The Collectors' Society 01 (38 page)

T
HE FERZES ARE SUMMONED once more, alongside the Nightrider and a handful of card soldiers, of which several served previously under the Diamond banners. The White King, never prone to fanciful speeches in the first place, lays out his wishes in little time. “I want the locations of two non-native Wonderlanders found within the next hour. The Queen of Diamonds has provided pictures for you to study.”

The Wonderlanders are taken aback by the images on both my and Victor’s phones. For all the wondrous sprinkled throughout their land, it is this that astounds them.

I let Victor explain GSP. As he does, I fiddle with my own phone, wondering why I can’t seem to track Finn. Did he turn his on? Does he even still have it on him? Has the phone been destroyed? Panic claws at my chest. I think of his words in the elevator, of how he wouldn’t let me go it alone because he’d just found me. And somehow, I’d lost him, lost the man who broke through my impenetrable walls and made me believe that maybe, just maybe, I am not cursed forever.

When the White King makes it crystal clear he will not accept failure, his men and women chorus their determination to do him proud. Jubjub birds and soldiers are sent into all directions. Sir Halwyn personally heads a team, promising me he will do his utmost to find our friends.

When they depart, Victor, claiming he needs something to focus his anxiety upon, asks to be taken to the medical tent to oversee patients. I choose to stay behind, knowing I’d be useless in there. Besides, a talk is in order.

“My soldiers will not fail us,” the White King tells me as I wear a path in the floor from all my pacing. “Your colleagues will be found.”

They must.

Without turning around, he tells the card soldiers at the entrance, “Resume your post outside.”

Pikes sound against the ground before the flap is pushed back. Once they’re gone, he steps forward and takes my hands. I watch a long, unsteady breath make his chest rise and fall, and too many memories crash into me from every side. My ear, pressed against his bare skin, his heartbeat strong and steady when everything else was chaotic. His hands, strong and warm, holding me afloat when life was liquid. Words, precious and rare, murmured under moving stars so bright that it hurt to stare at them too long in fear of losing oneself to their mysteries. Fighting side by side, and knowing we had righteousness as our ally. Our bodies joined together, and feeling as if it were the most natural thing in all the world. Making breakfast together, and then eating it in bed.

Planning a shared future and family that will never be.

“Before we say anything else,” he murmurs, “promise me you are all right.”

That I can easily do.

He lets go of my hands so he can tug a necklace out from beneath his shirt, one I haven’t seen in half a year. Once unclasped, he holds it out to me. A golden H dangles from the serpentine chain between his fingers, and just staring at it now makes me feel like a broken thing.

“For all I knew,” he says quietly, “you were dead.”

I remember when he gifted me the necklace. We were in the tulgey woods, and there were flower songs afloat around us. Wonderland was magic and whimsy personified then. I had already begun the long and steady descent toward love with this man, but was foolish enough to imagine it was a crush on my behalf, but never his. He was the White King, after all, and the White Queen’s beauty was lauded throughout the land. But there we were, in the woods, and he held out his hand like he is doing so now, offering me a necklace with an H dangling from it. “Happy,” he told me then. “Honest. Humble. Hopeful. Heartfelt. Hopelessly in love with you.”

We’d met on a battlefield, when Hs were our first sparring match, a word game that endeared us to one another. I was young then, and so was he (and most certainly not the bumbling old man Victor alluded to), but that was the beginning. From that point on, each time I saw him, I fell down more than just a rabbit hole. I fell deep within Wonderland.

The first kiss we shared, and every single one from that point forward, was far more drugging than anything his world could ever produce.

And now, he’s worn my beloved necklace against his heart, just as I’d asked him to.

“You knew I went back to England.”

“You wouldn’t allow me to the hole, though,” he argues bitterly. “Or let me be there when you left. I had no idea if you truly made it through, or if you were captured beforehand.”

The wounds between us rip open. “You know why I had to go alone.”

“No. I don’t.” His stubbornness has always been irresistible to me.

I say, my words barely audible, “I couldn’t have borne it to have you there when I left. I wouldn’t have been able to follow through.”

