Chapter Text
we're all mad here
❤
❤
She remembered very little of her dream but the smell.
Wild, earthen, peppery…her whole body had melted under its thrall. She would sleep forever if only the smell would stay.
The squeak of a door hinge jerked her out of the delicious dream. Then a sharp intake of breath and a dark utterance.
“Oh, sweet clubs.”
She shut her eyes tightly and reached for unconsciousness again, burying her face deep in the pillow. The dream had been so lovely, and the smell had yet to fade.
“Hiyori, get up!”
Ami tugged on the pillow, but Hiyori wrapped both arms around it and clung.
“Seriously, up, up! We need to uproot all this before your mother comes in here!”
Her maid’s voice was frantic, and Hiyori unwillingly peeled her eyelids open. Blearily, she regarded Ami’s face.
“Buh?” was her response.
Then she saw the room.
It was blue. The floor—at most times a lush, wine-colored carpet—was now blooming with masses of flowers. They had spread from the floor onto the divan in the corner and the seat of the vanity. They covered her bed. Hiyori shifted the blankets as she sat up, and a great pile of them slid off onto the floor.
She looked down at her pillow, where the indentation of her head was the only place not drowned in blue petals.
“Are these…” she began.
“Forget-me-nots,” Ami finished, throwing a bunch of them in Hiyori’s face. “With a few cornflowers sprinkled in.”
Hiyori collapsed back on the bed, a cloud of blue petals puffing up around her. She was still caught between the fantasy of the dream and the realization that her mother–the Marchioness of Rock Turtle Cove–was going to walk in at any moment and discover her daughter had dreamed flowers all over her bedroom.
“She’s going to really, truly kill me,” she murmured.
Ami grunted unsympathetically as she shook the rest of the flowers off the comforter.
“Well then, I hope it was a really, truly good dream.”
Hiyori’s cheeks went warm. As soon as Ami said that, a particular detail had returned.
There had been a boy in the dream. A boy with a mischievous mouth, who smelled wild and earthen, and faintly peppery. A boy with forget-me-not eyes.
But she had very little time to ponder boys from dreams, as Ami had resorted to simply gathering up flowers by the armful and dumping them out the window before the Marchioness walked in.
But yes, she thought, helping her maid destroy the evidence.
It was a really, truly good dream.
❤ ❤ ❤
The Kingdom of Hearts held its breath.
Their collective breath was held because in a few moments—in the middle of the black and white ball, among the courtiers, the cards, and the dizzying monochrome of wealth and privilege—King Fujisaki was about to announce his engagement.
Hiyori was also holding her breath, but that was because her dress was far, far too tight.
She shrank behind the dessert table, letting the elaborately frosted towers of cake obscure her from view as much as was possible. However, it was very hard to hide at a black-and-white ball wearing a dress that was so obscenely red.
Peering from between stacked tiers of macarons, Hiyori watched the King adjusting his crown as he ascended the dais.
“Sweet girl, we are so proud of you,” came her mother’s ecstatic voice, very close beside her ear.
Black spots pinwheeled at the edges of Hiyori’s vision. The Marchioness beamed at her, certainty of the King’s intentions shining from every pore. No wonder she had insisted Hiyori wear such an absurd outfit. She was going to be the main event.
If she fainted dead away when he announced their engagement, would that still count as an acceptance?
“Proud?” Hiyori whispered back, her voice shallow. There was an uncomfortable pressure in her sternum when she tried to take a deep breath.
“My friends and dear citizens of Hearts!”
The King’s voice carried over the noise of the ballroom, and the raucous courtiers fell silent.
A hard lump of panic solidified in Hiyori’s throat. There must be some rescue, some escape. Amidst the many heads, she caught the briefest glimpse of a bobbing pink head. Hearts, what Hiyori would give for one of Kofuku’s apocalyptic episodes at this moment.
The King, waiting for his subjects to quiet, had turned his head. He was looking for her.
Close to despair, she realized diving beneath the dessert table wasn’t going to be an option with her voluminous skirts.
King Fujisaki was a nice boy. Certainly, he was nice enough to spend small amounts of time with every few weeks. They had shared several very courteous and boring games of croquet. That, for Hiyori, was where the relationship ended.
But with every passing second it was growing more horrifyingly evident that the King was about to propose marriage to her. He was going to do it in front of two hundred of his subjects and her mother .
