Present: Warehouse Location, London
F abiola wakes up screaming as we’re fighting the Reds. I tell Constance to check on her. Since most of the Reds are escaping now, I have only a few to finish.
“She needs you, not me,” Constance says telepathically. “Go, we can finish the few Reds left.”
I dart back to Fabiola.
She is sweating like a pig. Her beautiful face seems like she’s aged years now.
“Are you okay?” I hug her. “What can I do for you?”
“Hug me closer,” she says surprisingly. “You have no idea what I have been through.”
“I know, the hospital and the wounds you got from Russia.”
“Not that,” she says in my ear. “You have no idea what happened to me in Wonderland, Alice.”
“I thought you were all badass in Wonderland?”
“That came later.”
I slide away to look in her eyes. “Later?”
“I’m like you. My life is a prolonged revenge story, trying to hurt those who had hurt me,” she admits.
“Then why did you go to the Vatican?”
“It was the only place I could cool down, slow down, and persuade myself that forgiveness was a virtue.”
“Is it?”
“It is, but it doesn’t take away the pain.”
“What are you talking about?” I am curious.
“All in time, Alice,” she says, standing up. “That’s if I live long enough to tell.”
“Are you sure you can walk—”
She smiles. Then winks. “Look at you.”
I realize the wound on my thigh has healed. I raise my head and ask, “So we’re invincible?”
“As long you keep on fighting after getting the wound, you should be okay,” she says. “That’s the power of the Vorpal sword.”
“Then why did you end up in the hospital after Russia?”
She leans closer and whispers in my ear, “Because I stopped believing.”
“So that’s the weakness,” I say.
“You have no idea how easy it is to stop believing, to take the easy way out, to sit and whine. We think it’s not going to happen, that we’re quote un-quote invincible. It’s not like that. Want to believe in something? Then do the hard work and keep believing day after day, even if it gets you nowhere.”
From the corner of my eye, I realize the Reds have escaped.
“I believe!” a voice shrieks.
Oh, it’s the March, waking up again.
In a second, we all gather around him. He is the most important of us all.
“Are you okay, March?” I ask him.
“Tell us where the Keys are,” Constance demands.
Hazy and disoriented, he looks like someone who's slept too much but doesn’t feel like he has slept at all. “I know where the Six Keys are. I know what they do.”
“Spit it out,” Constance says.
The March spits.
“Not like that,” I calm him, and Constance, down. “She means tell us.”
“I will remember when I see the mushrooms,” he says.
“But you said you know,” I tell him.
“I know that I know,” he explains. “And to know what I know that I know, I have to see the mushrooms.”
“You mean in London?” Lewis interferes.
“Lewis,” the March smiles. “It’s been long, dude. Where have you been?”
“Dude?” Jack is both offended and confused. Why would the March use the word dude?
“That cap on his head is messing with his brain,” Constance tells me telepathically.
“All right,” I tell the March. “Where in London, then?”
“A garden, one of my designs,” he says. “I can’t remember which.”
“A garden of mushrooms?” Tom Truckle arrives, so interested, now that we are safe. I hope he is not after the Keys as well. “In London?”
The March nods. “But I am not sure about the London thing. I am just speculating.”
“If it’s a garden then it could be the Poison Garden in Alnwick, Northumberland,” Lewis suggests. “It’s where the Pillar used to live. His portal between real life and Wonderland.”
“So it’s been there for centuries?” I wonder. “It means the March didn’t design it.”
“We don’t know when the March started designing gardens,” Fabiola says. “It could be an old thing in Wonderland.”
“I don’t know either,” the March says. “Poor March,” he pats himself.
“He is hallucinating,” Constance tells me telepathically. We can’t trust him.
I nod at her, letting her know it’s okay. The March is always trustable.
“Also the Poison Garden isn’t in London, Lewis,” Fabiola says.
“He said he isn’t sure about London,” Constance remarks.
“Why does everything have to be so complicated?” Tom growls.
“What if it were out of London,” Fabiola says. “We can’t leave London in this mess outside. We should take the easier solution.”
“Which is?” I ask him.
“The Mushroom Garden in London,” she says, “It’s well known and is closer. A lot of people have their wedding there. They call it the Kew Garden. It’s our fastest solution and our best bet.”
“Let’s go,” Jack says. “I’ve found an ice-cream truck outside. We can take it."