“There!” Vollrath said, pointing to a puddle where no puddle should have been-in the window display of a stationer’s shop.

Without slowing or hesitation, Redd shattered the window, stepped into the stationer’s display and dropped into the puddle.

Sfoosh!

She was sucked down and out of sight. Vollrath, The Cat, Alistaire, and Siren quickly followed. If the eardrum-popping descent through the multidimensional waters had any effect on Redd, she showed no sign of it. Her face was firm, expressionless, and she kept her eyes wide open as she torpedoed deeper and deeper…

Then came the brief suspension in the lightless depths, and the portal’s reverse gravity began to take effect, drawing Redd and her underlings up with increasing speed until-

Sploosh! Fablash! Splashaaa!

They exploded out of the Pool of Tears into the open air. Instantly, razor-cards were slicing down around them, muzzlefuls of crystal shot whizzing past their heads. Before Redd splashed back into the water, she was spinning, her arms held out to either side, orb generators spraying out from the tips of her fingers.

Waboooshkkktsh! Ba-ba-booozzzztshchkshkchtt!

The last of the enemy’s crystal shot whistled past. The card soldiers patrolling the Pool of Tears were no more.

“They’ll know we’re coming,” Vollrath said, bobbing in the water.

“No, they won’t.” Redd had, by the power of her imagination, routed to the void every warning the soldiers had tried to send to General Doppelganger on their crystal communicators.

On dry land, The Cat hissed at the pool and shook the detestable wet from his fur. Redd, being in the same dimension as the Heart Crystal, felt stronger than she had in a long time. She gestured violently, and the not-so-distant white noise Alistaire and Siren had been hearing ceased.

“The Whispering Woods,” The Cat said.

“There’ll be no whispering about me,” Redd declared. “Alyss is not to know of my return until I pass through my Looking Glass Maze, by which time Sacrenoir better have amassed the Earth army I’ll need to battle her forces, or he’ll wind up as a midnight snack for his skeletons.”

“But they’ll know we’ve come,” Vollrath said again.

Redd looked at him as if she might rip the tongue from his head.

“The caterpillars,” the scholar clarified. “Being able to see into the past and the future, they’ll know we’ve come and why.”

The Cat brushed at his whiskers. “Back when Her Imperial Viciousness was last in power,” he remembered, “she ordered us to destroy those outdated worms, but every time we tried, they saw us coming and slithered off to wherever outdated worms go when they want to be safe.”

“I hate truth,” Redd spat, “but The Cat is speaking it. Why should the caterpillars sit still and let me approach them after what I’ve done?” she asked Vollrath.

“You don’t believe in their prophecies?” the scholar asked, surprised. How could a Heart, one whose family had for generations most gained or lost by the prophecies, not believe in them?

“I see no use for the caterpillars or their fortune-tellings,” Redd said. “Whether I believe in them or not is irrelevant when I’m in possession of the Heart Crystal.”

“Not if the prophecy has to do with your having the Heart Crystal,” Vollrath humbly submitted.

“Shut up, tutor. But console yourself with this: I do believe that, if anyone can tell me where to find the Garden of Uncompleted Mazes, it’s the caterpillars. Now answer the question I put to you: How do we ensure they’ll let me approach?”

Vollrath searched his albino brain for an answer, his ears rubbing together like the worrying hands of an earthling. The six caterpillars of Wonderland: servants of the Heart Crystal, the power source for all creation. For the most part, they kept aloof from government intrigues or political rivalries, involving themselves only if they thought the Heart Crystal was in danger of being destroyed. They didn’t much

care who possessed the crystal, so long as it was left to disseminate imagination, the creative urge and the spirit of invention, to Earth and other worlds.

“When you were last in power,” Vollrath asked, “you didn’t in any way try to disrupt the Heart Crystal’s energy flow, did you?”

“Of course not, fool! It would be no good to me if its power were compromised.”

“Well then,” Vollrath said happily, and loud enough for the clairvoyant caterpillars to take note. “So long as you promise not to destroy or harm the crystal or in any way disrupt its flow after you resume power, I’m sure the caterpillars will meet with you. Do you promise this?”

“I promise,” Redd steamed.

“Good.” But in case this wasn’t enough to secure the caterpillars’ presence, and knowing that there was one thing the oracles couldn’t resist, Vollrath added, “When we go to meet them, we shall arrive bearing tarty tarts!”

The Cat, hearing the snap of a twig behind them, twirled around ready to pounce. “In Redd I trust! The Redd way is the right way!”

Having dropped flat to the ground the moment Redd burst from the pool, Jack of Diamonds had survived her bombardment as card soldiers fell dead to the left and right of him. As soon as he’d recognized who was swimming to shore, he’d hurried down to meet them.

“Wherever Redd leads, I follow!” He now saluted, stepping from the nearby scrub and approaching her imperial viciousness.

“Except when it involves leaping into the Heart Crystal,” Redd snarled. “We shouldn’t leave any witnesses,” The Cat said.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Redd agreed, and with that, The Cat swatted Jack to the ground with a paw. “Let me have him,” Alistaire Poole smirked, taking scalpel and bone saw from his instruments case. “No, me.” Siren Hecht opened her mouth to let loose the weapon of her voice.

“Wait!” Jack cried. “Your Imperial Viciousness, please! Do you want to kill the one man in Wonderland who can most help you?”

Redd signaled for The Cat, Alistaire, and Siren to wait a moment. “What, in that fatty head of yours, makes you think I need anybody’s help?” she asked.

Jack clambered to his feet. “Your Imperial Viciousness, I couldn’t help overhearing you when you came onshore. I don’t pretend to understand your talk of gardens and uncompleted mazes, but I did hear you say that your army on Earth isn’t large enough to battle Queen Alyss’-I mean, your traitorous niece’s. But I can fill your ranks to bursting with the tribes of Boarderland, the most fearsome troops this world has to offer…besides Milliners. And Glass Eyes. And maybe certain chessmen and-”

“Get on with it,” Redd demanded.

“Well, if the twenty-one tribes of Boarderland were to cooperate and together attack Arch, his forces wouldn’t be able to defeat them. But they’ll never do this so long as Arch is king because he keeps them constantly at odds, feeding them the assorted lies he calls privileged intelligence and cultivating hate among them.”