The Looking Glass Wars Read Free

your wife as you do.‖
    King Nolan did not feel—nor had he ever felt—bossed around by Genevieve. He loved his wife, in part, because of her strength, her estimable handling of the very responsibilities that Arch thought should fall only on a man‘s shoulders. To Nolan, nothing could compare to the love of his kind, strong-willed queen.
    ―So,‖ Arch said, ―you‘d receive military support to help defend against your enemies and what would I get? What benefits would the people of Boarderland be able to expect as a result of this proposed nation-coupling?‖
    ―I am prepared to offer you crystal-mining rights within our borders, twice-yearly payments of a million howlite gemstones, and the use of our military should the need for it ever arise.‖
    King Arch stood; the meeting was over. ―I‘ll consider it and send word of my decision in the next week or so.‖
    Eager to arrive back at Heart Palace in time for Alyss‘ birthday, Nolan made a race of the journey with his men, riding at full speed without stopping for rest or food. They were still half a day‘s ride away. The mountain ridge was far behind them now and they galloped across a dusty plain. At the crest of a hill, with Heart Palace visible on the horizon, Nolan reined in his spirit-dane. A gust of wind carried with it—or so he imagined, for he was quite a distance from the palace—the sounds of revelry, music, and laughter. His men came to a stop beside him.
    ―What is it, my lord?‖
    ―She‘ll never forgive me for missing the party.‖
    ―I think the queen would forgive you anything, my lord.‖
    ―Not the queen. The princess.‖
    ―Oh. With her you‘ll have trouble.‖
    The men laughed. With Alyss, King Nolan would indeed have trouble, but it would be a pleasant sort of trouble. Even in her pouts, he thought his daughter a delightful creature.
    ―Hi-yah!‖ With a refreshed sense of urgency, the king prodded his spirit-dane onward, toward home and family.

CHAPTER 3
    B IBWIT HARTE gathered together books and papers in preparation for his charge‘s lessons the next day. Now that she had reached her seventh birthday, Alyss would begin her formal training to become queen.
    ―And being a queen isn‘t easy,‖ muttered Bibwit Harte. ―The position comes with tremendous responsibilities. One has to study law and government and ethics and morality. One must train the imagination for the promotion of peace and harmony and the precepts of White Imagination, because Black Imagination is not what anybody wants at all, oh no. And if that isn‘t enough, there‘s the Looking Glass Maze to get through.‖ Bibwit Harte, alone in the library at Heart Palace, recited from an ancient Wonderland text, In Queendom Speramus: ―A unique Looking Glass Maze exists for every would-be queen. The maze must be successfully navigated by the would-be queen if she is to reach her imagination‘s full potential and thus be fit to rule.‖ The tutor returned to his usual tone: ―And where the Looking Glass Maze is, only the caterpillars know.‖
    Mr. Bibwit Harte was an albino, seven feet tall, with bluish green veins pulsing visibly beneath his skin, and ears a bit large for his head—ears so sensitive that he could hear someone whispering from three streets away. He was rather intelligent, but he had the habit of talking to himself, which more than a few Wonderlanders found strange, particularly members of the Diamond, Spade, and Club families, not one of whom had ever forgiven him for his decades-long schooling of the Heart daughters as opposed to their own. Not that Bibwit paid much attention to what others thought of him. He talked to himself because there weren‘t many people as learned as he, and he liked to talk to learned people.
    ―Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!‖
    Bibwit threw open a pair of doors leading to the royal gardens, and the chorus of voices might have become painfully loud to his finicky ears if it had been any other song sung