After one last glance around my room to make sure I didn’t leave anything necessary behind, I made my way to the entryway.
Henri already stood in front of the door. The pixies hovered on either side of him, and eight rebels, including Circe and March Hare, waited in the hall. Like me, everyone else wore cloaks to hide their weapons.
“Ready?” Hatter asked me. As he spoke, I tried hard not to focus on his lips. Lips that I’d had to force myself not to kiss last night. Lips that Istillwanted to kiss.
I cursed my restraint.
“Alice? Are you okay?” Henri asked, his brows knitted together.
Oh shit, I hadn’t answered him.
“I’m fine and ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, straightening my shoulders.
Quickly, we established two teams and then left headquarters. Hatter led the way through the streets. As we walked, no one paid much attention to us. It seemed that, despite the warm weather, cloaks were a reasonable fashion choice for all seasons in the Wonderland Court.
I shook my head, and was wondering what that said about the place, when Hatter came to a stop and held his hand out to hold back those behind him.
“Do you hear them?” he asked, gesturing left. “I think they’re on the street up ahead.”
My ears strained, and I cupped one as I tilted my head in the direction Henri had indicated. The strange growling yowls sounded garbled, as if the bandersnatch were eating.
“You’re right.”
“Let’s separate,” Hatter said.
Everyone split, Henri leading one group, while March Hare led the other. I was in Hatter’s group.
“We’ll take this side. March’s group: flank the other side of the herd from the next block. Pixies, be on the lookout for the queen’s men. Use the signal if you see them. Everyone else, attack inward, and remember to watch out for any kicking. Their legs are powerful.”
Personally, the creatures’ jaws worried me more, but I’d take advice from someone who knew better.
“Once we’ve killed or injured as many as possible, split and meet back at headquarters. Any questions?”
A knot wound in my stomach as a stab of unease hit me. Every time I considered attacking the herd, I remembered the mother and baby animal I’d seen in the woods. All the bandersnatch probably wanted to live that way. They hadn’t chosen to be controlled by my aunt.
And yet, the rebels assured me that going after the herd was the only way to draw the Red Queen from her castle.I couldn’t just brush off their beliefs. They’d been around much longer, put up with my aunt’s shit for years. They knew this land far better than me, and this was their lived experience. I needed totrustthem.
“All right, let’s move,” Henri said when no one posed a question.
We split off, and slowly made our way down the street. There was no way we’d sneak up on the beasts, which had incredible hearing, so we weren’t even about to try. We only moved slowly to give March’s team time to catch up. Attacking simultaneously was key.
Now that we waited at the end of the street, I could hear the herd clearly. They were eating, taking a break from their search for dissenters.
Hatter had mentioned that the bandersnatch’s ability to sense a lack of loyalty was tied to the enchanted fog that the Red Queen had blanketed her subjects with. Apparently, the creatures couldn’t sense disloyalty in those whohadn’tbeen enchanted. Fae who ran when they saw the mist crawling over the land—like the rebels. Hence, the bandersnatch only created a fuss when the enchantment wore off on someone who had been affected. Such a scenario had only happened five times in thirteen years.
Using animals to detect untrustworthy subjects among those specifically enchanted to be loyal, made little sense. That is until you took into account the Red Queen’s history.
She’d killed her sister, the only family she had left. She’d erased her subjects’ memories. Currently, she starved and mistreated many of them. The Red Queen didn’t deserve her subjects’ trust and she knew it.
I bet my aunt is paranoid as hell.
I huddled behind Hatter to wait for the signal. It came quickly, in the sound of a hawk’s screech.
Adrenaline flooded me as we exploded into the main street and sprinted toward the herd.
The animals stood grouped together, at least fifty of them. Many drank from a fountain that featured a stone, stern-faced faerie holding a bouquet of roses. My horrible aunt. One of the creatures splashed inside the fountain, more carefree than the others. My heart lurched as a memory of the baby bandersnatch in the river flitted through my mind.
My teeth gnashed together as I recalled all the assurances of the rebels that this was the only way, and surged ahead to be the first in my group to burst into the herd.
