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C ATH REMEMBERED LITTLE ABOUT how she got back to the manor at Rock Turtle Cove.

Hatta carried her part of the way, though she screamed and clawed at him to let her be, to leave her with Jest. He had restrained her until she had exhausted herself and her throat was worn raw.

Her head pounded with the need to find Peter, to destroy him.

A muscle was twitching in Cath’s eye. Her fingers kept tightening, imagining themselves around Peter’s throat. Squeezing. Squeezing.

When they arrived at the mansion, her parents took one look at the blood and the dirt and the shredded gown and her dead eyes and ushered them all inside.

Her anger simmered beneath her skin. She looked at no one.

Said nothing. Sent them all away. When finally she was alone in her bedroom, she knelt at the window and pleaded with Time until her lips were chapped and her tongue was too dry to go on.

Surely he could turn back the clock. Surely he had dominion over her fate.

She would spare the Jabberwock this time, if only Jest would live.

She would let the beast have Mary Ann, if only Jest would live.

She would listen to Hatta’s warnings. She would turn away from Mary Ann’s cries and escape into the Looking Glass. This time, she would not look back, if only Jest would live.

She would do anything. Marry any king. Wear any crown. Give her heart to anyone who asked for it. She would serve Time himself if he would bring Jest back to her.

Her agony turned to fury when Time refused to answer her. There was no this time, no next time, no time at all.

No amount of bargaining made any difference.

Jest was gone.

At some point that night, Raven tapped at her windowsill. Cath sprang forward to open it—but he had only come to tell her that Peter had gotten away.

Cath fell onto the carpet, the pain knocking into her all over again.

Her rage split her open.

The night passed and she became a wild animal, raging and inexhaustible.

When Abigail brought her tea, she threw the tray at the wall.

When Mary Ann tried to draw a bath, she screamed and flailed.

When her mother cried outside her bedroom door—too afraid to come inside—Cath snarled at her reflection and pretended not to hear her.

She plotted Peter’s demise. She swore on every grain of sand in the cove that she would avenge Jest’s death.

It took almost two full days before she could cry and then, as if a levee had been broken, she couldn’t stop.

Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad.

So far as she could tell, only one of the prophecies had come to pass.

Jest was martyred. Jest was dead. Jest.