Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Darius
White-hot pain blazed behind my eyes. I pressed my palm to my forehead, gritting my teeth against the agony.
Mountains. Elk... Bear... Deer.
Where was this coming from?
The kiss. It had to be the kiss.
Her lips had tasted like something I’d lost. Something I’d buried so deep I’d forgotten it existed. And now it was clawing its way back to the surface.
I lived there. Once. Before all of this. Before the queen. Before the dungeon. Before I became the Mad Hatter.
I was someone else once. Someone with a name. A home. A life.
Pine. I remembered the smell of pine—sweet and sharp against cold morning air. Snow on the ground. Breath fogging in front of my face.
God, I missed that smell. I missed all of it.
My head throbbed, the pain intensifying. The Elder Dimension didn’t like when I remembered. It punished me every time—as if this cursed place wanted to erase who I’d been. Wanted to keep me hollow. Obedient.
I wouldn’t let it.
But the memories slipped away like water through my fingers, leaving only the ache behind.
How long had it been since I’d thought of home?
And why was Alice the one unlocking the door?
I exhaled slowly, shoving the memories where they couldn’t touch me, and stared at Alice. Her gaze was distant, unfocused. Her skin had gone pale and clammy, chest rising in quick, uneven bursts.
She’d done this. Somehow. Her presence was pulling things loose—things I’d buried long ago.
“Have you been to a place where there are...” The word fought to surface. “...mountains?”
She really wasn’t seeing me anymore. “No. I’ve always lived in New Orleans.”
New Orleans. I felt like I should know that place. Something tugged at my brain, followed by a sharp pain. I gritted my teeth. “Where is that place?”
She frowned. “You’re from our world and have never heard of New Orleans?”
I gave her a crisp smile. “Humor me.”
“It’s in Louisiana.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It’s in the United States off the Gulf of Mexico.”
Sharp agony ripped through my mind, nearly buckling my knees. I grabbed the table to steady myself. That should mean something to me.
Think. Damn it. Think.
Why couldn’t I remember? But the agony intensified as if someone was turning up the pain threshold. I shook my head, forcing the memories back into whatever dark corner they’d crawled out of.
Get back to business.
I cleared my throat. “You were born in this Louisiana?”
“I... I think so.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean? Who are your parents?”
“Don’t know.” Tears streamed down her face. “I don’t remember them.”
“So you’re an orphan?”
She panted hard. “I don’t know for sure.” Her lower lip trembled. “Please. Stop. It... it hurts.”
“First—do you work for the queen?”
“No. I haven’t even met the queen.” Her voice broke. “Please. Stop.”
Her body had gone rigid, her face pale and slick with sweat.
She wasn’t lying. The hat would have told me by now.
I should stop. I knew I should stop.
But I’d been fooled before. Betrayed by people I trusted. I couldn’t afford to be wrong.
Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, glassy. Sweat trickled down her temples, and her breath came in shallow gasps.
My stomach twisted.
An hour ago, I’d kissed her. Felt her melt into my arms. Tasted the sweetness of her lips.
Now I was tearing through her mind like she was the enemy.
What kind of monster had I become?
I yanked the hat off her head.
She slumped forward, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “What did you do to me?” Her voice was ragged. “I feel like someone scrambled my thoughts with a fork.”
“The hat pulls out memories and the truth.” The words came out flat. Clinical. Like I hadn’t torn through the mind of a woman I’d kissed an hour ago.
She lowered her hands. “Don’t ever do that again.” She stared at my hat warily. “If you have questions, just ask.”
I thought of all the people who betrayed me in this land; my men were the only ones I trusted. “My experience is that people lie. Especially those who work for the queen.” But she didn’t. Not about this. I’d seen the truth for myself. She had no idea what she’d stumbled into.
“So you torture people?”
Something cold twisted in my gut. “What I do is nothing compared to her. Alanna thrives on pain and suffering.”
“And you don’t think what you just did was torture?”
I winced. “Trust doesn’t come easy here. So—”
“So you’re like the queen now?”
Her words rattled me more than I wanted to admit.
“I’m not like her. I’ve helped prisoners escape from her clutches.” All except for one. A promise I made that I couldn’t keep. That promise haunted me every day. “But for everyone I save, others lose their head—literally.”
She opened her mouth, but a knock on the door cut her off. In a blink my hand was on my sword, my body already moving between her and whatever waited on the other side.
