[Gilbert] Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

—Oscar Wilde,

“The Critic as Artist,”

Part II: With Some Remarks upon the Importance of Discussing Everything

1

It was now 9:29 a.m.

While General Jinjur was informing her fellow lieutenant through her cell phone and her subordinate captains through her hand mirror about the situation atop the roof of the Belgrave hotel, and while Stephen and Dorothy were leading a fleet of goblins on flying carpets towards the same hotel, and while a goblin-led crew of yokai volunteers were following close behind, Princess Ozma glared up at the man in a white suit dissipating the megaphone from his hand. After that, he manifested a cane and twirled it around and whistled a tune she couldn’t recognize, then poked the end of it against Ozma’s diaphragm, making her wince.

Which provoked the other princesses, Betsy telling him to stop this at once and Trot saying that when Dorothy gets here she’s gonna be really mad, and she’s gonna—

“Gonna what, darling?” Rancaster said, staring at them with a flash of eyes and gagging them with a psychic restraint over their mouths. “What can she do now, hmmmm?”

“Stop it!” Ozma said.

Rancaster looked at the three Princesses in turn, saying, “You pompous bitches should know your place,” and then approached Ozma beside them and bent over her, staring into her eyes. “And you, darling, you’re just like those papal bastards, always dipping your finger into other people’s cakes in the name of peace and progress and prosperity. Look at what that’s gotten you: a bunch of people involved in crashing Alice’s debut and your friends getting caught in the middle. Do you have anything to say for yourself, hmmmm?”

And Ozma did; she had a lot of things on her mind, and if she would’ve had her choice, she would’ve screamed at this phony man in a white suit for framing Mr. Foster (a.k.a., Ronald Hamilton) with ‘Alice’s murder. So she said through gritted teeth, “You killed an innocent man, you bastard!”

“And what of it?” he said. “He used to be a good friend of mine, yes, but he was just a phony.”

“You’re the phony!”

“It takes one to know one,” he said. “I’ve lived many lives under many names, and so have you, your Highness.”

“You don’t know me,” she said.

“Oh, but I do.”

“You’re lying,” she said.

“Then answer me this, phony girl,” he said. “Does Old Mombi ring a bell?”

And for a moment, Princess Ozma just stared up at Rancaster before realizing she was gaping at him and holding her breath. She then closed her mouth and averted her gaze, cursing herself for being so obvious about it.

“I knew Old Mombi, the Wicked Witch of the North,” he said, “and she told me about you whenever I visited her, and you were a dashing and strong boy then.”

“I never saw you there,” she said.

“Of course you didn’t, because you couldn’t see me,” he said, “but I saw you clear as day. You know what I saw?”

Ozma gritted her teeth in a grimace, closing her eyes from Rancaster’s face and remembering the clandestine doings of her false boyhood whenever Old Mombi was asleep at night and Ozma was bored and too horny to sleep and had to play with herself and spill it out into her idle hands, imagining that she was doing it with opposite sex the way a man does it with a woman, for Princess Ozma had not been a woman back then. She had been a lonely lad with a plethora of naughty thoughts swimming about her boyish mind, a mind that had not changed after Lady Glinda had compelled Old Mombi to change her back to Princess Ozma’s current gender in front of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow and the Woggle-Bug and Jack Pumpkinhead, all of whom she had sworn to secrecy to never tell anyone outside of that ignoble gathering what they had all witnessed if she was going to ascend to the throne. . . .

“What’s he talking about, Ozma?” Betsy said.

Princess Ozma snapped out of it and turned to her companion, yet she bit her lip and remained quiet.

“What’s wrong?” Trot added.

She turned away, saying, “It’s nothing,” and yet the blush on Ozma’s cheeks betrayed her white lie like the seminal stains left on the inside of her boyhood breeches. She shifted in her chair now, still remembering the phantom sensations of her self-abuse: the wondrous blood rush between her legs and in her head and the heavy breathing accompanying the rhythmic motions of her diaphragm and her idle hands and her scrunching toes as she was on the verge of a sweet climax—

Before noticing another sensation altogether beneath her robe of silvery gauze, of something firm and solid wrapped around her own slim waist beneath her robe, of something studded with jewels and buckled behind the small of her back, and that’s when she realized she was still wearing her magic belt. She had completely forgotten about it the moment she and Betsy and Trot woke up beneath a blue sky atop the roof of the Belgrave, where she found herself and her friends in their current predicament, kept in their chairs via Rancaster’s psychic hold.

She glared up at her captor, pretending she had nothing under her robe of silvery gauze, which was easy for her to do in front of the man she held in contempt.

“I’m not judging you for your actions, darling,” Rancaster said, standing back up. “It’s just a part of growing up, despite what those Christian bastards would have you believe, but you’re being disingenuous to yourself for denying it.”

But Ozma shook her head, saying, “That’s enough! You don’t know me at all!”

“Well, I guess you’re right,” he said but then looked at the quizzical faces of Betsy and Trot, “but it seems your friends don’t know, either. You haven’t told them, have you?”

“Stop harping on it!” Ozma said.

“I know what it’s like to be in denial over what you’ve become,” Rancaster said. “I used to be a king and a leader of men, so I’ve spent half of my undead existence believing that I was still the man I used to be, but I’ve come to embrace who I am now. I’ve seen myself become a national hero to my countrymen and a nightmare to the rest of the world, but I couldn’t care less. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can live without hiding from who you really are and living a lie.”

“You don’t know who I am,” Ozma said, “and you’ve never lived my life, so how can you—”

“All right, all right,” he said, backing off. “Maybe it’s a difference between genders. If you can’t believe me with that boyish mind of yours, then maybe you can believe another woman who knows exactly what it means to be a woman. Bambina,” he added, looking at Alice by the balustrade, “get rid of that gun and talk some sense into her,” and he stepped away.

2

It was now 9:33 a.m.

Meanwhile, in the square of the Coventry Garden neighborhood, Nico Cairns had been observing Amelia and the blue musketeers and the monkeys and the rest of the group form their rescue plan of the three hostages at the Belgrave. Since there were four pairs of Alice’s red musketeer doppelgängers to deal with, as well Alice and Rancaster, they all agreed that they needed to pick off those doppelgängers if they stood a chance at saving the Princesses unscathed. As such, John Crane summoned his item box, reached into it, and took out eight muskets and four bags of power and eight unused cartridges, saying that they could load their guns beforehand and use them when needed. Thus, with John Crane providing the muskets and powder and shot for each musketeer and for himself, they could (theoretically) fire two shots fast enough to take out all the doppelgängers before things get dicey.

Yet there was just one catch: they only had enough powder and shot for two shots per shooter, meaning that each shot counted. If one shooter missed, they’d lose the element of surprise, and things would get dicey. As such, Amelia and Cooley stressed the element of surprise and did not want any hasty actions, as that would endanger the lives of the three hostages. To this, the flying monkeys all volunteered to fly through Amelia’s mirror and preoccupy Alice’s doppelgängers, but Amelia shot it down, saying that was too risky with too many variables, two of which were the volatile duo of Rancaster and Alice.

While messieurs Curvan and Dolan and Shaefer and John Crane were priming the flash pans and closing the frizzens and priming the muzzles and stuffing the cartridges and balls inside the barrels and ramming them home into the breach of their muskets with their ramrods, Blaze asked if she could use her explosive seals as a distraction, but Cooley shot that down, saying the resulting explosions could endanger the hostages.

After observing the lengths they all took to cook up a feasible plan, Nico excused herself from the group and decided to walk around the square to ease a sudden headache coming on.

