Page 59 of Madness Becomes Her

“Gone ahead to announce our arrival to the queen. She’ll want time to prepare for your reemergence.”

I blow on my spoonful of stew, mind swirling as I try and cannot recall the White Queen in every memory I’ve been returned.

Nothing.

Going into her palace without knowing who she is orhowshe behaves unsettles my stomach.

I have to wonder why the security charms, as Ariadne called them, gave me flashes of the Red Queen while keeping this queen a mystery.

Darker memories are the most powerful, though. If we let them. Clearly, my mind kept those right on the surface, allowing them to emerge first.

“Tell me about this queen I’m to meet,” I say, swallowing my first bite of stew. The flavors of beef, carrots, and a few vegetables I don’t have names for tickle my tongue as I grab for my ale.

Fin’s hand comes down over mine. “Be careful with Wonderland ale; it is quite potent.”

I scoff at him as a thirty-year-old woman with her fair share of hangovers after long nights at the pubs. “I’ll be fine.”

He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me before sighing. “The White Queen is everything the Red Queen is not.”

“But? There has to be a but coming, right?”

There’s always a but.

“She is… quite eccentric.”

“How could she not be living in a world like Wonderland? I’m surprised you have lucid moments, to be fair.”

His thick brows tug together. “She speaks irregularly and you’ll have to reacquaint yourself with her ways. This would be easier, of course, if you had memories of her.”

“Of course,” I agree. “I can’t force memories, though. I’m sure it’ll be fine. After all, she’s the light queen to the Red Queen’s darkness, right?”

Fin swallows a sip of ale, weighing his words. “She is, but you always want to mind how you speak to royalty, lest you find your head rolling past your feet.”

I swallow past a growing lump of fear in my throat.

“That’s all fuddlywak, anyhow. It’ll be fine; I’m sure of it.” His face changes as he digs into his food.

Spreading silence falls over us, my mind whirling with thoughts of the upcoming meeting with the queen. It isn’t long until I’m on my fourth cup of ale, and the stew is long gone.

Finlo leads us to the fifth floor, jostling my bags and his, all while fighting with a key from the innkeeper.

“Here. Let me.” I take the key from him and shove it into the door with the number five on the front, opening it and stepping out of Finlo’s way.

“I hope you don’t mind. I got us one room. We’re only staying for one night before we move on, and it seemed a waste of coin toget two rooms when…” Finlo turns, his cheeks reddening as the implication of everything we’ve done leading up to this moment hangs between us.

The room is spinning blearily around Finlo, and I fist the top of a chair to stay steady. “It’s fine,” I slur. “No harm done. I wouldn’t want to be in anyone else’s bed.”

A hiccup makes an abrupt appearance, and I cover my mouth with a drunken giggle. “God. I’m so sorry.”

Finlo’s smile stretches across his face like a lazy cat. “I told you the ale was potent. Come, we should get some sleep.”

For an untold amount of time, I relieve myself, give getting into night clothes a good—and failed—attempt, and then make my way into bed, where Finlo is already lying.

In the dim light of a small fire flickering in the hearth, Finlo looks like a Fae god, and it stirs memories of us in the tent, churning need through me as if it hadn’t been sated only this morning.

Silence rings, other than the occasional sound that dances through the open window, blowing on the breeze that rustles the curtains.

“Was it awful?” I ask, not knowing how Fin will respond to my question.