Chapter 16 Consequences of Ale
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CONSEQUENCES OF ALE
Dawnkep is beautiful. Magical. Where Erotsy had an air about it, there’s always this gray, dark blanket hovering over all the cities the Red Queen lords over. This part of Wonderland is bright, and the air feels thin and easy to breathe.
We’ve made it into the city, and Finlo and I are still trailing being Lewis, who’s speaking in hushed tones to himself, something I’m getting used to: their muttering.
Shops line either side of the road, each a differing litany of colors. A boutique to my left is teal on its upper level, whereas the store’s base is a bright pink.
Finlo leads me into The Jolly Jester, which sits at the very end of the main street. A sign told me the street’s name was Middle Street, and the very left-of-center name made me smile.
The Jolly Jester is tall, at least five stories, and looms brightly, casting barely a shadow as I look up at its crooked edges and curved windows.
Smoke billows out of the stack at the very top, and the scent of cooking meat and the sound of patrons far in their cups steal my attention as Finlo opens the door.
“I’ll get us a room and some food. You find a table. Mind your head, don’t knock into anyone with it,” he says, grinning.
Rolling my eyes, I find the only table unoccupied in a far corner nearest a large window that looks out over where Middle Street becomes Cherry Avenue.
I watch each passerby, feeling more out of place by the second, as memories of my life in London clash with what I see before me.
A cat walks upright on two feet, moving down Cherry Avenue with a cane. Its dress is formal and screams aristocrat. The very idea of such a thing confuses my brain.
“Alright. We were just in time for stew and ale,” Fin says, dropping two bowls onto the table.
“Where’s Lewis?” I ask, pulling my bowl over and shoving the strange feeling of homesickness to the back of my mind.
“Gone ahead to announce our arrival to the queen. She’ll want time to prepare for your reemergence.”
I blow on my spoonful of stew, mind swirling as I try and cannot recall the White Queen in every memory I’ve been returned.
Nothing.
Going into her palace without knowing who she is or how she behaves unsettles my stomach.
I have to wonder why the security charms, as Ariadne called them, gave me flashes of the Red Queen while keeping this queen a mystery.
Darker memories are the most powerful, though. If we let them. Clearly, my mind kept those right on the surface, allowing them to emerge first.
“Tell me about this queen I’m to meet,” I say, swallowing my first bite of stew. The flavors of beef, carrots, and a few vegetables I don’t have names for tickle my tongue as I grab for my ale.
Fin’s hand comes down over mine. “Be careful with Wonderland ale; it is quite potent.”
I scoff at him as a thirty-year-old woman with her fair share of hangovers after long nights at the pubs. “I’ll be fine.”
He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me before sighing. “The White Queen is everything the Red Queen is not.”
“But? There has to be a but coming, right?”
There’s always a but.
“She is… quite eccentric.”
“How could she not be living in a world like Wonderland? I’m surprised you have lucid moments, to be fair.”
His thick brows tug together. “She speaks irregularly and you’ll have to reacquaint yourself with her ways. This would be easier, of course, if you had memories of her.”
“Of course,” I agree. “I can’t force memories, though. I’m sure it’ll be fine. After all, she’s the light queen to the Red Queen’s darkness, right?”
Fin swallows a sip of ale, weighing his words. “She is, but you always want to mind how you speak to royalty, lest you find your head rolling past your feet.”
I swallow past a growing lump of fear in my throat.
“That’s all fuddlywak, anyhow. It’ll be fine; I’m sure of it.” His face changes as he digs into his food.
Spreading silence falls over us, my mind whirling with thoughts of the upcoming meeting with the queen. It isn’t long until I’m on my fourth cup of ale, and the stew is long gone.
Finlo leads us to the fifth floor, jostling my bags and his, all while fighting with a key from the innkeeper.
“Here. Let me.” I take the key from him and shove it into the door with the number five on the front, opening it and stepping out of Finlo’s way.
“I hope you don’t mind. I got us one room. We’re only staying for one night before we move on, and it seemed a waste of coin to get two rooms when…” Finlo turns, his cheeks reddening as the implication of everything we’ve done leading up to this moment hangs between us.
The room is spinning blearily around Finlo, and I fist the top of a chair to stay steady. “It’s fine,” I slur. “No harm done. I wouldn’t want to be in anyone else’s bed.”
A hiccup makes an abrupt appearance, and I cover my mouth with a drunken giggle. “God. I’m so sorry.”
Finlo’s smile stretches across his face like a lazy cat. “I told you the ale was potent. Come, we should get some sleep.”
For an untold amount of time, I relieve myself, give getting into night clothes a good—and failed—attempt, and then make my way into bed, where Finlo is already lying.
