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T HE WALLS OF THE WELL were dripping with treacle and Cath’s heels kept sticking to the steps.

The air carried that same sickly-sweet aroma.

Normally Catherine would have been dreaming of treacle biscuits and treacle-nut cakes, but the smell was so encompassing it turned even her stomach with its syrupy thickness.

She imagined it filling her lungs, drowning her.

After such a journey as they’d been on that night, she couldn’t guess what would greet them at the bottom of the well. A treacle fountain? A sailboat made from her old boot? A fox, an owl, and a raccoon inviting them to tea?

She was not expecting to reach the bottom of the well and find herself in a circular room with a black-and-white-checkered floor and a small glass table at its center. The room was expansive and tidy and… familiar.

Catherine turned in a full circle.

They were in the Crossroads, the thoroughfare of Hearts, and they were surrounded by doors. Nothing but doors everywhere she turned.

Her palms started to sweat, her pulse roaring in her ears.

She paced the room’s edges, sure there must be a mistake.

There must be something she wasn’t understanding.

Through one enormous keyhole she could see the beaches at Rock Turtle Cove.

Through a tinted peekaboo window she recognized Main Street—the cobbler’s storefront now abandoned.

One heart-shaped door, she knew, would lead to the drawbridge of Heart Castle.

Her heart sank. “This isn’t Chess.”

“Quite the riddle, isn’t it?” said Hatta, leaning against the rail at the bottom of the stairs, one leg crossed in front of the other. “Choose a door, any door—they all lead to some horrible fate. Then they drop you down into a room full of doors.” His voice was humorless.

Cath spun on him. “They dropped us back into Hearts. I thought you were taking us to Chess!”

He smiled at her, but it wasn’t a kind look. “I said I would take you to the Looking Glass, and so I have.”

Catherine shook her head, her insides roiling with anger, with frustration, with exhaustion.

All night they’d wandered. Humored those awful girls, looked at their awful drawings, listened to their awful poetry.

Her stomach was empty, her feet were blistered, and her future was as uncertain now as it had been the moment she and Jest had run from the castle.

This was supposed to be a new start. Her and Jest, escaping into a new life together. And Hatta dared to taunt them.

“Cath,” Jest said, quiet and calming. He settled his hands on her shoulders and pulled her away from Hatta.

Perhaps she’d looked on the verge of murder to worry him so, though Hatta seemed unconcerned.

“It’s all right. Like he said, it’s a riddle.

The answer will seem obvious once we figure it out. ”

She grit her teeth and jabbed her finger at Hatta. “He already knows the answer! He’s toying with us!”

“I’m making sure that you’re worthy,” said Hatta.

“Worthy of what?”

“Everything,” Hatta snarled. “Life is made of sacrifices, Lady Pinkerton. I had to pass their test to enter the lands of Chess, and now you expect to go into Chess and be crowned a queen, without any trials? Why should it be so easy for you?”

“Sacrifices!” she screamed, not realizing she’d thrown herself at Hatta until she felt Jest holding her back. “I’m leaving everything! My home! My family! My whole life behind!”

“Because you have no other choice.”

“No. Because I love Jest. I chose him. Who are you to judge me, to doubt me? Who are you to think you have any dominion over our lives?”

His grin turned wry. “Dear girl, I’m the man with the answer to the riddle.”

She let out another outraged scream and leaped for him, but again Jest wrapped his arms around her and held her back. She found herself engulfed in his arms, feeling the loud thud of his heartbeat against her back.

“Fine,” she snapped, planting her feet on the ground and forcing herself to take long, steady breaths. “We’ll figure out this stupid riddle. Jest and I.”

“You might recall that I did guide you through the maze. A little appreciation might be warranted.”

She wriggled out of Jest’s hold. “You’ve done nothing but lead us in circles.”

She tore off Hatta’s fine coat and threw it at his feet.

Hatta scowled. “You’re welcome for that too.”

Snorting, Cath peered back up the spiral staircase. There was a wooden trapdoor covering the top, blocking out any sign of the golden world above.

Another door. All doors.

“You didn’t have to solve this puzzle when you came here?” she asked Jest.

