Playing Hearts (5 page)

In fact, the only
acknowledgement he gave of my presence as I crawled out of the ice vent was to
say: “
Don’t
get mud on my shoes, Mab!”

“They’re too shiny
anyway,” I said disapprovingly.

“What are you doing,
exactly?”

“I need your help.”

“Well, hello, how are
you, and good to see you too!”

That threw me enough off
balance to silence me for a moment. Then I said cautiously: “Hello. How are
you?”

“More than slightly
bored,” said Jack, his eyes still roving the room. “Thank you for asking. Mother
Dearest has been called away briefly, so I’m hosting the most boring party
Underland has ever seen. No, stay down there: if you get up they’ll be able to
see your head above the mouldings.”

I settled my backside
down in the shaft again and hugged my knees.

“I see you’re still
grubbing about under tables and in– what
is
that, exactly?”

“These are the ice
vents,” I said, surprised. “It’s how this place stays so cool. Didn’t you
know?”

“Obviously not,” said
Jack, a little stiffly. “Are you still keeping bad company?”

“I don’t keep bad
company,” I told him, with equal stiffness. Something sharp prodded my
backside, prompting me to squeak and tumble out of the vent, and Sir Blanc
exited behind me, pointy helmet foremost.

Jack, his eyes very narrow,
only said: “So I see.”

“Salutations, Emissary of
the Red Heart!” said Sir Blanc, far too loudly. Jack winced, and my own eyes
flew to the main room.

“Sir Blanc,
shhhh!
”

“Evil must never be
confronted in silence, dear child,” Sir Blanc said, in gentle reproof.

Jack became very still,
radiating offense from every sharp edge. “What are you doing here, Mab?”

“We’re stealing back Sir
Blanc’s wits,” I told him, wondering if I should apologise. “The Queen took
them, and he needs them back for, for, well, he needs them back.”

“I see. And what do you
want with me?”

“See that door?” I
pointed to where the heart-shaped door of the Queen’s curio room could be seen
over the curve of the moulding. “We need you to make a distraction so that we
can get in there.”

“In these clothes?” Jack
touched a slender hand to the blood-red ruby in his perfectly arranged cravat,
his pale brows arched in polite disbelief. “Certainly not! Make your own
distraction. As a matter of fact, if you wander into that crowd in those filthy
rags, you’ll make as big of a distraction as you could hope for.”

“How about I step on your
fancy red shoes?” I said. “Will that cause a distraction?”

Jack gave me a cold look
but Sir Blanc shuffled forward in a series of dull clanks and patted me kindly
on the head.

“Rail not, sweet child.
We do not require this varlet’s services.”

“Oh, it’s varlet now, is
it?” said Jack, eyeing Sir Blanc in dislike. “I can see you’ve been endearing
yourself, Mab. He seems to think you’re some sort of a dog. Ow!
Mab!
”

“Keep talking,” I said
grimly. “See what happens!”

Jack threw a swift look
around, and then crouched beside me. “One day, Mab–!”

I stared at him stonily.
“One day
what
?”

“Well, for starters, one
day we’re going to be married, and I won’t have you grubbing about in ice-vents
dressed like an undermaid.”

“We’re not going to be
married!”

Jack sighed. “I know I
explained it to you, Mab. I was nine, you were a toddler...blood, bonding
ceremony, Mother Dearest?”

“
That?
That means
we’re going to be married?”

“Exactly. Thankfully, not
for some years yet.”

I stared at him until I
was certain he wasn’t laughing at me, then said firmly: “No.”

Much to my surprise, Jack
abandoned the subject without further argument. “I’ll make a distraction,” he
said, rising. “But if that tinpot makes so much as one
clank
while I’m
distracting them and it gets back to Mother Dearest that I’ve been colluding
with idiots and inebriates–”

“Hey!”

“That, varlet, is grounds
for a meeting!”

