The Collectors' Society 01 (40 page)

“Your Majesty!” It’s Sir Halwyn. “I believe I have found the Queen’s colleagues!”

I’m out of the caravan and barreling toward the third. The old knight is standing in the midst of carefully stacked piles, his feet carefully placed so as to not touch upon any person. On either side of him, just five feet apart, are the people we’ve been searching for. They are unmoving and appear to be whole.

I have never been so relieved to see a pair of someones in my entire life.

Something between an ugly cry and laugh falls out of me. I’m about to climb in, but Ferz Epona places a hand on my shoulder. “Your Majesty, time is of the essence. Let us lead the caravans back to camp, so that we might begin triaging any possible wounds or medical maladies. There are dozens of bodies here, all in need of assistance.”

Behind her, the King is issuing a small portion of the contingency to take care of the dead. Offerings of songs for safe passage to the journeylands begin; even for enemies, this ancient tradition never goes ignored.

“Alice.” It’s Victor. There is blood streaked across his face. “She’s right. Let’s get them back to safety. We don’t know if anybody is going to be following up on a missing caravan.”

“Right.” I take a step back. “Of course.”

“Doctor,” Ferz Eponi is saying, “would you be willing to look at our newly wounded back at camp?”

As Victor confers with the Ferz, I make my way over to the King. “Are there any deaths on our side?”

“No.” His smile is tight and sad and yet unsurprised. “But there are many wounded. The Queen of Hearts is outfitting pikemen before they’re ready.”

“I noticed the same thing.” I stare down at one of the pikes in the mud beneath our feet. “Why is she desperate?”

“The people,” he says as he also stares at the pike, “are not on her side.”

“They never have been. But that’s never produced such flagrant desperation before.” Wiping my face leaves my hand streaked with sweat and blood. “Has the White Queen said anything of it?”

He leads us back to our horses. “The Queen’s Council broke apart not two days after your departure. As far as I’m aware, none have been in contact with the others.”

All-too-familiar irritation surfaces. “Are you sure?”

“It is my hope, but I cannot be certain.”

“When did you last speak with her?”

He does not look at me when he says, “It has been at least two months since the White Queen and I last spoke in person, and two weeks since our last communique outside of the Ferzes.”

I’m stunned, but there is no time for further questions. He calls out to the forces to remount, and within minutes, we are off. Travel back to the camp takes longer than the travel to, as the caravans cannot move as fast as steeds at full speed. Close to two hours pass before we arrive, and by that point, my nerves are a tangled mess.

While the passengers of the caravans are carefully unloaded into already overflowing medical tents, Victor insists that we consume another ration and enough water to, as he claims, “offset the morning’s exertions.” I’m impatient, but do as he says, especially after he tells me he fears if we get dehydrated, some well-meaning Wonderlander will force upon us water from their wells.

He takes another pill. My curiosity burns once more.

Soon, we get word that Finn and Mary have been unloaded. Rather than being brought to the medical tents, the King orders them into his pavilion. By the time Victor and I enter, our friends are already laid out on cots and are covered with soft blankets.

“They are breathing, my lady,” Ferz Epona tells me. “We are positive it is SleepMist. It appears it is longer lasted than reported.”

Victor is the first to reach his brother and girlfriend. He peels one of Mary’s eyes back and peers in. “You said there would be paralysis following?”

“That’s what the rumors claim,” the Ferz says. “The paralysis allows potential buyers to assess their purchases or executioners to have docile victims.”

Victor swears underneath his breath, disgusted. I am, too. We all are.

“That said, we hear the paralysis lasts a much shorter time than the sleep. It is our hope that, if your colleagues were taken last night around the same time you encountered the Five of Diamonds, that the SleepMist is fading. They should wake soon.”

“Did you happen to get any of this SleepMist?” Victor grabs his backpack and rifles through it. A stethoscope is extracted so he can listen to Mary’s, and then Finn’s, hearts.

“We collected a dozen unlabeled canisters alongside what appear to be large gun-like misters that can be worn on backs,” the Ferz says. “The King has ordered a testing of the contents before we can claim otherwise. But it appears that the Hearts can use these contraptions to spray down large quantities of people at once.”

