Heartless

by Marissa Meyer

Timid or arrogant, charming or infuriating, and Catherine was falling, falling, falling.

I suggest he do the things that I would do, if I were … deserving of you.”

suppose I’ll have to find another way to make this impossibility possible.”

“Clarify the butter first or it will confuse the rest of the ingredients,” or, “Don’t let the tomatoes stew for too long as they’re like to become bitter and resentful.”

“Your mother, without any fight left in her? I wish you luck, Catherine, I truly do, but I also fear this day has already reached its limit on impossible things.”

Cath perched herself on the edge of the wingback chair her mother had indicated. Its feathered wings tried to wrap around her but she shook them off.

“There was something else I wished to discuss with you.” Her mother still looked confused. “Something other than the King?” “I’m afraid the King does not occupy my thoughts nearly as much as he occupies yours, Mama.”

Lol

“Would you like me to come back later?” “I wish you wouldn’t.” A twitch started above her left eyebrow. “I’m not sure what I’ve done to earn your ire this time, but I’ve come with a proposal for you, Hatta.” He guffawed. “A proposal! My, my, you capricious thing. How many men do you intend to attach yourself to?”

“That is the trick of it. You see, Time works differently in Chess.” He pulled out his pocket watch and let it dangle like a pendulum over his desk. “Sometimes he moves forward and sometimes he moves backward, sometimes he goes fast or slow and sometimes he pauses altogether. But as long as I keep moving, as long as I am always moving in the opposite direction from Time, he can never find me, and I can never meet my fate.”

“A business with faulty merchandise does not flourish. I don’t require your nagging to tell me this.”

“Off with its head,” she whispered to herself, tossing her gaze wildly around the lobby. There had to be a weapon—something sharper than Jest’s polished-wood scepter. “We have to chop off its head.”

Off with its head. Off with its head. Off with its— The Jabberwock shuddered suddenly and turned away. It darted across the floor, claws scratching and scrabbling, and squeezed its wings against its back so it could fit through the doors that had been left open.

“Never day or night,” she murmured, looking around at the gold-lit grasses. “How can it be?” “I suspect Time has never set foot in this glen. Perhaps he isn’t willing to pay whatever price the Sisters would demand.”

“Raven and I were sent here to find her and … and to steal her heart.” He became so quiet Cath wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Then he looked up and held her gaze, his expression full of torment. “I came here to steal your heart.”

“Maybe there is no amount of magic that could ever make this a possibility,”

“If I am not to have happiness, let me at least have a purpose. Let me give you the heart of a queen.”

Jest never took his attention from Cath. “What do you choose?” he whispered, and though he was so far away, she could hear him plainly. Hope and wanting, so much wanting.

“You,” she whispered back to him, and though her voice barely reached even her own ears, she saw the brightness enter his eyes. “Over everything, I choose you.”

“I choose you,” she repeated. The words tasted like sugar.

“She is a rose, Jest. Lovely on the eyes, yes, but such thorns are not to be ignored. She belongs in a King’s garden, not yours.”

“How much longer will you run from Time?” “For as long as I can.” A third voice sang, “Time would never find you here.”

“I wish she’d taken a hat before we left the shop. How I find myself in the company of such an unadorned cranium, gallivanting about mazes and wells, is ever the mystery.”

“It has to be you!” His eyes pierced Catherine beneath the Jabberwock’s outstretched wing. “It answers only to royalty, love.”

Raven was on her shoulder, his talons puncturing her skin through the fabric of her wedding gown. He had become her most constant companion, though they rarely spoke.

“But hoping,” he said, “is how the impossible can be possible after all.”

“But why? Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Her hand fell on the doorknob. “It’s not,” she spat, ripping open the door. “It’s just a stupid riddle. It is nothing but stuff and nonsense!” Suddenly, inexplicably, the pocket watch fell silent.

“Stuff and nonsense,” he whispered, the words cracking. “Nonsense and stuff and much of a muchness and nonsense all over again. We are all mad here, don’t you know? And it runs in my family, it’s a part of my blood and he’s here, Time has finally found me and I—” His voice shredded. His eyes burned. “I haven’t the slightest idea, Your Queenness. I find that I simply cannot recall why a raven is like a writing desk.”

A beating heart was skewered on its tip. It was broken, cut almost clean in half by a blackened fissure that was filled with dust and ash.