Dinah wiped the blood dripping from her face onto her sleeve and stood shakily as sobs broke loose from her throat.
“It is not who I will be! What do you desire? What do you want from me? Freedom? Money? Take Corning tonight, and I’ll fill your purse with gold. Go to Hu-Yuhar, or to the Western Slope. Live out her dream. Just go!”
Wardley shook his head and glanced up at the palace, glowing now from the hundreds of burning torches that lit its many halls.
“This is where I loved her. This is where I knew her. I can be in no other place. Besides, I want you to see my face every day. I want you to see what your fury wrought.”
Dinah’s heart, it seemed, gave one final thump and grew silent.
“Give me your chains,” she said quietly. Her hands shaking, she unlocked the iron shackles, watching as they fell into the grass.
Wardley looked again at Dinah, his eyes darkened with exhaustion and hatred as he rubbed his wrists. “I might still decide to kill you, you know.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry for what I’ve done, Wardley. I will make it up to you, someday.”
“You never can. She was the love of my life, Dinah, and you were my best friend. I have nothing left.” He began limping away from her, toward the palace, but turned, offering yet another scornful, “I was wrong—you never deserved, and never will deserve, the crown on your head.”
Dinah let a wave of dizziness wash over her in the darkness, and her stomach turned over. Something about the crown . . .
“Wardley! Wait!”
He turned around again, this time defeated and sad.
Dinah narrowed her eyes, her forehead crinkled in thought. “What did you mean, when you said she never wore my crown?”
“What?”
“You said she never wore my crown. But she was crowned queen, was she not?”
Wardley walked over to the rock where Dinah had placed her crown and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. The Mad Hatter’s elaborately crafted crown of diamonds sent thousands of tiny lights across his pained face.
“Alice never wore this crown. I’d never even seen it before your coronation. Hers was small, and blue. Perfectly lovely. Just like her.”
He let the crown drop from his hands, and it bounced off the rock and landed in a bed of wild thistle with a heavy thud. Wardley started walking away, the soft whisper of his voice dancing on the wind. “I wish you had died on the battlefield. It’s what I wish every day, when I wake up.” Dinah let his words cut into her, a swift blade to the heart. Then she bent over and picked up her crown, her face puzzled as it reflected the moonlight.
Back in her chambers, nursing the growing bruise creeping across her neck, Dinah pulled book after book down from the shelf. Harris came in, rubbing his eyes.
“Child, what are you searching for? It’s quite late, and you haven’t even been to bed.”
Dinah barely looked up. “Harris, I’m glad you’re awake. Help me find something.”
“Let me get my spectacles.”
After a few minutes of searching, Dinah found his glasses and together they pulled a giant, dusty book down from the shelf. Wonderland: A History. Dinah flipped it open.
“Does this have the list of traditions and ceremonies in it?”
“Why, yes!” Harris hopped from one foot to the other excitedly. “Are you fancying learning more about those things? A good queen should always know—”
“No. I’m not.” Frustrated, Dinah shoved the book toward him. “I need to find the order for a coronation ceremony.”
“Hmmm . . .” Harris licked his finger and paged through a thick index. “Ah, yes. Here. Oh, this is very interesting.”
“Harris.”
“Sorry. Here it is.” He turned the book toward Dinah and pointed at an elaborate list of rules and practices. Dinah ran her finger down the worn pages, flipping to the next, and then the next.
“This is what I was looking for. Listen.” She read aloud.
“‘When a daughter takes the crown of Wonderland, she, by law, must wear the most extravagant crown in the kingdom. In most cases, the crown shall pass down from queen to queen, but only after the first queen’s death or forfeiture of her rule. If ever a crown is made of superior size and glory, then the new crown shall crown the queen, with the former crown melted and turned into jewelry.’”
She looked at Harris with amazement.
“The crown!”
Harris sat down at the table, disappointment written on his face.
“I’m surprised that you did not know that already. Did you listen to nothing I taught you?”
“That’s beside the point. At her coronation—what crown did Vittiore wear?”
Harris bit his lip and looked at the floor. “As you may remember, my queen, I was imprisoned in the Black Towers during the coronation. But I’m sure it was a wonderful event.”
Dinah reached out and laid her palm across his hand. “Wardley said that Vittiore—Alice, whoever—did not wear this.” She pointed to her own splendid diamond crown, resting on its designated lavender pillow. “In fact, Wardley said he had never seen it.”
“And?”
“And why wouldn’t the king give this crown to Vittiore? Or wear it himself even? No finer crown has ever been made in the history of Wonderland. The king took everything he ever desired, that was his nature, and so why wouldn’t he take my crown and put it on her head? It would have been symbolic, fitting even. The king would do that, would he not?”
Harris’s head was tilted. “Yes, he would. He was a man who loved to make examples of anyone who crossed him. Putting the crown your brother made for you on Vittiore’s head would have brought him great pleasure. He was wicked that way.”
“Exactly. So why didn’t he? Why didn’t Vittiore or the king wear this crown?”
There was a silence in Dinah’s chambers. Ki-ershan sat awake on his cot, his chest rising and falling with silent breaths. Dinah looked down at the book, and back at Harris again, this time with wide eyes.
“Because the king didn’t know about the crown. He never knew it existed.”
Harris lowered his glasses.
“What does this mean to you, then? You look positively stunned. I don’t understand.”
Dinah began pacing back and forth in front of the table. “The night I found Charles, the crown he made for me was missing. I assumed that the king took it, since he had been there. But the king didn’t have it. He didn’t know about it.”
“Which means?” Harris was looking concerned now, beads of sweat pooling on his forehead.
“Which means that someone else was in Charles’s room that night. Someone who took the crown. I have to go. Right now.”
“Dinah, it’s the middle of the night. You can’t go anywhere. You’ve had a very taxing day.”
Dinah felt her sore neck, a fresh wave of guilt and shame washing over her. Was she so like her fathers? Could she choose a different path? Was it too late?
“I have to go. Ki-ershan?”
But Ki-ershan was already out of bed, strapping a bow and arrows to his back and tucking a dagger into his waistband.
“Where are you going?” Harris asked.
“Into town. No one can know I am gone. Do you understand? No one.”
Harris bowed before her.