Page 1 of Tweedles Reflection (The Crimes of Alice #4)

We were having a tea party, as if the world wasn’t imploding around us. As if I wasn’t harboring a damning secret that could possibly destroy us all. As if we were back in the Tundrey Woods with Hare, Twinkle, and Dormouse sitting around us.

Except instead of being in the Tundrey Woods with Hatter’s deranged and tea addicted companions, we sat in the sitting room of the Shadow Realm palace. Centered around a low table with a pretty white and flowered tea pot were the people who meant the most in the world to me.

Hatter, Cheshire, and the Tweedles, Carban and Coby. Along with a few extras.

“What do you know about the trials?” Dorian, the UnSeelie prince, asked his father. Dorian’s dark blue eyes bored into the Reaper, one dark panted leg crossing over the other. His leather knee high boots squeaked with the movement.

Eugene, the Reaper, lifted his teacup to his lips.

The very sight of the dark cloaked man sipping tea would have thrilled my best friend, Kat. For more than once, I wished she was here with me right now. She would know what to do about the sickness and this whole fiasco with the High Queen. She’d know what to do about the deal I made.

A warm hand covered mine where I twisted my new ring on my finger. “You alright, Alice dear?”

I swallowed down my fear and guilt and nodded with a small smile at Hatter.

Hiding this from Hatter would be difficult, if not impossible.

If I’d known what I had to do to save the Underground, well, I probably still would have bound my magic to Hatter’s, but I would have been better prepared to hide my feelings from him.

“Very few people know about the trials,” Eugene began, sitting his cup down on the saucer before him. “In fact, the only ones who know about them are the ones who were there the last time we had a High King.”

“Speak for yourself.” Morgana sniffed as she lounged on the couch, her teacup in her hands, her sharp, red-colored nails clicking against the glass.

An air of mystery surrounded the crimson haired beauty. Once the queen of the Shadow Realm, now... well, I wasn’t quite sure what her role in the court was now. But there was hostility between her and Dorian.

Surprising since I would have thought she would have hated Eugene, but she barely even acknowledged the new ruler of the Shadow Realm. As if his presence was inconsequential to her.

Hatter’s thigh pressed firmly against mine, his clothing no longer wrinkled and worn from hours of lying in bed from the sickness. The movement drew my gaze from the ex-queen to the fae who filled a piece of my heart.

“Alice,” Hatter murmured, his voice unnecessarily low since fae had excellent hearing. “I can feel you.”

His words made the rapid beating of my heart pound even quicker. I blew out a breath, trying to calm down. “Just nervous. About... all this.” I gestured with my teacup to the others.

A comforting arm wrapped around my shoulders, the warm and floral scent of Cheshire filling my nostrils. Even if I didn’t have to sit close to him to keep the scent of the sickness at bay, I would have been happy pressed up against his side.

The others had taken seats on the other side of the table, out of sniffing distance of his aura. Even only a few feet away, I could feel the heavy press of the two sets of green eyes on me.

Coby’s full lips pulled down in a frown, his brows furrowed with worry, while his twin Carban’s gaze hardened on me. My confession of forgetting them seemed to do little to endear me to him.

“I understand.” Hatter’s words were meant to soothe but only made my guilt sink deeper in my chest. I hoped Hatter interpreted it as guilt for the Tweedles and not for what I’d done.

Calm yourself, a vortex of voices whirled in my head. You will give the game away.

My jaw tightened as the urge to yell at the voice in my head to go away pushed at the back of my teeth. Instead, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.

Everything was fine. There was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t like I’d made a deal with my worst enemy. The most dangerous being in all the Underground. I could do this.

Once I found my center, my eyes fluttered open, focusing on Eugene. “Please, tell us about the trials. What can I expect to happen? Where are they?”

“No one knows.” Eugene shrugged a shoulder as if he were speaking of the weather rather than the fate of our world. “The trails are made by the Underground, and we all know what a fickle creature she is.”

Coby sighed heavily. “Then how will Aly find them?”

My eyes darted to Coby.

He hated me. They hated me.

So why was he trying to help? Was it just because of the Underground or something else altogether? Hope tugged at my heart, and I squashed it down.

