Cray began blubbering loudly. Too loudly. Wardley brought the butt of his sword down against Cray’s temple and he crumpled to the ground like an empty sack.
“Put the ring in his pocket. This is safer. He’ll never want to tell someone that he was so easily overcome in his own prison or that he was bribed. Coward.” Wardley spat on his face and picked up the end of the rope. Thankfully, Cray had been telling the truth, and the rope led them to a misshapen door that opened to the bright Wonderland sky. Moving as quickly as they dared without attracting attention, Dinah and Wardley navigated their way over the web back to the Murderers’ Tower. Returning to the path they had arrived on required quite a bit of climbing and backtracking; several times they ended up on an iron walkway that led to a different tower, and one time into open sky.
“A trap for escapees,” mumbled Wardley as they slowly backed away from the steep drop that ended on a rocky outcropping just inside the palace gates. “Let’s not go that way again.”
It took an hour, but finally they were able to find the correct path through the maze and make their way to a low door that led into the Murderers’ Tower. The smell once again overpowered Dinah’s senses. But this time, she didn’t have time to retch. They were sprinting now, this time up the spiral, to where the forgotten door led them to the pool of ice. They could hear the marching of Clubs making their way up the spiral behind them. The next shift of Clubs was coming, and if they didn’t hurry, they would have to explain themselves to an entire deck of Cards. Dinah thought of the crown in her bag. She would grab it if she needed it.
“There, there is the door!” shouted Wardley as they flew past cells and rancid chamber pots. A prisoner’s hand grabbed Dinah’s dress through the cell bars and she was yanked off her feet. She hit the ground hard as the prisoner pulled her toward the cell. Dinah delivered a firm kick to the scarred hand beneath the heels of her boot. She jerked her dress free as the prisoner began screaming. They were almost to the door when Wardley bucked to a sudden stop and jumped sideways into a tiny slot in the wall, pulling Dinah in after him. This wasn’t a doorway, rather, an impossibly narrow storage chamber for clamps and chains. They could both barely fit, and Dinah found herself pressed face first against the wall with Wardley wrapped around her.
“Yoous,” whispered Wardley into her ear, “he can’t see us, or we will be done for. Don’t even breathe.”
His warning didn’t matter; Dinah couldn’t. A single black root, sensing an open presence, was twisting its way up her torso, her breasts, and then onto her face. Something in the tree paralyzed her, and so she could only watch with horror as the delicate tendril reached her mouth and clawed its way inside, choking her. It sprouted a second root that started pushing into her nostrils. She wanted to cry out to Wardley, but she couldn’t. Dinah was part of the tree now, and she would be forever. Visions rushed through her mind—visions of decapitated heads, white cranes, blue smoke, burning wood, pulsating mushrooms, and bright-red blood. And then she was falling, falling forward, falling into the darkness that was warm and comforting. Wardley’s strong arm caught her as she pitched forward.
“Dinah, Dinah?”
She opened her eyes. She was still in the Towers, still in the slot between cells. Wardley held a broken root in his hand, his sword in the other. They watched as it twisted and writhed before turning into ash. Wardley wiped his hand on his tunic with disgust.
“The tree . . . ,” she mumbled.
“You leaned against it,” reprimanded Wardley. “You let it touch your skin, what were you thinking?”
Dinah shook her head. The visions were gone, already retreating back into her brain, already forgotten. “Yoous?” she asked as Wardley steadied her.
“He passed. We’re only one level down from where we need to be. Can you walk?”
Dinah inched one foot out in front of her. “I’m fine.” The longing to escape these towers of death was overwhelming. “We should never have come here, Wardley. I’m sorry.”