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In a flash, Tweed has gripped Arabelle by the neck and thrown her tiny body into the chest plate of a guard behind. Swords are drawn, only Arabelle’s raised hand holding off the soldier’s attack. My brother’s name is a plea on her painted lips. His head jerks from her carotid to her face, a growl rumbling in his chest. This is where the bloodlust takes its truest form, mixing the man with the monster lurking inside. The Red Queen will be dead within seconds. Except when he pushes two words through his crazed hunger, my brows shoot to my hairline.
“Help me,” he begs of her. The hand on Arabelle’s neck shakes under the weight of his waning control, the chalice in his other hand cracking. Keeping her eyes on him, Arabelle pushes against Tweed’s chest and through sheer will, he drags himself a step back and whimpers. Tremors rack his entire being, his head downcast like a scorned dog. He’s fucked up, and he knows it.
“Someone needs to tell me what’s happening here,” Arabelle says when her throat will allow it. Lillianna is quick to race around the dining table, me hot on her heels.
“It was Tweed! He killed the King!” she points a finger to the half bull, half man laying dead on the table. I follow her point, grimacing at the flies crawling into his pierced nostrils. My heart squeezes at her words, but my body remains stoic, my mind uncaring.
“I didn’t do this,” Tweed shakes his head, his voice too quiet. Defeated. It doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t; my brother just made an attempt on the queen’s life. He’s utterly screwed regardless.
“He’s holding the chalice used to poison my dear husband,” Lillianna forces a fake tear. “Just look at him!” The soldiers glance nervously at Tweed, his face smeared in blood and shame. Arabelle doesn’t shift her steady stare from the Spade King.
“Cash. What do you have to say about all of this?” she asks softly. Her large eyes lift, watching my emotionless face. Inside, however, indecision wars. My soul tugs towards my brother, but my mind speaks reason. Tweed will be fine. Even as Arabelle refuses to acknowledge him, I can tell she’ll give him a far lighter sentence than Lillianna would receive. And besides, Tweed is immortal like me now. One day all these people will be a distant memory and we’ll get our fresh start. Over and over until we do it right.
“Lillianna is telling the truth,” I nod in resolution. “Tweed killed the King of Spades out of jealousy. He wanted…” my mind scrambles for the end of that sentence, “her.” I nudge my head towards the woman at my side. The atmosphere thickens, only penetrated by the buzzing of flies hovering around. Amongst the army’s worried expressions, Arabelle has yet to react and internally, I smirk. Tweed trained her well. Now he will receive punishment by her hand.
“Guards,” Arabelle snaps her fingers. The bison and ox army raise their swords to Tweed’s chest, his head hung and body unmoving. “Arrest Lillianna.”
“W-what?!” the Queen Consort gasps, stepping backwards and bumping into a dining chair. “N-no! Tweed is a stone-cold killer, he committed treason!” she babbles, tugging me to stand in front of us.
“I stand with my Knave. I trust his word far more than yours, Lillianna.”
“Don’t be a fool, young Arabelle. Your Knave was caught red-handed and the rumors have already begun to spread,” a bitter laugh comes from behind. The flies on the chandelier swarm into the outline of a spade before fluttering from the room, rushing to spread the word to the masses. “Once the realm hears how you let a murderer walk free, they’ll turn their backs on you. Renounce you as Queen.”
“They will not,” Arabelle replies, instantly and confidently. I almost respect her in that moment, before the next order comes from her perfectly painted lips. “Arrest Cash too.” My eyes widen as Tweed finally looks up, not a trace of regret to be found. Stepping closer, Arabelle doesn’t refrain from raising a hand to my brother’s shoulder, even though he could tear a chunk out of her wrist and kill her before the guards could even move.
“We’ll get you the help you need,” she tells him. My gut flips. Not only because the guards are closing in on me, the promise of an eternity imprisoned glinting at the end of their swords, but because of the love Arabelle and Tweed share. Love. The sibling-ship kind. The very same one I’ve been chasing all these years, yearning to share with my twin like we used to.
“Not today,” Lillianna mutters. I peer back to see her eyes fluttering closed, a chant on her lips. Just as the first point of a blade eases into my chest, the room around me fades into smoke. Lillianna holds my arm, the carpet dissolves as my feet give way. We tumble, sailing through space until charred grass meets us at the other end. A light blares through the darkness and as I raise my hand, a neon sign labels the building before me as ‘Dirty Dee’s.’
