Her knees gave a shake as she stared up at the castle, and Dinah realized that she was exhausted. Her bed chambers seemed very appealing, and the low moan that rose from the Twisted Wood sent shivers down her spine. Dinah took a few steps back to the tunnel entrance, only this time, she couldn’t find the opening. She knew it had been near some herb plants and a thick, gnarled bush, but it was gone.
Dinah grew more and more aggravated as she paced the area, scuffling dirt and wildflowers aside, until she resorted to searching with her fingers through the low grass, illuminated only by the light of the stars. Finally, her fingers found an unnatural groove in the grass and she gave a yank. Nothing happened. Using all the strength left inside of her, Dinah heaved. The door didn’t move. A trace of fear flashed in Dinah’s brain. Something was wrong. She pulled again. Her fingernails cracked and broke as the door shuddered and snapped back into place. It wouldn’t budge. It was locked. Dinah stared at the door. The wind died down just for a moment, but it was enough. She heard a faint sigh followed by a ragged breath. Light from a torch flared between the door cracks—a tiny sliver of light escaped. Someone was down there. Someone had locked her out. Her breath caught in her lungs. Someone was waiting for her. The Twisted Wood gave another loud moan, the sound carrying for hundreds of miles. Dinah backed away from the door slowly and ran as fast as she could toward the palace gates.
Two years had passed since that dark night, and Rinton and Thatch, Heart Cards in the King’s service would—when bribed over wine—tell the tale about that evening. The evening when Dinah, the future Queen of Hearts, was found outside the palace walls, dressed only in a lady’s slip. She had no recollection of how she got there, no answers for how she escaped through the palace gates without being seen. She was in shock, shivering and deeply afraid. It was the night, they recalled, that the King had introduced the lovely Vittiore, and pondered whether it was a coincidence that it was the night that Dinah, Princess of Wonderland, proved to be a little odd—just like her brother, the Mad Hatter.
Chapter Three
Winter in Wonderland was Dinah’s favorite time of year, aside from her father’s yearly departure for the Western Slope. Pink snowflakes circled down from a gloomy gray sky as Dinah walked quietly across the snow-covered courtyard. Her fur boots left behind huge footprints as the wind blew tiny swirls of the rosy snow around her ankles. Dinah blew out a breath of cold air and watched it freeze in front of her and fall to the ground with a soft tinkle. A seventeen-year-old shouldn’t find such simple things amusing, she told herself, but then she did it again with joy.
Two Heart Cards bowed low as she walked past them, but she saw the mocking smiles that played across their faces. She didn’t care—not today. Her black wool cape snapped in the wind as it billowed out behind her. The scent of horses entered her nostrils, and she began to hum happily.
The circular Wonderland stables lay between the iron walls and palace on the southwest side, housing every kind of steed imaginable. Despite the stable being immaculately clean, you could smell the manure and wood shavings upon approach. Out from a large, reinforced, center hub stall, circled more stalls with spoke-like channels between them. Horse after horse slept, ate, and trained in the labyrinthine maze of stalls, indoor riding rings, and tack rooms filled with weaponry and gear. It was designed to keep horses from escaping, and the maze provided a deterrent to those who would attempt to steal any of its pampered inhabitants. Dinah sniffed the frosty air again as she made her way through the maze of stalls. Men, hay, and horses—her favorite smells, because they reminded her of him. At the center of the wheel, there was a palpable change in the air as she neared the center stall. This stall was unlike all of the others, with three-foot-thick wooden doors towering over Dinah’s head.