Yet the worrywart that was Lucy Cairns tailed after her, saying, “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I just need to walk off my headache,” she said.

“Want me to accompany you?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Lucy said.

Nico assured her mother she was fine and started walking around the square, looking down at the brick paving as she reviewed a series of inexplicable flashbacks she knew she didn’t have. These flashbacks included ones with a girl named Kendra: one was atop a set of incomplete stairs, where Kendra kissed her, and Nico kissed her back; others were a series of flashbacks in the Edwardian era, where she and Kendra met a certain ‘patron’ at an inn before they both ran off and later met a young Amelia Hearn; still others were a series of crazy encounters with the trigger-happy duo of Auna and Rancaster and even a chance encounter with Mara in the hallways of Katherine’s dream mansion that she couldn’t account for, among other inexplicable events. But the flashbacks that stood out the most centered on Nico and Kendra meeting with Colbie and Mara in Colbie’s dream simulation of Katherine’s ballroom, where they hatched a foolhardy plan to fight back against hordes of Rancaster’s masquerading retainers, as well as the mind-controlled Red and White Queens under the influence of a sociopathic knife-wielding Alice.

Thinking all of these things through, Nico couldn’t make head or tail of these flashbacks and just chalked it up to déjà vu, and that was that.

Upon reaching her conclusion, Nico’s headache had subsided, and she had almost completed a full circuit around the square, coming within calling distance of her mother within the group, when she came across the mirror sheen of the same pool in the northwest corner of the square. And just like before, she saw on either side of that pool the ghosts of a cow and a tiger lapping up water and creating ripples.

She halted when the cow and tiger looked up at her as if they both recognized her, then saw them saunter off to the northeast part of the square when another group walked in. Only this time, the group consisted of six teenaged girls in pre-World War I uniforms with knee-length skirts and high boots over their legs and tall shako hats atop their heads, all of them shoulder-carrying rifles and long spikes hanging from baldrics slung over their shoulders. They were scanning across the square when they halted before the pool’s edge—

And one of them pointed out Nico’s group and said, “Ah, there they are! I told you they were here.”

“W-who are you?” Nico said.

The group halted before Nico, as if they had not seen her, and the one that spoke said, “I’m Squad Leader Joyce, and we’re from Captain Nell’s Gillikin Battalion,” and she pointed to the troop of flying monkeys talking with Amelia and Cooley and the rest. “We’ve come looking for the monkeys, but who are the others?”

“Oh, they’re with me,” she said.

“And who are you?”

“I’m Nico Cairns,” she said, offering her hand and getting a firm handshake in return, then looked back when her mother called out to her from the group. “And that’s my mom. Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone,” and she led the way and met her mother halfway.

Nico introduced the newcomers to Lucy Cairns (“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cairns,” they said), then led the way to the hodgepodge group of three other ghost mothers and three blue musketeers and the troop of flying monkeys and two catty sisters and a man named John Crane. And messieurs Shaefer and Curvan and John Crane, in particular, greeted the newcomers as if they were acquainted with each other, and that’s when Nico remembered John Crane talking about the Gillikin Battalion back at the Nishimura Buffet, and that’s when she remembered . . .

“Hey,” Nico said to the talkative girl-soldier, “did you find anything about Auna?”

“I’m afraid not, sorry,” Squad Leader Joyce said.

“If you can’t help with that,” John Crane added, showing them their antique muskets, “then maybe you can help us with manpower and ammunition. Only four of us can use these guns properly, and the guns we’ve got have one shot left.”

“You’d do better to sell those and buy new guns, sir,” Squad Leader Joyce said, “but don’t worry. We’ll help you,” and she summoned her own item box and pulled out bolt-action and lever-action rifles and a bag full of ammo clips.

John Crane and the blue musketeers whistled, and Monsieur Curvan took up a lever-action rifle and said, “You’re kidding me, an 1866 Winchester? I never thought I’d see a ‘Yellow Boy’ like this in such good condition. Has it ever been fired?”

“For target practice,” she said, then looked over at the reflection of the hostage situation in Amelia’s mirror and added, “As for the manpower, count us in.”

And at once, Amelia and Cooley and the blue musketeers and the flying monkeys all shared their plans with the squad unit from Captain Nell’s Gillikin Battalion. Amelia, for her part, clued the newcomers in on Princess Ozma’s demeanor, as if she was waiting for a signal from someone just outside of the viewing range of her mirror. To this, Squad Leader Joyce suggested it might be General Jinjur, since she had received word from Captain Nell that the General was close by the scene, hidden from view atop the Bangsian one street over from the Belgrave.

With that, Amelia had messieurs Curvan and Dolan and Shaefer and John Crane line up before her mirror and aim their guns. And Cooley, for her part, manifested her own mirror of the hostage situation from a different vantage point and had the women from the Gillikin Battalion line up before her mirror and aim their guns. Thus, with four men and six women sighting their targets, ten shooters aiming at Rancaster and Alice and Alice’s eight doppelgängers, they all waited for an opening—

Waited for Ozma to do something.

3

It was now 9:34 a.m.

Some minutes earlier back at the Belgrave, while Amelia and Cooley were watching the event unfold through their respective mirrors with Captain Nell’s squad and the flying monkeys and the blue musketeers and the rest, Alice dissipated her gun and left the balustrade and approached Ozma like a woman with lewd intentions, leaning over Ozma in her chair and brushing her fingers along her cheek.

Ozma turned her head away and shut her eyes, and Betsy and Trot told Alice to stop it, or else she’d regret—

Rancaster’s psychic hold shut them up again, and Alice continued caressing Ozma’s cheek and then raising her chin just enough for her to get a good view of her glossy pink lips, till Ozma turned her face away again.

“I’m curiouser and curiouser,” Alice said. “Rancaster’s told me about your past, specifically about your . . . nighttime proclivities.”

Ozma grimaced but stayed silent, rolling the words of the Red and White Queens about the unfortunate ‘Alice’ through her head, focusing on what they told ‘Alice’ about this other Alice before her. She then looked back at Rancaster occupying himself with flicking Trot’s hair and then Betsy’s hair with his fingers, then looked back at Alice snapping her fingers and summoning a chair of her own and sitting in it right in front of her.

“Do you like playing games?” Alice said.

“What kind of games?” Ozma said.

“The kind that piques my curiosity,” she said, then glanced back at whatever was happening on the adjacent rooftop of the Bangsian hotel, where General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles and Lewis Carroll, along with Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, all stood watching the scene play out atop the Belgrave from across the street.

Ozma looked over Alice’s shoulder, catching sight of General Jinjur holding up the handkerchief Ozma had given her back in her throne room, holding it above her head and locking eyes with Ozma as if she was trying to signal something, and that’s when it came to her. Since Ozma still had her belt with her, she’d bide her time and play along.

“What’s she doing?” Alice said.

“God knows,” Ozma said. “Maybe she’s surrendering?”

“Or maybe she’s bluffing,” Alice said, then faced her again. “You’re wondering, too, eh? Tell you what then,” she added. “Since we’re both curious about queer things, maybe we can play a game to help us get to know each other. What do you say?”

“Why would I want to know you?” Ozma said.

“Because I know you’re just as curious as I am,” Alice said, “about more things than just that woman behind us.”

Which meant General Jinjur, so Ozma played along, saying, “What game do you have in mind?”

“Truth or dare,” Alice said and smiled a mischievous grin. “Since you’re the Queen of Oz, and since I’m the Queen of Wonderland, let’s get to know each other.”

