Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Darius
A woman screamed.
I stopped, scanning the forest. Nothing but twisted trees and silence. My men were out tracking the queen’s movements—wouldn’t be back for another hour at least.
The scream came again, closer now, sharp enough to split my skull.
I looked up.
A blonde woman was falling through the sky, arms and legs flailing, plummeting straight toward me.
What the fuck?
I stretched out my arms and caught her. The impact slammed me back into a tree, bark biting into my spine.
She was still kicking, still fighting, all elbows and fury.
“Stop,” I said.
She rolled out of my arms and hit the ground on her hands and knees, gasping. Her head snapped up.
“Where am I?”
“Who are you?” I didn’t answer questions. I asked them.
She was beautiful, blonde hair tangled around her face, chest rising and falling in quick, startled breaths. When her eyes met mine, something pure—innocence and light—flickered there, soft and painfully out of place in this realm.
But beauty meant nothing here.
My hand was steady. It was always steady. But my mind raced.
The queen had sent pretty faces before. Spies who wore innocence like a mask. Women who smiled sweetly before sliding a knife between your ribs.
This girl could be another ploy. Another trap. Send a beautiful woman tumbling from the sky, let her play the victim, let me lower my guard—and then drag me back to that dungeon. Back to the chains. Back to her.
I’d rather die.
“I’m Alice. Alice Ravencrest.” She sat back on her heels, dragging her fingers through her hair. Her eyes went wide at the tip of my blade.
Alice Ravencrest. Pretty name. Could be real. Could be a lie she’d rehearsed a hundred times.
Real fear? Or was she that good an actress?
“Where am I?” she asked again, voice smaller this time.
“The Elder Dimension.”
I couldn’t afford to trust her. I couldn’t afford to trust anyone. The last time I did, I watched a man I called brother hand me over to the queen’s soldiers with a smile on his face.
Never again.
“Oh no. The Elder Dimension? Seriously?” She let out a groan. “What have I done now?”
I blinked.
That was not the response I expected. No begging. No threats. No calculated charm. Just... frustration. Like a woman who’d spilled coffee on herself for the third time that morning.
The queen’s spies were smooth. Polished. They knew exactly what to say to worm their way into your trust.
This girl looked like she wanted to kick herself.
I kept my sword raised, but something shifted in my chest. Doubt. Or maybe curiosity.
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
She glanced around the Forgotten Forest, ignoring my question. “Never mind. How do I get out of here? I need to go back home.”
“Where is your home?” I wanted to see if she would reveal a hint of who she really was.
“New Orleans.”
A sharp pain hit me at the name of that strange town. I shook my head and let out a bitter laugh. “You can’t. You’re trapped here. Just like the rest of us.”
Her gaze swept over me. “The rest of you? Who are you?”
I had no intention of giving her my name and ending up the queen’s prisoner again. But I’d rot in her dungeon forever before I became that bitch’s mate. I took off my hat and bowed with a flourish. “They call me Hatter, the Mad Hatter. But that’s not my real name.”
“Then what is your real name?”
I smiled, letting it go sharp at the edges.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I straightened, studying her.
Her clothes were wrong for this realm. Too familiar.
The kind of thing I might have worn once, in a life I barely remembered.
“I have to admit, this is new—even for the queen. Are you one of her servants?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t work for any queen.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
Movement in the tree above caught my eye.
Chester Knave lounged on a branch. Golden eyes that tracked every movement, dark hair falling across a sharp-angled face.
That grin—always that grin, stretched across his face like it had been carved there.
Chester always looked like he was playing a game only he knew the rules to.
“Well, well,” he said. “New blood in the Forgotten Forest.”
Then he began to fade. His feet first, disappearing into nothing, then his legs, his chest. His face lingered a moment longer, still grinning. Then only the grin remained, suspended in the air like a threat.
And then—nothing.
“Who is she?” Chester appeared beside Alice, circling her like a predator.
Alice screamed, stumbling back. “How did you—you weren’t there a second ago!”
“Wasn’t I?” He vanished mid-step and reappeared next to me, hands in his pockets.
Alice scrambled to her feet and pressed her back against a tree. “What are you? Witch? Warlock?” Her voice dropped. “Demon?”
Chester’s grin widened. “Nothing so interesting. I’m just me.”
I gestured toward him. “Meet Chester Knave. We call him Grin.”
Alice’s face went white, fear bright in those blue eyes—too clear, too innocent for a place like this. “This place is…is… impossible.”
“An impossible nightmare,” I said. The dungeon walls closed in around me for a moment—stone, darkness, the queen’s laughter echoing. I shoved the memory down. “It can make you mad.” I stepped closer to her. “Mad like me.”
“Stay away from me. Both of you.” She edged around the tree as if looking for an escape route that didn’t exist.
I grinned. “Oh, I think not.”
