Page 4 of Cheshire's Smile
I snorted, tugging on my gloves. “That’s where you’re wrong. If anyone deserves to be tortured for their crimes it would be me. So...” I brushed my skirt off and stood, staring them down with my hands on my hips. “Where’s Hatter?”
“You do not belong here,” they repeated, swaying back and forth. Their eyes blinked slowly.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were about to pass out.
“Yes, you said that,” I huffed. “Let’s not get into the whole who belongs and who does not. Though, you had no problem trying to feed on me.” I shot them a glare. “I can only imagine how you feed on the others who are sent here. Now. Where. Is. Hatter?”
They seemed to think on it for a moment. Their heads turned tortuously slowly toward one another before back to me. “No Hatter here.”
I tugged on a golden curl. “Obviously.” I twirled around, my arms outstretched. “There’s nothing here. Just you.”
Taking a moment to wallow in the fact that, once again, I was at a dead end in finding my love, I watched the Bandersnatch with discerning eyes. Kat had described them as terrifying. Booming and with an overpowering presence.
The creature before me was barely hanging on by a thread.
My brows rose. An idea formed in my head.
I stepped closer, nose pointed toward the air in front of them. They bobbed slowly, not aware of what I was intending.
My nose scrunched at the acrid smell coming from them, and I craned my head back to stare up at them. I rubbed my nose and stepped back a step. The scent cleared.
“You have the sickness.” A statement not a question. The scent of sickness was unmistakable to me now that I’d been around Cheshire.
The four heads turned to one another before looking collectively back at me. “We do.”
Nodding, I hummed to myself.
They weren’t the all-powerful Bandersnatch that had tortured Chess and Hatter. If Hatter had been here long enough, they would have fed as normal, but the sickness must have made it impossible for them to feed and feel better. Something about the sickness kept them from absorbing the magical essence of the fae.
“I’m going to ask you again. Where is Hatter?”
The heads shook, a rough sound coming from them.
“Are you... laughing at me?” I gaped at them and then scowled. “I don’t see the humor here. You can’t feed. You have the sickness. Don’t you understand? You’re going to die. There’snothing I can do for you. So just tell me what I need to know, and I can leave you in peace.”
The heads laughed once more before the older man spoke alone. “You do not need Hatter.”
I stomped my foot, fingers curling into fists. “Do not tell me what I need. I’ve been all over the Underground trying to find him. Everything has led me here. The queen even said she put him here. And yet...” I spun in a circle arms and hands out to my sides. “He is not here. So that means he must have gotten out somehow unless... you killed him?”
My eyes narrowed on the heads, magic crackling in my fists.
The Bandersnatch’s eyes widened and they bobbed rapidly in the air, faster than it had moved the entire time I was here. “No, we did not kill your Hatter.”
“Then. Where. Is. He?”
My patience was running paper thin. I did not like to be led around by the nose. The fae had me by the tip, and I had enough. No more running around. No more games. I wanted Hatter, and I wanted him now.
The heads exchanged a look between them before the younger woman head spoke. “We do not know. He was here one moment and then gone.”
“Not before the rambling creature gave us the sickness.” The older woman spat with a snarl on her face. “Reaper take him.”
“He didn’t give you the sickness.” I rolled my eyes, plopping my hands on my hips. “You can’t catch it.”
“Yes, he did,” the head argued back. “We did not have the sickness and thenhecame. Now after a millennium of existence, we are going to die.” The two females broke down into the tears, their heads shuddering as if they had a body to go with it.
“Calm yourselves,” the younger male face snapped. “We are not going to die.”
“No,” the older male calmly stated. “We are not.”