Wally entered carrying two steaming plates—grilled fumblefish, a small dish of melted butter, and fresh oysters. I lowered my sword, exhaling. Just Wally. The briny smell filled the room. He set them on the table, then pulled out a bottle of Muchness Wine.
“Thought you could use this.” His eyes flicked between us, reading the tension. “Everything all right?”
“You’ll be relieved to know Alice doesn’t work for the queen. I can guarantee that.”
His gaze fell on the hat sitting next to Alice. The color drained from his face. He knew exactly what that guarantee meant.
“Carpenter will be pleased to hear it.” He bowed slightly, already backing toward the door. “Enjoy.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
Alice glared. “I take it you used the hat on him as well.”
“He disappeared for a month, and we had to be sure he hadn’t turned traitor.” I hadn’t felt a thing when I’d used the hat on Wally. With Alice… that was different. I didn’t want to think why.
She edged closer to the table, staring down at the steaming plates. “Where had he gone?”
“To look for oysters in the deep sea. He and Carpenter are obsessed with oysters. They’d turn their own mothers over to the queen to get even a dozen of them.”
She stared at the hat then at the door where Wally had gone. “Is that what was in the bag you gave Carpenter?”
“It is their greatest desire.” I poured two glasses of wine. “And my greatest leverage.”
She put her hand on her stomach. “I don’t know if I can eat or drink anything after having my thoughts scraped out like a jack-o’-lantern.”
I set down the bottle, not looking at her. I’d done what I had to do. The queen’s spies were everywhere. I couldn’t afford to trust anyone.
But she wasn’t a spy. And I’d hurt her anyway.
I glanced up at her. “You’re as pale as a sheet. The side effects will be worse if you don’t eat.”
“You mean there are side effects to wearing your hat?” She bit her lip, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“Nothing physical.” I pushed a plate toward her. “Just bad dreams.”
“You mean nightmares?” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “And you think that’s okay?”
I looked away. She was peeling back my defenses, exposing something I didn’t want to examine.
“Nightmares don’t hurt you.”
“How do you know nightmares don’t hurt?” She leaned forward. “Nightmares can drive you insane. When was the last time you had one? How did you feel when you woke up?”
I took a sip of the Muchness Wine. “I don’t have nightmares.” I met her eyes. “I live them.”
I didn’t tell her the rest. That I’d felt the madness creeping in for years. That some days I couldn’t remember my own name.
But sitting here with her—watching her fight, watching her refuse to break—something settled inside me.
I felt more sane than I had in a long time.
She took a cautious sip, then set the glass down. “It’s like a cross between champagne and white wine. Smoother, though. Richer.” She tilted her head. “And there’s something floral. Elderflower?”
“You have a good palate.” I swirled my glass. “But it’s not elderflower. It’s moonpetal—a flower that only blooms at midnight here.”
She picked up her fork and stared down at her plate. “What kind of fish is that? I’ve never seen a black fish like this.”
“Fumblefish. The scales are black but the meat is sweet, especially dipped in butter.”
“You mean like lobster?”
Lobster. Another strange word.
“What are lobsters?”
“A crustacean—lives in the ocean. Red shell, claws, a tail.” She mimed cracking something open. “You break the shell and dip the meat in butter.”
“You mean like fumblefish?”
“No. This is a black meat. Lobster is a white meat.” Alice dipped her fork into the fish and took a tiny bite. Her eyes widened. “It really does taste like lobster.”
“You like it?” The question came out before I could stop it. Since when did I care whether a prisoner enjoyed her meal?
“It’s delicious.”
“Good.” I set down my glass. Something had been nagging at me since I’d pulled her from the forest. A witch, she’d said. But not like any witch I’d known. I still had more questions. “What did you mean—a witch who can’t control her magic?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” She pushed the fish around on her plate. “I’ve caused accidents in the coven. Some of the witches want me gone. They say I don’t fit in, but Tinker Bell won’t let them.”
I knew that feeling. Being the outsider. The one people whispered about when they thought you couldn’t hear.
“Who’s Tinker Bell?”
“She’s the witch that found me when I was a little girl. I was walking around the rubble of my house. And no, I don’t know what happened. All I know is that I lived there…at least I think I did.”
Alice pushed her plate away. “It burned to the ground.” She stared at the table, tracing a crack in the wood with her finger. “That’s what Tinker Bell told me.”
