Dinah’s newfound father came with his own set of demands: he would take his seat as the queen’s main adviser, the head of her council, and he would remain in charge of all the Cards, as well as the acting Diamond Card in charge of the treasury. His powers would increase to include a seat on the Yurkei council. Without expressly saying so, Cheshire made sure that he would be the most powerful person in the palace aside from the queen. Bah-kan wanted lands within Yurkei territory and a royal pardon for his desertion from the Cards, and he would have it, but only if he agreed to be Dinah’s personal bodyguard until she was crowned. Sir Gorrann said that he would negotiate with Dinah alone, but so far he had remained silent and impassive, wanting nothing apparently.
After the negotiations were signed and sealed, four swift horses bearing Yurkei riders were sent to store the documents in the four corners of Wonderland, so that there might always be one treaty that remained safe, even if the rest were destroyed. After the documents were carried away, Dinah nervously prepared for the ancient Yurkei sealing ritual. Wearing little more than a few feathers, Dinah stood perfectly still for hours as the words of the treaty were painted on her body with white paint by silent Yurkei women. The words trailed down from her eyes in straight lines to the edge of her toes, and by the end, there wasn’t an inch of her skin unmarked with white paint. The words of their treaty trailed from her cheeks, her belly, her fingertips. Mundoo had the same treaty inscribed down his body, and when they were done, both Dinah and Mundoo were led into a ringed circle of fire, a subdued crane tied to each of their wrists. The Yurkei rose in song, an unnerving wail that resonated through the narrow valley.
For hours they sang, Dinah and Mundoo standing perfectly still until their legs trembled beneath them. Finally, at the excited shout of the crowd, the two of them neared each other as the stars swirled above. When they were close enough to touch, the cranes leaped from their wrists and flapped toward each other. Mundoo and Dinah were yanked together, the strings holding their cranes twisting and tangling while the birds fluttered and fought. The words written on their bodies smeared together, the melting paint mixing with their sweat as they struggled to back away from each other. Finally, a Yurkei priestess gave a shout and they both released their birds into the sky. The words were now one, blended forever, absorbed into their skin. Dinah’s black eyes met Mundoo’s shimmering blue irises as they stood silently, surrounded by the roaring fire. What she had seen in them both reassured and frightened Dinah. Mundoo was resilient, and she saw a passion to rule blazing in his eyes that was not unlike her own. She was a queen and he was a chief. They were the same. A pact had been made, a promise sealed. Dinah had never felt more alive and gave a shout to the sky, her head thrown back in glory.
After she had cleaned up, she joined the Yurkei for a celebratory feast alongside Bah-kan, Sir Gorrann, and her two Yurkei guards. It was a meal to put all others to shame, even the endless food she had known at Wonderland Palace. Birds of every type were paraded in on the backs of Yurkei warriors. Each bite tingled with rich spices, woodsy and full of flavor, each taste manipulated by Iu-Hora, their witch doctor. Dinah was given piles of edible mushrooms, each one producing a unique effect—some made her melancholy, while others made her silly. Some produced a feeling of intense passion that climaxed in seconds and left her breathless, clutching the table. One gave her a hallucination of the palace, filled with thumping red hearts and fluttering peacocks. Another showed her a river of blood, soaking her feet. The effects weren’t lasting—most were no more than a minute—so Dinah eagerly awaited what each new mushroom would bring.
Cheshire sat beside her on one side and Sir Gorrann on the other; and while Cheshire was constantly trying to engage her with compliments or observations, she couldn’t bring herself to be kind to him, not yet. She did find herself staring at him when he wasn’t looking, taking in his jet-black hair and eyes, so like her own. She imagined him with her mother, laughing and touching, finding every spare moment to be together, caught up in the danger of their forbidden passion. At times the idea made her sick. Since he had arrived, Cheshire had given her a number of gifts—a lovely diamond brooch in the shape of a cat, a heavy purple riding cloak, a new set of dark red leather boots imprinted with a heart on each heel. She pulled on the boots immediately and shoved the other presents into her bag. He could not buy her loyalty or love, not yet, but she needed new boots and so allowed herself to slip into their rich soles, her sore feet rejoicing.
Her training with Bah-kan and Sir Gorrann continued—brutal mornings, every day—until she was able to spar competently with Sir Gorrann, even beating him on occasion. All the mornings she had played swords with Wardley were returning to her, and her strokes became quick and hard as her body intuitively spun and leaped. Somehow, without her noticing, the blade and her body had become one. One morning, as Dinah was eating, Cheshire approached and invited her to train with him on throwing daggers. Dinah reluctantly agreed, but to her dismay found that she thoroughly enjoyed herself. There was something about winging a dagger at a tree that released her growing anxiety about leading an army. Cheshire was extremely skilled with a dagger, and Dinah realized that he had generously allowed her to hold her dagger to his throat in the orchard that evening. He could have disarmed or killed her at any time.
As they threw the knives, Cheshire recounted for her parts of her childhood that she had almost forgotten—her fifth birthday, a certain croquet game, when she broke her leg climbing a statue. He had indeed been watching her, but she told herself that it meant nothing. It was hard enough to consider that she was of his blood, let alone to develop the daughter–father bond that she had been lacking her entire life. And so she didn’t speak. She just flung the daggers, loving the thwunk! against the tree bark when the knife made contact.