Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor Page A

buildings, darting from vestibule to vestibule. The rook started forward, not one to wait for trouble if he could help it.
    â€œNo,” Alyss said. “Let them come.”
    â€œIt’ll be the last thing they ever do.”
    Alyss spun to her left and—
    There stood Dodge, sword in one hand, crystal shooter in the other. They held each other’s gaze. What’s he doing here? I told Bibwit—
    â€œShouldn’t you be guarding the palace?” the rook asked with a knowing smirk.
    Dodge shrugged, didn’t take his eyes off Alyss. “First they’re in Wondertropolis, next thing you know they’re marching through the palace halls.” He looked at the rook and winked. “Besides, I have to make sure you do the job right, don’t I?”
    The Glass Eyes were letting civilians climb out of ground-floor windows, burst from doorways, and escape into the distance. Unconcerned with ordinary Wonderlanders now that they’d located the queen, they holed up in the suddenly abandoned shops and office towers, took aim with their AD52s, crystal shooters, spikejack tumblers, and orb cannons.
    Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch!
    They strafed the square, orb generators burning a path through the air toward Wonderland’s queen. Even before Dodge, the knight, the rook, and eight generals could dive for cover—
    Alyss used the power of her imagination to hurl the missiles back upon the enemy. At the slightest dip of her scepter, the orb generators reversed directions and broke into smaller orbs, each of them homing in on a Glass Eye.
    Bloosh! Kabloosh! Bloosh-bloosh! Bloosh!
    A rapid series of blasts as Glass Eyes exploded into millions of Glass Eye bits. Not one of the enemy was left functioning, alive.
    â€œA second wave,” Alyss breathed, because more Glass Eyes were streaking in from Slithy Avenue’s horizon.
    â€œThey’re on Whiffling Heights,” called the rook.
    â€œAnd Gimble Lane,” said Dodge.
    â€œAnd Brillig,” said the knight and generals.
    Not the most life-affirming news: Glass Eyes storming Genevieve Square from every available street. Alyss and Dodge, the chessmen and generals—they were surrounded.

C HAPTER 14
    I F THE ever-wise Bibwit Harte had been with Hatter on Talon’s Point, he would have bent his ears in sympathy, sensitive to the news divulged by Weaver’s image.
    â€œThe diary has left you with more questions than it has answered, Hatter,” he might have said, “but you shouldn’t be surprised. The most important questions are always answered with yet more questions.”
    Which wisdom would have comforted the Milliner not at all.
    If Weaver had given birth at the Alyssian camp within the Everlasting Forest, why had she left the safety of the camp? Why had she abandoned her daughter? Merely to place the diary at Talon’s Point in case he returned? It hardly seemed worth it. There must have been another reason, but…Here Hatter was overcome with a peculiar feeling. He’d been having peculiar feelings for a while now, but this one was really peculiar. He was feeling paternal . How old had Molly been when Weaver left? What did she remember of her mother? Had she been told anything of him ? Hatter thought back to the time he had spent with the girl—the battles they had fought against Redd and her forces. He’d been impressed with her fidelity to Alyss, her courage and fortitude in helping the princess recover Wonderland’s throne, and he hoped he had said as much when he recommended her to be Alyss’ bodyguard. But he could recall nothing that definitively told him she knew who he was. Her sass and occasional disregard for his opinions could have been either the lashing out of a bitter daughter or the antagonism of a teen determined to elbow a space for herself in the adult world.
    He repeated the fact to convince himself of its reality: Homburg Molly is my daughter, Homburg Molly