“Sure,” Ozma said.

“You know the rules, right?”

“Spell them out for me,” Ozma said, “so there’s no mistaking them later on.”

“The rules are simple,” Alice said. “First, don’t lie when it’s your turn to tell the truth. Second, don’t disobey a dare when it’s your turn to commit to it. Failure to follow either of these rules will result in a penalty of Rancaster’s choice on one of your friends.”

“That’s not fair!” Ozma said.

“If that’s the case, Bambina,” Rancaster said, “then why don’t we even things up just to make it ‘fair’ for the Princess, shall we?” And his raised his hand and snapped his fingers, and two more chairs appeared before the seated Betsy and Trot, and when he snapped his fingers again, two of Alice’s red musketeer doppelgängers serving as lookouts over one corner of the roof now appeared in both chairs with their hands restrained and their mouths gagged beneath Rancaster’s psychic hold. “Does this make things fair for you, your Highness?”

Ozma nodded her head.

“Good,” Alice said. “Do you want to start?”

“You start,” Ozma said.

“Thank you, I will,” Alice said. “Truth or dare?”

Ozma closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she braced herself and said, “Truth.”

“Rancaster’s told me about how you spent your time alone as a boy,” Alice said and leaned forwards in her chair, getting up in Ozma’s face and smirking. “He said that he’d sometimes catch you masturbating under the bedsheets, fingering your prick and fingering your asshole at the same time.”

Ozma grimaced in agony at Alice’s words, bending over and wanting to throw up at the details of her most shameful moments passing through someone else’s lips, feeling the impression of her belt digging under her ribs.

“So tell me the truth, naughty girl,” Alice said. “Do you like getting fucked? Or do you like doing the fucking?”

“God, you’re disgusting!”

“Or do you prefer,” Alice added, “doing both at the same time?”

“I won’t answer your questions, you pervert!”

“If you won’t answer,” Alice said, nodding her head and making Ozma look back and—

“Don’t!” Ozma said.

—see Rancaster stepping behind a struggling Betsy and Trot in their chairs, “then I can’t guarantee their safety, can I? A little loss of dignity is better than the spillage of innocent blood, right?”

“I’ll answer you!” Ozma said. “Just don’t hurt them!”

“Then which is it?” Alice said. “Jacking your prick? Or fingering your asshole? Or both at once?”

Ozma grimaced again, squeezing her eyes shut and feeling her cheeks burn and saying under her breath, “Both.”

“What’s that?” Alice said.

“Both!” Ozma yelled. “Stop harping on it!”

Alice smiled a slasher’s smile and said, “See? That wasn’t too hard, was it? Now you go.”

Ozma took a few moments to recover herself, then glared up at her antagonist and said, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Alice said.

Yet despite Ozma’s blushes and indignities, she too was prepared with what she knew and brandished her words like swords, saying, “Akami and Shiromi also told me about you. I’m sorry you had to go through it, you and that other girl.”

“What other girl are you talking about?” Alice said.

“You know who she is.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes, you do,” Ozma said.

“Fine, whatever!” Alice yelled.

“Then tell me,” Ozma said. “What’s the name of this other girl?”

Alice stayed silent for several moments, just long enough for even Rancaster to say something.

“You suggested this game, Bambina,” he said. “Don’t lose face: play by your own rules.”

“Fine!” she said. “It’s Auna.”

“Auna-who?” Ozma said.

“Auna Wenger, damn you!” Alice said. “It’s my turn now!”

“Go ahead.”

“Truth or dare?”

Again Ozma closed her eyes, bracing herself for the inevitable, and said, “Truth.”

Now it was Alice’s turn, and Ozma waited out the pregnant pause with thoughts of other unutterable acts fluttering through her head, till Alice said, “Rancaster also told me about your relationship with a girl named Dorothy. When he brought you here, he said that he glimpsed a few naughty memories between you and Dorothy on the previous night.”

Alice paused, smiling, and Ozma winced.

Then Ozma bent forward in her chair, grimacing and averting her eyes from Alice’s smirking face, waiting for the inevitable question like a condemnation event in a villainess isekai manga, waiting with bated breath.

“When you made love to Dorothy that time,” Alice said, “did you love her as a woman? Or as a man?”

Ozma whispered, “Both.”

“Speak up, love,” Alice said, then leaned forward in her own chair and whispered into her ear. “Don’t lose face.”

So Ozma gritted her teeth and met Alice’s gaze, staring into her teal eyes that flickered with untold agonies, staring into the darkness as if the darkness was staring back at her like a mirror, for the eyes were the mirrors to the soul. She steeled herself and took a deep breath and said, “Does it really matter? Love is love. And I love Dorothy with a woman’s body and a man’s mind, and nothing you say will change that!”

“‘Love is love,’ you say?” Alice said, leaning back in her chair. “Then when my bastard of a father raped me when I was ten, would you consider that love?”

“No!” she yelled.

“Bambina,” Rancaster said, “be mindful of your own rules. Since you asked her two questions, it’s only fair that you give her two chances as well.”

“Fine, whatever,” Alice said, then to Ozma: “It’s your turn, love. Two for the price of one.”

Now it was Ozma’s turn, so she glanced past Alice’s shoulder at General Jinjur staring at her with her arm still raised and her hand still holding onto the handkerchief, then looked back at Alice and said, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Alice said.

“I feel sorry for you, Alice,” Ozma said.

“What’s there to be sorry about?” Alice said. “Just ask your questions, so I can have my turn already.”

“Have you ever loved Auna Wenger?” Ozma said.

“What?” she said, shifting in her chair. “I demand a redo!”

“Don’t bend your own rules too much,” Ozma said, “for I’ve already answered two of your questions in a row.”

“She’s got a point,” Rancaster said.

“Ugh, fine, you tightwad!” Alice said. “I don’t love that bitch anymore. Next question!”

“I’m not asking about your feelings for her now,” Ozma said, looking straight into Alice’s eyes again, making the girl turn away for the first time. “I’m asking you whether or not you’ve ever loved Auna Wenger. Did you? Or didn’t you?”

“Fine,” Alice said under her breath as her face softened with an air of nostalgia washing over her eyes, as if she was looking at something other than Ozma, looking into a childhood that had been corrupted too soon. “I loved her once, because I was a part of her, and she was a part of me. I loved her back then when she pretended to be me from the dead pages of a dead writer, creating new adventures and new friends from her own mind.”

“Akami and Shiromi?” she said.

“Yes,” Alice said. “Auna and I were one and the same back then, her thoughts one with my thoughts, her feelings one with my feelings, and we’d go exploring deeper down the rabbit hole with Akami and Shiromi by our side. Those were happy times, but when Auna was feeling down, she and I shared the same thoughts and feelings to the point where we needed Akami and Shiromi to keep us company in our darkest moments together. Through it all, we were there for each other, me and Auna and Akami and Shiromi.”

“Then what happened,” Ozma said, using her second question as the words of the Red and White Queens fluttered through her mind, “to turn you against her?”

“You already know,” Alice said.

“I want to hear your side of the story,” Ozma said, “what you know, what you felt, what you experienced.”

“But why?”

“You said it yourself,” Ozma said. “You wanted us to get to know each other, so here we are. No matter what you may think later on, I’m here for you now.”

Then, for the first time since meeting Alice, face to face, Ozma saw her unblinking eyes glistening with unshed tears, and her heart went out to the girl before her. Whatever lurked behind those eyes, whatever agony raged behind the ageless mask of Alice’s face, Ozma got the feeling she was reliving the fatal moments that led up to the tragedy and perhaps even the aftermath, steeling herself against a painful catharsis of words that would cut deeper than any sword in existence.

