Page 3 of Fated to the Wicked King

I inhaled the faint scent of oil and metal hanging in the air. The entire room was filled with a constant, low hum of machinery that always afforded me a sense of familiarity, reassurance, comfort.

This floor used to be a storage area. The loft and living area were situated within the top of the clock tower, on the floor directly above. But I was always more comfortable in my laboratory.

My lab was my sanctuary.

I crossed the floor to wash my hands. “So, what did the Duchess say?”

“My lady says with the River of Tears virtually impassable, it’s quite a challenge for her to journey to this side of Wünder. But she is trying to find a way. Meanwhile, the mirror should still work to facilitate communication with her.”

I scrubbed my hands harder to expel the stubborn grease. “You’re lucky you have the means to travel all across the lands.”

He mewled. “My dear, lest you forget, I am the Cheshire Cat. I have my ways.”

My lips curled. “You keep saying that, but what does that actually mean?”

“It means…I am the Cheshire Cat. That’s what it means.” His grin widened as if to say, ‘That’s all the answer could ever be.’

I could only scoff in disbelief. “Whatever, Chez.”

When I’d first arrived in Wünder, many things made absolutely no sense to me—until I gradually realized that they were simply not meant to.

In this mystical world, I had grown accustomed to having no answers, no explanations. Some things simply were. Granted, I never stopped being curious about them. But more often than not, I had learned to let the random oddities go.

Talking flowers talked. Time and logic functioned strangely. The mystical tide would come overnight to refresh the magic of the land. And Chez would forever be maddeningly vague about his true nature.

Not that I had the luxury to distance myself from anyone for petty reasons. Chez was my closest friend. He and the Duchess were all I had.

My gaze drifted out the rounded window above the sink. The last streaks of daylight had just receded over the cold, muted landscape. Stretching beneath a perpetual overcast, wind-scoured dunes faded into jagged ranks of blackened mountain peaks.

Chez hopped up on the table beside me at the sink. He followed my gaze, likely mistaking my absentminded gaze for an assessment of our surroundings. “It’s like a different world out there.”

I stared at my reflection in the glass. Everything in my lab behind me appeared backward. But it was cozy. Safe. I hadn’t ventured much further than Tulgey Woods in the past few months. I’d mostly stayed in this tower, hearing news only in passing from gossiping flowers, Chez, or the Duchess. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder about the world beyond the mirror.

But from my perspective, it hadn’t been the same for more than eight months.

I wasn’t even from this world at all.

I had only stumbled through to this mystical otherworldly land via a mysterious ‘magical doorway.’ It had been my mission since arriving to find a way back.

This massive clock tower used to be a rundown, neglected dump, with nearly every level an abandoned heap of discarded odds and ends.

It had become my home. The tower itself was polished to shine using a steam-powered mechanical arm I’d invented specifically for the task. The elevator that serviced the sixty-some stories of the tower? I fixed that too, along with everything else in this once rusty, crumbling structure.

I fixed everything.

I can fix anything.

Except for the blasted clock on this tower.

For no apparent reason, the tower’s huge clock had stopped ticking.

I clutched at my chest again. It was on the same day there was a momentary blinding, excruciating pain. Then…absolute silence.

And try as I might to inspect and diagnose the internal mechanisms, I could still find no fault. The pendulum would not keep swinging. The gears would not keep turning.

No matter. A different issue warranted my attention at the moment.

Wiping my hands, I turned back to Chez. “By any chance, did you find that F-capacitor I was looking for? It’s very rare.” I moved to slide onto my usual stool at the massive oak work table dominating the center of the small room, set against the bare internal gears and cogs of the clock tower and walls lined with copper pipes and brass fixtures.