ArchEnemy by Frank Beddor Read Free Book Online Page A

constructed lean-tos complete with slanting floors and out-of-plumb corners. Around all, sheer walls of dolomite rose to unseen heights.
    “Welcome home!” a Six of Clubs mocked from a guard tower, his mauler rifle aimed at the imaginationists. “Congregating on the street is not allowed! Idling is not allowed!”
    Limbo coop residents had shuffled from buildings to prevent the newcomers from settling into already overcrowded rooms. Slowly, not knowing what to do or where to go, Alyss, Dodge, and the tinker walked the gauntlet of broken, defeated Wonderlanders, Dodge half a step in front of Alyss and using his body as a shield. Alert for threats, he returned the goggle-eyed stares of families—dirty, hungry, and growing more haggard by the hour; he scanned the cramped street, the condemnable buildings, and the imposing dolomite walls rising into the night sky . . .
    “Why would anyone want to come to a place like this?” Alyss murmured.
    The tinker glanced about to make sure no one was near enough to hear but still spoke as softly as he could: “Your Highness, I was trying to tell you I have encouraging news, and it is this: I’ve reason to believe imagination is returning to Wonderland.”

CHAPTER 10
    I T SHOULD have been an uneventful journey from Talon’s Point to Hatter and Molly’s new flat in Wondertropolis’ Gimble Lane. The skirmishes that intermittently flared up between Wonderland card soldiers and Redd’s retreating forces were nowhere near the Snark Mountains. It should have been nothing more than a plodding trek from the lower slope of Talon’s Point to one of the public hikers’ cabins in the foothills, where Hatter and Molly could enter the Crystal Continuum and travel quickly to the capital city. Instead, they didn’t even make it to the base of Talon’s Point before—
    “What was that about?” Molly asked, waking with her father next to a bushel of shady greens, the faint stink of caterpillar in the air. They had not been unconscious long. “I knew oracles were big, but . . . do they always act so weird?”
    “Not always,” Hatter said.
    He’d been as still as a fossil—he, who knew precisely what to do when facing an enemy of terrible violence and power, had made no move and uttered no sound as Blue confronted his daughter, issuing his one-word prophecy. Never before had a caterpillar revealed itself to a Milliner not in company of the queen, let alone a halfer whose confidence in her abilities had been shattered by a conniving king. Whether Molly didn’t remember being singled out by Blue or didn’t care, Hatter couldn’t determine. Without a word, she got to her feet and started down the mountain again, sullen, uncommunicative, her eyes on the uneven ground. As if nothing had happened. As if she didn’t care whether he followed her or not.

    The hikers’ cabin was equipped with two looking glasses. The first, unfocused, provided access to the elaborate crosshatch of sparkling passages that made up the Crystal Continuum; entering it, father and daughter would be able to go anywhere within the queendom so long as their destination was equipped with an exit glass out of which they could be reflected. The second mirror was focused, bypassing the continuum’s major arteries and communicating directly with a few locations in the capital city, including Genevieve Square.
    “Not Gimble Lane, but it’ll get us close enough,” Hatter said, referring to the focused glass.
    “You shouldn’t have left us,” Molly pouted suddenly.
    She was staring at her reflections in the mirrors— hers, not his. Hatter was taken aback. He thought Molly knew better. He hadn’t left them so much as he’d fought to prevent Redd from murdering Princess Alyss. At the time, there had hardly been a “them” to leave.
    “I had my duty to Queen Genevieve,” he said, “to the queendom and to the Millinery. Your mother understood—”
    “You should have come back for us. You should have