Chapter Twenty Four
Daphne
This escalated quickly.
One tempo we’re pretending to be a traveling talent show of questionable skill and even more questionable decision-making, and the next—
“Off with their heads,” the Red Queen hollers once more, in case there was any confusion.
Hundreds of playing cards march toward us with murder in their eyes and absolutely no sense of humor.
That won’t do. Life is too short not to laugh at even the most critical of tempos. What a sad way to live out your annus.
“Right,” I say, clapping my hands together. “New plan.”
“There was an old plan?” Hart mutters.
“Less talking, more not dying,” Nash snaps, guiding his horse in front of ours, placing himself between danger and me.
Have they learned nothing? I am not a sack of potatoes strapped to Theo’s chest for safety.
An appreciated chest, sure. One I’d happily nap against and lick at my convenience.
But still. I am a murderous maiden of means and chaos and, well, not exactly battle-ready. More murder-adjacent problem-solving.
Theo’s arm tightens around my waist as his horse stamps and tosses its head, reacting to the advancing wall of cards. They move in disturbing harmony, the edges of their bodies flashing in warning of a thousand paper cuts. Creepy. So creepy.
The Queen of Hearts stretches her blood-red lips and bares her teeth in a cross between a smile and insanity. “Try not to bleed on my lawn.”
“She’s delightful,” I mutter.
“She’s unstable,” Genie says, hovering to my left and looking both alarmed and interested. “Remember, she cheats.”
“That’s lower on the list of concerns,” Malachi calls, drawing his sword with smooth, lethal ease that does pleasant things to my insides.
Hart sighs. “Daphne, stay on the horse.”
I twist to look up at Theo. “Thoughts?”
“On staying put?” he asks.
“No. On murder croquet. Keep up.”
His mouth brushes my temple. “I think if you do anything reckless, Nash will carry you out of here under one arm and tie you to his bed for the next three diurnals.”
“An annus at minimum,” Nash growls.
That’s promising. “Will there be sausage? So long as there are snacks, I’m okay with a little maiden napping.”
“I despair for your palate,” Genie mutters.
“I’d be more concerned for my floof. Dealing with five sausages is quite the feat.”
Genie scans the knights with a frown. “Did you select another suitor since your resurrection? Greedy, Daphne.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I answer. “Four is the perfect number.”
“But you said five—” His eyes widen, and he takes a tempo to really look at each of the knights. “Oh, I see.”
Does he? Because it was a total shock to me.
The card soldiers spread out, boxing us in across the newly laid croquet field with flaming torches, enormous rose hedges, and little white arches hammered into the grass. Back again in this game where only one player knows the rules.
A card guard lunges at Nash, which is his first mistake. The second is getting too close to Hart’s horse. The huge black beast snakes its head sideways with shocking speed and bites clean into the card guard’s face.
I scream. Not because I’m scared, but because I was right. “I knew it.” I point like a deranged prophet while the guard flails and Hart’s horse shakes him like a rag toy. “I knew they had a penchant for eating faces. Nobody listens to me, but do I know horses? Yes, I do.”
Hart leans forward and rubs his horse’s neck, who releases the card with a wet tearing sound and looks thoroughly pleased with himself.
“Death by horse,” I say, deeply vindicated. “The truth is out now.”
Theo huffs a laugh against my hair. Malachi actually grins. Nash still looks like he’d like to murder the entire courtyard and then circle back to lecture me on plan adherence.
The faceless card guard crumples to the ground, somehow not dead, which is upsetting for everyone involved, especially him. The other soldiers hesitate.
The queen blinks once. “Well,” she says flatly. “That was disturbing.”
“You started this,” I fire back. “You can’t be precious now.”
“Daphne,” Nash warns.
“I’m helping.”
“How?”
“I’m lowering morale.”
One of the shivering hedgehogs sneezes. Good for him. It’s a minor revolt, but still one.
“Off with all their heads,” the queen yells.
“One-trick pony,” I grumble.
The card guards, fearing her wrath more than horses, surge forward.
Horses rear. Steel sings. Theo’s horse lunges forward, powerful and furious, forcing a gap through the first rank of cards.
Nash cuts one down with efficient brutality.
Malachi slices through two more like he’s working out long-standing emotional issues on enchanted stationery.
Hart focuses his horse sideways and tramples another set beneath iron-shod hooves.
Theo and I join the fray. The cards are no match for us. The knights dispatch them with ease.
A card soldier makes a grab for my leg. Theo leans down, catches him by the throat one-handed, and flings him bodily into a rosebush. My dragon. My terrifying, gorgeous dragon.
