Chapter Text
Jest was dead.
It was the first thought that greeted her in the morning, the last to bid her goodnight, and the only to fill every moment in between. A cruel echo of her first conversation with Jest—how he promised to make her laugh twice a day, and at least once before breakfast.
Cath had been an utter wreck in the three days since. Time, whether in kindness or cruelty, seemed to stretch the hours endlessly and then wipe them away as if no Time had passed at all.
Abigail and Mary Ann came and went. Cath paid them no mind, except when they approached the window to draw the curtains and let in the sunlight. By now the lemon tree had grown tall enough that she could see it while laying down in bed, and she couldn’t bear to look at it. Couldn’t bear the hope of seeing a face in the window, the hope of a rose on the sill.
Some sign, any sign, that all his promises of impossibilities hadn’t been empty.
Raven’s presence was her only comfort. He understood better than anyone the emptiness, the loss, the hopelessness.
On the fourth night, she dreamed of three little girls hanging in a key lime tree above her bed. Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie offering her a deal.
“We cannot bring back the Martyr, but we can bring you something else you want,” Tillie said.
Cath began to tremble. “What?”
“Vengeance,” the three girls said in unison.
“Peter Peter will never be found,” said Elsie.
“Your Raven is a murderer, but not a hunter. No one is even looking for him anymore,” said Lacie. “But Peter Peter’s wife is dead, his livelihood in shambles.”
“He is desperate. Desperate enough to find the Treacle Well,” said Tillie. “We can bring him to you, and let your justice be served.”
Cath knew they were right. The King wanted to forget all this had ever happened; he would never send out a hunting party to bring Peter Peter to justice. He would get away with everything.
Peter deserved a punishment. He deserved death.
For the first time since she’s collapsed in the mud of the pumpkin patch, Cath felt her heart stir in her chest.
“What would you want from me?”
Lacie swung her body down and plopped onto the bed linens, criss crossing her bone-thin legs. “We are ill. We have been dying for a long time. We require payments to sustain us.”
Elsie spun around to the other side of the bedpost. “A heart could sustain us for a long time. A strong heart, full of passion and courage.”
Tillie stretched forward and trailed a dirty fingernail across Cath’s collarbone. “We want the heart of a queen.”
Cath dodged away, pressing her fingers against her chest as goosebumps raced down her arms. “I am not a queen.”
Tillie grinned again. “Not yet!”
As one, the girls recited those awful, horrible words which had haunted Cath’s dreams. A reminder that although she was not queen yet, it was still a future yet to pass.
“ Murderer. Martyr. Monarch. Mad .”
For a moment, Cath let their offer sink in. No, she was not a queen yet. But she knew the king well, and knew how eager all of Hearts would be to forget this dreadful business. Perhaps she didn’t know how, but she knew she could still be crowned queen, if she wished it.
And then she could have vengeance. Vengeance sweeter than any tart, more tempting than any cake or pie or sweet she could bake.
As usual, the girls only asked for something she had no use for. Cath’s heart was broken. Useless. Wrecked and shriveled and poisoned and killing her, slowly. It would be a mercy to be rid of it.
And yet…
“I cannot accept,” Cath told the girls, as much as she wished to say otherwise. “My heart is already spoken for. It is not mine to give away.”
For as much as she wanted vengeance, as much as she wanted to swing the axe herself and see Peter Peter’s head roll across the marble tiles of the throne room…
Her heart still belonged to Jest. She had given it to him, and a heart once given could never be taken back.
“A pity,” Elsie said, her small shoulders falling. “Put perhaps a different heart will do.”
“Unfortunate indeed,” Lacie agreed. “But we will accept the heart of your Joker instead.”
“For he gave you his in exchange for yours, yes?” Tillie finished. “Not a queen’s heart, but a joker’s will do.”
Cath’s world froze. And then it flared, boiling over like caramel left too long on a stove.
“How dare you! How dare you say such a horrible thing, you terrible little girls!” she screeched at them, rising in bed. Her vision blurred with anger as she lunged at the nearest girl, Tillie, who nimbly dodged with wide eyes. “How dare you imply Jest’s heart is useless! That I no longer have need of it! It’s all I have, the most precious of all I own.”
She lunged again at another of the girls, hot tears pouring from her cheeks. This time, she’d thrown herself with such force that when the small girl slipped from reach, Cath continued forward and barreled off the bed, slamming hard to the floor.
When she opened her eyes, the tittering girls were gone. Perhaps they’d never been there—only a dream. The key lime tree was still there though, its canopy filled with large, fist-sized fruits.
Cath lay there a moment, trembling with rage and clenched fists. Oh, she wanted Sir Peter dead. She wanted his blood splayed across the tile, across the mud. She wanted his head piked like a jack-o-lantern on his own farm. The thought of vengeance made her ravenous with desire.
But for all her hunger to see his head roll, it was not worth the price of Jest’s heart.
Jest’s useless, dead heart.
Catherine was sobbing again as her bedroom door burst open and Mary Ann rushed to her side.
“Cath! Whatever happened? I heard a noise, and thought—” Mary Ann cut off suddenly as she took in the sight of Catherine on the floor. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with sadness. “Oh, Cath…”
The sharp sting of her pity brought some sense back to Catherine’s trembling heart. She just wanted to be away from it all, away from all this pain and sorrow.
Ever since the king’s black and white ball, her life had become an endless back and forth of unspeakable joy and sorrow, of hope and hopelessness. Well, only false hope, in the end. For no matter what strategy she attempted, no matter how she stood up for herself, no matter how she pleaded and begged, no matter which decisions she chose to make or not make… it seemed her story was always doomed to his exact ending.
Murderer. Martyr. Monarch. Mad .
But perhaps…. Perhaps, it was not yet the end.
Monarch.
There was still one hope, however small. One small goodness that could come from all this, like salt added to a caramel truffle to bring out the sweetness.
Hope—terrible, painful hope—sparked in Cath’s chest.
“Cath?” Mary Ann said slowly.
Cath had forgotten she was still there. Ignoring Mary Ann, Cath spun toward the canopy of her bed, where Raven perched on a branch of the key lime tree. His head was cocked so that one beady eye watched her, curious.
“Raven!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I know what we must do.”