“I searched for the hole. For months.” His fingers curl back around the gold. “Sent out parties. Offered rewards on the black market to locate it. Bargained with the Caterpillar to tell me your secrets, and then the White Rabbit. All to no avail.”

Practiced words, run through my head like chants or prayers for months, fail me when it comes time to prove their worth. We’ve been over this, but the last time was so emotional that my memory of our decisions and words is spotty at best. All I can say is, “We had no other choice.”

His head tilts to the side as he studies me. I force myself to remember that this is the White King of Wonderland. We are no longer lovers, and that was a choice we both were forced to come to, no matter how painful the execution. But still, the impulse to reach out and hold him rings strong and loud through my bones.

Love, I think, is irrational no matter how hard we try to apply logic to it. And some love, even the kind that is not meant to be, takes root and flourishes anyway.

I should not love this man, and yet I do. I always will.

“We should have given it more time. We—”

“The prophecy was clear.” I draw my hand back. Even now, even when I know I’ve finally found my true north star, one whose light and steadiness have nothing to do with madness or prophecies, touching this piece of me is too painful. “Both of our Grand Advisors were tireless in their quests to find a loophole. There were none.” Sadness tears at my chest. “The decks cannot be shuffled. Wonderland will not allow it.” Wounds so freshly scabbed over within me rip open. “We cannot ever put our selfishness above the lives of innocents. As it is, the odd number has thrown Wonderland into a tailspin. Do you not remember what the Cheshire-Cat warned us? Of the complete and utter devastation that would occur if we continue on together, with both of us residing in this land?”

He knows I’m right. He was there through it all, after all. When push came to shove, he made the same choice I did. Our lives, our feelings, mean nothing compared to millions of others. Even still, he’s hoarse when he tells me, “You leaving changed nothing, though. The only difference is that Wonderland lost one of its strongest champions.”

“I am championing it now.” I press my hand against my heart. “I am here to collect its catalyst and ensure it is safely hidden away so that no stranger can ever harm you all like they have done to other worlds.”

“The people need you here.” Fire burns in his nearly colorless eyes. “There is too much corruption and greed within the Courts.”

“They have
you.”
I blink back the tears forming. “It was the only reason I knew I could truly go.”

He scoffs. “I am one of seven—”

“Six.” And then, with the scars upon my heart threatening to rip open once more, “I am not a Wonderlander. I never truly belonged here. You do, though. You are exactly what Wonderland needs.”

I’ve angered him. “I would not hear you disparage yourself in such a way.”

“Did you know,” I continue, “that the food and drink from Wonderland are actually drugs to my kind?”

Confusion battles with pain.
“What—
?
”

“It took me too long to realize it.” I shake my head. “No, that’s wrong. I learned about it from the Duchess. She was quite keen on letting me know that, even if I wanted to leave, I was a slave to the desires I found here because Wonderland has a way of keeping its non-native inhabitants mad. Several of the Court members knew this—they figured I would be unable to leave, that my head would surely be forfeit. That all of my talk of stepping back would be pointless, because they would have my death to savor.”

Dark hair swings about his head as he lets me know what he thinks of that. But we both know they would have never told him, not with such common knowledge of our relationship.

“It’s true, though.” My smile is brittle. “This place made me a drug addict. The Caterpillar procured a poison which allowed me enough just enough clarity to exit Wonderland. It took weeks back home before I could get Wonderland’s influence out of my system. I thought many a time I was going to die, the pain was so intense. I’d truly gone mad, you see. I was raving, hysterical, especially after I left here under such circumstances. I was committed to an asylum in an effort to fight my demons. That is not the person this land needs. Not somebody who has to be drugged to be effective.” Somebody who, I fear, would weaken immediately in this moment if she was still drugged.

It is his turn to swallow hard.

My fingers lace together in effort to remain free of trouble. “I cannot, no matter what I may wish otherwise, ever allow myself to return to such a state of mind. And I do not believe you would ever wish it, either.”

“I didn’t know.” Desperation tints his words. “I had no idea.”