“I was a fool,” Alice said.

Ozma waited for more.

Then Alice averted her eyes and said, “I was Auna’s strength during and after those godless moments. Her pain was my pain, and her tears were my tears, and her blackest thoughts were my thoughts, too. Every time that bastard of a father committed those atrocities, touching and kissing and groping and fondling and worse, I felt Auna’s spirit dying within me as if she was a candle getting dimmer and dimmer. Auna became a shell of her former self, no longer happy and gay, always brooding and full of dread, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help her. Akami and Shiromi managed to keep her whole, but I couldn’t, not then and not after that beast of a father did it to us both. By then, Auna was just lying there like a corpse as her father entered her over and over. So in a rage I struck down that fucking Jabberwock, but Auna herself was gone.”

“What do you mean by ‘gone?’” Ozma said.

“I couldn’t feel her spirit,” Alice continued, “and I couldn’t even remember her name, not on that night, nor afterward. But the worst part was that when she did come back to her senses, it was like she came back a different person, quieter and colder, without a trace of humanity left in her, like a shell of a human being. And when I tried reaching out to her through the cold darkness of her mind, I got no response whatsoever.”

“She forgot about you?”

Alice nodded and said, “Just as I had forgotten her name, she had forgotten all about me, and I was left alone for six godless years inside the mirror of Looking-Glass House. But just as Auna changed, so did I, becoming disappointed and then depressed and later angry at that no-name girl-character! I never left her, but she left ME alone to . . . to . . . God, if I ever see her again, I’ll fucking kill her!”

“Alice, you don’t mean that!” Ozma said.

“Yes, I do!” Alice yelled.

“No, you don’t!”

“Yes, I do! I fucking do, by God!”

And Ozma found herself struggling against Rancaster’s psychic restraints that kept her seated on the chair, wanting to reach out and comfort this broken child before her, this hollowed-out vessel of a girl, this pitiful specimen of humanity, whose tears were now trailing down her cheeks. Yet before Ozma knew what was happening around her, before Rancaster or Alice’s doppelgängers could react, General Jinjur let go of her handkerchief atop the Bangsian, and Ozma herself (through sheer force of will) broke through Rancaster’s psychic restraints and reached out to wipe away Alice’s tears—

With Jinjur’s handkerchief in her hand.

But just as Ozma realized what she was holding, just as Rancaster drew out a blade from his cane behind her back, Pvt. Benjamin fired—

(boom!)

—a silver bullet through Rancaster’s hand, and he screamed at the touch of burning silver, letting his sword and his sheath clang to the ground like the clang of a bell about to break, breaking his psychic hold over Betsy and Trot and the pair of Alice’s doppelgängers seated before them.

So those doppelgängers leapt from their chairs after Betsy and Trot, but Ozma was quicker on her fleet fairy feet. She turned and she leaped and she rolled and she twirled with a wicked roundhouse kick that sent them flying from the rooftop past the water tower atop the Bangsian and right over Pvt. Benjamin as he was reloading his bolt-action rifle, sending them smashing into the masonry of another building across the street in a shuddering impact of dislodging brickwork and splintering wood and shattering glass and fluttering plaster dust.

4

It was now 9:43 a.m.

Several reports echoed across the horizon of rooftops and drew Dorothy’s eyes to her left at her ten o’clock position: first a gunshot and an echoing scream, then a huge blast like dynamite going off that raised up an expanding plume of debris ahead of their trajectory and obscured the buildings, and then a series of other gunshots from the same area.

Pointing out the disturbances, Dorothy said, “Uncle, look! Something’s going on there!”

“Yeah, I see it it,” Stephen said and raised his hand to signal the rest of the goblin fleet and pointed towards the disturbance, then held onto the enchanted jar in his lap as he banked his flying carpet in a shallow arc and headed straight for it, drawing the flying procession along amidst the gasps and stares and pointing fingers of the onlookers below.

But just as the airborne procession neared the commotion, and just as Dorothy noticed the human shapes atop the roofs of the Belgrave and the Bangsian up ahead, a thunderous volley of gun smoke erupted from the top-floor windows of the Belgrave, ripping through the carpet and going through Stephen’s thigh—

“Aaaah, fuck!”

—and bowling him over onto his side as he struggled to keep a shaky grasp on the shaggy pile of the carpet, knocking the jar from his grasp and almost sending it rolling off into the street below if Dorothy hadn’t caught it, making the carpet buck and bob in herky-jerky movements.

With one hand holding the jar and the other hand holding onto the shaggy pile of a bucking and bobbing carpet, Dorothy said, “Uncle! Uncle, are you okay?”

“Does it look like I’m okay?” he said, then winced as he pressed his free hand over his thigh to stop the blood flow and kept his grasp of the shag pile with his other hand. “Dorothy, take control of this carpet.”

“But how?” she said.

“Use your instincts to guide it,” he said, “and don’t let go of that jar! If you do, we’ll drop like stones.”

So Dorothy held onto the jar with both hands, trying to clear her thoughts and calm her mind, till the carpet stopped bucking and bobbing beneath her. After regaining control, she had the carpet climb higher and higher in a banking arc above the airspace of the Belgrave, gaining altitude away from another volley of thunderous gun smoke erupting from its top-floor windows. And the rest of the fleet of carpet-flying goblins followed suit, yet the banking turn was too steep for Stephen who was losing more blood and slipping into shock and losing his hold on the shag of the carpet . . .

Dorothy reached out and caught his hand at the last moment before he teetered over the edge to certain death. Now holding Stephen in one hand and the jar in the other, Dorothy found herself in a pickle, struggling to maintain control of the carpet as her thoughts (and the carpet) started racing out of control up footless halls of air—

Till the jar slipped out of her grasp.

And the carpet and Stephen and Dorothy and the jar she was holding all began free-falling with Dorothy’s life flashing before her eyes: of her life as a Kansas girl with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em and her dog Toto, of getting caught in a tornado and defeating the Wicked Witch of the East with her house, of meeting Locasta the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion and Wantowin Battles, of defeating the Wicked Witch of the West and meeting the Wizard of Oz and Glinda the Good Witch of the South, of meeting Ozma and thwarting the Nome King and rescuing the royal family of Ev, and of her subsequent adventures with Ozma and her friends, the last of which included her first (and maybe her last) intimate adventure with Ozma . . .

Till another explosion broke through her reveries as she fell into the hands of a troop of flying monkeys appearing from nowhere, catching the carpet and Stephen and Dorothy and even the jar in their grasp.

“Hello, your Highness,” said a monkey wearing glasses and a golden cap. “Nice of you to drop by.”

Dorothy looked back at yet another cloud of dust obscuring the view of the rooftop, then faced her savior, saying, “Where the heck did you come from?”

“Long story, your Highness,” he said.

“Dorothy! Dorothy!” Princesses Betsy and Trot said at once as they were carried in the arms of two other monkeys, and Betsy said, “Ozma’s still at the roof!”

“And Alice and Mr. Prospero are there!” Trot added.

“Take me over there!” Dorothy ordered.

“We can’t,” the monkey said.

“Why not?”

“We can’t get close without getting shot at,” the monkey said, “and we’ve been shot at the last time we tried.”

“But what about Ozma?”

“They’re working on it,” he said.