“To activate the trials...” Eugene lifted his cup to his lips once more. He took a long drink before settling his eyes on mine. “Is to get the blessing of the queens.”

Cheshire choked on his tea. He threw his head back and laughed, his long purple hair falling over my side as his body shook with mirth. He swiped his clawed fingers under his emerald eyes, his fangs flashing as he grinned.

“It’s not funny,” Coby snapped, his cup cracking between the hard grip of his hands.

Cheshire chuckled again. “You have to admit, it’s a little bit funny.”

“We’re doomed,” Dorian groaned, sinking back into his seat.

I gaped at Eugene. My cup rattled as I sat it on the table, my fingers curling into fists. “Let me get this straight. The only way for me to become the High Queen is to get the blessing of the other queens. I thought you said they don’t get a say in it?”

“They don’t,” Morgana interrupted. “You don’t need their literal blessing.” She shifted in her seat before her hand dipped between her breasts and then withdrew something. “This is a queen’s blessing.”

Everyone but Eugene leaned forward to get a better look.

Pressed between her thumb and forefinger was a shimmery oval stone on a long silver chain.

The longer I stared at it, the more details inside the stone came into focus.

A small dark chunk lived in the middle of the stone, skinny branches stretching out to the edges of its encasement.

“This is a branch from the Tree of Life,” Morgana explained, holding it out for us to see. “Each ruler is bestowed one when they take the throne.”

“Why do you still have it then?” Dorian scowled, his eyes filled with distrust and loathing. “Shouldn’t my father have it?”

Morgan curled her fingers around the stone and smirked. “Doesn’t work that way, princey boy.”

Dorian’s mouth opened to say something else, but his father beat him to it.

“The stone must be given freely to the next ruler, or the Underground takes it back, giving it to the ruler of their choosing.”

Dorian shook his head, his dark tresses falling across his face. “Still doesn’t explain why she still has it.”

Eugene lifted that elegant shoulder again. “She neither offered it to me nor did the Underground see fit to pass it on, and death will do nothing to change it.” His gaze leveled on his son in warning. “Besides, I have no need for it. But now,” those all-seeing eyes landed on me, “Alice does.”

“Catch.”

The word only registered for a millisecond before Morgana tossed the stone my way. I barely caught it before it could fumble to the floor. The ring on my finger thrummed against my skin as I rotated the stone between my fingers.

“Now, you have one out of three.” Morgana sat back once more. “Though I think getting the others will be a bit harder than that.”

Cheshire snorted. “I would say so. How can Alice convince the other two queens to give them up? They will know what she wants them for, and it will be a bright and sunny day in the Shadow Realm before they hand them over to her willingly.”

Eugene’s lips ticked up. “No one said they had to give them willingly.”

“But you just said...” Dorian started.

“I said, to be the next ruler of this realm, you have to pass it on willingly, but Alice doesn’t want to be the queen of this realm, do you, my dear?” Eugene lifted his cup to his lips, amusement in his eyes.

The fae world would never cease to amaze and confound me. Nothing was simple. Nothing meant what it means, and I couldn’t take anything at face value.

“I think we are all forgetting an important part of this puzzle.” Hatter’s fingers traced a path up and down my thigh, focusing my mind on the touch and not the racing fear in my veins. “If what Cheshire and Alice said was true, there’s no way out of the Underground.”

“He’s right,” I blew out. “Tatiana locked down all the portals out of the Underground.”

“Where is our gracious queen?” Coby’s words were full of disdain as he exchanged a look with his brother.

Carban hadn’t said a word since I came back from my melt down and, unbeknownst to them, an even deadlier game than the High Queen trials.

As if feeling my eyes on him, Carban’s hard gaze locked onto mine. Seeing those eyes without the love and desire he’d had for me before hurt. I missed the small smiles he’d tossed my way. They were few and far between, but they were mine.

“What do you need me to do?” My words came out confident and determined, much different than the girl who had faced him down over a hundred years ago.

“I’m so glad you asked, my dear girl.” The Shadow Man smiled a wicked gleam in his eyes. “You are going to help me get out of here.” He twirled a finger in the air.

“So you can go back to destroying the Underground?” I snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“You have me all wrong.” He held his hands up in front of him, holding me off. “I have given up my fae eating ways. I just want to find a hole to crawl into and exist.”