“I think I would like a sample,” Victor is saying. “I’d like to see what the breakdown is. Would that be possible?”

I’m surprised when the Ferz immediately agrees.

I make my way over to where Finn is sleeping. He looks fine. Peaceful. His eyes are closed, his breathing faint but steady. His hair isn’t even dirty—slightly askew, but still in the condition I last saw it in. But his knuckles are raw, as if he’d recently fought.

I cannot help myself. I bend down and gently touch the strands. “Did you find any supplies on my people?”

“No, my lady. All pockets of the hostages were emptied. None carried anything with them. Chances are, the Heart soldiers destroyed everything before they moved out of Nobbytown. Fires were said to rage about the town. It is their way nowadays.”

Victor extracts a small penlight from his bag. “That explains why we weren’t able to track their signals.” He shines it in one of Mary’s eyes. “Heart rate is slower than normal, eyes are completely dilated to the point the irises are nearly covered.” The doctor rocks back on his heels as he lowers the blanket covering his girlfriend. A sharp rap to the knees produces no movement. “Skin is clammy, indicating no fever. No reflexes visible to stimuli.”

Uncomfortable as it is in armor, I squat down next to Finn’s cot. None of this sounds good. “You know what this means, of course.”

“No sign of REM sleep. Interesting.”

I touch Victor’s shoulder. “If all their supplies are lost, so are their pens. Their travel books.”

Ah. Now he understands my meaning. “Shite. I guess I hadn’t even thought of that. Wendy is going to have a fucking conniption over that.”

“Can anyone use them?”

He shakes his head. “They’re DNA encoded, remember? Only Mary and Finn can use their pens. Everyone else would find them useless. Same with their phones—everything is password protected. I doubt anyone could break into them. It isn’t the first time we’ve lost supplies on an assignment.”

“But what if somebody good with gears and mechanics were to take it apart? Would they be able to replicate the pen?”

He considers this. “I don’t think so. I remember Wendy once saying she put self-destruct mechanisms in them. Only she and her lab know how to offset it when the pens are opened up. Anybody else?” He holds his hands out and expands his fingers. “Pen goes boom. You and I still have our pens and books, though.”

“What about the books?”

He blinks at me.

“The books used for editing. People would have access to the story, and to what the Institute looks like.”

He shrugs. “Then they would read a book about themselves or see pictures of a building whose use is not explained within the pages. Life will go on. Now hush and let me examine my brother.”

Victor performs the same tests he just completed on Mary on his brother. Once he’s done, he sighs heavily. “All we can do now is wait. I need to go to the medical tents to help out. Will you stay with them?”

As if he had to ask.

Once Victor is gone, Ferz Epona implores me to at least allow her to remove my armor. I’m reluctant to leave, but after much nagging, agree to do so. A bath is offered, and at first, I am tempted to say no. But the blood and grime on my skin is too much. I compromise by giving myself a sponge bath.

When I return to the room set aside for Finn and Mary, I find the White King dozing in a nearby chair. His armor is removed, but he has not bathed yet. Seeing him, and Finn, in such proximity nearly does my heart in.

My past and what I hope is my present and future.

The King rouses as soon as I close the flap to the room. “Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine.” He yawns and scrubs at his inky-black hair. “I shouldn’t be dozing anyway.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

There’s that infamously guilty grin that always leaves too many body parts of mine tingling. “Two days ago, I think?”

“You think?”

“Maybe three?”

I sigh. “Why do you continue to do this to yourself? You need sleep.”

He makes his way to where I’m standing. “I did not want your friends to be left alone.”

The muscle in my chest contracts sharply. His generosity never fails to overwhelm me.

The White King’s pale eyes track down to Mary and then to Finn. “Is he a good man?”

I have to fight to swallow back the swarm of emotions flooding my throat. “Yes. Very much so.”

“I would hope,” the King says, “as a member of this Society you mentioned, he would be. I am glad for that.”

