was the most natural thing in the world.

“And to think,” she gasped, pushing herself up onto wobbly legs, “I’ve been bothering with carriages all these years, when there was such a more reasonable way of traveling.”

Jest was grinning as widely as ever as he laced his fingers with hers. “It’s a favored trick of us Rooks,” he said. “You get used to it.”

She sniffed and straightened her gown. “That remains to be seen.”

They approached the Marvelous Millinery with their hands fiercely entwined. The windows of the traveling shop glowed warm and gold, but the forest was quiet .

Jest reached for the doorknob on the shop’s round door but found himself holding a furry striped tail. A cat yowled.

Jest jumped away, bracing his body in front of Cath’s.

Cheshire’s head appeared next, grinning enormously despite the way his slitted eyes glared. He licked at his injured tail. “Well,” he said, “that was uncouth.”

“Cheshire, what are you doing here?” asked Catherine.

“Tending to my wounds. I fear he may have bruised me.”

She fisted a hand on her hip. “I mean it, Cheshire. Have you been following us?”

He stopped licking and his tail vanished, leaving only his bulbous head hanging where there might have been a door knocker. “Following you? I was here first, dear girl.”

Catherine lifted an eyebrow.

Cheshire’s vivid smile widened even farther. “I heard a rumor that you had fled the masquerade in the arms of our most-wanted criminal. Well, our only wanted criminal. I wanted to see the truth of it for myself.”

“And now you’ve seen it. Please move aside.”

Cheshire’s eyes narrowed, peering into the distance. “Is that bird friend or food?”

Cath and Jest glanced back. Raven had claimed a spot on a low-hanging tree bough. He puffed up his feathers until he was the same size as Cheshire. Or, the same size that Cheshire would have been had his entire body been visible.

“ Friend ,” said Catherine, turning back. “What do you want?”

Cheshire’s head turned upside down. “I suppose you haven’t any idea what’s been about this evening. Been awful preoccupied, what with your proposal and such and such. Do you want to hear about it?”

“Not particularly. I have a few preoccupations of my own, you may have noticed. ”

“It involves the pumpkin eater.”

Her gut tightened. She’d all but forgotten how Sir Peter had accosted her earlier that evening. “Why would I have any interest in him?”

“And also Mary Ann. And even the Jabberwock. A zesty new rumor that might be even more scandalous than our King’s bride running away with the Joker.

I’m positively dying to tell someone”—his eyes turned to silver coins, like those placed upon the dead—“and you were the first person I thought who would want to know.”

A chill scurried down her spine. She could sense Jest peering at her, could imagine his concern, his curiosity, but she shoved her own curiosity down into the pit of her stomach, right beside the angry pit where lay Mary Ann’s betrayal.

“You were wrong. I don’t want to know. Go bother someone else with your gossip and leave us alone, or I’ll bruise much more than your tail.”

The coins turned back into glowing eyes.

“I see,” he said, drawing out the words.

“It appears I was incorrect about you, Lady Catherine. After all these years.” His gaze shifted to Jest. “He’s handsome enough, I suppose…

” His ears and eyes and nose vanished then, leaving only his smile—hanging downside up so it became a frown without a body to tether it. “If one cares for that sort of thing.”

Then he was gone.

Jest was still looking at her.

“It’s fine,” she said. “He won’t tell anyone where we are.” She didn’t know if it was true, but she hoped they would be far gone before it mattered.

With the cat gone, Raven left his perch in the trees and flew down to join them as Jest pulled open the door.