The remaining cards rush us again, and Theo loses his patience. His body goes tight behind me, heat rolling off him in a wave. “Hold on.”
To what? My morals? My floof? My face? Too late. No, wait, I still have my face. I hope. Will they still love me if I lose my face?
Flame erupts from him in a controlled arc over our heads, slamming into the ground between us and the advancing guards. The cards shriek and scatter, some curling at the edges, others diving behind hedges. The horses rear, except Hart’s, who looks offended not to have started that fire itself.
“You can breathe fire in this form?” I ask. “That’s awesome.”
The queen stumbles back. Not from fear, but from weakness. Her certainty is thinning, her story wobbling. And I know with sudden, startling clarity that she is strong only while everyone else obeys.
I grin so wide my cheeks hurt. “You need the rules,” I declare.
She goes still. “No,” she whispers.
“Yes, you do.” I slide one leg over, and before anyone can stop me, I launch myself off Theo’s horse.
“Daphne!” four voices roar.
I hit the grass badly, roll, and come back up with leaves in my hair and absolutely no dignity, but I’m upright and still have my face, so who’s winning? Me.
Theo swears behind me. Nash is on the ground a heartbeat later, stalking toward me with murder in his eyes that is definitely not aimed at the queen.
“Back on the horse,” he growls.
“No.”
“Do not test me right now.”
“I’m rewriting a mad monarch. Give me a tempo before you go all alpha on me.”
He swipes a hand down his face.
The queen stares at me as if I’ve grown a second head instead of losing it as she wishes. “You dare come before me on foot?”
She’s beginning to not make sense, and that’s saying something given I exist in chaos. “Honestly, I fell with intention. Plus, I’m sure you’ll agree that my feet are favorable to the face-eating horses.”
I plant my boots and spread my hands. The air hums. The roses tremble. The soldiers stop.
“You are a role,” I say.
“I am the Queen of Hearts.”
“No, that’s a costume with a body count.”
Her face flushes scarlet. “I rule this game.”
“Then I’ll change the game.” And I do. I don’t know how. I have no idea which part of me reaches down into the roots of the field and yanks, but something gives.
The arches burst from the ground and whirl into the sky. The card soldiers flatten, then fold themselves into paper birds that flap wildly away. The flamingo mallet squawks and pecks the queen’s foot. She drops it with a yelp and it takes off over the walls in a riot of pink feathers.
The grass beneath us becomes a tiled red-and-white floor. Then a ballroom. Then a throne room. Then a lake reflecting stars. Every split tempo a new setting, every blink a differentpossibility, as if the story can’t settle because I won’t let it pin me down.
The queen presses her hands against her temples. “Stop this. Stop. Stop!” She shrinks. Not in height, but in presence. Red wisps escape her ears and nostrils. Her crown slips sideways. Her cheeks hollow. Her voice loses that horrible scraping edge and becomes thin.
The more I refuse her role, the less she can hold hers.
“New rule,” I say, and the world goes silent. “No more games where people lose their heads.” The queen gasps. “No more power built on fear.” She clutches her chest. “No more stories that demand blood to keep going.”
Something tears. Not cloth. Not flesh. The narrative. I feel the great ripping seam splitting wide beneath the skin of the world.
