Alice woke up.
Seemed only a couple seconds after the crash. At least the sun hadn't gone anywhere. No signs of concussion. At least none apparent to her. Stayed still on the warm ground, and began to check for sprained joints and broken bones. No. Just a bruised ego and small parts of her body, but nothing to worry about.
"Are you alright?", she heard Edgar's voice coming from somewhere in the clearance. "Say something."
"Something", she chuckled to herself, before standing up. "Don't get up."
"I know, I know. No concussion or anything broken. I feel fine." He brushed dirt from his clothes, while getting up. "I guess we had the same training."
"Yeah, I think so."
Her voice trailed off, while looking around. He was right. Most heroes from their age group, though now they wanted to be called 'demigods', received small survival training from Nike. They shared a pained look, as neither remembered the training with fondness.
"Where are we?" Edgar turned to the thorn bushes around them. "I don't recognise this from your maps."
"Because I never mapped this area." Her voice had the slight shade of fear. "I know where we are, but never been here."
"Very well. Where are we, then?"
"Inside the Queen's garden in Hearts Court."
Saying the name out loud made it worse for Alice. A shiver went down her spine, and began trembling under the warm sun.
She only saw that place from afar the last time she came close to the castle. The entrance of the garden stood next to the one to the croquet field. There she encountered people praying for red paint to stick to white roses, without luck. Barely got in that time, before the King and Queen came with all the pompous ceremony.
"Everything alright?" Edgar's voice pulled her out of the trance she seemed into.
"No. We have to leave, now."
East wind blew through the garden. The few dried-up roses still in their stems dropped to the ground. Alice felt it like a blood-curling scream. She had no way of knowing if Hearts Court still stood -though the state of the garden said otherwise- but she didn't want to stay there to know. She began walking, which turned into sprinting, and then running.
Everything around them seemed picture perfect, untouched. Large rosebushes, topiary in the shape of hearts, diamonds, and clubs. Red and white flowers around the stone path. A maze of repeating patterns, structures identical from each other, and twisted paths which led back to where they began. They couldn't even use the silhouette of the castle to pinpoint their location, as it was so massive it barely made any difference from where they ran to and from.
"Wait, wait!" Edgar yelled from behind Alice, short of breath. "Where are we going!?"
"I...I don't know." She stopped on her tracks, her feet barely touching the ground. "Away, I suppose. I don't trust this place, something is wrong."
"I can't help if you don't explain. I'm not Aunt Mimi, I can't read minds."
He was right. Alice hated for anyone to be right about her but her. She had to concede it. Her magic appeared to think alike, since she dropped from floating, her hands stopped glowing, and soon she sat on the grass among the flowers. It took her a moment, sitting in silence, hearing only the wind and the waves from the sea of tears in the distance, before she spoke again.
"Carroll wrote it too nice." She looked down. "Most of it was nice, it was. Last third of the book, though, he took artistic liberties."
"I remember the book. Tell me, so I can help." Edgar sat too. Not next to her, he wanted to give her space.
"The Queen never forgave the Duchess, nor the guards -you know, the ones who tried to paint the roses red- the King tried, but didn't do a thing when She began screaming again." Alice shivered. "Before the croquet match, they… they were executed."
Took a deep breath, her eyes still fixed in one small stone.
"I was eight. Nothing I could do to stop it. I wanted for it to stop, for everything to stop. Back then, my magic wasn't the best. Still isn't. And I did nothing." Her voice cracked at the last word, fighting back tears.
"It wasn't your fault. You said it, there was nothing you could do."
"I know… but still. I don't want to see Her, or worse, for Her to find us. I don't know if I could face her, not even now."
"Then, we don't face her. We leave. And we leave now, not through her gardens." Edgar looked around. "The thing you did, almost flying, can you do it with someone else?"
"I can try. Never done it before."
Her hands glowed a lighter shade of blue, and Edgar felt something grab him by the shoulders, lifting him slightly in the air. Alice joined him, and both stood above the grass and the path. Slow at first, but they began floating higher and higher, until their shoes reached above the walls of living plants of the maze.
The maze surrounded the castle, larger than anything Alice had seen in her previous adventure. That was why she couldn't recognise the place. In the interim, the Queen or her court had chopped down the woods to make way for the rosebushes and statues and topiaries.
"She killed Tulgey wood." Alice looked around, horrified, thinking about the animals which lived there.
But not just the animals, the Hatter, Hare, and Dormouse's houses were all once in the middle of the forest. If something had happened to them. Alice's horror began to fade, and anger replaced it. The wind began to pick up, and, by the time they landed just outside the maze, a huge gale whistled, shaking everything around them.
"Change of plans." Alice's voice came from everywhere the wind blew. "We find the cup, you go back to London, and I burn this place."