And before Dorothy was about to ask who ‘they’ were, she heard a voice calling her (“Ahoy, missy! Over here!”) as the flying monkeys carried Dorothy and an unconscious Stephen and the carpet and the jar and Betsy and Trot towards a pair of carpet-flying goblins coming alongside them, one of which Dorothy recognized as the goblin seller that Stephen had haggled with back at the goblin market bazaar.

“Gobsmacker,” she said, “you’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine, missy,” Gobsmacker said and then looked over at the unconscious Stephen, “but it looks like the boss has some skin in the game,” and he called over the monkeys carrying Stephen and the girls and the carpet and the jar to his side, while his fellow goblin co-pilot kept his hands on another jar, keeping the carpet steady. Gobsmacker first laid Stephen on the carpet, then took up Betsy and Trot and had them sit beside Stephen and told them they’ll get help from a big goblin with a big boat and a few helpful yokai. After that, he took up the other carpet and the jar from the other monkeys and had the carpet levitate in the air, then jumped on and said, “Come aboard, missy.”

The monkey with the glasses and the golden cap placed Dorothy on the carpet, saying, “We’ll let General Jinjur know their Highnesses are safe,” and he and his troop flew off in the direction of the on-going commotion.

“Stay safe up there!” Dorothy called after them.

And while Gobsmacker’s co-pilot carried Stephen off to the big boat of the goblin-led crew with the volunteer yokai runners, Gobsmacker said, “I’ll get you there myself, missy.”

“It’s dangerous,” she said.

“I know,” he said, opening the jar and taking out over a dozen Acme bombs, then closed the jar and held it tight in his hands. “Just hang on tight.”

Dorothy thought of asking what those items were for but thought better of it, grabbing two fistfuls of the shaggy pile of the carpet, and just in time, too. For they now sped towards the Belgrave like a fighter jet, zeroing in on the dissipating dust cloud and the moving shapes within as Ozma’s bird-like scream cracked through her mind’s eye like a premonition. So Dorothy urged Gobsmacker on as she squinted against the headwind, trying to distinguish Ozma’s shape from those of Rancaster and Alice, praying for her friend’s safety as she said, “I’m coming, Ozma. Just hold on!”

5

It was now 9:44 a.m.

Everything slowed for Ozma after that, while everything else sped up around her. As she wheeled on her feet and lunged for her friends, she saw a white blur flashing past her before she could blink. In fact, Ozma was yet to reach Betsy and Trot in the moment it took Rancaster to blitz Alice towards the balustrade on the other side of the roof. For moments later, as the remaining doppelgängers swung around their muskets, and as Ozma herself grabbed onto her friends and blinked them out of sight with a wish for their safety, gunshots went off overhead, dropping the doppelgängers to the ground with their limbs splayed and their guns dislodged from their hands.

With Betsy and Trot nowhere in sight, Ozma glanced over her shoulder and scrambled to her feet. Both assailants were armed, one with a knife and one with a sword, both now rushing towards her in two blurs of death.

So she twisted through their attacks, clearing the arcs of their slashes but not their combined shock wave blowing Ozma forwards like a rear-end collision onto her hands and knees. But now she scrambled onto her feet to the clearer side of the roof, grimacing against the whiplash through wheezing breaths, and squinted through the spreading debris cloud, looking for signs of her attackers’ movements.

Then everything slowed even more for Ozma, while everything else sped up around her. For now there came Alice in a blur from the cloud of debris with slash after slash after slash at her face in quick vicious arcs, and yet cooler heads and fleet fairy footwork prevailed. Like a featherweight boxer with poise and finesse, Ozma was slipping and sliding and dodging and skipping with occasional feints of open-hand strikes and pushes and shoves, almost dancing to the rhythm of her opponent’s slashes and misses, looking for openings she could exploit, ready to catch Alice off guard in one move.

And now Alice was cursing and whining and saying, “You’re cheating, you bitch!”

And she slashed and she slashed and she slashed in widening arcs of unbridled frustration amidst a chorus of boos from the onlookers on the roof of the Bangsian. Yet the fleet-footed Ozma dodged and she dodged and she dodged with a slip and a slide and a turn, avoiding her slashes and catching her forearm, grabbing her wrist and bending her elbow and getting Alice to overcompensate on the balls of her feet. Then Ozma threw Alice over her shoulder and onto her back, knocking the knife from her hand, then forced Alice onto her stomach by leveraging her arm behind her back, making her opponent taste the dirt on the rooftop and throw more curses.

Over a minute elapsed since Ozma and Alice started duking it out, and two minutes since the cloud of debris had obscured the roof of the Belgrave from view, and just over two minutes since Rancaster’s appearance, but now cheers had erupted from the roof of the Bangsian from the likes of General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles and Lewis Carroll to the likes of Lt. Hamilton and Col. Roosevelt and the rest of the Rough Riders. The only one remaining quiet in place was Pvt. Benjamin, still up on the roof of the water tower, still with his iron sights trained on the cloud of debris and his finger on the trigger.

But just as the debris cloud was about to clear up, a blur of pure white—

(“Ozma!” General Jinjur screamed.)

—shot out from the dissipating cloud, catching Ozma off guard from behind as she looked past her shoulder, squinting her eyes shut at the flash of a blade and letting out her first scream of terror in her life . . .

6

It was now 9:45 a.m.

Meanwhile, before Rancaster came out of the cloud of debris, Lewis Carroll left the group of General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles and Sgt. Rousseau and Col. Roosevelt and Lt. Hamilton, all of them discussing what to do next. He approached the Bangsian’s balustrade that overlooked the scene of Ozma getting the upper hand on Alice and looked down at a version of Alice he wasn’t used to seeing, a far cry from the curious girl in his novels, which got him thinking about Rancaster’s words before Alice had him beheaded in Wonderland: “‘That’s enough, Bambina,’” he’d said. “‘You’ve done your part to a T, and I can only praise you for it. Now let me do mine.’”

Those words had nagged at Lewis Carroll since he and L. Frank Baum traveled to Glinda’s Palace in the southern part of the Quadling Country to consult her on what they should do next, and he shook his head. Just getting to her Palace was an adventure in itself, in which Lewis Carroll had lost his head in the enchanted forest of the Fighting Trees. And while L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll’s headless body traveled to the China Country in the forest to find help, Carroll’s head had suffered a further outrage of coming into the possession of the Hammer-Heads that used his noggin as a piñata. Coupled with Baum’s experience, Lewis Carroll decided that, after they completed their errands, he’d ask his friend to collaborate with him on a crossover novel between his Wonderland and Baum’s Oz and smiled at the prospect.

Then he turned his thoughts back to Glinda, who had Lewis Carroll meet up with General Jinjur and go to Ozma’s Royal Palace in the Emerald City of Oz and also had L. Frank Baum go on a different errand to find a girl named Colbie Amame and the Virgin Mary. He had no clue who Colbie was, but Lewis Carroll remembered the ashen look on Baum’s face when Glinda mentioned the latter’s name. Lewis Carroll was about to ask Glinda about it, but she shook her head and told him to let his colleague handle it and bade Lewis Carroll to focus on his part.

Which had reminded him of Rancaster’s words to Alice, that she had ‘done [her] part to a T,’ so he said, “Lady Glinda, Mr. Prospero said the same thing about Alice, so I’ve been wondering: what’s her role in his plan, anyway?”

“I can’t say,” Glinda said.

“Because you don’t know?” Lewis Carroll said.

“Or because you’re not at liberty to say?” L. Frank Baum added.

“Both,” she said. “I don’t know everything that’s going on, and that’s a good thing.”