He shook his head. “We met the Sisters and traveled the maze, and at the end of it—or, the beginning, whichever it may be—was a Looking Glass, like the one in Hatta’s shop. We went through it and were here in the Crossroads, in Hearts. There was no riddle, and no warning about doors.”

“Sometimes they make it easy, when they want you to succeed.” Hatta sighed. “And sometimes they don’t want you to leave. The Sisters are not selfless creatures.”

Cath clenched her jaw and scanned the room again.

Raven had taken up a spot on the round table at the room’s center, like a regal display piece. The table was made of solid glass—even the legs, so it seemed as if the bird were standing on air.

Beside him was a crystal bottle and a silver hand mirror. Cath hadn’t noticed either of them before.

She stepped forward and picked up the bottle. Tied to its neck was a paper tag scrawled with large letters.

DRINK ME

“What about this one?” Jest asked. He was on his knees, peering into a long black tunnel made of dirt. “It looks like a mole tunnel. That doesn’t count as a door, does it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Cath, holding up the bottle to show him, “but I suspect the answer has something to do with this.”

Hatta said nothing.

Cath knew that, no matter how Hatta felt about her, he cared a great deal for Jest. She hoped that if they were on the brink of making a bad decision, he would stop them.

For now, though, she did her best to pretend he wasn’t there.

She uncorked the bottle and sniffed it. “It isn’t treacle,” she said, sniffing again. There were hints of cherry and custard, pineapple and turkey, toffee and hot buttered toast. “Shrinking elixir. I’m sure of it.”

Jest came to her side and read the tag. “I’ve heard of it,” he said, “though we don’t have any in Chess. ”

She chewed on her lower lip. If they drank the elixir in the bottle and it turned them small—what then? How would that help?

Her eye caught on the hand mirror and she gasped. “That’s it!”

She picked up the mirror and held it up to her face. She looked, and looked deeply. A grin stretched across her lips. For in the glass, beyond her reflection, she saw a patchwork of rolling yellow hills and emerald forests and snowy purple mountains. Chess.

“The Looking Glass! It’s only small on our side.”

Jest wrapped his arm around her waist, beaming. “But the elixir will make us small so we can pass through.”

Raven cocked his head. Hatta remained silent, even when Cath and Jest glanced at him for approval. He lifted an eyebrow—a silent challenge.

Jest deflated, just slightly. “Honestly, Hatta. Why are you acting this way? We’re fulfilling the job we were sent to do, even if it is in a different manner than we expected. And there’s no reason for us to stay here, anyway.”

Hatta’s frown deepened and Cath could tell that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

But then his face softened into something that resembled a smile, albeit a sad one.

“I wish for you all the joy this darkened world can employ,” he said, quoting the Raven.

His gaze shifted to Catherine. “That, and I expect to be repaid for my assistance in scones and tarts every time I come to visit.”

She sagged, surprised at how quickly he could deflect her anger. “I hope you’ll visit us often.”

He grunted. No commitment. “I am always coming and going somewhere, love. That’s the only way I’ll stay ahead of Time, after all.” He lifted his chin toward the table. “Go ahead, then. Somewhere there is a white crown waiting for its queen.”

Cath and Jest faced each other, holding the bottle between them. His eyes were glowing. Her nerves were vibrating .

They’d made it.

The Looking Glass. Chess. A future, together.

“Don’t drink it all now,” Hatta reminded them as Cath lifted the bottle to her lips. “Raven and I will be following shortly after. Our fates were little better than yours, if you recall.”

Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad.

Cath nodded and had just tipped the bottle against her lips when she heard a scream.

She froze and lowered the bottle.

Hatta grimaced, but he looked like he’d been expecting this. The scream, Cath was certain, had come from the door behind him—an ominous wrought-iron gate. Heavy fog was creeping through the bars, entwining around Hatta’s feet.

“What was that?” she asked, taking a hesitant step toward him.

Hatta shook his head. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t look.

“That,” he said, his voice dripping with ire, “is your reason to stay.”

Cath handed the bottle to Jest and approached the door, but Hatta moved himself in front of her.

