Her anger simmered beneath her skin. She looked at no one. Said nothing. Sent them all away. When finally she was alone in her bedroom, she knelt at the window and pleaded with Time until her lips were chapped and her tongue was too dry to go on. Surely he could turn back the clock. Surely he had dominion over her fate.
She would spare the Jabberwock this time, if only Jest would live.
She would let the beast have Mary Ann, if only Jest would live.
She would listen to Hatta’s warnings. She would turn away from Mary Ann’s cries and escape into the Looking Glass. This time, she would not look back, if only Jest would live.
She would do anything. Marry any king. Wear any crown. Give her heart to anyone who asked for it. She would serve Time himself if he would bring Jest back to her.
Her agony turned to fury when Time refused to answer her. There was no this time, no next time, no time at all.
No amount of bargaining made any difference.
Jest was gone.
At some point that night, Raven tapped at her windowsill. Cath sprang forward to open it – but he had only come to tell her that Peter had got away.
Cath fell on to the carpet, the pain knocking into her all over again.
Her rage split her open.
The night passed and she became a wild animal, raging and inexhaustible. When Abigail brought her tea, she threw the tray at the wall. When Mary Ann tried to draw a bath, she screamed and flailed. When her mother cried outside her bedroom door – too afraid to come inside – Cath snarled at her reflection and pretended not to hear her. She plotted Peter’s demise. She swore on every grain of sand in the cove that she would avenge Jest’s death.
It took almost two full days before she could cry and then, as if a levee had been broken, she couldn’t stop.
Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad.
So far as she could tell, only one of the prophecies had come to pass.
Jest was martyred. Jest was dead. Jest.
CHAPTER 49
SHRILL LAUGHTER AND THE RUSTLE of branches jolted Catherine awake. Her eyes snapped open. Her nostrils flared at the onslaught of crisp citrus.
Her blankets had been kicked off in the night, likely due to another nightmare of monsters and murderers and merry-go-rounds, and she lay sprawled on her bed with cool sweat clinging to her skin. She stared up at the canopy and the waxy leaves that had grown up in the night. Green key-shaped fruits swayed overhead.
Her limbs felt heavy as she reached for one of the lower-hanging fruits and snapped it from its branch. The tree rustled.
The key lime was almost as big as her hand. It must have been made for a very large lock.
More tittering drew her attention upward and she was met with a pair of black eyes through the foliage.
Cath bolted upward and snarled. ‘What do you want?’
Tillie pushed aside a branch so Catherine could see her narrow face and waxen hair, tangled with leaves from the tree. ‘We told you this would happen,’ she said, in her eerie child’s voice. ‘Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad.’
Loathing kindled in her vision, red and burning. With a guttural scream, Cath threw the key at the girl as hard as she could.
Tillie ducked back. The fruit crashed through the tree branches and plopped somewhere on the carpet, harmless.
‘That was not polite.’
Cath spun around, searching out the owner of the second voice. Elsie, with her messy cropped hair, was clinging to one of the bedposts.
A third girl appeared over the canopy, hanging upside down. Lacie’s long hair brushed against the pillows. ‘In fact,’ she said, ‘that was not very queenly at all.’
‘Get out!’ Cath screamed. ‘It’s your fault he’s dead! You cursed us! Get out!’
The Three Sisters watched her, as calm as if she’d offered them a cup of tea.
‘We did not swing the axe,’ said Tillie.
‘We did not kill the Jabberwock,’ said Elsie.
‘We did not go through that door,’ finished Lacie.
New tears sprung up in Catherine’s eyes, steaming with hatred. ‘It was your prophecy. You killed him. You—’ She sobbed. ‘Get out. Leave me alone.’
Lacie began to swing from her knees, her long hair tickling Cath’s shoulder. ‘We see many things,’ she said. ‘We know many fates. We have come to make you a deal.’
Cath swiped at her eyes. For a moment, there was hope. Cruel, brittle hope. She hardly dared to breathe the words that formed on her tongue. ‘Can you . . . can you bring him back?’
The girls tittered as one, acting as though Cath had made a joke. Tillie shook her head and pushed aside the branches again, until her whole torso was hanging over the bed. There was a scratch on her cheek from one of the branches, and though it had started to bleed, she didn’t seem to notice. The red blood was a strange contrast to her white skin and hollow black eyes. ‘We cannot bring back the martyr, but we can bring you something else you want.’
Cath began to tremble. ‘What?’
‘Vengeance,’ they spoke in unison.
‘Peter Peter will never be found,’ said Elsie. ‘Your Raven is a murderer, but not a hunter, and no one is even looking for him any more. The King wants it all to go away.’
‘But Peter Peter is desperate,’ said Lacie. ‘His wife is dead and his livelihood in tatters. He will come to us, looking to start a new life in Chess.’
Tillie grinned, showing the gap in her teeth. ‘We can bring him to you, and let your justice be served.’
Cath struggled to swallow, her mouth sticky and dry.
They could be right. Raven had lost track of him, and she knew the King was too pathetic to ever hunt down a killer and kidnapper.