“How could you? I’m the first of my kind that you ever met. For all you knew, we were the same.”

The space between us is cut in half. “We
are.”

His unfailing idealism is part of what drew me to him like a moth to a flame. “None of that matters now. I’m—”

“Of course it matters!” His hand juts out once more, the necklace dangling. “It has always mattered!”

Nobody is safe if I don’t want them to be,
the White Queen told me the day I left, flanked by the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts in some kind of twisted collusion that lasted just long enough to ensure my ouster.
Not little birds, not grinning cats, not even kings. Not even Diamond Queens and their caterpillars.

I hated that she took the creatures who decorated my banners and made them sound so weak.

“There is no future for me in Wonderland,” I tell him. “None at all. No matter what I may have once wished.”

“I love you,” he says forcefully. “And I know you love me. Do you think that nearly a year has changed that?”

It hasn’t, of course. I love him just as strongly as I always have. I will continue to love him so. But this is no storybook; our ending is not happy. No matter what I feel toward him, or he for me, it simply cannot be. It never will be. There is no loophole, no way to change our fates. He is of the White Court. I am of the Diamond. If we were to shuffle the deck . . .

No. I cannot allow myself to think about this any further. It’s too painful. And I’d been so good at putting it behind me. I dig deeper, even though the insides of my veins are collapsing in on themselves. “Nearly a year,” I remind him, “hasn’t changed the situation, either.”

His intake of breath is harsh, painfully audible in the stark quiet of the room.

“Wonderland needs you. You—”

He turns away from me, hands digging into his hair and tugging so hard I fear he might lose chunks.

“The people crave stability. You know as well as I that you are the most stable ruler the land has. You cannot fail them.”

He whirls around and grabs my hand. My necklace presses into my palm. “I haven’t been, you know. I’ve been coming out of my skin for months, going mad for want of news of you.”

And I the same.

“Nonetheless, you are their hope.” My voice cracks. “I cannot stand in the way of that. I won’t. You have your destiny, and I have mine. Once upon a time, I thought they might cross paths, but they do not. My destiny, it seems, is elsewhere.”

“My heart will not let you go.” His forehead falls against mine. “I’ve tried. I swear, I’ve tried.”

Sobs clamor within my chest and fight their way up through my throat. But I am strong, because they stay within me.

A hand curves around my cheek. His breath shudders against my mouth. And then, before we do something selfish, he pulls back. Eyes closed, his head tilts back, a hand coming to lay across his heart. Red stains bloom from beneath his fingers and spread across the white of his shirt.

This isn’t the first time this beautiful man’s heart has broken and bled because of me. And yet, each time is just as painful as the last to see.

Sometimes, I wish he could see the pain of mine breaking, too.

“Promise me,” he whispers hoarsely, “promise me that, just because we cannot be together, it does not mean that all of this was for nothing.”

“It means everything.” I’m choking on my words, I want to weep so hard. “It always will.” I take the necklace from his hand and gently clasp it around his neck. I tuck it underneath his shirt, so that it once more lays against his bare skin.

He takes a deep breath, centering himself. The White King is one of the strongest people I have ever met. He will, as will I, do the right thing. Even though sometimes, the right thing is the hardest of all.

“I wish,” he murmurs, “I could move on like you have.”

I wipe away the tears that have dared to escape my eyes. He knows. Of course he knows. He probably knew the moment I asked for his help. This man knows me better than any other person in existence. He heard the tone in my voice when I told him Finn’s name. But I cannot apologize to him for the audacity of falling in love with somebody else. Nor would he ever ask me to. He was the one to beg me to consider such a possibility; I was the one to claim I never could.

Love, it seems, can be drawn from a bottomless well, and for many different kinds of thirst.

“I’m—”

“No. Do not dare to apologize to me for opening your heart up. I would not have it any other way.”

“I wish—”

“I will find them for you.” Our foreheads touch once more. “I will always do everything I can to ensure your happiness. Your happiness is my happiness, even if it means your heart is held in another’s hands.”