I barked a laugh. “I hardly doubt that.”

“Whether or not you believe me doesn’t matter.” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his pants, rocking on his heels. “That’s the deal. I help you pass the trials and then I go free.”

His deal sounded too good to be true. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he wouldn’t go back to rampaging across the Underground once he went free. If I was going to take this chance, I had to make it worth it.

“I want my memories back,” I commanded before he could interrupt me. “All of my memories.”

The Shadow Man stared at me for a long moment and then nodded. “Fine. I’ll help you pass the trails and give you your memories back, but then after it all, I go free.” He held his hand out to me.

A fae deal. Magically bound to our word or suffer the consequences.

I slapped my hand in his, and a shudder zipped down my spine as the deal’s magic took hold.

The Shadow Man smiled, his form shimmering. “This is going to be fun.” His form turned shadowy before shooting straight at me.

I tensed, afraid of what I agreed to until something on my hand tingled. I lifted it. My mouth dropped open as a dark ring formed around my pointer finger. Before I could ask about the ring, memories poured into my head.

Fighting against an unknown assailant. “Calm down, human.”

Amused smiles from Coby. “You’re the Alice, correct?”

“I don’t suppose you’d want to make it even and let me kiss you?” Coby teased as he chased after me.

“We’ve just been searching all over Tundrey Woods for you.”

I felt Carban’s arms around me. “I don’t want words. I want you.”

My eyelashes fluttered as I jerked out of my memories. I broke eye contact first, making Carban’s lips twitch. Twisting the ring around my finger, I turned my attention back to Eugene.

“We need to go to the Human Realm. Both queens are there with whatever other fae made it out.”

“And how do we do that?” Coby asked, not noticing the exchange between Carban and me.

Eugene sat his teacup down and stood. “Through my mirror, of course.”

Everyone but Morgana and Dorian gathered in Eugene’s bedroom on the second floor of the palace. The moment we said Human Realm, she’d decided that was enough excitement for her, and Dorian chased after her moments later.

“What’s going on there?” Cheshire asked, not at all worried about it being our business or not.

Eugene cast a sideways glance toward where his son had disappeared off to. “Hmmm. We will have to see.”

I arched a brow, exchanging a look with Hatter. This was an interesting development. Not that I was against it.

Dorian could use his own happily ever after ever since I’d derailed his previous one. Lynne coming back as my best friend Kat had gotten his hopes up, only to be smashed by her falling for Cheshire’s son, Chess. He deserved some happiness after all he’d been through.

Our little princeling is growing up.

I scowled. Shut up.

Having the Shadow Man in my ring was bad enough, but in my head? It made my insides crawl. I couldn’t wait to get this all over with and go back to real life.

Except it wouldn’t be the life I had before. I would be queen. High Queen. Ruler of all the Underground. A daunting thought to be sure.

Eugene stroked his hand down the side of the mirror, and the surface of it rippled.

An unfamiliar bedroom appeared in the mirror’s reflection.

It looked sterile, as if no one lived there, with no personal effects and bland, boring furniture.

The only sign anyone lived there was the half-open suitcase spilling gowns and other garments from its depths. No fae in sight.

“A hotel,” I muttered to myself.

“What was that, my love?” Cheshire purred by my side, nuzzling the side of my face.

“The mirror is in a hotel room,” I pointed out, stepping toward the mirror. “Why is the UnSeelie Queen living in a hotel?”

It was well known that, even though the Reaper lived in the Shadow Realm, he and the UnSeelie Queen, Dorian’s mother, kept in touch via mirror. A secret that caused a lot of the previous issues with the shadows before. That they still used it to this day, didn’t bode well.

In this moment, though, I couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Do you think Kat would really want both queens in her home?” Hatter interjected with a small smile.

“Good point.” I sighed and turned to Eugene. “I would thank you except–”

Eugene brushed me off with a shake of his head. “Go save the Underground and I hope not to see the rest of you back here anytime soon.” He scanned over my mates with a pointed look before strolling out of the room.

I breathed out and glanced over the three fae who had never stepped out of the fae world. “Ready to go to the Human Realm?”

There was no way this wasn’t going to blow up in my face.