She laughed at the idea. “Try to tie him there. You won’t live long, but all the more reason to try.” Morte collapsed in a moss pile a few feet away and began eating all the wild grasses within his reach. The Spade was gathering sticks into a pile. Dinah realized too late what he was doing. She dashed dirt toward the pile with her foot. “Stop! Don’t build a fire, they’ll see it!”
The Spade laughed as he produced a tiny muslin bag. “Ever see nightpowder?” Dinah shook her head. The Spade lit the fire with a flint, but as soon as he saw the first sign of a flicker, he dropped a pinch of the powder onto the growing flame. “Aye, the trick is to get it on when it’s just a tiny thing. It won’t work on a raging fire, or even a burning log.”
Dinah watched in amazement as the flame grew—only instead of glowing with an orange heat, it was black, and emitted a clear smoke that disappeared into the sky. The flames still burned hot, and Dinah enjoyed the first feel of heat she’d felt on her face in a long time. The Spade roasted two rabbits he had speared that day and generously gave Dinah a whole one. She dived into it, relishing the drip of grease on her face. She threw the rest of her rabbit over to Morte, who cracked the bones between his teeth.
The Spade watched with disgust. “Unnatural, that is.”
Dinah shrugged. When the Spade finished eating, he dropped the smallest portion of nightpowder into his pipe and leaned back against a rock. His ease infuriated her, and Dinah could contain herself no longer. “Tell me about Wardley.”
The Spade inhaled a deep mouthful of his pipe and cleared his throat.
“So yeh want to know of the boy yeh left behind?”
Dinah thought long and hard before asking her question. “I would like to know any and all information that pertains to Wardley Ghane and the reasons behind any harms or dangers he might have encountered.”
The Spade’s drawn face scowled. “That seems like more than one question.”
Dinah grinned wickedly. “I think it seems like a perfectly valid question. After all, I’m just asking about Wardley.”
“Yer asking a bit more, and I believe yeh know that.”
“I believe that is what you believe.” Dinah continued smiling. She watched his features change through the flickering onyx flame. Dinah didn’t know much about the Spades—of all the Cards, they were the ones most shrouded in secrecy—but she did know that Spades loved to tell a good tale with their comrades, bloody tales of wars fought, of limbs lost, and of battle fever, tales that would make any other Wonderlander squirm. Dinah was baiting him—she could tell by the way his mouth twitched and the grinding of his filthy teeth. Sir Gorrann longed to tell her everything.
The Spade stood up in the clear night, the black flames of the fire kissing the tips of his boots. A thin trail of smoke curled out of the side of his mouth, and he began. “Well, if yeh must know, Wardley Ghane is alive.” Dinah felt a sweet wave of relief wash over her, sweeter than anything she had ever tasted. A sob escaped her throat.
Sir Gorrann watched her closely. “On the day you fled—Wonderlanders now call it the ‘Morning of Sorrows’—all the Cards were woken by their commanders in the early morning with the surprising news that the princess had murdered her own brother, his servants, and Heart Cards in cold blood.”
Two lies and a single truth,Dinah thought. I did kill two Heart Cards. I lanced one through the heart from behind, like a coward, and the other I pierced through the chest. Wardley killed yet another one in the stables to protect me. The blood on her hands was growing thicker.
The Spade continued, ignorant to her whirling guilt. “As the sun rose outside, we were instructed to put on our armor and march out to meet the princess in front of the gates and to capture her—eh, you—dead or alive. Our commander, the great Spade Starey Belft, made it clear to us that dead was completely acceptable, due to the nature of yer crimes.” The Spade cleared his throat. “I knew it to be a lie. The scar on my cheek confirmed it. The passion with which yeh had defended that silly wooden toy for yer brother had shown me that yeh could never do such a thing. Yer brother was never a threat to yer crown—it was yers for the taking, or so I thought. No, the only person who stood to gain from yer brother’s murder was yer father. This all raced through my head, yeh see, as I strapped on my armor and headed out to secure the gates. We waited. The Cards returned and began to sniff around the stables. Then I saw yeh, a terrifying vision if there ever was one.”
Dinah tilted her head, confused. The nightfire reflected off the Spade’s face, making his eyes glimmer like coins in the darkness. “How so?”
“I saw yeh, Yer Highness, straddled across that massive black steed of yours, tearing out of the stable labyrinth like the devil himself was chasing yeh, a sword in yer hand, the cloak trailing behind yeh. I watched in awe as yeh plowed over helpless men without blinking, bent on revenge. I couldn’t begin to fathom what yeh were doing, but yeh looked fierce as a dragon. As yeh were sprinting to the gate, the other two Hornhooves came out behind you, killing and maiming any man they came across. Do you know they killed ten men?”
More blood, thought Dinah, more death because of me. The Spade gave a light laugh. It bounced off the rocky land around them.
“Wonderlanders are still talking about it—they are calling you the ‘Rebel Queen.’”
“But I’m not the Rebel Queen. That’s not me,” blurted Dinah. “I was terrified. I was fleeing for my life. I didn’t even fully understand what was happening. Wardley put me on Morte and sent him running for the gates.”
“Yes, but the townspeople don’t know that. They only know what the king tells them, and that’s very little. Because of the Morning of Sorrows, they hate yeh, but more important, they fear yeh. To everyone in the kingdom, it seemed like an attack, a last vengeance on Wonderland after killing your brother—a wild act, filled with fury. They believe yeh wanted to kill as many Heart Cards as you could before deserting the castle and leaving yer father to mourn his only son.”
“That isn’t true. I would never . . .” But you would, said a voice inside her. You did kill innocent Cards. You can and you have. The Spade threw another bunch of branches onto the black flames of the fire, which leaped even higher, their invisible smoke irritating Dinah’s eyes. He continued.
“Trust me, it will be to yer advantage in the future.”
The future? Dinah pushed herself off the rotted log she was perched on, her tone dripping with annoyance. “I don’t understand what this has to do with Wardley. Tell me about Wardley.”
“Ah, sorry. I’m getting there, Yer Highness. Because everything that happened to your stable boy—”
“Wardley,” snapped Dinah. “His name is Wardley.”