“It is my honor to make this announcement–”
He stopped himself, held the back of a gloved hand to his mouth, and seemed momentarily overcome with emotion.
“No…no, it is my privilege—it is my ecstasy to make this announcement!”
The King fluttered the hand against his mouth with a simpering giggle, and Hiyori’s empty stomach lurched. Her mother’s nails sank into her shoulders.
“Tonight, I announce to you my friends, and to all of Hearts, that I have at last chosen a Qu—”
Before he could finish the word, every candle in the ballroom extinguished in unison.
As the ballroom plunged into darkness, Hiyori was certain for a moment that she had fainted after all. The chorus of panicked yelps from the crowd quickly informed her otherwise.
As suddenly as the light had sputtered out, it returned.
This light, however, was one solid beam, and did not come from any of the chandeliers. A spotlight seemed to be directed at the ceiling of the ballroom, where a giant silver hoop now rotated.
Within the hoop hung a lean figure. Seeing it, the crowd below fell into a suspenseful hush.
Bells chimed in Hiyori’s ear.
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” asked a voice.
A jolt shot down her spine. It was not a familiar voice at all, but like the bells, it was so close to her that she could hardly believe the speaker wasn’t at her shoulder.
The silver hoop continued to slowly turn, and Hiyori strained her eyes to make out the features of the person lounging in it.
The bell-tipped jester’s hat cast a shadow over his forehead, and the lower half of his face was obscured by a scarf drawn up and knotted loosely around his neck. The ends of it trailed down to flutter near his crossed ankles.
The hoop completed another quarter-rotation. The figure stood up suddenly, his body elongating with catlike grace. His chin tilted down, regarding the enthralled crowd below him.
“Because they can each produce a few notes.”
He swooped one end of the scarf up and leaped off the hoop, twisting in midair. Hiyori choked on a scream as he dropped like a stone toward the gathered crowd. In midair his body seemed to unravel into silk, which curled in on itself, then vanished with a little pop.
There was a moment of breathless silence.
Then, the chandeliers flared on again, the flames leaping higher toward the ceiling than they had before. The crowd gave a collective gasp as a storm of black and white snowed from the ceiling. Tissue-thin pieces of paper landed on Hiyori’s head, her shoulders, the folds of her skirt, raining around her until she was ankle deep.
Hiyori plucked a black piece out of her hair and smoothed it open. On it was printed a tiny black crown.
As the other guests chattered amongst themselves about the Hiyori edged her way along the banquet table, keeping a safe cushion of distance between herself and the King, who was still gazing up at the ceiling, his mouth agape. This could be her one chance to escape.
Despite her eagerness, Hiyori couldn’t help but linger near the pies. She searched among them for her own: a maple-walnut confection that Yama had assured her would be carried in with the rest of the desserts. She scanned the glistening array, and spotted it at the far end. Could she sneak away with the tiniest slice?
“I beg your pardon.”
Hiyori spun around, her stiff skirt swinging perilously close to the edge of a display tray full of exquisite merengue sculptures. She had been so occupied with thoughts of pie that she had backed straight into someone.
As soon as she saw who it was, she wished she’d simply ducked under the table, skirts notwithstanding.
The woman with whom Hiyori had collided was one of the newest members of the Court of Hearts. She was dressed—unlike Hiyori—appropriately for the occasion, in an understated white gown. There was very little about her costume that identified her as a member of the Court, and perhaps that was why no one else had approached her.
That, or the fact that she was terrifying.
Lady Bishamon—according to all who asked, which wasn’t a large number to begin with—owned an enormous cherry orchard on the edge of the forest, and rarely left its grounds for any reason. She sent crates of cherries to the town market twice a week, collected the profits, and did not speak to anyone. She never entertained guests at the crumbling house on the corner of the orchard, where everyone assumed she must live. No one had tried to visit–not even hopeful suitors.
There certainly would have been suitors otherwise, for Lady Bishamon was beautiful. She was, by anyone’s account, the most beautiful woman in Hearts. Her thickly lashed eyes and long, sleek hair were as silver as moonlight. There were rumors that she had not been born in Hearts, but somewhere on the other side of the Looking Glass itself, which accounted for her unearthly glamor. There were still wilder rumors that she was a disgraced general of the White Queen of the land of Chess, secluding herself in their midst.
Or perhaps, Hiyori had thought, hearing these rumors, she just needs someone else to put in a bit of effort.
