Hatter's Heart - Erin Bedford Page 0,34

wake up from her deep sleep with a kiss and the slipper never fits and no one lives happily ever after.

"Beg yer pardon, yer majesty but where should we be goin' next?" Mop bowed his head several times which looked silly in his chair.

"You're not going anywhere," Mab replied with a sigh. "You two need to go home to your families where you belong. If you can get them out of the Underground and spread the word. We have to save as many as we can before it gets worse."

I nodded in understanding, shifting toward Mop. "She's right. You need to help everyone get out. We'll send word to Kat so she knows what's going on."

"But Trip and Mop help Alice, Hatter said. Hatter said!" Trip jumped in his chair, his tail smacking the table making it shake.

"Trip be right. We canna leave ye on yer own. Hatter would have me head." Mop reached out and placed his hand on mine.

I snorted. "Hatter doesn't know where his head is half the time. I doubt he would take yours." I patted his hand reassuringly. "I can handle it from here. I promise."

Mop and Trip didn't seem convinced but they didn't argue further through the meal. Once we sent them on their way, I turned to Mab and asked, "What am I going to do next? You said the only way to beat the Underground from moving things on me was to go around. How exactly do I do that?"

Practically melting out of her chair, Mab swept across the room without a word. Assuming I was supposed to follow her, I jumped from the table and hurried after her.

Servants, guards, and members of the court moved out of her way and bowed as we passed by. None of them seem to quake in fear the way they did with the Seelie Queen something I always found amusing. The Queen of all the unwanted, misplaced, and monstrous Fae was the most beloved while the White Queen did her best to push anyone out that wasn't her ideal picture of Fae beauty.

Smiling to myself at the thought, I followed Mab as we made our way up a set of stairs and then down a long corridor. She stopped before a dark wood door and turned to me with a serious expression.

"What I am about to share with you, very few have seen. It is a privilege and an honor and I expect you to treat it that way." Mab waited until I nodded my consent before turning the door knob. Pushing the door open, she revealed a bed room. Her bedroom.

A four poster bed sat in the middle of the room covered in a dark comforter and shimmering pillows. A desk stood to one side of the room with neat piles of paper sitting on a tray. A large wardrobe of the same dark oak as the bed sat on the other side of the room. Fae creatures were carved into the wood, faeries, satyrs, nymphs. A door I assumed led to the bathroom was located next to the wardrobe but what pulled my gaze the most was a large curtain covered half of one of the walls.

Mab led me over to the curtain where she reached for the dark vaguely transparent material. "The last one was broken by my son and Katherine. I've had to be more careful with how much I use it with the Shadows still running around over there."

"Do you get to talk to him much?" I couldn't help but ask. It was partly my fault Dorian was stuck in the Shadow Realm, though from what I heard from Kat he wanted it that way.

"Here and there. He's adjusting well enough but misses home. We'll all be happy when this is all over with and the Shadows are gone for good." She sighed and pulled the curtain back to reveal and large mirror. Unlike the mirror back at Kat's this one was dark and had an inky surface.

Taking a step closer, I inspected the glass. It seemed normal enough and didn't give off any weird like some mirrors I'd seen. "Where am I going with this?"

Mab slid her finger down the edge of the frame the way that Kat does and gestured inside. "You can't go to Hatters because he does not own a teleportation mirror so you have to go to the next best thing."

"And that is?" I drew out trying to think of who had another mirror.

"Cheshire's."

My brow