She went inside, took her tea and bath in silence, and watched the steam gather in her dressing room. Harris and Emily retired for the night to their separate sleeping quarters, and Dinah paced back and forth in front of her windows. Patience had never been her virtue, and when she could wait no longer, she walked out to the balcony and stuck her head over the edge. She squinted until she saw it: Wardley’s scalloped silver shield, bearing a kneeling Corning, propped up against a water trough outside the armory.
Dinah’s skin gave a happy ripple—Wardley was coming! They had communicated in this manner since she was a little girl. Wardley was always outside by the stables, while Dinah was confined by lessons in her Royal Apartment, so they arranged the simplest form of the message: a shield or a scarf meant, “I need to see you.” The other would then put up their reply, and the message was complete. Dinah pulled a simple plum nightgown over her thin tunic and fastened her cloak over it. Pressing her ear to the door, she listened for the Heart Cards to make their way down to the end of the wing. Their metal footsteps grew fainter until they disappeared completely. Dinah knew it was a matter of minutes before they came back around. Stepping quietly, she slipped out the door and ran down the hall, the marble freezing cold on her bare feet. She made her way down the stone servant steps at the end of the wing, and from there began winding her way through different hallways toward the Heart Chapel.
When his reign first began, her father had ordered the construction of a tiny alcove that overlooked the Heart Chapel. While most found it bewildering that he would make any changes to this ancient room, one that beamed with light and whimsical architecture, the King of Hearts pressed on, though the construction included the destruction of a magnificent, old lute that had been sealed into the outer wall. The alcove was nicknamed “The Box.” Its purpose was to enlighten and change the hearts of peasants by blessing them with the gift of worshipping inside the chapel, while still keeping them away from members of the court and the royal family. The King believed that granting peasants, undesirables, and orphans audience with royalty would someday inspire great things in a person of low standing.
Every Sunday, peasants were rounded up by the Cards and brought to The Box. They were forced to participate in the service at the Heart Chapel and then given bread and soup, and sent on their way. After their departure, The Box would receive a thorough cleaning, so that it might be cleared for the next group of woodworkers, butchers, ladies of the night, or fishmongers. Dinah thought it the most terribly condescending idea—did the townspeople really desire to be yanked from their work to worship with those who were gifted with so much? Still, she was grateful that her father had provided a private place for Wardley to meet her inside the castle.
As a princess, Dinah was never alone for very long, and she was rarely able to go anywhere in the palace anymore without dozens of people noticing. Just in the last few weeks, Heart Cards had begun accompanying her in places she usually occupied alone: the library, the kitchens, the atrium. Harris said it was because her coronation was drawing near and thus her father had ordered extra protection around her. To Dinah, it was a nuisance she had to learn to tolerate.
Her breath catching in her throat, Dinah pulled open the huge doors to the Heart Chapel. She was lucky tonight—normally there was a watch, but they must have been away on rounds. She slipped inside. There was something eerie about the vast, shadowy space, empty as a tomb and just as cold. Mosaic walls glittered in the darkness, and she could make out the forms of shrouded stone figures fighting, embracing, and ruling: the Wonderland gods. The chapel’s grandeur made her feel small and exposed. Her footsteps bounced across the floor like cannon blasts as they ricocheted off the columns and walls. Dinah stopped to catch her breath and found herself staring up at the red, heart-shaped window that graced the back of the chapel. Fine gold cranes were strung end to end before the heart so that it swallowed them whole, their wings only a spot on its mass.