Edgar had to wait for a second, to know if she was joking or not.
She was not.
Time had passed, but she knew where Tulgey wood should begin. Her hands glowed while blue flames sparked on top of the maze. In seconds, the flames rose higher than they ever did, engulfing the roses, bushes, and sculptures. Alice spoke, mostly to herself, but Edgar heard the words through the wind.
"The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the Tulgey wood." She stopped, and began repeating the same phrase again. "The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the Tulgey wood."
They heard the ringing of bells and the hoarse scream of trumpets coming from the castle. Alice turned to face the structure, while the fire still burned the bushes away. An almost impossibly large bridge came from the entrance and landed right in front of them. Dozens of suits of diamond, clubs, and hearts came from them, armed with swords. Spades seemed suspiciously absent, but Alice didn't care. She just waited for the pageantry to stop, and Her to make an appearance.
She heard the yelling before seeing Her again.
"WHO DESTROYED MY GARDENS!?"
As if Moses parted the Red Sea again, the suits moved out of the way of a very angry and voluminous woman barrelling through them, pushing them away and into the maze. Robed in the gaudiest, loudest, most expensive dress with red and pink hearts embossed in them. The Queen of Hearts, in her most irate display, ran towards Alice, of whom took all strength not to faint at the sight of the woman.
"YOU!? WHO ARE YOU!?"
"Alice."
The Queen froze, as if trying to remember the name, but discarding it almost immediately.
"WHEN YOU ADDRESS ME, YOU SAY 'YOUR MAJESTY' AFTER."
"No."
The Queen stuttered.
"I-IT'S NOT LADYLIKE TO ARGUE."
"Don't care. Where are they?"
"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!? OFF-"
"Silence."
Only Edgar noticed the fingers on Alice's hand turn blue, while something seemed to slap the Queen on her face, making her to stop yelling.
"Now, I'll let you speak again, but if you don't answer, I'll keep your voice and burn your castle with you in it. Am I clear?" Alice didn't raise her voice, and even Edgar was taken aback with her calm demeanour. "Where are the Hatter, Hare, Dormouse, Cat, and Tulgey woods?"
She snapped her fingers.
"How? What?" the Queen grabbed her throat, and was about to yell again until she saw Alice's expression. She recoiled with fear. "Gone, to the White Kingdom."
"Now, isn't that nice?" Alice gave the Queen a saccharine smile. "And remember, it's very ladylike to say goodbye properly. Goodbye ma'am, I hope you have a very pleasant evening. Won't be if you try to stop us."
Alice turned and, as soon as she made sure the Queen couldn't see her face, the expression changed into the most tired one Edgar had ever seen. He almost expected for anyone to stop them, but most of them struggled with containing the fire, which extended towards the castle.
"I don't think I can do that ever again", Alice whispered while walking.
"That was impressive, but are you alright? I mean, the fire, the Queen, do you need a moment?"
"No, just I need to relax for a moment, no confrontation from now on."
"HOW DARE YOU!?" the screams of the Queen came to them from the bridge. "I'LL HAVE YOU EXECUTED FOR THIS. OFF WITH YOUR-"
"NO!" Alice voice thundered, and the wind shake them stronger than before.
Most of the suit got blown away due to the gale, weapons thrown on the grounds. Alice moved one of her hands and a single sword lifted in the air, towards the Queen. With a single movement, the blade cut the yells, and her head, which landed on the ground with a 'thud'.
"From now on. No more confrontation from now on", she added, while making sure the fire extended so they couldn't follow them.
Since most of the place had been defaced to build the maze, the trip to the White Rabbit's house was a short one. They combed the place, until they reached all the way back to the toadstools. 'Toadstools' in plural, since whatever possessed Alice then, had made her spread parts and made it propagate from one point to almost a quarter mile.
"Found it!" Edgar yelled, after twenty minutes of laying in his stomach trying to see between the mushrooms.
He pulled the small cup from the overgrowth, and they both noticed a small mushroom had began growing on the side of the cup. Neither of them knew if that changed the artefact in any way.
"We should take it to a restorer in London, I know one, saw her a couple years ago. During the whole…Museum thing." Alice said, looking at it. "In the meantime, no one should drink from it."
"Agreed. Now, for my part. Getting us out of this place."
He rummaged in his pocket until he pulled a small hand mirror. The spat in the boat had cracked it, but he didn't care. Kneeled, grabbed a rock and pulverized the thing until it was nothing more than a fine powder. Careful not to inhale any of it, since mirrors had a mercury treatment in them, he moved a hand and made the reflective powder create a circle in front of them. Through it, they could see not Featherhill, but a very well lit street in London in the middle of the night.
"The best I can do."
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