“Don’t, Lady Pinkerton. Jest said you had no reason to stay, but he was wrong.

There is always a reason to stay. Always a reason to go back.

It’s best not even to look, not even to guess.

Turn around. Drink the elixir. Go through the Looking Glass and never look back. ”

She tried to peer around him, but Hatta grabbed her elbow, halting her. “But… that scream. It sounded familiar. I—”

“Remember the drawings. They will be your fate if you pass through this door. Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad. Remember?” Hatta did look on the verge of madness, his violet eyes shining with intensity.

She pressed her lips together. The scream echoed over and over in her skull.

“I’m not going to go through,” she said. “I just want to look. ”

She pried her arm away and ducked around him, approaching the black gate. She wrapped her hands around the bars and peered through. The rolling fog brought goose bumps to her bare skin, or maybe it was the familiar sight that greeted her on the other side of those bars.

The pumpkin patch.

In the distance she could see Sir Peter’s little cottage, and to her left were the two enormous pumpkins he’d been carving the day she and Mary Ann had come. Only now, one of the pumpkins was destroyed, great chunks of orange shell and moldy flesh scattered across the mud.

The second pumpkin had two tiny windows. They glowed with candlelight, a beacon in the fog.

A hand was reaching through one of those windows, struggling to find purchase on something, anything. Cath heard a woman’s voice crying. Pleading. Please, let me out. Please!

Horror wrapped around her body, freezing her to the core.

A moment later, the hand disappeared, replaced with a face in the window. Tear-stained cheeks. Frightened eyes. Confirming what Cath had feared.

It was Mary Ann.

The sound of grating metal dragged her attention to the other side of the pumpkin patch and she saw a figure shadowed against the backdrop of the forest. Though it was murky and dark, she knew it was Peter, focused on his work. It looked like he was sharpening a tool of some sort. Or a weapon.

She spun back toward the Crossroads. “Is this real? It isn’t just an illusion, a trick?”

Hatta shut his eyes. “It’s real,” he whispered.

Her blood throbbed. “I have to go. I have to help her!”

“No.” Hatta grabbed her wrist. “You have to go on through the Looking Glass. Remember what will become of you—of any of us! ”

She peered at Jest, who looked as aghast as she felt.

She thought of the drawing. His crumpled body. The pool of blood. The hat lying limp beside his severed head.

Her attention darted to Raven. As always, he watched her. Silent. Waiting.

Could he really become a murderer? Could he really hurt Jest?

It was too much of a risk.

“You can’t follow me,” she said. “Not any of you.”

Jest shook his head. “You’re not going alone.”

“I have to.” She tore away from Hatta and reached for Jest’s hand, squeezing it tight. “It will be all right. Those drawings—that’s all they are. Odd little drawings from odd little girls.”

“Cath—”

“I know. It’s too much to risk your life, but I can go. I’ll go and I’ll save her, and then I’ll find the well again. I’ll find the Sisters. I’ll come to Chess and find you. But I… I can’t just leave her.”

“Fine, but if you go, I go.”

“No, Jest. If you’re there, I won’t be able to think of anything but that awful picture. I need to know you’re safe.” Her heart stammered. “Or—fine. You stay here and wait for me. Don’t go through to Chess yet, just wait and stay safe and I’ll come back. I will come back.”

“I can’t—”

She threw her arms around him and silenced him with a kiss, digging her hands into his hair. His hat tumbled off, landing on the tiled ground with a dull thud. His arms drew her closer, melding their bodies together.

“You won’t come back.” Hatta’s haunting words cut through the desperation in her body, the need for this kiss to not be their last, to not be good-bye.

She pried herself away and glared at Hatta. “Have you ever stayed after you heard the Sisters’ prophecy?”

His lips thinned. “Never. ”

“Then how could you possibly know it’s real? How could you possibly know what will or won’t happen?” She turned back to Jest, unwilling to hear whatever excuse Hatta would make next. She lifted Jest’s hand and pressed a kiss into his palm. “Stay here,” she said. “Wait for me.”

Pulling away, she faced the massive gate, wrapped her fingers around the bars, and pushed her way through.