I blinked. “And what would happen if Henri or I were to stumble upon them?”
Dum’s eyes popped open wide. “They wouldn’t do anything to you if you were just running through the woods! We’re not monsters, Alice!”
“Good to know,” I teased and sat down next to Hatter. “So, is anyone keeping watch?”
“I’ll set up an alarm,” Dee said. “It should be enough to alert us if someone’s approaching.” She gestured to Hatter and me. “I assume you two can take it from there?”
I shrugged and laid my head down on the bag as I wrapped my cloak around me. I supposed that would have to do.
My group fell quiet, but the forest was still alive with sound. In the dark, creatures shuffled and squeaked. Within seconds, their sounds were joined by the gentle snores of Henri, and the much louder, truck-driveresque snores of a pixie.
I’ll have to remember that tomorrow . . . tease them a little,I thought, closing my eyes and letting the noises of the woods, so different from what I was used to, roll over me.
Soon enough, the fluttering of the leaves became a meditation, and sleep began to drag me under.
Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
I jolted up from the ground, grabbing for my dagger as the unnatural whooping shattered my trancelike state. “What the fuck is that?”
At my side, a disoriented yet still devilishly handsome Hatter shot up, and looked from side to side. “It’s the alarm. There’s something—”
“A Cheshire cat!” Dum screeched, her eyes large and pinned on something directly behind me.
I whirled around and found, to my great surprise and bewilderment, a disembodied pair of glowing, amber eyes and a wide smile.
I leapt back and held my dagger at the ready, prepared to attack whatever this bodiless thing might be.
“I mean you no harm. I merely saw visitors in my part of the woods, and came to see who you were.” The eyes turned their full radiance on me. “Now I see who you are indeed.”
Hatter swore beneath his breath. The next thing I knew, his hands were pulling the hood of my cloak up over my head.
“I cannot unsee what I’ve already seen. Nor can I forget.” The mouth without a body spoke in a slow, dreamlike manner that made me shudder.
“If you’re going to sneak up on us like that,” Dee’s hands flew to her hips, “the least you can do is show us your body.”
“Fair point,” the mouth said, and the form of a cat materialized to frame the eyes and lips.
He was striped, but not like cats I’d seen in the human world. No, this cat looked like he was wearing a prison jumpsuit, with horizontal lines going all around him, and alternating dark and light purple. He was the oddest looking feline I’d ever seen, and with human-like teeth filling his mouth, he was also the creepiest.
“Please don’t tell anybody who you’ve seen,” Dum’s voice sounded much more worried than her sister’s as she leapt off a leaf to hover in front of me. “You know what will happen if you do.”
“My allegiances lie where my allegiances lie.” The cat grinned wider.
“Oberon’s ears, Cheshire cats! Always talking in riddles,” Hatter growled, his fists tightly clenched as though he wanted to punch the creature.
The cat must have spotted the blooming aggression, because he disappeared and then reappeared five feet to the left, away from Henri.
“I’ve never had a problem with them,” the Cheshire cat remarked and then began to hum and sway from side to side.
“Should we be worried?” I asked Hatter and covertly gestured to my dagger. “Or should we . . . do something about this? Ask who sent him.”
“There’s nothing to do,” Hatter spat. “You won’t catch him, and even if you did, Cheshire cats answer to one fae and one fae alone. But he’ll never tell who it is.” His eyes darted to the purple-striped cat. “He could be an envoy for the queen, or someone else.”
“Or I could befree,” the cat piped. “You fae always seem to forget that some of us are free.” His glowing amber eyes locked onto me. “We owe our thanks for that to this one’s mother.”
My breath hitched in my throat. “My mother? Did you know her?”
The cat hummed again.
