Bargain price

CHAPTER 37

D ODGE HADN’T told her that they’d be leaving the forest. They should have informed somebody. Bibwit, the general, Hatter. We should have told them we were going. That’s what the old Dodge would’ve done… The ten-year-old Dodge Anders who had prided himself on strict adherence to military procedures and the importance of communication among members of a fighting force. But a lot about the adult Dodge was unlike the child Alyss used to know.

He kept in front of her, moving at a rapid pace, and she often had to trot just to stay in sight of him. He turned around every now and again to make sure she was still following him, but really, he could have been more considerate. Wouldn’t hurt him to slow down a little.

They came to the edge of a shabby city, the one she had already passed through this day. The pawnshops and military checkpoints, the ear-clutter of recorded voices declaring “Better Redd than

dead” and “The Redd way is the right way.” The barrage of gaudy, flickering advertisements for products and places Alyss had never heard of. I can hardly…is it really my once-gleaming city? The only landmark she recognised was The Aplu Theater, where she’d seen performances by the Merry Pretenders, an acting troupe favored by her parents. It was boarded up and had been left to rot. The few

Wonderlanders she saw passed through the city like shadows, flitting and ashamed.

Dodge was waiting for her up ahead. About time he showed some consideration. But when she stepped up beside him, she found that it wasn’t manners that had made him stop and wait for her.

“That is your home,” said Dodge. “Redd left it standing to show how far the Hearts and White

Imagination have fallen.”

She grew dizzy, looking at the ruins of Heart Palace, her mind suddenly aswirl with memories. Where Father and I used to play tag in the halls and he could always catch me by making me laugh. “The letters of my name spell ‘alnon’ or ‘onnal’ or ‘lonan’ when shuffled around,” he’d say. And laughing, I’d say, “But those aren’t words,” and he’d know where I was from hearing my voice, and he’d tag me, saying, “Why, Alyss, I never claimed they’d spell actual words!”

And where there were all sorts of nooks perfect for spying on him and Mother, and I saw him massage the nape of her neck as she sat on her throne, she lifting her face to his for a kiss.

“Can we go inside?” “If we’re careful.”

The grounds appeared deserted-no Wonderlanders looting the place, hurrying past with goblets and cutlery in their fists, because there was nothing left to take. But Dodge unsheathed his sword all the same, and he guided Alyss carefully to the palace entrance, keeping his voice to a whisper.

“The poor and desperate sometimes live here for a while, until they die from imagination-stimulant addiction or Redd sends them to the Crystal Mines.”

Entering through the broken front gate, Dodge’s heart pumped as quickly as if he were in battle. He hadn’t personally set foot in the palace since the day he and the rook buried his father-hadn’t wanted to return, afraid of what he might feel. He held his face turned away from Alyss, wrestling with emotions he was no longer used to experiencing.

Inside, the once-great halls were scarred with obscenities, and what little that had remained of furniture and decorations lay in charred piles throughout, evidently used as fuel for fires.

“It’s empty because people stole things,” Dodge said. “Right after, you know…that day.”

Alyss reached out, ran a hand along the cold stone walls. “It’s not empty,” she said. The place was full of the past. At a bend in one of the halls: Here is where I imagined the floor covered in squig berries and the walrus slipped on them and dropped the tea platter and squashed the berries, rolling in them and turning himself squig color. In the anteroom of her mother’s throne room: Here is where I used to charge toll to the servants, not letting them pass unless they gave me a treat of jollyjellies or tarty tarts.

Skeletons of card soldiers and chessmen littered the dusty hall approaching the South Dining Room. Many more skeletons were in the dining room itself. The air tasted as if it hadn’t been breathed by the living in more than a decade. The walls were pockmarked from Redd’s attack, but no weapons were anywhere to be seen. Silent tears coursed down Alyss’ cheeks. She turned to see if Dodge was crying, feeling the sorrowful weight of the scene, but it was difficult to tell in the dimness of the room.

“Your father,” she whispered. “He’s…buried in the garden.”

Dodge’s voice sounded choked. He was taking deep, even breaths in an effort to remain calm. Anger birthed from grief. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to make someone feel the pain and loss he

felt standing in this place.

Alyss bent down and picked up off the floor a triangular-shaped, weathered, chipped piece of bone. It hung on a bit of chain. “Do you remember this?”

He wasn’t sure. It couldn’t be-

“You gave it to me. I said I would keep it forever.”

The jabberwock tooth-the one he had given to her as a birthday present. She unclasped the necklace and secured it around her neck. The tooth hung at her throat.

“I never thanked you for saving my life, so…thank you.” He winced, as if the thanks physically hurt him.

“Dodge, I know it’s hard seeing each other after all this time. So much has happened. We’ve both grown into adults we never imagined becoming. But I would have expected a friendlier reception from you, of all people.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just…we were friends, Dodge. We were more than friends. Wasn’t that why you came for me in that other world?”

“To defeat Redd, to face The Cat, I would do anything.”

Annoyed, Alyss clicked her tongue. “Is that why you danced with me at the masquerade? Was that to defeat Redd too? Did you do that for The Cat?”

Dodge didn’t answer.

Alyss turned from him and examined her reflection in a sliver of looking glass, the only fragment left in the frame of the large decorative mirror that had once hung on the east wall. “If you no longer care for me, why did you bring me here?”

“I never said I don’t care for you.” But Dodge didn’t trust himself to say more. He held his tongue, began again. “I brought you here to remind your heart of what Redd’s done. To spark your vengeance. You’re the agent by which I’ll have my revenge. That’s what you mean to me now. That’s all you must mean.”

“Touching.” Her fingers toyed with the jabberwock tooth at her throat. Take it off. Take it off and show that if it means nothing to him, it means nothing to-

Her reflection in the looking glass suddenly rippled and morphed into an image of Redd. “So glad you could visit us. Now off! With! Your! Head!”

Dodge snatched Alyss’ hand and pulled her away as the glass broke into sharp piercing pieces-tiny daggers meant for the princess. The floor shook beneath them, the walls shivered, the thick ceiling beams creaked and cracked, and mortar dust and skull-sized stones began to fall. They ran, each with an arm over their head to protect themselves from falling debris. They hurdled smashed wall stones and ducked fallen beams as the old palace collapsed around them, sending stinging pellets of rock into the backs of their legs. They barely managed to make it outside to safety.

Alyss stood bent over, coughing from dust and wiping her mouth. Where Heart Palace had stood only moments before: a pile of rubble.

“She’s destroyed everything,” Dodge said.

Resignation to the past, defiance of the present, hope for the future-Alyss felt them all at once. “Not everything,” she said.

Not if she had hope.