“Then,” Baum said, looking from Glinda to Carroll, “is Mr. Prospero just using Alice to get something else?”

“Yes, he is,” Glinda said.

“And what is that something?” Lewis Carroll said.

“You two find that out,” Glinda said, and not until Lewis Carroll saw Alice there on the roof of the Belgrave, her arm pinioned behind her back, did he have an inkling of an answer to his own question. But no sooner had he thought this when something else caught his eyes, so he shielded them against the glare of the morning sun and squinted into the cloud. And for a moment, he thought he saw a silhouette taking something out or maybe drawing something out . . .

That’s when he realized what was about to happen, and that’s when he leaped onto the balustrade railing, turning the heads of General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles and Col. Roosevelt and Lt. Hamilton his way.

“Are you crazy?” Wantowin Battles said.

“Hey, get down from there!” Sgt. Rousseau added.

“What’s gotten into you, Mr. Carroll?” General Jinjur said, walking up to him. “Did you see something?”

Without a word, Lewis Carroll pointed out the ghost of a silhouette in the dissipating cloud before a blur of the man in the white suit flashed out behind Ozma. And so, just as General Jijur was screaming out Ozma’s name, and just as Ozma herself was screaming at the top of her lungs, Lewis Carroll jumped from the railing into the fray.

7

It was now 9:46 a.m.

Besides Lewis Carroll, four other coincidences converged during the apex of Ozma’s scream. The first was Rancaster at the moment Ozma screamed like a siren singing her swan song, in which he was about to behead Ozma with a swing of his sword. The second was Pvt. Benjamin from his perch atop the water tower firing his second silver bullet (boom!) at the flashing glint of Rancaster’s blade, breaking it off from the hilt with a ringing metallic twang in the air. The third was Gobsmacker on his carpet throwing Acme bombs into the Belgrave’s top-floor windows before yet another volley from Alice’s doppelgängers, then zooming off above the heads of General Jinjur and everyone else atop the Bangsian’s roof. And the fourth was Dorothy as she leaped from Gobsmacker’s carpet, dispelling the debris cloud and slashing off Rancaster’s sword-hand with her broadsword.

The combined forces of all four discharges of kinetic energy produced a percussive shock wave comparable to several blasts of commercial dynamite going off at once, shuddering the Belgrave to its foundations amidst breaking slabs of masonry and dislodging brickwork and splintering wood and shattering glass and shredding plaster all raining down on the other red musketeer doppelgängers in the street below.

And like the baby with the bathwater, the explosion threw an unconscious Ozma and Alice together off the building as Dorothy skidded to a halt at the remains of the balustrade, screaming, “OZMAAAAAAA!”

But no sooner had she screamed her name when she saw Lewis Carroll diving after them and transforming into a massive raven and jutting out its taloned feet, snatching both girls and flapping its wings across the street below. The bird landed atop the roof of the Belgrave on one leg and placed the girls down gently with the talons of his other leg, then looked back at a grimacing and smarting Rancaster with a flash of its red glaring eyes. Then it transformed back into Lewis Carroll, crouching before the two girls and placing his hands over their chests, while Dorothy dashed towards Ozma and Alice.

“They’re knocked out, but they’ll be fine with enough bed rest,” Lewis Carroll said. “Please look after Alice for me. I’m not sure what that man did to her, but I know for a fact it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him.”

“What are you going to do?” Dorothy said.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said.

“After everything he’s done,” she said, “you’re just going to go up to him and talk?”

Lewis Carroll smiled at Dorothy’s concern and said, “Don’t worry about me, your Highness. If he’s shrewd enough, which I know he is, then he may want to hear what I have to say before things escalate out of his control,” and he stood up and stalked over to Rancaster with fisted hands.

All the while, Gobsmacker came back to the roof on his carpet and took the girls onto his carpet with Dorothy’s help before helping Dorothy aboard. After that, he flew the carpet straight for the big boat captained by a big goblin and his goblin mates and their yokai volunteers, all of whom were windmilling their hands with cheers.

Dorothy then looked back over the roof of the Belgrave, now missing two sections of its balustrade on either side with a noticeable depression on the southern side of its roof, now full of slash marks left over from Rancaster and Alice’s little skirmish with Ozma. Even as she was drifting away from the action, she wondered what Lewis Carroll and Rancaster were saying to each other.

8

It was now 9:46 a.m.

About a block away from the action, due east of the Belgrave and Bangsian hotels, Squad Leader Dante and her squad from Captain Imogen’s Quadling Battalion halted behind an abandoned warehouse when an enormous report shocked through the air and rumbled the ground beneath their feet. Squad Leader Dante signaled her squad to keep their eyes peeled, which they acknowledged with their nods. She then led them through an alleyway between two abandoned warehouses and peaked behind the wall and saw a debris cloud spreading from one of the rooftops a block ahead of her and another debris cloud creeping along the street, where dust-covered red musketeer doppelgängers ran from the commotion, coughing and wheezing and winded on their feet.

“Wait here, till they all pass by,” she said. “If they see us, don’t engage them unless they fire on us.”

Her squad members nodded their heads again.

While they waited, Dante signaled her squad to run across the street, two at a time, while the rest provided cover fire, should the red musketeers fire on their positions. That meant that there were three chances of their movements getting spotted, so they waited and waited for them to straggling musketeers to wander by, all of them with itchy trigger fingers when one of them happened to stray just a few yards by their position.

Dante and her squad backed up into the shadow of the alley, all of them pressing themselves up against the shadowed wall of the old warehouse. But the straggling red musketeer girl just passed by, coughing and coughing, till her doppelgängers called out to her and said that they all should get back to their stronghold at the old fort atop the hill and inform the others.

With that, Squad Leader Dante ordered two of her squad to form a fire team and tail their foes towards their base, but added that they keep themselves low in Flanders Field and stay well away from their fortifications.

Her two members said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Then they sped after their foes in their military leapfrogging fashion from building to building, covering their positions the way Captain Bell of Glinda’s private army had taught all the battalions Squad Leaders and captains under General Jinjur’s command.

After that, Squad Leader Dante waited a moment longer, peaking out beyond the wall after the red musketeers had passed. Once the coast was clear, she signaled for the remaining two squad members, and they bolted across the street, while she and her assistant squad leader held down their positions with itchy fingers on their triggers; then they bolted down the street, while their squad mates held down their positions. They repeated these leapfrogging maneuvers across streets and corners from building to building, till they reached their designated reconnaissance spot at a run-down factory that used to manufacture Tin Lizzies. Covering their mouths through the lingering debris cloud, they stalked inside and fanned across rusted assembly lines before they cleared the area and headed up the rickety stairs to the loft windows that overlooked the street between their building and the Belgrave and afforded them a diagonal view of the Bangsian.

Once her squad was settled in their observation spots, Squad Leader Dante took out her mirror and said, “Testing, testing. One, two, three. This is Delta calling India.”

“Delta, this is India,” Captain Imogen said. “What’s your position?”

“It’s clear,” Dante said, “but we saw some of Alice’s red musketeers heading towards their headquarters back at the old fort atop the hill, so I had two of my squad tail them.”

“Keep in contact with them.”

“I will,” Dante said, “but we all heard an explosion. What’s going on over there?”

“I got word from General Jinjur,” Captain Imogen said and informed her that Princesses Ozma and Betsy and Trot were safe and that Alice has been captured through Princess Dorothy’s efforts, though Dorothy also said that Princess Ozma and Alice are bedridden and that Inspector Stephen Larking is wounded.

