One after another, the Glass Eyes coughed their last breath, sent their last electrical pulse along

wire-veins, fired the last synapses in their nanochip-infused brains. Carried away with the fighting, Blister seemed to forget the purpose of his mission.

“I’ll take care of him,” he said, stalking forward to put an end to the last remaining Glass Eye. Ripkins quickly reached for his gossamer shot-a small, thin tube attached to his belt. Fffshaw!

A large web bulleted out of the tube, fell over the Glass Eye. Frantic, it slashed and shot fruitlessly at the

webbing. Blister, his adrenaline no longer getting the better of his duty, gathered the ends of the web in his fist and pulled; the web went taut, wrapping up the Glass Eye, rendering it helpless. Ripkins took the sword and crystal shooter from its pinned hands.

Ripkins heaved the imprisoned Glass Eye over his shoulder, and he and Blister ran off as-

Half a deck of card soldiers, alerted by the sounds of battle, entered the quadrant. In confused silence, they surveyed the scene: two Glass Eyes with blades sticking out of their guts, a couple more striped with the fatal burn marks of whipsnake grenades, the rest riddled with the puncture wounds of crystal shot. Judging by the weapons used, whoever had managed this carnage could have been anybody-although

to defeat seven Glass Eyes, there must have been a lot of them.

For all the card soldiers knew, or ever would know, Ripkins and Blister had never been there, never retreated to their kingdom with a perfectly functioning Glass Eye as their prisoner.

W EAVER HAD rushed to embrace her, and Molly herself had forgotten the effects of the drug-delivery system she wore, had jumped up and-

She’d woken up here, in this tent occupied by eight of Arch’s wives, the place all plush and cozy and fragrant with the scent of crushed swamp blossoms. How could her mother-the woman she had dreamed about for so long, the single photo-crystal of whom she had stared at until she could have traced its image with her eyes closed-be alive? How could Hatter Madigan be her father?

“I want my homburg,” she said to the two ministers guarding her. “And I want to talk to my mother.” “Do you, now?”

They didn’t even turn toward her. They were watching the newscast on the tent’s entertainment crystal, where a Sirk reporter was describing the recent violence in Wonderland: the military outposts attacked; the mysterious contamination of the Crystal Continuum that had left the bulk of Alyss’ army stranded around the queendom and Wondertropolis vulnerable to invasion.

“No,” Molly breathed. Because Arch’s words were starting to make sense. Too much sense. Trying to protect your queen, you jeopardized the queendom itself. Wasn’t that what he’d said? How could she have been so stupid? So rash? She had contaminated the continuum with the Lady of Diamonds’ weapon and the Diamonds had taken advantage of it.

“A general state of emergency has been declared in Wonderland’s capital city,” the reporter stated, “and authorities now say…”

She had let her worst impulses, her wounded pride, get the better of her. But now her pride took another hit, because…hadn’t her failure, her lack of discipline, fulfilled Hatter’s earliest suspicions of her? For a brief moment, she hated him. Him and Weaver. It was their fault that she was a halfer, a worthless halfer unfit to serve any queen, let alone Alyss Heart. It’d probably be better for everyone if she went off to

lead a simple, boring life somewhere far away.

“I have to talk to my mother,” she said. “You can’t keep us here.”

“We aren’t ‘keeping’ Weaver anywhere,” one of the ministers smiled. “She stays with us of her own will. However, I don’t see why the two of you can’t be reunited if you do one thing for me first.” He handed her a brand-new diary. Like Weaver’s, it was the size of a playing card but resembled a typical book

from Earth. “Record a message to Queen Alyss-a confession, if you will-of everything that happened between you and Lady Diamond. All you have to do is tell the truth. Tell your queen how you feel.” His eyes swiveled to the newscast, where the Sirk was reporting on the estimated number of Wonderland casualties.

Molly turned the diary over in her hands. She alone had brought destruction to the city that she loved. She had no reason to trust the minister. But it might be the last chance she had of ever seeing her mother again.

She pressed the sides of the diary, its cover popped open and- “Dear Queen Alyss…” she started, recording her confession.

I T DIDN’T take a genius tactician to see that failure was imminent, Alyss more powerful than Arch had supposed. He would have to focus on his contingency plan and let the Glass Eyes attack on Wonderland fizzle out-a circumstance mildly disappointing, but not worrisome. Such a strategist was the king that he had a contingency plan for his contingency plan, and even, if circumstances required, a contingency plan for his contingency plan’s contingency plan. Besides, he had utilized the Glass Eyes as a lark. If he had truly believed that they alone might depose Alyss, why would he have bothered with the scheme involving Weaver and Homburg Molly, which was progressing as well as he could have hoped? If concluded successfully, it would provide him with invaluable military intelligence and no small addition to his special forces for the time he did make his ultimate move on Wonderland.

Resting in his quarters, Arch reached to the bedside table, slid the amoeba-shaped communication nodule into its appropriate slot as if inserting the final piece in a jigsaw puzzle, and a moment later his huddle of intel ministers appeared.

“How’s our young guest?” he asked.

“As docile as any child could be, wearing a drug-delivery system as she is,” said one of the ministers. “She constantly demands to see her mother,” said another, “and somewhat less constantly demands that

we return her homburg to her.”

Arch nodded. “Has she recorded the confession to her queen?”

“She has. But only because we promised to let her see her mother again.” The minister handed the diary to his king.

“Let her see her mother,” Arch said, “but from a distance. They’re not to speak to each other. What of the Diamonds? Are they still…occupied?”

The ministers grinned. “The Lady of Diamonds is relaxing at one of our imagination retreats. The father and son have as much wine, food, and music as they can desire, and they are surrounded by company. The pair are insatiable. Some have complained that, in addition to making everyone around him wear wigs of dried grass, the son is somewhat gross.”

“Just make sure they’re encouraged in their debauchery. I want everything ready for the time when they will wake to find themselves in circumstances much altered for the worse.”

“Everything is ready, Your Majesty. We wait only for your word.”