Jest's feet touched the ground, black feathers dissipating. The others looked at him expectantly. He shook his head.
"The knight has crossed the river, likely to make his next move. He's no longer in our square."
They sagged with relief.
Before Jest had turned into a raven to follow the knight, Jacqueline had done her best to patch his injuries. His shoulder was bandaged and his head was cleaned of dewy blood. Hatta mended the tears in Jest's white tunic– using an unfortunately orange thread. Jacqueline returned his jester's hat.
When questioned, Tweedledum admitted to having stolen Jest's hat while he was sleeping.
"It was necessary!" Sir Dum, who had returned back to his small self, had claimed. "I had to retrieve an eat-me cake!"
"And your rattle. And my rattle," Jacqueline had said, scowling with less of the laughter of her usual scowls. "You stole my possession, Sir Dum. Have you anything to tell me?"
"You stole mine first!"
"I—" Jacqueline had sighed, a gloomy sound. "I did. And although I shall never apologize, I am glad you put the rattles to good use." She patted him on the shoulder. "You may keep my rattle as a thank you gift for saving my brother. Is that agreeable?"
Tweedledum had danced with glee.
Jest sat down on his liar-of-a-cozy rock. They were back at the campsite, with Hatta divvying out their long-awaited breakfast. With the two ladies sitting across from him on a log and Tweedledum sitting nearby on a crunchy pile of sticks, Jest found himself sheepish and unusually conscious of his appearance. Although Jacqueline and Hatta had done their best to rinse his white uniform with bone-chilling water, it was still stained with blood, and despite all his compelling persuasion, his curls of hair stubbornly remained poked in all directions. Worst of all, however, was that the sweat and dirt on his face had required him to scrub his entire face clean, including his dripping heart. He felt naked without it.
Jacquie avoided looking at him, focusing on her breakfast pudding instead. Lily, however, examined him with interest. Jest examined her in kind.
This went on a second before Lily crumbled under his gaze. She asked a stumbling question.
"You… you do know Hatta is very bad at wielding a sword, don't you?"
Hatta, who had chosen to lean against a tree to eat rather than sit, huffed. He too had cleaned himself up before joining them. His coat and cravat were straightened and his ponytail was tugged free from its ribbon. Loose silver locks tumbled from beneath his hat, forming a frame for his offended face. "You chose the most inopportune time to be observant," he said.
Jest smiled lightly. "He is very bad, yes."
Lily's thin red eyebrows pinched together on her porcelain face and her lips puckered pensively. "I just don't understand… how come he fared better in battle than you?"
Embarrassment flickered through Jest, though he tried quickly to squash it. Raising his chin, he looked at the canopied sky with lugubrious doe eyes. "I was unfortunate enough to roll off the wrong side of the bedrock this morning."
Hatta gave another huff. He pushed himself off the tree trunk and faced them directly. "I am a hatter, not a swordsman: the only sharp sticks I need are needles and pins, and perhaps a stick from a tree, if the hat so requires. The people that think a sword is the most useful thing in a battle are the people who refuse to wear one of my hats– I couldn't have survived without one!"
"Your hat helped you survive?" Lily brightened. "You made Jest's hat too, didn't you? Does that mean all of your hats are magical?"
Hatta stood poised with his cup of tea in one hand and a plate of breakfast pudding in the other. "T'is what makes my millinery marvelous. A hat to make one stronger was my preferred hat today."
"So you cheated."
Their attentioned skittered to Jacqueline. The most she had spoken after the battle was in her conversation with Tweedledum, with all other snippets from her being obligatory. She poked her pudding, not lifting her head. "You can't test strength if it isn't your own. Your capabilities will fail you at your most vulnerable time if you constantly rely on supplementation."
"Does that mean I'm a cheater too?" Tweedledum said worriedly.
Her voice crept outward. "Yes."
She then returned to quietude. The likewise quietude that overcame the rest of them was an uncomfortable one.
Lily settled her spoon on her plate daintily. "What did the Red Knight have to say? How did he foresee us?"
Jest gave a sidelong glance towards Tweedledum. They had both heard what the Red Knight said and what his intentions were. Furthermore, Tweedledum had attended the meeting revealing the threat on Lily's life. He knew that the Red Bishop, the only prince of the Red Queendom, was after her. And he knew that the Red Knight was willing to fulfill the prince's duty for him.
But Lily did not know.
Jest internally squirmed, searching for an appropriate answer to Lily's question. How long was this to go on? How long was she supposed to assume that Jest's closeness to her was only because her mother, the White Queen, had insisted they court? How long was she to assume that Jest's suggestion to her father, the White King, that he should permit her to join Jest on this journey was only to help the future of the queendom?
How long was she to be ignorant of the current threat on her life and the true nature of Jest's and her relationship?
He could never see himself as her husband. Not when people wanted to kill her. And not when he saw marriage to her as an opportunity for selfish benefits.
Ending the war would solve everything, though! He could make the Queen happy by marrying Lily, the King happy by keeping her protected, and himself happy by keeping everyone happy and allowing himself some hope for future careers…
Everyone would be happy. They had to be.
But for the princess of the White Queendom to be happy, Jest reasoned, she would have to remain in the dark. The truth was too unpleasant to be shared.
"The Red Knight informed us that the Red Queen and the Forgetful Forest are up ahead. It'd be best if we avoided them."
"Good to know. Is that all?" Hatta asked, stubbing Lily from asking her own question. She bristled.
Jest squeezed his hands. He did his best to appear casual. "He did tell me something interesting about the Red Bishop. Apparently the part of him which is a crow cannot be killed. I was told he used that crow to spy on us."
"That awful wretch-" Hatta snarled. Lily cut him off. Hatta frowned.
"Who is the Red Bishop?"
Hatta and Jest darted knives at each other. Tweedledum focused on his pudding, still hurt by Jacqueline's judgment. Jest treaded carefully.
"Have you not heard of him before?"
Lily's lids narrowed. "I know of him, of course, but you really can't blame me for not knowing who he is."
"Oh yes, I'm sure you've heard the King mention him," Hatta answered, his facetiousness earning him a glare from Lily. "The Red Bishop is the only son of the Red Queen. He goes by Prince Carmine, and is known for holding an evil crow within him. And in case you are faint at heart, the most I shall say otherwise about him is that he is dangerous. So there. Now you know."
But perhaps that description was too much for the princess.
Lily's blue eyes widened. Her lips twitched, and she rubbed her knuckles against them. She looked like she was caught in a dream, or an old, distant memory.
Jest leaned forward. "Your highness, is something wrong?"
She fluttered back to attention and shook her head. Her alarmed expression reduced itself to mild concern. "The Red Queen's only son?" she repeated.
"Yes," Jest said, raising a brow with suspicion. "Do you know him?"
"I- that's a ridiculous question!" Lily exclaimed, her cheeks surprisingly pinkening. "How could I?"
"Even silly questions can be worthy of answers," Jest reasoned. "Though I cede your point. Being locked in an all girls school does not give one opportunity to meet many non-female persons, I know."
Lily harrumphed, ducking her head down and fixating on her mostly empty plate with a new intensity.
Even so, she could not hide her ears tickled with pink.
"Hmm. The Forgetful Forest." Hatta pondered aloud. "Considering our position in this square, moving towards block Afyve might be our best bet if we want to avoid forgetting who we are, where we are, and what our purpose is– or worse, if we want to avoid stumbling into the Red Queen."
"A fair plan," Jest said. He pushed himself to his feet, straightening the hat on his head, and making his jester bells jingle. "If we're all done with breakfast, we should pack up camp and go."