To this, Dante said, “Nothing worse than that, I hope?”

“No, nothing worse, thank goodness,” her captain said, “but the situation’s still on-going between Mr. Carroll and that Rancaster fellow on the roof of the Belgrave, so keep your eyes peeled for anything amiss.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Dante said. “Over and out,” and she ordered her squad to stay sharp for anything afoot in the vicinity. She then got out her binoculars and peered up at the commotion on the roof before spotting an anomalous group of flying monkeys headed towards the Bangsian.

9

It was now 9:47 a.m.

At the same time, due west of the Belgrave, Squad Leader Sheila and her squad from Captain Keely’s Munchkin Battalion had already settled themselves at their reconnaissance spot on the roof of a bed and breakfast inn. After entering the premises and calming down the ghosts and yokai and dreamers there, they told the shell-shocked patrons to stay away from the windows and keep themselves hidden in their closets in their apartment rooms. Then they accessed the roof through the back stairs and commandeered the roof for their purposes.

Squad Leader Sheila then summoned her mirror and asked Capitan Keely for any news about the hostage situation, and Captain Keely informed her from General Jinjur that the hostage situation had been resolved and that Alice had been captured, but with minor casualties.

“What casualties?” Sheila said.

“Right now,” Captain Keely said, “General Jinjur says that Princess Ozma and Alice are both bedridden and that Inspector Stephen Larking had been wounded.”

“What’s the current situation, Captain?”

There came a pause for a few moments, then Captain Keely said, “Mr. Carroll is talking with Rancaster atop the roof of the Belgrave as we speak. That’s all for now. If you and your girls see anything strange on your end, let me know.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Sheila said. “Over and out,” and she ordered her squad to keep an eye on the street below, as well as on the windows of the Belgrave above them. Then she got out her own binoculars and peered at the windows from her hiding spot behind the stairway access penthouse on the roof, spotting a group of flying monkeys overhead and wondering just what in God’s name was going on in this blasted hotel.

10

It was now 9:48 a.m.

While Squad Leaders Dante and Sheila were informing their Captains of the flying monkeys, Lewis Carroll took no notice of them as he watched Rancaster wincing and grimacing and raging at the pain of his stump, watching the bones of his hand recalcify around the marrow forming millimeter by millimeter to the tips of his fingers. Then veins and muscle fibers and tendons and sinews reformed and reconnected, and skin reformed over resurrecting tissue, and the man gritted his teeth and scrunched his face up in pain as nerve endings reformed and connected and allowed him to squeeze his hand.

After witnessing it all, sick to his stomach, Lewis Carroll still had his hands fisted when he said, “Are you done healing up there, old boy?”

“Just about,” Rancaster said, clenching his hand and opening it. “That’s the second time a girl has cut off my hand.”

“And the first?” Carroll said.

“I won’t reveal her name to a hypocrite like you,” Rancaster said, “lest you plan on photographing her in the nude, too, you disgusting little man.”

“And what about you, old boy?” Carroll said, fisting his hands again and staring into the man’s eyes. “Compared to my sins, yours are enormous: forcing you own brother to dig his grave before beheading him; impaling all those Saxons and Ottomans and Bulgarians; raiding and burning villages along the Ottoman border; even an assassination attempt on a sultan.”

“Old news from another life,” Rancaster said. “Did Glinda tell you all of that?”

“Including your more recent ones,” Carroll said. “Stalking and dogging your own family across Europe and into the U.S. for the last 500 years; killing several individuals, including but not limited to writers and lawmen and innocent bystanders from Europe to the U.S. for the last 300 years; countless instances of necromancy; invading and infiltrating various enchanted lands and dream worlds, including my own Wonderland and Mr. Baum’s Nonestica; influencing several unwitting individuals into doing your dirty work, including but not limited to—”

“All right, all right!” Rancaster said, stretching out a hand and manifesting his cane, from which he drew out his blade. “If you really feel that way, then why not settle this like honorable men? What do you say?”

Lewis Carroll said, “If you’re trying to dog me into another of your games, I won’t bite. Not this time, old boy,” and he circled around his foe towards the northwestern part of the roof and then manifested the Vorpal Sword in his hand. “After tussling with you, I understand why Lady Glinda doesn’t want anything to do with you. So I’ll follow her lead and leave the fighting to someone else more suited,” and he kneeled on one knee and presented the Vorpal Sword to the air.

Then Rancaster dashed towards him and swung his sword across Carroll’s neck, yet his sword passed through him like a ghost. And for a time, Rancaster stood there before passing his hand across Carroll’s head and said, “What are you doing?”

Yet Lewis Carroll ignored him and said, “It’s been too long since I last saw you, Knight-Errant. With all of my blessings, take this sword and fight the good fight!”

“Who are you talking to?”

Only then did Lewis Carroll look up at Rancaster with a gleam in his eye and a widening smile on his face, then looked up at several persons that even Rancaster couldn’t see, looking at the overprotective woman holding her daughter back from him and saying, “Don’t be afraid, ma’am. . . .”

11

It was now 9:50 a.m.

After getting informed from Dorothy about the conditions of Princesses Ozma and Betsy and Trot and even Alice and Inspector Stephen and then relaying the information to Lt. Shaefer and her four captains, General Jinjur cradled her head in her arms over the balustrade, squeezing her eyes shut. She was still recovering from what she had just seen mere minutes ago, trying to quell her throbbing heart as she rested her head in her arms over the balustrade railing. Even when Lewis Carroll had snatched Ozma and Alice in the nick of time, even when she knew Dorothy and the others were safe, she still had to squeeze her hands into tight knuckle-white fists to alleviate the tremors. Only then did she look up when Wantowin Battles and Col. Roosevelt and the rest all spotted the flying monkeys descending onto the roof of the Bangsian.

So Col. Roosevelt told his Rough Riders, “Stay your sticks, boys! They’re not enemies.”

Then General Jinjur and the rest gave the monkeys a wide berth away from the balustrade, so the visitors had room to land with a fluttering of their wings, and the one wearing glasses and a golden cap saluted General Jinjur and said, “We have something to report, ma’am.”

“What is it?” General Jinjur said.

“Their Highnesses Ozma and Betsy and Trot are safe,” the monkey said, “and they’re currently in the custody of our goblin allies in that flying boat over there,” and he pointed out the very boat flying their way in a banking arc due northwest of their position overhead.

“Yes, I know,” Jinjur said. “Her Highness Princess Dorothy’s really let me know about them.”

“But there were still casualties,” he said.

“How many?” she said.

“Nine goblins and one human,” he said. “The goblins’ injuries were superficial, but . . .”

“The human is Inspector Larking, right?” she said.

The Monkey nodded.

“How bad?”

“Shot through the leg,” he said, “and he’s still unconscious. The crew in the big boat are tending to him.”

General Jinjur grimaced, biting down on her lower lip and praying it wasn’t too bad of an injury, and said, “I see. Anything else I should know about?”

“Actually, yes,” the monkey said. “There’s another group of allies working alongside Squad Leader Joyce’s squad that Captain Nell had sent to find us.”

“Who are these allies of ours?”

“They’re composed of nine women,” the monkey said, “and four men who are good marksmen. The four men and Squad Leader Joyce’s squad took out the red musketeers on the roof.”

“Ah, I see,” General Jinjur said, smiling. “I wondered where those shots came from. What are they up to now?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” the monkey said, “but just know that Lady Hearn and Lady Tellerman are with them.”

