His eyes followed Dinah as she pushed herself into the pool and waded toward the middle until she stood right before the waterfall. She reached her hand out. 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 rosebushes 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 not even the roots remain.”
“You have always been fond of making grand queenly statements.” Wardley smiled as he tucked her black braid behind her ear. Then 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 pink fish swim up the waterfall, its tiny fins flapping in the miraculous stream. Suddenly realizing what was happening, the fish reversed course and struggled to swim against the current. It was no use. With a tiny plop, the fish was sucked up into the sky with the water. 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.”
She wasn’t entirely sure she was telling the truth.
Wardley swallowed. “Yes, but . . . what if he doesn’t? What if he puts on a helmet, and I don’t recognize him on the battlefield? What if I . . . ?” His words faded on his tongue. A few moments passed as they both remained silent. “What are you afraid of?” he whispered.
Dinah took a breath before lowering her voice to a murmur. “Everything. I’m afraid that the men will see that I am just a girl who was rejected by the king. I’m afraid I’ll die silently and quietly, like the flame blown from a match, and I’ll be nothing more than a child who played at war. I’m afraid of losing you, or Sir Gorrann, or even Cheshire. I’m afraid of letting down the Yurkei people.” Dinah lifted her foot and watched droplets of water roll off her muscular calf. “Mostly I’m afraid that I’ll die, and it won’t matter if I have a crown on my head or not. I’ll die the same as other men, with a bloody sword through my chest, one final breath lost in the madness.”
A sword. What had the Caterpillar said to her? “You will pierce the heart of one man and . . .”
Her memory was there, but then it was gone again, the way a butterfly would land on her hand but leave the moment she glanced at it. “I’m even afraid of what happens if we are victorious. I’ll be queen. Can I rule? Will I be a good ruler or a terrible one like my . . . ?” She stopped. “Like the King of Hearts. If that even happens. If we can get through the gates.”
Wardley absently clasped her hand in his, their palms slick with comingled sweat.
“Do you believe we can win, Wardley?”
He stared out at the small pond. His face was ruddy and flushed from the walk, and for a moment he reminded Dinah of the boy with the stolen tarts. But then she saw the stubble creeping up his cheeks and the way his sculpted muscles tensed under his shirt. He had become a man since she had seen him last. He sighed and rubbed his face with his other hand.
“We can win, but it’s not in our favor as it stands right now. The king has us outnumbered almost two to one. The iron walls are perfectly round, which means that to surround them, we will be stretched thin in all places. We have the Spades, which will help, for they are ruthless in battle, but he has the Heart Cards, who are the most-skilled fighters in Wonderland. He has Xavier Juflee.” He gave a laugh. “We have an exiled princess, the king’s Hornhoov, an army of wild natives, and the Spades. And even if we win, once we are inside the gates, the people of Wonderland Palace will not welcome us with open arms. They loathe you, do you realize that? The people fear you, Dinah, and for good reason. You are bringing death and war upon this city, a city that has never seen a battle. Almost every man in the kingdom is a Card, and the king will deploy all of them in his defense.”
“Yes, but we have the Yurkei . . .”
“The Yurkei have never attacked a city. What do they know of walls and Iron Gates and a palace made of stone and glass? The mounted Heart Cards will smash against the Yurkei on the north side, while we battle our way through a sea of Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds, all while the Fergal family rain arrows down around us.” Dinah had forgotten about the famous Fergal archers.
Wardley shook his head. “If we are captured, our fate will be much more terrible than dying quickly on the battlefield. They will throw us into the Black Towers to rot, until we become one with the tree or worse. The King of Hearts is a hateful man.” He looked over at Dinah, his brown eyes gazing with adoration and sadness on her drawn face. “I swear to you this day, here in this place, that I will kill you before I let the king torture you. And I hope you will do the same for me.”
Dinah smiled back at him, knowing that she would never be able to take Wardley’s life. No, not even to save him. Love had made her impassively hard and needlessly soft at the same time.
“I keep thinking,” he muttered, “that this might be the last time I do anything. The last time I eat bread. The last time I dip my foot in a pool. The last time that I get to speak with you as a friend, and not as a commander to his queen. Are we ready for that? Am I still to be your king?”