Red Queen

ALICE

“Careful, this white rabbit will lead you on a psychotic journey through the bowels of magic and madness. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the ride.”

—Brom, author of
The Child Thief

“I loved falling down the rabbit hole with this dark, gritty tale. A unique spin on a classic and one wild ride!”

—Gena Showalter,
New York Times
bestselling author of
A Mad Zombie Party

“A dark, delightfully disturbing fall down a rabbit hole of madness and mystery. This is not your mamma's Alice . . .
Alice
encompasses the sensation of a slippery world fueled by insanity, where reality can fall from under your feet with each step unless you are very, very careful. It's a delightfully twisted take on the classic and breathes new life into Carroll's creations . . . If you're looking for a book that will make you feel like you were just on a bender with the Blue Caterpillar, I highly recommend
Alice
.”

—R. S. Belcher, author of
Brotherhood of the Wheel

“A horrifying fantasy that will have you reexamining your love for this childhood favorite. Smooth, velvety prose blends well with the deliciously complex characters and intricate story line . . . A world that is nothing like Lewis Carroll ever imagined.”

—
RT Book Reviews
(top pick)

“Takes Lewis Carroll's classic tale and turns it on its ear, giving us a dark and occasionally disturbing story about a young woman who let her curiosity get the better of her.”

—Vampire Book Club

“A dark and deeply disturbing revisit of
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
? Who
wouldn't
like it?”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“Henry retains all the surreality of Carroll's tale but makes it even darker, leading readers down a scarier rabbit hole and into a city that's fantastical, scary and frankly more satisfying than Carroll's original . . . The writing is brisk, the story compulsive . . . A fun, chilling, exciting, magical read.”

—
The Oklahoman

The Black Wings Novels

BLACK WINGS

BLACK NIGHT

BLACK HOWL

BLACK LAMENT

BLACK CITY

BLACK HEART

BLACK SPRING

The Chronicles of Alice

ALICE

RED
QUEEN

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is an original publication of Penguin Random House LLC.

Copyright © 2016 by Tina Raffaele.

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For more information, visit
penguin.com
.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Henry, Christina, 1974– author. | Carroll, Lewis, 1832–1898. Alice's adventures in Wonderland.

Title: Red Queen : the chronicles of Alice / Christina Henry.

Description: New York, NY : Ace, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2015049583 (print) | LCCN 2016003021 (ebook) | ISBN 9780425266809 (softcover) | ISBN 9781101618196 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Alice (Fictitious character from Carroll)—Fiction. | Imaginary places—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Fantasy / Historical. | FICTION / Fantasy / General. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

Classification: LCC PS3608.E568 R43 2016 (print) | LCC PS3608.E568 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049583

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace trade paperback edition / July 2016

Cover illustration © Pep Monserrat; border © hoverfly/iStock/Thinkstock; lace trim © antipathique/Shutterstock.

Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Lucienne Diver,
writer's cheerleader and agent extraordinaire,
because you loved this book
first

In a City where everything was grey and fog-covered and monsters lurked behind every echoing footfall, there was a little man who collected stories. He sat in a parlor covered in roses and this little man was small and neat, his head covered in golden-brown ringlets and his eyes bright and green like a rose's leaves. He wore a velvet suit of rose red and he urged a cup of tea on his visitor, a wide-eyed girl who looked about her in wonder. She was not certain how she'd gotten here, only that this strange little man had helped her when she thought she was lost.

“Do you like stories?” the little man asked.

He was called Cheshire, and the girl thought that was a very odd name, though this room and his cottage were very pretty.

“Yes,” she said. She was very young still, and did not know yet what Cheshire had saved her from when he came upon her
wandering in the streets near his cottage. She was lucky, more than lucky, that it was he who found her.

“I like stories too,” Cheshire said. “I collect them. I like this story because I have a part to play in it—a small part, to be sure, but a part nonetheless.

“Once, there was a girl called Alice, and she lived in the New City, where everything is shining and beautiful and fair. But Alice was a curious girl with a curious talent. She was a Magician. Do you know what a Magician is?”

The girl shook her head. “But I have heard of them. They could do wonders but the ministers drove all the Magicians out of the City long ago.”

“Well,” Cheshire said, and winked. “They thought they did, but a few Magicians remained. And Alice was one of them, though she did not know it yet.

“She had magic, and because of that she was vulnerable, and a girl who was supposed to be Alice's friend sold her for money to a very bad man called the Rabbit.”

“He was a rabbit?” the girl asked, confused.

“Not really, though he had rabbit ears on a man's body,” Cheshire said. “The Rabbit hurt Alice, and wanted to hurt her more, wanted to sell her to a man called the Walrus who ate girls for their magic.”

The wide-eyed girl put her cup of tea on Cheshire's rose-covered table and stared. “Ate? Like
really
eat?”

“Oh, yes, my dear,” Cheshire said. “He ate them all up in his belly. But Alice was quick and clever and she got away from the
Rabbit before he could feed her to the Walrus. The Rabbit marked Alice, though, marked her with a long scar on her face to say she was his. My resourceful Alice marked him too—she took his eye out.

“But little Alice, she was broken and sad and confused, and her parents locked her away in a hospital for confused people. There she met a madman with an axe named Hatcher, a madman who grew to love her.

“Hatcher and Alice escaped from the hospital, and traveled through the Old City in search of their pasts and in search of a monster called the Jabberwocky who made the streets run with blood and corpses.”

The girl shuddered. “I know about him.”

“Then I should tell you that Alice, clever Alice, turned him into a butterfly with her magic so that he could never hurt anyone again, and she put that butterfly in a jar in her pocket and there he is till this day—unless he is dead, which is entirely possible.”

“And what of the Rabbit and the Walrus?” the girl asked. “What became of them?”

“Nothing good, my dear,” Cheshire said. “Nothing good at all, for they were bad men and bad men meet bad ends.”

“As they should,” the girl said firmly. “What about Alice? Did she have a happy ending?”

“I don't know,” Cheshire
said.