Alice and I followed Hatter down a ladder to another part of the city, Alice coming more slowly due to the height. I slipped on one of the rungs and nearly fell until I felt hands wrap around my waist. I turned and stared up at Hatter as he helped me down.
"Thank you." He just nodded before turning away from me. I turned and helped Alice down. She turned and looked down before instantly clinging to the ladder. "Alice, look at me." She continued staring down.
"What's the matter?" Hatter asked us.
"I've got a thing about heights," she told him quickly. Hatter looked down below us at the ground. "Why couldn't you people have built your city on the ground."
"Alice, look at me," I told her forcing her face in my direction with one hand and grabbing hers with the other. "Just keep your eyes on me and don't look anywhere else. Ok?"
"Yeah." She squeezed my hand we continued on.
We followed Hatter to a wall of doors where he knocked on one. A hidden eye slot opened and Hatter looked inside.
"I'm returning a library book," he told the person on the other side. "It's a work of Edwin and Morcar."
"How does the little crocodile improve his shiny tail?" an older man, by the sound of it, asked.
"By pouring water from the Nile on every golden scale." The door was opened for us.
"Come on. Quick." We boarded what looked like a mix between a bus and a train car.
"Hello, Duck." The man pulled a lever before pushing something making the bus move downwards. Alice fell into one of the seats and I quickly grabbed one of the metal rods to stop the same thing. I watched wallpaper and other things move upwards.
"It's all right," Hatter told us. The lights flickered above us as I watched a large room come into view out the window. The bus started to slow down before coming to a full stop. I started to let go of the rod before Hatter's hand held tight over mine. "Wait for it." The bus seemed to fall another inch before and he stared down at me with a smile. "Ready?" He motioned to the door with one hand and Alice was the first at the door. She stopped and I stared down at a woman with a shotgun pointed at us. I saw a gun in the corner of my eye pointed at Hatter. Alice and I put our hands in the air before exiting the bus. "Why don't we just put these things away?" Hatter asked the pair. "Come on, you know me well enough."
"Get threatened by guns often?" I asked him.
"I try not to make it a habit."
"Shut it," Duck ordered. "We have our orders."
"Keep that right hand where we can see it," the woman ordered and I looked at the hand in question. It looked like any other hand. He sighed heavily as we turned to look at them.
"It's just flesh and blood," he told them.
"Right," the woman said obviously not believing him or knowing something Alice and I didn't. "We've all seen what you can do with that sledgehammer." Alice and I shared a confused look.
"Did you like that box of confects I brought you last week?" he asked the pair. They both shared a look. "The cured meats and the cheese?"
"They're all gone," Duck told him.
"Well, if you don't treat me with a little respect you won't get another crumb," he told them. They both lowered their guns and I released a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding.
"Sorry, Hatter," the woman apologized, hugging the gun to her. "Everyone's a little jumpy."
"Everyone's always a little jumpy," Hatter complained placing his hand on Alice's shoulder and pushing her forward while grabbing my hand and pulling me after them.
"Where are we?" Alice asked them.
"The Great Library," Hatter told us. I moved to look below us and saw piles of books with people sitting on top of them. They'd managed to make some sort of city using the books to build staircases making sure they had passages to walk through. Some of them seemed sick or injured. Hatter gently pulled me along. "There's 5,000 years of history hidden here. Art. Literature. Law. Rescued when the Queen of Hearts seized power. She'd like nothing more than to see this burnt to nothing."
"But who are those people?" I asked glancing them over the railing. Alice stopped walking and looked down at them. I pulled my hand out of Hatter's and placed one in her's.
"Refugees." Hatter moved to stand in front of us and leaned on the railing, looking down at them. "Those who don't want to be a part of the Queen's world of instant gratification. We give them shelter, try feeding them the best we can, but it is dangerous. If the Queen found out they wouldn't stand a chance."
"Why does she want to destroy this?" Alice asked as my eyes filled with tears at what was happening in front of us.
"Wisdom is her biggest threat," he told us. "She controls people with a quick fix."
"It shouldn't have been like this," I said before wiping my eyes. "She shouldn't have been able to do this."
"Without the heir of the White Queen, we're doing all we can just to survive some days."
"What could one person do?" I asked him curiously.
"She'd be able to lead this lot into a full rebellion," he told me.
"And you'd want that?" I asked him. "For people to fight? To die? For what?"
"To be free from the Queen of Hearts," he told me. "Free to chose how to live our lives. Isn't that something worth fighting for?"