“We’re almost there. It’s just around here.” Wardley stepped to the left and disappeared behind a wall of thorns. Her hands out in front of her, Dinah pressed on. She followed Wardley’s footprints until they led her out to a small, magical clearing. Behind them was a silent blue pool of water, so still and clear that the light reflecting from it cast turquoise waves across Wardley’s handsome face. At the center of the pool, unattached to any rock or other structure, a waterfall flowed UP from the middle of the perfectly still pool, its stream turning into mist once it hit a certain height. The mist then spiraled and disappeared into the sky. They stood in silence for a few minutes before Wardley spoke softly as Dinah stared in fascination.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” Wardley pulled off his boots and soaked his feet in the shallow pool. “I’ve never felt water this clean. It’s the perfect temperature—not too hot, not too cold. I found this while you were sleeping off the hallucinations. Cheshire was watching you, and I couldn’t just sit there wondering if you would ever wake up, so I wandered. Found this place.” He shook his head. “I prayed that I could take you here one day; that you would wake up. Dinah, think about it—where does the water come from? There is no visible spring under the surface and yet—the water keeps rising. It’s a miracle.”
A smile crept over his face, so lovely that it hurt her heart. “Wonderland is a pretty wondrous place, wouldn’t you say? I had no idea that so much lay outside the palace walls. It makes me want to climb on Corning and just disappear. I understand why those rogue Cards fled the palace. There is so much raw beauty out here in the wild.”
His eyes followed Dinah as she pushed herself into the pool and wandered toward the middle until she stood right before the waterfall. She reached out her hand. Streams of warm water flowed upward through her fingers, as if Dinah herself was the source of this wonder. The water seemed to have a mind of its own between her fingertips, and tiny droplets crawled from the bottom of her wrist to her fingers before lifting off into the sky. She walked back to the edge of the water and climbed out, the hem of her tunic soaked. Smiling, she sat beside Wardley and dipped her wiggling toes into the pool. She glanced over at him, lounging easily beside her on the bank. This was how it always was: Dinah and Wardley. Together. She poked him.
“Remember that summer you stole the tarts from the kitchen, when Harris chased us down the hallway screaming? I’ve never laughed so hard. You had flour all over your face, and yet when he saw you, the first thing you did was scream ‘I didn’t do it!’” She laughed at the memory—Wardley, a lanky young boy, his face covered with jam and powder, stuffing as many tarts as he could into his pockets. The sun had filtered through the red heart windows as his thin body tore through the castle, Heart Cards and Harris bellowing behind him, and Dinah too, always a few steps behind, watching him with adoration. Together they hid in the courtyard behind her mother’s white rose bushes that snaked over the walls, stuffing their faces with the tarts and giggling uncontrollably.
“It wasn’t like you were starving. You just wanted to steal something.”
“I did. I was a good kid, but at that moment, stealing tarts seemed dangerous, like a crime punishable in the Black Towers.” He grinned. “It was infinitely exciting.”
Dinah shuddered at the memory of the towers and looked down at the pool. “When I’m Queen, I will tear them down, until nothing but the roots remain.”
“You have always been fond of making grand queenly statements.” Wardley smiled as he tucked her black braid behind her ear before a profound sadness pierced his gaze. “It will never be good like this again, will it? War is coming, and somehow you and I are right in the thick of it.”
Dinah nodded and stared at the waterfall, completely aware of Wardley’s hand resting mere inches away from hers on the bank. She watched a tiny pink fish swim up the waterfall, its tiny fins flapping in the upward-flowing stream. Suddenly realizing what was happening, the fish reversed course and struggled to swim against the current. It was no use. The fish was sucked up into the sky with the water that turned into a pinkish mist. Seconds later, we heard a plop and saw the little fish swim away. Wardley continued on, unfazed.
“You know what I keep thinking about? How I hope that my parents have the good sense to stay out of the fight. My mother will stay huddled inside with the rest of the court, holed up in the Great Hall, but my father might just decide to be a hero and don his Card armor for one last battle.”
Dinah gave his hand a squeeze. “He won’t. He’ll know it’s you coming.”