“There is no excuse for my clumsiness, Lady Bishamon,” Hiyori said, her voice warm and sparkling with goodwill. “Please forgive me. I don’t believe we’ve met! My name is Hiyori Iki. My parents are the Marquess and Marchioness of Rock Turtle Cove.”
She turned the full force of her smile on Bishamon, and tried not to look deflated at its reception. Bishamon’s eyes seemed to slide right over Hiyori as she extended an elegant hand in greeting.
“Charmed to meet you,” she said.
Her voice was low and musical, but with no answering warmth. She looked decidedly un-charmed.
As her gaze shifted uncomfortably away from Bishamon, Hiyori realized the woman was not alone. Her companion—a bespectacled young man with mousy hair—was cowering in her shadow, and kept glancing nervously between Bishamon and the dessert table.
Bishamon, following Hiyori’s gaze, set a protective hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“This is Kazuma.”
Hiyori, bred within an inch of her life to be courteous, extended a hand to Kazuma. He took it when it became evident that there was no other escape route for him, and she felt a pang of sympathy.
His palm was deeply sweaty, and between that and the clamminess of his skin, she wondered if he were ill. Before she could decide if it was impolite to ask, he tore his hand out of hers and shrank behind Bishamon once more.
Hiyori felt her own smile turn wooden.
“I…must congratulate you on your knighthood,” she said, immensely proud of herself for remembering such a detail. Though she had to admit, it didn’t seem likely that the pale, agitated young man could have eaten the sheer tonnage of cherry pies necessary to win the contest.
“Thank you,” Kazuma said, sounding entirely miserable. Then, before he could be ensnared in another interaction, he turned his back and walked the length of the dessert table, studying it with a near frenzied intensity.
Hiyori watched him, her mouth still slightly open.
“Please excuse him,” Bishamon said. Her smooth voice was even more chilly than before.
“He has not had the opportunity to spend time among members of the court.”
Hiyori snapped her mouth closed.
“Of course!” she piped, overly cheerful, but Bishamon’s attention was already elsewhere.
“If you’ll excuse me, Lady Iki, I should go with him.”
As she turned to follow her companion, the light from a dozen chandeliers caught her hair, webbing it with diamonds. Hiyori stared at her retreating back, mouth half-shaped around a word.
Before she could recover, she caught a flash of color from the corner of her eye. A head of pink hair was hurrying through the crowd toward her.
Hiyori immediately began backing toward the doors. If Kofuku came anywhere near the fragile dessert table, the confections were doomed.
Hurrying as much as her shoes would allow, Hiyori skirted the end of the table and, with an abundance of apologies and pardons, she arrived safely at the enormous double doors of the ballroom. With a final glance over her shoulder, Hiyori fled into the warm night.
The sculpture gardens–her favorite part of the royal grounds in daylight–seemed full of unfamiliar twists and turns in the darkness. She had removed her shoes as soon as she was outside, but her lungs couldn’t expand under the corset. Before long, she stumbled to a stop in the middle of the path, panting and gripping her aching sides.
The manicured shrubs swam on each side of her, almost frightening in their strangeness under the moonlight. They were pruned into whimsical shapes. The one nearest was a huge bread-and-butterfly with its wings outspread. It nearly seemed to move, the great black wings reaching for her.
There was a soft rustle nearby, and a drip of darkness separated itself from the rest. A prowling shadow on four legs that fixed its yellow, slit-pupiled eyes on her.
She couldn’t breathe, not even to gasp. It was as though her lungs had locked themselves up. She was struck with the mad certainty that a lion from the deep woods had found its way into the gardens, and that she was about to be torn apart.
“Don’t eat me,” she whimpered, and collapsed. But she was caught before hitting the ground, and set down by gentle hands.
Everything had gone quite dark, but the cool garden path felt lovely against her hot cheek, and there was a beautiful smell that she knew from somewhere, if she could just remember…
❤ ❤ ❤
The new Court Joker was a sensation.
Within days, the rumor mill was churning out theory after theory: that he could vanish and reappear anywhere at will, or that his motley was made of some whispering, magical fabric that was stronger than iron and lighter than air. Some of the more daring gossips speculated that he was actually a cat, who through some unnatural power, had taken the form of a man. It was easy to see where this particular rumor originated. All the Joker’s acts were performed in company with a cat who was evidently his familiar. It was a strange sort of cat: very large, with enormous yellow eyes, who perched on the Joker’s shoulder, and attacked the ankles of hecklers.