Behind her, shadows merged. The twins stepped out—Flint with his scarred knuckles, Steel with that cold, calculating stare. They flanked her, cutting off any path she might’ve taken.
Alice bolted—or tried to. She feinted left, looking for a gap between the twins, but Steel was already there, moving like smoke. She spun right, and Flint blocked her path, scarred knuckles flexing.
“Get away from me.” She shoved past him, desperate.
Flint caught her before she made it three steps, one hand clamping around her arm. “Going somewhere, spy?”
She twisted, tried to wrench free. “Let go of me!”
Steel grabbed her other arm, his grip just as unyielding. “We don’t trust agents of the queen.”
She held her chin high. “I told you I’m not with any queen. I just want to go back home.” She looked at each of us, and the wide-eyed innocence from before had cracked—replaced by something sharper. Frustration. Maybe even anger. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”
Chester’s grin seemed to float closer, his face following a beat later, like his body had to catch up. “If you’re not with the queen, then why are you here?”
She swallowed hard. “It was an accident. I heard… I heard a voice.”
My pulse kicked. The queen had enchanted mirrors, cursed compasses—a dozen relics that could lure someone here.
I stepped closer. “The queen’s voice?”
“No.” She shook her head. “A man’s.” Her brows drew together. “It sounded…”
“Sounded like what?”
“Like you,” she said softly.
“Me?” I laughed, tossing my hat into the air and catching it on one finger, spinning it. A voice calling her here—how convenient. How perfectly staged. “If that’s true, what did it say?”
She tilted her head and stared at me, unflinching. “Find me.”
My smile sharpened. “Exactly what the queen would do.” I gestured to the twins. “Bring her to the Warren.”
She twisted her arms and dug her heels into the ground. “Let me go!”
But the twins easily lifted her into the air and forced her to walk on her tippy toes.
“So you can run back and tell the queen?” I gestured with my arm. “I’m afraid we’re all quite fond of our heads.” I swept into a mocking bow. “The tables have turned. You’re our prisoner.”
Alice twisted, still trying to escape the twins’ ironclad grip. “Why? I haven’t done anything wrong. I just fell through a mirror.”
Just another of the queen’s tricks. Send a pretty face to lure me back, make me her mate, and steal my hat. Never. Not ever.
Chester’s grin widened. “Yet.” He circled around them slowly. “The day is young. And I have a feeling you’ve done plenty wrong already.”
Footsteps. Multiple sets, heavy and deliberate, crunching through the underbrush.
The queen’s guards.
My sword was at Alice’s throat before she could draw breath. “Make a sound,” I whispered, “and you’re dead.”
I gestured sharply. The twins dragged Alice back into the trees, Chester and me following.
The forest shifted. Darkness pooled around our feet, climbed our legs, wrapped around us like living smoke. Cool. Familiar. It slid over my skin like a greeting from an old friend. Alice’s eyes went wide, but the twins’ grip kept her still and my blade at her throat kept her silent.
The soldiers marched past—three feet away, maybe less. So close I could smell the leather of their uniforms, hear their breathing.
One stopped. Looked right at us.
My heart slammed against my ribs. No. Not now. Not when we were this close.
Alice went rigid between Flint and Steel.
He frowned, squinting at the exact spot where we stood. Then shook his head and moved on.
The shadows held us until the footsteps faded.
I lowered my sword slowly, listening. Nothing but wind through the trees.
Five miles to the Warren. Five miles dragging a prisoner who’d fight every step, leaving a trail the queen’s soldiers could follow straight to us.
I looked at Alice, then at Chester and the twins. “We need to move. Fast.”
I vanished and reappeared fifty yards ahead, testing the path. Clear. But when I looked back, the twins were still struggling with Alice, moving at a crawl.
Alice kicked their shins and dug her heels into the ground. Flint’s face flushed red, almost purple, nostrils flaring.
Damn it. I could run the five miles to the Warren in minutes alone, but not with them. I flashed back to them instead.
Chester flickered ahead through the trees, scouting. “Guards are moving through the forest. If she continues to cry out, they’ll hear.”
I flashed Alice a merciless look. “Bind her.”
“Gladly,” Flint snarled.
“No—“ Alice tried to twist away from the scarf Steel wrapped around her mouth, but he was faster.
Flint had her hands and ankles bound in seconds. I tossed her over my shoulder and ran. Her scent hit me—green, alive. Like growing things. Like sunlight on grass and earth after rain.
My chest tightened. I knew that smell. From somewhere the queen hadn’t touched yet. Somewhere I couldn’t remember but my body did.
The forest blurred. Trees became streaks of shadow. We tore past a cluster of soldiers.
One of them spun around. “Did you feel that?”
“What?”
“The wind—something just—“
But we were already gone.
Alice squirmed on my shoulder despite the bindings. I tightened my grip. She pounded her bound wrists against my back, muffled sounds tearing through the gag.
A fighter. Which made her more dangerous, not less.