General Jinjur sucked in breath at the mention of their names, for she and her captains had seen Amelia Hearn while they were still training under Captain Bell, the captain of Glinda’s private army and Glinda’s head bodyguard, in the Quadling Country. During her visit, General Jinjur and her four captains led a parade of their battalions in Amelia’s honor before she had her audience with Lady Glinda in her throne room. And after her visit, General Jinjur asked Lady Glinda who their esteemed visitor was, and that’s when she found out that there were other good witches besides Locasta and Lady Glinda. And when she asked for the reason for her visit, she got informed that Lady Amelia was looking for another good witch named Lady Tellerman.

“No way!” General Jinjur said. “The Blood Rose Witch and the Chrysanthemum Witch are here?”

“And they’re here to help, ma’am,” the monkey said, “and so are we,” and he and his troop started flapping their wings and flying from the roof. “We’ll keep watch overhead.”

“Stay safe up there,” she said.

“Have you met them, General?” Col. Roosevelt said.

“Only Lady Hearn,” General Jinjur said, “and she’s got others with her to help up.”

Then General Jinjur got out her smartphone and summoned her hand mirror and informed Lt. Shaefer and her four captains of the new allies, adding that she and the others on the roof of the Bangsian had been concocting yet another plan that just might turn the tables on Rancaster. If it worked, she added, then they might be able to stop this conflict before she’d have to mobilize all of their forces in earnest.

12

It was now 9:50 a.m.

At the same time, Amelia and Cooley and Nico and the rest all watched through Amelia and Cooley’s mirrors. They had all watched Ozma’s one-girl stand against Rancaster and Alice, and Amelia had sent out the flying monkeys to save Dorothy and Inspector Stephen and Ozma and Betsy and Trot and even Alice from falling to their deaths. Now Lewis Carroll was on the rooftop talking to Rancaster as if he had an ace up his sleeve, though Nico couldn’t have guessed what it was. In fact, not until she saw Lewis Carroll manifesting his Vorpal Sword and kneeling on one knee and presenting it to the air in the reflection of Amelia’s mirror did Nico recognize the sword she had pulled from Auna Wenger’s chest.

And all at once, the scene in the mirror manifested just a few feet in front of Nico with Carroll right there in the square of the Coventry Gardens neighborhood presenting the sword to her. Even when a hazy image of Rancaster dashed towards Carroll with a swing of his sword across his neck, Carroll just stayed there, unperturbed, as his sword passed through him like a ghost. Even when Rancaster passed his hand across Carroll’s head (and said, “What are you doing?”), Lewis Carroll seemed not to notice at all and just kept his gaze on Nico.

“It’s been too long since I last saw you, Knight-Errant,” Carroll said. “With all of my blessings, take this sword and fight the good fight!”

(“Who are you talking to?” Rancaster said.)

Only then did Lewis Carroll look up at the shimmering haze that was Rancaster with a gleam in his eye and a widening smile on his face. Then he looked up at Nico with that same smile like the Cheshire Cat, till Lucy Cairns wrapped her arms around Nico’s shoulders and pulled her away.

“Don’t,” Lucy said.

“Mom, it’s okay,” Nico said.

“It’s not okay!” Lucy said, gripping her arms around her shoulders. “I’m not letting you go there!”

So Lewis Carroll looked at the overprotective Lucy Cairns holding Nico back and said, “Don’t be afraid, ma’am. Just as you’ve heard from Lady Hearn, so too have I heard from Lady Glinda. Your daughter’s been recognized as a knight of the fairy realms, worthy enough to hold the title of Knight-Errant.” Then turning to Nico, he added, “I won’t force this on you, dear, if you don’t feel up to it, but—”

“I’ll go,” Nico said.

“No, you won’t,” Lucy said.

But Nico twisted herself away from her mother’s arms and said, “You can’t stop me!”

“Fine,” Lucy said. “Then I’m going with you.”

Nico just stared at her mom, wondering what the heck was going through her mind, and said, “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” She then pointed at the shimmering haze of Rancaster leaning against his cane like he was posing for a photoshoot and said, “That bastard killed me and your father, so I’m giving him a piece of my mind!”

Nico gaped at her mother, gaped at the blue flames burning in her mother’s eyes, and was at a loss for words. Then she noticed Amelia Hearn and Ramona Tellerman and Bridget Barton Wenger coming up behind her mother with smiles on their faces.

“If you’re going, Mrs. Cairns,” Amelia said, “then we’re going, too,” and she looked over at the man in the white suit just idling there atop the roof of the Belgrave. “God knows we all have our scores to settle against him.”

“Then it’s decided,” Lewis Carroll said.

“Wait a moment, Mr. Carroll,” Amelia said. “The girls and I need to talk something over for a bit. It’ll only be for a bit, mind you.”

“All right then,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” Amelia said and had Ramona and Bridget and even Lucy follow her some distance away and started talking to them, though Nico couldn’t hear what she was saying.

And for the life of her, Nico just stood there with the rest of the group, wondering what the heck Amelia could be saying. Then Nico spied Ramona and Bridget and even her mother Lucy stealing a glance back at her and knew that they were asking Amelia questions, though she could only guess their content. Which wasn’t lost on the rest of her companions, for she heard John Crane talking with messieurs Dolan and Curvan and Shaefer about them, and she heard the Squad Leader Joyce talking with her squad members about them, and she even heard Akami and Shiromi talking with Cooley and Blaze about them.

Then Akami and Shiromi and Cooley and Blaze surrounded Nico, and Cooley said, “Any idea what they’re talking about?”

“No clue,” Nico said.

When the gathering of mothers finally ended, they approached the group, and Amelia said, “We’re done, Mr. Carroll.”

“Then let’s get down to business.” So Lewis Carroll took the Vorpal Sword and slammed the tip of its blade into the ground at his feet, maintaining his grip over the pommel of the handle, and said, “It’ll be like pulling out Excalibur. Knight-Errant, place both of your hands over the handle.”

Nico did so, feeling the cool metal in her palm.

“For the rest of you,” he added, “place your hands over the cross guard, two on either side.”

So Amelia and Ramona placed their hands on the right side of the cross guard, and Bridget and Lucy placed their hands on the left side of it.

With that, Lewis Carroll said, “Now pull out this sword like you’re pulling out Excalibur, and you’ll be on the roof of the Belgrave, but if you’re still having trouble pulling it out, then have the others help you. There’s strength in numbers, you know,” and he let go of the pommel, dissipating himself and Rancaster from view, and left the Vorpal Sword behind.

With that, Nico and the four mothers heaved upward with all their strength, yet the Vorpal Sword stayed planted to the ground like a giant boulder that refused to budge. So Nico called over the rest, and messieurs Curvan and Shaefer and Dolan and John Crane and Cooley and Blaze took up positions on one side of the sword, and the six-girl squad from the Gillikin Battalion took up positions on the other side of the sword, all of them placing their hands under the cross guard beneath the hands of the four mothers. And since there was no more space on the cross guard to hold, Akami and Shiromi both grabbed the handle over Nico’s hands.

And with all the strength of fifteen women and four men combined, the whole group heaved upward with their legs and their backs put into it, heaving as coils of lightning streamers began branching up towards the the darkening sky from the pommel of the Vorpal Sword, heaving as clouds began churning high over the city, heaving as the sword went snicker-snack in faraway booms of thunder, heaving as passers-by stopped and stared at the strange gathering in the square. The group heaved and heaved with grimacing faces and gritting teeth, till lightning struck the group amidst a booming thunderclap overhead—

And took them from the square.

つづく