Seeing Redd

CHAPTER 14

I F THE ever-wise Bibwit Harte had been with Hatter on Talon’s Point, he would have bent his ears in sympathy, sensitive to the news divulged by Weaver’s image.

“The diary has left you with more questions than it has answered, Hatter,” he might have said, “but you shouldn’t be surprised. The most important questions are always answered with yet more questions.”

Which wisdom would have comforted the Milliner not at all.

If Weaver had given birth at the Alyssian camp within the Everlasting Forest, why had she left the safety of the camp? Why had she abandoned her daughter? Merely to place the diary at Talon’s Point in case he returned? It hardly seemed worth it. There must have been another reason, but…Here Hatter was overcome with a peculiar feeling. He’d been having peculiar feelings for a while now, but this one was really peculiar. He was feeling paternal. How old had Molly been when Weaver left? What did she remember of her mother? Had she been told anything of him? Hatter thought back to the time he had spent with the girl-the battles they had fought against Redd and her forces. He’d been impressed with her fidelity to Alyss, her courage and fortitude in helping the princess recover Wonderland’s throne, and he hoped he had said as much when he recommended her to be Alyss’ bodyguard. But he could recall nothing that definitively told him she knew who he was. Her sass and occasional disregard for his

opinions could have been either the lashing out of a bitter daughter or the antagonism of a teen determined to elbow a space for herself in the adult world.

He repeated the fact to convince himself of its reality: Homburg Molly is my daughter, Homburg Molly is my daughter. How could he act the recluse, pining away on a mountaintop for a woman who would never return, while her daughter-their daughter-lived? Because it’s in Molly that Weaver most lives.

Yes, and for Weaver’s sake, for his and Molly’s sake, he had to return to Wondertropolis. He got to his feet, would prepare immediately.

Blooooachchch! Kablooooomshkkrkkkrk!

He’d been hearing explosions outside the cave for some time, he realized. He stepped out onto the ridge and saw, on the nearby mountain below, the comet streaks of orb generators, the fiery blossoms of exploded barracks and munitions caches; a Wonderland military post was under attack.

In an instant, he returned to the depths of the cave. From the dust-covered pile of Millinery gear, and with the skill of a footballer chipping the ball into the goal, he kicked up his top hat, sent it flipping onto his head.

Shoulder to shoulder and ankle to ankle, the card soldiers locked themselves together to form a shield around the communications bunker. How many of their deck were still alive they had no way of knowing. Perhaps only the pair of Ten Cards inside the bunker. And themselves. It had been a while since they’d sighted anyone else. Yet they would defend the bunker so long as they had breath left in them. Not a single soldier harbored any illusions: The attack had caught the base unprepared; they were

outnumbered; they would not survive.

Too much smoke in the air to see the enemy, but suddenly-

A series of whishing sounds like something repeatedly cutting the air, then a lull, the quiet that inevitably precedes the wind-shriek of an incoming orb generator. The card soldiers braced themselves for impact, but instead of the expected explosion-

Thump. Thump thump. Thump thump thump. “What the…?” one of the soldiers said.

The limbs of Glass Eyes clomped down around them. Arms chopped off at the shoulder joint, legs ending at the top of the thigh, hands and feet and torsos, all with a spaghetti of wires and lab-grown veins spilling from holes where no holes should have been.

From the direction the card soldiers had expected their death to come, the silhouette of a Wonderlander appeared out of the smoke-a Wonderlander they would have recognized anywhere. The hat, the dramatic swing of the coat, the spinning blades on his wrists: Hatter Madigan.