At least she had someone to tell her what happened. My own memories of home were nothing but fog—fragments that slipped away the harder I tried to hold them. “Have you ever been back there?”
She shrugged and sighed. “It’s a McDonald’s now.”
“McDonald’s?” I searched my memory, bracing for the familiar stab of pain that always came when I tried to remember my old world. Nothing. No pain. No recognition. Just emptiness. “Is that a family?”
She laughed—a real laugh this time. “No. It’s a fast food restaurant. You don’t remember the Golden Arches?”
That smile. God, that smile.
It could launch a thousand ships.
“No.” The name meant nothing to me. “Should I?”
“They’re everywhere. Or they were.” Her smile faded a little. “How long have you been here, Hatter?”
I finished the last bit of fumblefish. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Time is irrelevant here.”
“Were you born here?”
I gave her a sly smile. “Questions? I thought I was the one doing the interrogating.”
“I’m just as curious about you as you are about me.” A smile played at the corner of her mouth, her tone lighter than it had been all evening.
“Touché.”
“You speak French?”
Agony pulsed behind my eyes. If this didn’t stop, I’d end up with a migraine again. I couldn’t afford to end up in my bed with the queen’s men hunting me.
I scooped up a raw oyster and let it slide onto my tongue. Salt and sea. I swallowed, savoring it. “How old were you?”
“Three.” She stared at her plate. “I can’t remember my parents at all. Tinker Bell says whatever happened to them and the house was dark magic.”
“Your parents were murdered?” The words landed heavier than I expected. I tried to summon my own parents’ faces—anything—and found only the familiar void. At least she knew what happened to hers. I didn’t know whether mine were dead or alive. If I’d ever had any at all.
“I don’t know. I assume they’re dead.” Her voice went quiet. “I wish I knew who wanted to kill them. And how I survived when they didn’t.”
“You don’t remember anything?” The question came out softer than I meant it to. I knew that emptiness—the frustration of reaching for memories that should be there and finding nothing. We had that in common, at least.
“No. Tinker Bell has tried spells, magical objects—everything to help me remember.” She took a long sip of wine.
“I always draw a blank. She thinks something so horrible happened that my mind just... blocked it out. Maybe my magic too.” She stared into her glass.
“She says the only way to unlock it is to believe in the impossible. Six impossible things before breakfast.”
I could relate to that. I couldn’t remember my past…not without agonizing pain. The Elder Dimension didn’t want you to remember. It swallowed your history and left you hollow.
“What did Tinker Bell mean by blocking out your magic?”
“She said the spell impacted my magic.”
An unpredictable witch wasn’t what I needed right now. Not with being hunted.
But if I let her go, the queen or Ari would scoop her up and turn her into their puppet. And if her magic was as volatile as she claimed, she could destroy everything—including herself. I needed to keep her contained. Somewhere safe. Somewhere she couldn’t be used against me—or anyone else.
Alice slurped down her oysters without hesitation. I watched her over the rim of my glass—the wild tangle of her hair, the dirt smudged across her cheeks, the way her lashes brushed her skin when she blinked.
She was a mess. So why couldn’t I stop staring?
“Why do you keep staring at me like that?”
“Like what?” I leaned back, keeping my expression neutral. I wasn’t about to admit she’d caught me off guard.
“Like I’m an oyster.”
I laughed. “Am I?”
“Yes.” She crossed her arms. “You kidnapped me, dug through my brain, and now you’re gawking at me while I eat. Stop it.”
I held up my hands. “Fair enough. It was a long trip here. Maybe you’d like to freshen up.”
Even with dirt smudged on her cheeks and her hair tangled from the wind, she was stunning. The kind of beautiful that snuck up on you and refused to let go.
She looked down at herself and scowled. “Oh, so now you mention it? After I’ve been eating with dirt all over my face?”
“Your stomach was growling. I thought food was more urgent than—”
“Then basic human decency?” She pushed back from the table. “Where can I clean up?”
I gestured toward the far door, biting back a smile. “Through there. Everything you need should be inside. I’ll have Wally bring you some clean clothes.”
“Fine.” She stood. “And stop smirking.”
She slammed the door.
I stood there, still smiling. The ache in my chest—the one I’d carried so long I’d forgotten it was there—had eased. Just a little.
Because of her.
A prisoner. A suspected spy. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the fire in her eyes.
Maybe I really was mad.