After a quiet few seconds, he sighed. “Why they chose Doru to watch over you, I’ll never understand. You’re too young to have experienced all that.”
My lips parted in shock. “You can’t be much older than me.”
“Three years older. I used to throw it in your face all the time when you tried to boss me around.” Hatter smiled faintly. “And don’t take this the wrong way, I’m sure your experience will come in handy, but I’m also positive that it won’t be enough.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why not? If the Red Queen stole the throne, then she probably can’t use aether either. Isn’t it usually a trait of the hereditary royal line?”
“Yes. Royals, but occasionally, an extremely powerful fae just pops up.”
“And is she one of those anomalies?”
Hatter pressed his lips together and turned back to the painting of Wonderland Island. “No, but she is your aunt.”
My hand flew to my stomach. It felt like someone had sucker-punched me in the gut. My aunt?! This person, this queen who overthrew my parents—killedthem—was related to me?
“I see you don’t remember that either,” Hatter murmured. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of all the bad news.”
“Why is that? Why don’t I remember anything?”
“I suspect that when they hid you in the human world, they had a mind witch block your memories. It would be too dangerous to have a small girl talking about her family when the Red Queen was on the hunt.”
That sounded reasonable. Before Xavier ground it out of me, I used to be more talkative—chatty, even. No doubt I would have spilled about my parents if I remembered them.
Henri sighed. “Well, I have to say, learning that you don’t remember how to use aether changes things.”
“Uhhh, it’s not that I can’t recall it,” I corrected him. “It’s that I never could.”
“It’s not that at all.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “Oh? And how would you know?”
“Because as a child, you used it all the time.”
Yup. Definitely annoying that he remembered things about my past that I had no recollection of.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to respond, Hatter continued. “In light of this new information, I think we’ll have to go with plan B.”
“And what, may I ask, is plan B?”
Henri’s eyes shifted to the painting, and his long, slender fingers traveled to the pack of bandersnatch he’d pointed out earlier. “We go after the queen’s precious babies and draw her out of her fortress.” He gestured to the chair in front of the fire. “You’d better take a seat. This might take a while.”
A while? Tryhours.
The sun was setting and Hatter was still telling me what he knew about the creatures the queen controlled. Although the information was my key to avenging my family and finding my sister, after three hours, I couldn’t wait for him to finish.
Thirty minutes later, he was still going strong, so I took things into my own hands.
Drawing on all my acting skills, I stretched my arms wide and released a fake yawn.
Just as I’d hoped he would, Hatter stopped the Wonderland lecture and asked Dum to take me to my room.
My room—inhishouse.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. The guy was gorgeous and kind, but also unnerving. He knew me too well, and I didn’t like that. But seeing that the Red Queen wanted me dead, I couldn’t deny that rebel headquarters was the safest place to gather my thoughts.
And make a plan.
“Once you have a nice rest, you’ll be good as new,” Dum said cheerily, her tiny feet lightly kicking my upper arm as she perched on me.