In the dim light of a small fire flickering in the hearth, Finlo looks like a Fae god, and it stirs memories of us in the tent, churning need through me as if it hadn’t been sated only this morning.
Silence rings, other than the occasional sound that dances through the open window, blowing on the breeze that rustles the curtains.
“Was it awful?” I ask, not knowing how Fin will respond to my question.
“Was what awful?”
“Wonderland. After me?”
“After you,” he breathes as if mulling over the overwhelming thought of what his world became after shoving me through a portal.
“After you, were some of the worst times in Wonderland. Things were…” He sighs, and I’m so eager to hear the end to his statement that I scarcely breathe. “Dark,” he finishes.
“Fin.” I roll into him, my hand landing on his bare chest.
His eyes remain fixed on the ceiling, his brows pinched together. There’s a much more dominating energy about him since our moment in the tent, and I don’t want to claim that I’m the reason for the shift, but my center convulses anyhow, like a greedy little fiend.
“It was the right thing to do. You didn’t belong here. I’m still unsure that you do, even if it feels…” This time, he doesn’t finish his sentence because there aren’t enough words to summarize how things feel between us.
I fear there never will be.
The words haven’t been invented yet.
One can only feel.
“Will you tell me the end of the story? The end of before?” I realize I sound as mad as the rest of them, but I know he understands what I’m saying.
“I cannot.”
“Damn your eyes,” I growl, poking him in the side.
It’s a futile attempt to lighten the mood.
Finlo rolls onto his side. “About what happened in the tent,” he starts, and the lump of fear I felt downstairs earlier returns to my throat tenfold. A tactile, icy feeling rakes down my spine as my heart races with anxious beats.
“What about what happened in the tent?” I prod when he doesn’t go on.
The chemistry between us only tugs him closer to me, but I’m reeling internally, worried he will tell me it can never happen again. Even when I don’t know if I belong here or want to stay, I know I want what happened in the tent to happen again.
I want more than what happened in the tent.
“I just wanted to… You’re alright, after… Well, you know.” His stammering breaks me out of my spiral in my big, beautiful head, and I heave a sigh of relief.
“Of course, I’m alright. Are you alright? I assume it was your first… experience.”
“It was,” he admits.
The sad idea of being a four-hundred-year-old virgin settles in my brain, and it makes me want to show him how much more he’s been missing out on before we leave this room, but I don’t want to scare him off or overwhelm him.
“It was good for you?” I ask, trying to be accommodating as he was by asking if I was alright.
He laughs as if my question is absurd, but then clears his throat. “It was amazing.”
Pride twirls in my stomach, but I quickly staunch it.
“I know we knew one another before, Eleanor, but…” He stops, locking eyes with me as I anxiously bite my bottom lip.
I’m hanging on every word. Typically, I’d hate that for me, but he’s Finlo.
He’s different. “I need you to know that things are different now. You and I now are different, and I don’t want to go back to being… ”
“Friends,” I insert when it seems he’s struggling to find the words to finish.
He nods. “Yes.”
The implication of his wanting more from me should make me hesitate. It should make me worry that I’m getting too tied to this world. A sane person would want to get home.
A sane person would run from this room and find the nearest portal back to humanity.
I realize as I lean forward and press my forehead to Finlo’s that maybe I’m not so sane after all.
Perhaps I’m positively mad.
It takes a few moments to wake up and realize my surroundings. Finlo’s light snores are something I’m becoming accustomed to, and I open my eyes to find us tangled together.
He’s on his side, where we lay talking last night in the middle of the bed. My leg is tossed over his hip, my center hovering dangerously close to his length. That’s hard against it.
His arm tucks me tightly into his body heat, and for a moment, I fight the urge to close my eyes and go back to sleep.
A rap at the door shatters the illusion of that option altogether, and my jumping rouses Finlo.
He looks me over, running his hand over my hip, and a thrum in my core moves in time with my heart before the following knock sounds.
“Does someone know we’re here?” I whisper, not knowing why I do so.
Finlo grins. “Lewis.”
“But you said he went ahead and that…”
“Lewis moves through the portals. He gets places much faster than we can.” Slinking from beneath me, Fin makes his way to the door, adjusting his hardness behind the door as he opens it a crack and speaks to Lewis momentarily, the Hare shouting about being late, per usual, before Fin slams the door and grumbles under his breath.
“Why don’t we use the portals if they’re faster?”
Fear curls Finlo’s features as he bends over the bed, coming face to face with me. “Because I fear where they’ll take you if you enter them, Tiger Lily.”
I swallow over a lump.
He worries he might lose me again.
His hovering lips and heartfelt words leave me breathless on the bed as Finlo stalks over and begins to dress. “We have to get moving—”
“We’re late,” I add for him, tossing my legs over the bed.
He smiles brightly at me. “Indeed. We are.”