He sounds glad. Sad, heartbroken, but glad all the same. Would I be so benevolent in the reverse? I would like to think so—his happiness is my happiness, and has been so for so long. I would like nothing more than to know this man is happy, that his life will reach all the dreams we once set for ourselves. Even if they cannot be with me.

We walk over to the flap and step into the space directly outside. The Five of Diamonds is dismissed to the other end of the tent. “I look forward to meeting him when he wakes.”

I say softly, “He does not know.”

The King’s eyebrows lift up.

“It . . . it was the only way I could deal with what has happened. I can only take a step after another if I compartmentalize it all. They know I am a Queen, and that I could not stay due to the uneven courts, but that is all I’ve shared.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me with all the pain of our history shining in his pale eyes.

I ask, “Was she vicious?”

He knows what I mean. “Why do you think we are on such poor speaking terms?”

My words are barely voiced when I let him know I am sorry.

“No matter what,” he tells me quietly, “I do not regret what has happened. And if I could go back and do it all over again, it would be the same. I hope you feel the same way. She and I have always had an understanding since the day our crowns appeared. While we rule the White Court jointly, I never promised her my heart.”

I took it instead.
Star-crossed
, the Caterpillar used to mutter frequently. It was not a compliment.

The King reaches out and lays a hand against my heart. I do the same in return. I love his heart. I love the feel of it underneath my fingers and underneath my head when I rest against it. I love the sound, the steady beat I hoped I would fall asleep to every night of my life. I love how his heart is big and beautiful and generous, and that it, when circumstance demanded, allowed itself to break repeatedly rather than allow others’ to suffer.

He has the best of hearts. The best of souls.

I would never undo our past; I would never wish our love had not flourished. His presence in my life has shaped me to be who I am now, just as I have shaped him. But while neither of us would undo our shared past, we cannot go back and live in it once more, either.

I take his place on the chair when he finally agrees to go rest, and before long, I’m dozing myself. But when a friendly shout outside rouses me from dreams of bookstores, I find a pair of eyes watching me.

I’m out of the chair is a flash. “Finn?”

Tiny lines form in his forehead; he knows something is wrong. His eyes, no longer dilated black, let me know he can hear and understand me.

“You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.” I touch his face and then peer over to Mary. Her eyes are still closed, but I have no doubt she’ll rouse shortly, too. “The Heart soldiers used a drug on you that both puts its victims to sleep and then paralyzes them once they wake.”

Alarm flashes in the blue-gray staring up at me.

“Only temporarily.” I bend down and press a kiss against his cool lips. His eyes drift shut briefly; the lines of his forehead smooth. “It should wear off shortly. We’re at the White King’s encampment—your brother is here, too. He’s checking in on the wounded right now, but I’ll have him sent for. Are you in pain? Blink once for yes, two for no.”

Two slow blinks.

Thank God. “Do you remember anything?”

The lines reappear. One blink and then two more follow. Yes and no.

“Are you thirsty? Can you swallow?”

One blink. I dig out my water bottle from my backpack and slowly, slowly tilt it toward his mouth. “We can’t find either your or Mary’s backpacks. They took your phones and your weapons. All you had on you was the clothes on your back.”

When I pull the water back, frustration, anger, and disappointment shine from his eyes. There’s no doubt he’s understanding what I’m saying. His pen and the books we brought in are gone.

“The good news is that, once you two are up on your feet again, we will head out for the catalyst immediately. The plan is for us to go first thing in the morning.”

His mouth twitches, like he’s trying to talk. The frustration in him doubles.

Suddenly, Mary’s eyes fly open. I say her name, and they swivel toward me. I tell them to hold on, and then I instruct the Five of Diamonds standing just outside my flap to fetch Victor.

Minutes later, the doctor is back. He thoroughly examines them both, but during that time, little pieces of their bodies begin to thaw. Sure enough, within an hour, they are able to talk and move their limbs but cannot yet bear their weights while standing.

My relief is immense.

Whatever anger and resentment held between Mary and Victor disappears. They kiss repeatedly and they both apologize for their stubbornness. It’s rather nice to see, although I suppose it would have been nicer had it not come about thanks to poisonous drugs and abductions.