Jack threw him a mocking
look and sauntered back into the other room. I thought for a sharp, fearful
moment that he was going to give us away for spite, but then I heard his voice
slip into a soft, caramel purr. “It seems a shame to have such a renowned
musician here and not take the opportunity of utilising his services,” he said.
Or perhaps he sang it: there was a depth and roundness to his voice that made
it carry across the whole room. “Hearts and Diamonds, your entertainer: Cat
Cheshire!”

His voice must have been
well-known. I heard gasps of delight and clapping hands, then the whole of the
party rustled and swayed their way to the left side of the room, clustering
around the piano, Jack, and Cat Cheshire.

Sir Blanc started to
climb to his feet, but I tugged at his left gauntlet.

“Not until he starts
singing!” I whispered. Jack was right: Sir Blanc was entirely too noisy. Hopefully
Cat Cheshire was a robust performer, or we were both going to be caught. Fortunately
the piano began to play a sly, off-beat blues number with a backing of
trumpets, quite loud enough to hide the noise of Sir Blanc’s sneaking, and I
stepped lightly into the other room with the white knight right behind me.

Through the glittering,
shifting crowd I could see Jack. He was standing beside the black-skinned, blue-sequined
man who was playing the piano, his eyes flickering around the room. I supposed
he was there to make sure everyone was looking at Cat Cheshire, though why
anyone would be looking away from him was the first thought that sprang to my
mind. Cat Cheshire, in addition to his blue-sequined suit, had a blue-sequined
hat and a pair of dark glasses. He also had a trick of twitching to the music
that was eye-catching. I hoped it meant that he wouldn’t see Sir Blanc and I,
and wished that he would start singing. Sir Blanc had a bad habit of clanging
between
blasts of the trumpets rather than while they were happening. But when the
singing started, it was Jack’s voice that I heard: deep, smooth, and effortlessly
breathtaking. More than that, it was mesmerising. I didn’t realise that I had
stopped to stare, my mouth open, until Jack’s eyes caught mine and he smirked
at me. Then I blinked a little, shut my mouth, and pressed onward to the heart door.
It seemed wrong that such a beautiful voice belonged to such an annoying boy.

I didn’t quite let out my
breath until the red heart door closed silently behind us. The music softened,
much to my secret disappointment, but I could still faintly hear the thrum of
Jack’s voice and the purl of the trumpets. Around us was a red and white room
with soft edges: plush carpet, plump furniture, and curved wooden shelving. I
had the feeling that I could easily sink into it all if I wasn’t careful. Even
Sir Blanc’s clanking wasn’t as bad in here.

“All right, Sir Blanc,” I
said to him. “Where are your wits?”

Sir Blanc looked around
vaguely. “Assuredly, they’re in the room. I feel them. I am certain I shall
know them if once I have them in my hand.”

I had to bite the inside
of my cheek before I could say with any patience at all: “Do you want to go
through all the shelves and pick up everything?”

“An exceedingly good
proposal!” cried Sir Blanc.

“We’ll start with the
ones in glass cases,” I told him, sighing. “Those will be the most valuable
ones. And we’ll only pick up the ones that are made up of more than one piece.”

A smile overspread Sir
Blanc’s usually doleful face. “Forsooth! A clever ruse indeed; my wits
numbering more than one!”

“That’s what I’m hoping,”
I said.

There were so many
glass-fronted shelves. We began by the heart doors, grubbing up the
glass-fronted cabinets there with my fingerprints while I plucked every likely
curio from the shelves and plopped them into Sir Blanc’s waiting hands. He
giggled at some, cooed at others, and said “Forsooth!” every so often, but he
didn’t seem to recognise any of the items. When we got to the wall opposite the
doors there was a small gap between curio cases that featured a tiny, round
table with a frosted-glass cover over it and a small, decorative grating
peeking through its spindly legs. It was the opening we’d seen from the inside
of the ice-vents: a small, brick-sized grating that hid a small, brick-sized
opening back into the vent system. Cool air flowed from it, promising freedom
that was impossible to get to. The wall was simply too thick.

