Another soft creak echoed through the room, and Dinah’s spine tightened uncomfortably. She felt Ki-ershan’s arm wrapped protectively around her, the beating of his furious Yurkei heart against her shoulder. She was not afraid, not for herself—no one would get through him.
From her hiding place, Dinah saw the rickety door swing open and watched as a tall shadow stepped into the room. Immediately, she recognized the black cloak and hood. It was the same terrifying ensemble that had come into her room that fateful night. The figure moved quickly. There was a flash of silver in the moonlight as he raised his dagger, creeping swiftly toward the slumbering lump on the bed. The figure looked quietly down at the sleeping Spade before yanking back the bedcovers, his dagger arching overhead.
He would not succeed. Sir Gorrann was ready and waiting for him. He threw the covers into the attacker’s face, leaping from the bed and tackling the smaller man to the floor. With one hand, Sir Gorrann grabbed the cloaked man’s dagger and tossed it across the room. Unleashing a growl, her loyal Spade crouched over the figure, his legs pinning down the man’s arms, his long sword pressed tightly against his throat.
“Don’t move, coward,” he hissed. Sir Gorrann blew a lock of hair out of his face and nodded to the false wooden wall that Dinah and a dozen Spades stood behind, all too easy to miss with the new construction, riddled with holes perfect for spying. The wall dropped with a thud, and Dinah strode forward in a shower of black dust. Her steps were slow, calculated. Taking a deep breath, she steadied her face and withdrew her emotions. Now was not the time for feelings.
“Take off his hood.”
Sir Gorrann pulled the man up to his knees and bound his hands behind him with rope. With a yank, he pulled off his hood. Cheshire’s black hair shimmered in the light, a macabre grin twisting his narrow face.
“My queen, it is so nice to see you about at this late hour of night. What brings you here, beautiful daughter?”
Dinah smiled coldly before striking his cheek, hard, once and again. Cheshire barely winced. Her black eyes were emotionless as she stared into his face. “I know the truth. I know what you did. Confess it to me now, and you may have a prayer of going to your grave with a clear heart.”
Cheshire’s features hardened. He now looked incredibly dangerous, a coiled snake ready to strike. “What is it that you think you know, Your Grace?”
Dinah glowered down at him, rage building inside her at the sight of his snide smile. But she would not lose control like she had with Alice. Never again. Dinah seethed in his presence, the crown glittering brightly on her head.
“I know that you killed my brother. You killed Lucy and Quintrell that night, and then you threw—threw!—Charles from a window. You murdered him, a young child, the son of the woman you once loved. How could you? He was innocent!”
“He was a pawn!” hissed Cheshire. “He stood in the way of your throne by his very nature. He was a weakness, an embarrassment to you, to our family! He was the proof that your whore of a mother actually slept with the king. I knew the only way I could convince you that the king never intended to give you the crown was to get rid of Charles. It was the only way you would leave the palace, the only way you would ever seize your destiny. The king would have killed you if you had stayed. He would never have crowned you queen. I was only looking out for you. You must believe me.”
“I do,” said Dinah calmly. “But you were sloppy that night. So unlike you, Cheshire. You killed Charles, but you were in a hurry. You had to wake me and send me on my way, and also convince me that the king had killed him. Perfect timing was so crucial to your plan. In your haste, you took the crown that Charles made for me. The only evidence of your crime. You didn’t anticipate that I would go to Charles’s room before fleeing, that I would notice it was missing. But why would you anticipate that? That had to do with love. You would never, in your wildest manipulations, dream that I would go to my pathetic brother’s room instead of fleeing for my life. But I did. You have never understood love.”
Cheshire’s eyes narrowed into glittering slits of black. “I believe you know a little about where love can lead a person, don’t you? And you didn’t love Charles. You pitied him. He was like a malignant growth—he needed to be cut off.”
He gave her a cruel smile before chuckling. “Charles was silent, you know, when I threw him out the window. He curled up in my arms, like he had accepted his fate. There was no struggle. He had just watched me kill his beloved caretakers. What could he do? So the boy just let me drop him out the window. And as he fell to his death, he waved at me, right up until his body hit the stone. Why? Because he was mad—”
Dinah cut him off. “No. He waved at you because he knew I would discover the truth. Because he knew you would soon join him in that starless night that waits for all of us. He knew I would outsmart you eventually.”
Dinah circled him now, sizing up his betrayal before gently resting her hand on his cheek, her fingers tracing the lines of his face. “Pride was your fatal mistake. You wanted to give me that crown, because of its glory, because of its grandness, and because you wanted Wonderland to see it. If you had kept it hidden forever, I would never have known. But you had to place it on my head and flaunt your genius, your stolen triumph. Your real reward was the moment when your daughter was crowned queen—the culmination of all your scheming.”
Cheshire’s smile stretched to the ends of his face, his dark eyes sparkling with pleasure, and he leaned in as if to rest his head on her shoulder. “Dinah, so fierce and intelligent, the pride of my loins. Tell me, how did you unravel my well-laid plans?”
Harris shuffled forward from behind the wall of Spades. His normally kind eyes filled with fury. “It was simple once Dinah spoke with Ruby Thorndike and Lord Geheim. After my queen fled the kingdom, you were nervous about having the crown on your person, especially with the king around. If he found out that you, and not the queen, had killed his son, nothing could have saved you from his anger. So you gave it to two men who owed you a debt—Lords Sander and Delmont—for safekeeping. Lord Sander agreed to keep the crown for you, in his home, for his debt was greater. Together, they began to put the pieces together and, in a fatal miscalculation, attempted to blackmail you. You poisoned Lord Delmont and his family as a warning to Lord Sander. An entire family, wiped out, all to scare one man. Your plan worked. Terrified, Lord Sander gave the crown to his apprentice, Swete Thorndike, to hide it from you. He thought it was his insurance—that you wouldn’t kill him if you didn’t know where the crown was.”