“Still got it,” I praise.
He snorts. “Never in doubt.”
My focus lands on the queen. Because while the knights carve through her guards and the horses prove themselves to be the face-eating monsters I always suspected, she’s watching me. Not them. Me.
And I feel it again. That strange tug beneath my skin where the world goes thin and stretchy, as if somebody has pulled the fabric too tight and all I need to do is poke one finger through.
A card soldier swings at Malachi. He ducks. Nash wheels back. Genie floats over the battlefield, offering commentary and badly timed advice. Theo’s hand spreads across my stomach to hold me steady.
I hear the queen’s voice like a nail scraping over glass. “This game has rules.”
The words hit me strangely. Hard. As if they’re not only aimed at the field or the players but at the whole bloody realm.
Rules.
Stay in your place. Play your part. Suffer prettily.
No. I am so very done with rules.
Theo’s horse charges, and we break past a cluster of card soldiers toward the center of the field. The Queen of Hearts narrows her eyes and swings her mallet up onto her shoulder.
“You should not be here,” she says.
Rude.
I square my shoulders. “You are the one in the wrong realm.”
Her painted mouth curls. “I am exactly where I need to be.”
It clicks. Not the whole answer, but enough of one to make my bones hum. She believes that. Not because it’s true, but because she has been made to. Placed. Repeated. Reinforced.
And I… I am not where anyone intended me to be. The thought pours through me like hot honey and lightning.
The queen steps forward. “Kneel.”
We’re the ones on the face-eating horses. “No.” The word leaves my mouth, and the air changes. The torches sputter. The hedgehogs uncurl. The nearest card soldier freezes halfway through lifting his blade.
The queen’s eyes widen just a fraction. There it is. “You don’t get to refuse,” she snarls.
“Funny thing—I’m the one being who does.” I smile, and it feels a little wild around the edges.
Another card lunges toward Theo’s horse. The beast lashes out with both front hooves, smashing him flat. I wince. “Good horsey,” I praise.
Theo’s head leans against my back as he laughs. “Daphne.”
“I know. I’m having a moment.”
“A dangerous one.”
“Yes. Those are my best.” I pull on something I do not understand. Not with my hands. Not with my body. With the bit of me that listens when things change. When the slippers refused to fit. When the stories stuttered and looked at me like I might know what came next.
The realm answers. Soft at first, then all at once. The croquet hoops tremble. The flamingo mallet twists in the queen’s hands. The white roses planted in stiff little rows blush red, then white, then red again as if the color cannot decide who it belongs to.
The queen’s expression cracks. “Stop.”
That’s interesting. “I haven’t even begun,” I tell her.
The ground beneath the lawn ripples, and one of the arches lifts out of the earth and spins like a halo gone feral. A hedgehog unrolls, looks around, and marches straight off the pitch like he has better things to do.
The queen raises both hands. “Card guard!”
“Busy!” one shouts as Hart’s horse bites his shoulder and drags him from the saddle of a stolen mare.
I knew it. Face first, shoulder second. Horses are psychos with great hair.
I inhale sharply as power rushes through me. It doesn’t feel like wielding a sword or making a wish. It feels like being a door kicked off its hinges. Like something vast recognizing me and deciding to squeeze through.
I point at the field. “This game is stupid.”
The realm shudders.
Genie gasps. “Careful.”
No, not careful. I’m tired of careful.
The queen’s lips peel back from her teeth. “You insolent thing.”
Thing? Excuse her.
“I’m Daphne Stone,” I snap. “Get it right.”
The sky above us darkens, though I could swear there wasn’t a cloud a tempo ago.
The queen swings her mallet down, the force of it sending a red shimmer racing over the grass toward us like a blade.
Theo jerks the horse hard. Nash’s horse slams sideways into ours, knocking the spell off course by a whisper.
It slices through a line of rose bushes instead, chopping them clean in half.
“Do not throw magic at me,” I growl. “It’s aggressive.”
“Off with her head,” the queen screams.
The remaining cards rush us again, and Theo loses his patience. His body goes tight behind me, heat rolling off him in a wave. “Hold on.”
To what? My morals? My floof? My face? Too late. No, wait, I still have my face. I hope. Will they still love me if I lose my face?
Flame erupts from him in a controlled arc over our heads, slamming into the ground between us and the advancing guards. The cards shriek and scatter, some curling at the edges, others diving behind hedges. The horses rear, except Hart’s, who looks offended not to have started that fire itself.
“You can breathe fire in this form?” I ask. “That’s awesome.”