“Pity we can’t shrink
ourselves,” I said regretfully, running my fingers over the glassy knob on top
of the glass cover. At least we had Jack on the outside to get us back out, but
I wasn’t looking forward to sneaking past that crowd again. Jack had stopped singing,
too, which was a pity. It wasn’t something I’d ever tell him, but his voice was
one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard. You didn’t expect to hear a
smooth bass from such a narrow, sharp-faced boy. More to the point, while he
wasn’t singing, the crowd wasn’t distracted.

“Eh?” said Sir Blanc. He
was hovering over a crystal carafe of something that was sitting invitingly on
a display table in the middle of the room. It even had a couple of glasses by
it. More worryingly, it had a tag on it that read:
Drink Me.

“Never mind,” I said,
lifting the frosted-glass cover I’d found.

I knew right away that
I’d found Sir Blanc’s wits. There were about six of them, and they looked like
little beans. Well, little beans with...little shoes. And little feet in them,
with little legs. I heard one of them squeak, and then they were off, tearing
across the table and leaping to the floor. They were so quick that I could only
catch one of them, its legs windmilling madly as it tried to catch up with the
others.

“Hah!” said Sir Blanc in
some satisfaction. “They were ever quick wits! Post-haste, child! Seize them!”

I thrust the
frosted-glass cover at him, upside down and with the single captured wit in it,
and chased after the other five. They were quick and nimble, and they had the
advantage of being able to run under the furniture that I had to run around,
but I was quick and nimble too. I captured another two of them when they made
the mistake of crossing a rug that was even deeper than the carpet, and I was
closing in on a third that was running for the door when someone thumped on the
wooden panels. Sir Blanc and I both froze: it wasn’t a loud thump, but it was
very distinct. It sounded as though someone had leaned against the lintel and accidentally
bumped their elbow against the door. I motioned at Sir Blanc to be very quiet,
but he was too busy playing with the three captured wits to notice, so I
pounced on the one I had cornered and added it to his bowl before I crept back
to the door. When I cracked it open just a little the first thing I saw was a
sleek red jacket. I went limp in relief. It was only Jack.

“What do you want?” I
hissed.

Jack barely glanced over
his shoulder, which was blocking the other room from me as much as it was blocking
me from the other room. “Are you finished? Mother Dearest won’t be long.”

“I’ve got four of them,
but the other two are hiding behind one of the cabinets and won’t come out.”

“Well, hurry it up,” said
Jack, peeling himself away from the door and straightening his cuffs. “She
won’t be away forever.”

I’d rounded up the last
two wits with enough time to be impatient by the time I heard a soft knock on
the door again. I’d even managed to stuff them all into my pockets, where they
wriggled and squeaked and generally made me feel uncomfortable. I could have
put them in my backpack, but I was afraid they would escape. I cracked the door
open only to see Jack’s shoulders again, so I slipped my finger through the opening
and poked him in the ribs.

“Oi! We’re ready to go!
Better start singing again.”

He stiffened, but didn’t
jump. “My voice is tired,” he said over his shoulder.

“What do you mean?” I
demanded, in deep suspicion.

“I do wish you wouldn’t
run at things like a bull at a gate!” complained Jack. “Where’s your subtlety,
Mab? I’m
clearly
trying to extort something from you.”

“Well, I wish you wouldn’t
talk like a dictionary,” I said grumpily. “But I don’t reckon that’s going to
change, so why should I? What do you want?”

“I need something from
you, you need something from me. How about a trade?”

I gazed at his shoulders
with an open mouth. “You waited until we were in here to bargain!”

“Of course I did,” said
Jack. “I’m not a fool. Are you ready to listen?”

“Listen to
what
?”

“My mother picked you out
when I was a child–”

“Picked me out? You mean
kidnapped!”

“–for the purposes of an
engagement,” continued Jack, as if I hadn’t spoken. “That engagement is pretty
widely known around Underland, and it’s as widely known that we’ll be married
on my twenty-fifth birthday.”