ArchEnemy Read Free Page B

family.
    “At least ten to a flat. No exceptions.”
    The Three of Clubs, cradling his AD52, smirked at the musician and inventor. “You’re not allowed to kill each other. You leave the killing to us.”
    Then the soldiers laughed, and were gone.

CHAPTER 5
    I N THE chamber beneath palace grounds, Alyss, Bibwit, and General Doppelgänger had gathered at the control desk to monitor the activity on Rocking Horse Lane, where surgeons were tending to wounded Heart soldiers.
    “We’re certain the Diamonds and Spades have nothing to do with this?” Alyss asked.
    At a nod from Bibwit, General Doppelgänger punched a code into the control desk’s interface panel. One of the viewing screens displayed the inside of a long, rectangular dormitory at the Crystal Mines—that system of tunnels in which Wonderlanders who violated the laws of society labored to excavate crystal from a mountain’s stubborn bedrock; where the wardens were strict but officious in their duty to rehabilitate prisoners and there was always an opportunity to regain one’s freedom. Unlike during Redd’s reign, when wardens had been commanded to turn every prisoner’s stay at the work camp into a death sentence.
    “Is that . . . ?” Alyss said, watching the transmission from the Crystal Mines dormitory. Hard to recognize her without all the finery, her haughty bearing, but could that be . . . ?
    “The Lady of Diamonds, yes,” said Bibwit.
    The lady was sitting up in bed, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressed to her ears to keep out her dorm mates’ pestering.
    “I can’t hear you!” she whined.
    “Didn’t have the luxury of swinging a pickax at that mansion of yours, eh?” a dorm mate teased.
    “Tell us a story of wealth and power,” laughed another.
    “I can’t hear you!” the Lady of Diamonds insisted. “I’m not in these dirty mines! I’m at home! I’m imagining that I’m home and—”
    Splat! A sopping rag hit her in the face. The dorm filled with laughter and General Doppelgänger directed the viewing screen back to Rocking Horse Lane.
    “Lord Diamond is having a similarly difficult time adjusting to his new life,” Bibwit explained, “and so far we’ve found nothing to link the Diamonds to anti-imagination activities. As for the Spades . . .” he again nodded to the general, who brought up a visual of the Spades’ estate, on whose grounds Ten Cards from the Heart decks were training Spade soldiers, “they’ve offered you their full support and I’m sure they have nothing to do with fomenting strife within the queendom. It’s against those who have claimed their innocence throughout WILMA’s aftermath that we must direct our efforts.”
    “The Clubs,” said General Doppelgänger. “The recent mauraudings of their soldiery have turned rumor into confirmed fact: The lord and lady are in open rebellion.”
    “You have proof that the Lord and Lady of Clubs are to blame and not a renegade general of their military?” Alyss asked.
    “I have reports from my Ten Cards.”
    “Which to my mind, general, rely too much upon assumptions.”
    It had been a shock to learn: Her mother’s noble intentions, the principles of White Imagination inspirational to so many Heart queens in the exercise of their power, meant nothing to citizens who had always resented the ruling family. Not Black Imaginationists, but a more subtle and thus perhaps more subversive group—ordinary Wonderlanders jealous of anyone possessing imagination, regardless of how weak. Alyss wanted, needed, to see these unhappy citizens for herself, to find some clue that would help her understand their resentment. Which was why she’d made certain plans for tonight.
    “Chessmen have been despatched to question the lord and lady?” she asked.
    Bibwit’s ears swiveled. “Yes, my dear, but now that their machinations are out in the open, they themselves seem to have gone underground.”
    “Surely, their absence confirms their guilt,” pressed the