As a child, Dinah got the distinct impression that her mother loved being Queen. She wielded the crown with ease. As a mother she was gentle and loving, patient with her precocious daughter who was always yanking on her crown and smudging her dresses with chocolate-covered hands. Their relationship had changed when Charles was born, but Dinah never felt neglected; rather, she saw the large amount of care that Charles took and longed to be included. And so she was. Instead of croquet or watching ostrich riding, Dinah and her mother would feed and bathe Charles, or spend the day trying to teach him to walk, or taking him outside on the balcony so he could watch the ever-changing stars. Dinah didn’t see her father from age three to five, when he was off fighting the Yurkei wars, and in that time she grew fiercely attached to her mother and Harris, her advisor and teacher.
Unfortunately, as Dinah grew older, she spent more and more time with Harris and less and less time with Charles and her mother. There were so many things to learn before one became Queen, and Dinah was terrible at each and every one of them. How to dress, how to wave, how to address each and every Card, how to take tea and how to send tea, how to eat tarts, how to ride Speckle. Her lessons took all day, but every night Harris and Emily looked the other way when Dinah slipped out of her bedroom door and ran past the Heart Cards all the way to the Royal Apartments to tell her mother about her day.
Davianna would always be preparing for bed, brushing her thick black hair with her pink shell comb and staring at herself in the mirror, her tear-filled blue-black eyes staring back at her, fringed with impossibly long lashes. Dinah knew she had a secret. She could see it in her eyes, in the way she held her body. Every night when Dinah came in, her mother looked as though she was preparing for the visit of a lover, although she was just getting ready for bed. She was always beautiful, always prepared. Together they would climb across Davianna’s heart-shaped bed and her mother would pull her close and listen as Dinah whispered to her all the tiny details of her day—what Harris wore, what Emily said, the things she had learned, how she had cried after she broke a one-hundred-year-old teapot. Every night would end with her asking her mother why her father didn’t love her, and her mother would just shake her head.
“Someday, you’ll understand.”
Like conspirators, they laughed and shared, mother and daughter, so happy to be close and unencumbered by anyone else. When Dinah was on the verge of falling asleep, her mother would always gently shake her awake to go back to her chambers. Exhausted, Dinah would slump back to her room, an annoyed Heart Card always following behind to ensure her safety.
Dinah’s father had returned from war a changed man. He was angrier and increasingly cruel toward them both. She saw less and less of her mother, and when she did, Dinah was alarmed at her shrinking figure and the dark circles under her eyes. Her mother looked exhausted and sad. The care of Charles was taken from her and given to Lucy and Quintrell. Dinah would still occasionally visit her mother’s chambers at the end of the day, but Davianna would often be sleeping, unable to take her visits, and Dinah would be sent back to her room like a child without supper.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, Dinah stumbled across a scene that she would never forget. Her daily lessons in the library had been cut short due to the sneezing of Monsignor Wol-Vor, the language tutor, and the Princess found herself with a few free hours—something she never had. Running happily down the hall, her pink dress in tatters behind her, Dinah made her way to her mother’s apartment. The Heart Cards who normally stood guard at the Queen’s door were oddly absent, and the door was cracked open a few inches. As she laid her fingers on the cool knob, Dinah could hear her father’s voice—he was angry. She paused at the door, waiting.
“How dare you? You are nothing more than a common whore, low-born trash that washed up from the sea on the beaches of Ierladia! I am the King of Wonderland, and I will not be made a mockery of. Is this how you repay me? Who is he? Tell me! I should take your head for this!”
Dinah heard the sound of something crashing—dishes, perhaps. Something hit the door with a loud thud and Dinah leapt back, afraid. She could hear her mother murmuring, attempting to calm her father.
Then, “Don’t tell me it’s NOTHING!” roared the man who wore the crown. Dinah heard the sharp snap of skin against skin—a slap. She desperately wanted to help her mother, but she was afraid of her violent father, who told her terrible war stories that left Dinah feeling nauseated by his cruelty. Her hand lingered on the door as she heard her mother weeping behind it… and then Dinah walked back to her chambers, a coward.