“I made this for you,” Lillianna rushes to say, dragging up her heavy skirt to stand. Her pulse is erratic, her blood already calling to me but there’s no time. Taking my hands in hers, Lillianna’s mouth opens as a claxon begins to chime across the land. The royal alarm for fugitives. Lillianna licks her lips and tries again.
“Remember who saw you when others only wanted to use you for your body. I gave you eternal life, and in turn you promised to protect me, so I know you’ll do so again. Once Alice has returned, come for me. She’s the missing piece to this.” Beginning to run away, I shoot forward and Lillianna slams into my chest.
“The missing piece to what? What is happening right now?” I shout above the alarm ringing from the darkened clouds themselves.
“Bring her to me alive. Together, we will put an end to the Red Kingdom’s reign. You shall be the King on my throne, and we will see that those who have ever wronged us both, suffer immensely.” Leaning up on her tiptoes, Lillianna sinks her teeth into her bottom lip just before pressing a kiss to mine. As quickly as she placed it there, she’s gone, and this time, I watch her go. Tongue darting out, I taste the increased essence of pine and lavender and my eyes roll back in my head. I’m sailing through the air, yet I barely feel as my back slams into the ground, a pair of spades dancing in front of my vision.
Lillianna is right. She saw me when no one else wanted to. She saved me from a life of being a mere possession. The club before me glows through the night, providing a safe haven. A place where I dance on my terms, for my own gain.
Suddenly, my mind begins to reel, calculating the ratio of women left to men. Soon, I’ll be a rare commodity, and with that comes power. The power to create my own rules, decide my own fate. Even set my own currency. If there’s one thing of importance I’ve learnt in the past year, it’s that lust buys anything. Especially submission.
39
“Pesky things, mirrors,” a male chuckles, stepping into my childhood bedroom at the Hatter’s house. “They retain as much as they observe,” Cash muses, throwing something up in the air and catching it. Brass glints, a chain trailing behind and I squeeze my eyes shut. Hatter’s pocket watch. He took it from me at Arabelle’s castle and never gave it back.
My mind rolls and twists like a Rubik’s cube, too many pieces slotting conveniently into place. The way Cash has hindered me, how he’s always been too close. Behind my lids, I can envision him crouched behind the boulder, squeezing the life from Mr. Budgerigar. Shuffling closer, I open my eyes to glare at the Tweedle crouching before me. His smile is set in place, a simple shrug ready on his shoulders.
“For what it’s worth, I really wish you hadn’t seen that.” Lifting his fist, Cash peels back his fingers to reveal a mound of gold glitter which he promptly blows into my face. I scramble aside, the room already disappearing as my hand closes around the splintered doll that reflects my soul a little too keenly. Laughter circles me as the glitter eats away at the room, replacing it with a hallway. Dropping in from a height, I manage to land on my boots just before Cash and his Queen follow suit.
Wallpaper made of crocodile skin. Doors of all sizes lining either side, towards a club at the far end. Above the archway, the underneath of a neon sign blinks in mockery, one I know to say, ‘Fantasy Walk.’ The instant Cash materializes, he shoves my chest through a doorway that the Queen rushed to open. I fall back, my head slamming against a hard ground and my vision swims.
“If it’s any consolation, you got what you wanted. Sort of,” Cash chuckles, slamming the door closed and darkness falls. I shoot upright to bash my fists on the door, screaming every colorful way I’m going to make sure Cash suffers for this. A snicker sounds from within the shadows, a match being struck to glow upon a pale face with differently colored eyes.
“Quite the stir indeed.”
“Hatter,” I breathe, refusing to believe it. I’ve been tricked before. One more betrayal and I will crumple. Raising his flame, a hanging lantern flickers to life, brightening the space I’m now trapped in. A room, not much bigger than the single bedroom I so recently sat in.
A table divides the space in half, set with six chairs and I must wonder if we’re expecting company. One side is decorated with empty photo frames and a medley of clocks that all say different times. The other has been scribbled on, in much the same way some of the inmates at Charmsfield would expel the contents of their brains over the walls via illustration. Words, pictures, scribbles. My eyes drop to Hatter’s fingerless gloves, the tips are coated in smudged charcoal.
