The kitchens and servants halls were buzzing with news of Hatter’s defection, but Alyss, alone in the palace’s sovereign suite, had stopped spying on him. She’d learned little from her numerous remote viewings of the Milliner, in which, inevitably, she’d see him attending some leisure event with Boarderland’s king, apparently unconcerned for Molly’s safety. Which means either that Molly’s safe or that he’s doing what he must to ensure she becomes so. I will not give up on him, not when he has so often risked his life for my mother’s as well as my own. Her mother. Alyss stared into the looking glass hanging above the hand-chiseled water basin. You said you’d always be with me. On the other side of the glass. “I must be staring into the wrong mirrors,” Alyss said aloud. In one of the parlors, she lowered herself into a floating chair. Dodge’s packet in her lap, she took out the first of his letters. Alyss,
You would have been fourteen today if you’d lived. Happy birthday. I’m not so mad about what’s happened to us right now, I don’t know why. Bibwit would probably say it’s because it’s impossible to be angry all the time, but he’s wrong. Tomorrow or even sooner all of my rage and hurt will return. Total. All-consuming. I believe in my rage and hurt. I need them if I’m to survive long enough to kill The Cat. After that, I don’t care what happens. Especially now that you and father are gone. The letters were not dated; it was impossible to tell in what order they were written. Alyss chose another at random.
Best friend,
I can’t live according to the principles of White Imagination or even by the guardsman’s code my father and I used to value. Try to understand. It isn’t that I don’t believe in them, but I can’t allow room for belief. The Cat must, and will, die. Wonderland isn’t a city that cares about honor codes anyway. If I lived by some code, my actions would become predictable. The enemy would take advantage of this and I’d be killed. An honorable death doesn’t exist. Death is death. But it’s funny that survival and revenge require the same thing: no honor codes, no supposed higher principles to aspire to, no mercy. Would you still recognize me, Alyss? I avoid looking glasses, not wanting to see my own reflection. Another letter was stained with what might have been tea or something worse. Alyss,
There are those who still think me young, but I feel as old as Bibwit after everything I’ve been through. Early this morning, a platoon of Alyssians was ambushed while carrying supplies to HQ. I was with them. I thought I was used to the sight of blood, but when it belongs to your friends…I lost more than a few