“And I would never expect you to let her fend for herself,” I said, confused as to why Isadora would jump to the conclusion that the alarm meant Circe was in immediate danger. I chalked it up to maternal worry. “But we must coordinate and be smart. If you go out there looking for Circe before word has spread that they apprehended her, it puts everyone here at risk.”
“She’s right, Isadora. You need to stay here, where it’s safe.” Hatter’s hand landed on the brownie’s shoulder. “I’ll search the streets and make sure the alarm has nothing to do with our attack.”His gaze was pinned on Isadora, pointed and serious. I definitely didn’t understand all the subtext flowing between them, but that didn’t matter. I wanted to act.
“I’m coming too,” I said.
“Alice. . .” Hatter’s gaze leveled me.
“I’m going,Henri,” I retorted. “And we need to leave now.”
Tully was still sent to the jailhouse. Another troop of rebels would follow him there and break out Circe and March. Henri, the pixies, four other rebels, and myself were to investigate the alarm.
Strangely, since the alarm had started, it hadn’t stopped. It continued to pierce the streets of Heartstown, almost like it was calling people to it. All the rebels in my group were on edge and very alert.
I pulled the cloak tight around my head. Something about this whole scenario felt off, and troubling. Why would Isadora assume that the alarm had been for Circe? Why hadn’t I asked her, instead of jumping into action?
Henri took a sharp turn, and a sea of fae appeared at the mouth of our small side street. A square opened past the end of the road, and even more heads bobbed there, waiting for something.
“I can’t get a clear view,” Henri said, scowling at the ultra tall fae—elves—who stood in front of us. “But only Dee and Dum should fly. I don’t want to draw attention to the rest of us.”
He darted a glance at me. “Are you okay to sit on my shoulders? Tell us what you see?”
I nodded, and our group approached the edge of the crowd. Dee and Dum fluttered up to the windows of someone’s home, and perched in a flower box, while Hatter boosted me onto his shoulders.
As soon as I could see past the giants in front of us, all my breath escaped my lungs.
In the middle of hundreds of jeering fae, dotted with dozens of armed soldiers, was a rickety-looking platform. And on it knelt March Hare and Circe.
“What’s going on?” Hatter asked.
“March and—what the hell?”
A fae who looked as though one of his parents might have been a troll, or some other gigantic creature, climbed the platform stairs. He lumbered past the soldiers that lined the back wall of the makeshift stage to stand right behind March and Circe, then the beast lifted his arms and roared.
All the hair on my arms lifted, but not only because of what was happening in the center of the square—though that was certainly enough to elicit such terror.
No. Thatfeelingwas back, the one that someone was watching me. Their attention burned through me like nothing I’d felt before, judging and calculating.
My gaze flitted down to the crowd. No one was looking my way, they were all staring at the stage. And I was too far back for the soldiers milling through the crowd to take any notice of me.
What the hell was going on here?
“Alice!” Hatter yelled, like it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name. “What do you see?!”
I shook my head, pissed that I’d allowed myself to be distracted for even a moment. “March and Circe are kneeling on a platform. I think it’s a trial or something.”
Hatter swore, and his hands traveled from my calves to my hips. “Get down,” he said and hoisted me off of him. “We have to do something, fast.”
Even though I didn’t know what was happening, Henri seemed to have an idea. As much as I wanted to help retrieve March and Circe, I didn’t see what we could do. There were six of us and two pixies against hundreds of fae who looked all too happy to watch our friends’ precarious predicament.
“Alice . . . what I’m about to ask you to do is so dangerous, but I have to—for March and Circe.”
Isadora’s terrified expression, the way her hands trembled, rolled through my mind.
I nodded. “I’ll do anything.”
“I need you to use your aether magic. As much of it as you can. Make a spectacle. It’s our only chance to stop this madness.”
“And what are you going to do?”