Hiyori was glad the Joker was the prime topic among the courtiers, because otherwise, some might have questioned why she left the King’s black-and-white celebration so early. If they had questioned that, they might also have asked why she had appeared, half-conscious and bewildered, on the front step of the Rock Turtle Cove manor. It was fortunate that Yama had discovered her, and hurried her into the bedroom where she insisted Hiyori tell her how she had managed to unlace her own corset.
The King, though thwarted in his proposal by the Joker’s surprise performance, was evidently far from abandoning hope.
“ Another party?” Ami inquired as she entered the bedroom with a fresh tea tray, and found Yama pinning up the last few curls of Hiyori’s hair. She licked her finger to press a stray wisp back into place.
“She’s the King’s favorite,” Yama answered. “Of course it’s another party.”
Hiyori slumped in her seat in front of the vanity.
“I’m just glad this one isn’t a ball,” she grumbled. “If we’re playing croquet, I can wear something that lets me move.”
“The word is that the Joker will be the featured entertainment,” Ami said, offhandedly.
“Oh!” Yama exclaimed. Her hand twitched on Hiyori’s hair, tugging a curl out of the arrangement. In the mirror, Hiyori met her eyes.
“Do you not like him, Yama?”
“N-no! That’s not–!”
Yama’s face had turned a lovely shade of sunrise pink. Ami poured a cup of tea from the tray she had brought in, and carried it over to the vanity. She set it within Hiyori’s reach, then leaned her hip against the table and crossed her arms.
“I believe she is taken with him,” she said flatly, but her eyes glinted with mischief.
Hiyori blinked. “Taken with…the Joker?”
Yama’s face crumpled up.
“He’s just such a pretty Joker!” she wailed. “What was the King thinking, hiring him? No one should be allowed to have eyes that color.”
Although she calmed herself and returned to arranging Hiyori's hair, there was a familiar look of dreaminess on her face. Yama’s infatuations were varied, intense, and short-lived. Two weeks ago, she had sworn on the Throne of Hearts that the newest royal gardener, Mr. Kiun, was her true love.
Hiyori hid a smile behind her hand as Yama sighed over the Joker and pinned up the rest of her curls.
“Don’t you think he’s enchanting, Hiyori?” she asked. Hiyori considered for a moment, pinching her lips.
“I suppose he’s talented,” she said blandly.
It was pleasant enough to watch the Joker perform his marvels for the King and his court, but Hiyori had always been distracted during those performances. Evading the King’s attention for an entire afternoon or evening sapped her energy reserves. She was far too busy avoiding an arranged marriage
Hiyori changed the subject.
“Ami, you mentioned the bookstore on Main Street. Is there news on Mr. Tenjin’s plans to vacate the premises?”
Ami nodded, a satisfied smirk on her face.
“I wanted to mention that to you, actually. I passed it on my way back from the market today and saw eight bookcases packed into a moving wagon. When I asked Miss Tsuyu, she said the shopfront should be released within a fortnight.”
Hiyori clapped her hands, barely repressing a shout of jubilation.
“It’s the perfect location for us!” she cried. “That enormous display window, full of fresh chocolates and cakes and truffles, and…”
She trailed off as Ami and Yama exchanged a heavy look. Her insides lurched.
“Something is wrong,” she said. She didn’t need to phrase it as a question. She knew them too well.
Ami turned toward the vanity and began to rearrange various sprays and bottles.
“No,” she said quietly. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Except,” Yama broke in, “for the Marquess and Marchioness having the final say.”
Hiyori stared at the two other girls, but neither of them would look at her. Her stomach twisted with betrayal.
She stood up suddenly from the vanity. Ami and Yama started, and she caught the look they exchanged.
“My parents do not have the final say,” she said in a harsh voice. “The course of my life is mine to set, not theirs. Their support is not the deciding factor.”
She swallowed, knowing deep in her heart that it was.
But it was in desperation that she appealed to her friends. It was their support she wanted. It was theirs that she needed.
“This isn’t just some court girl’s fantasy, I promise you,” she said more gently. “I will make this work for us. You both trust me, right?”
Her voice quivered on the last word.
Ami and Yama glanced at each other again, and Hiyori felt herself shut out of a silent decision.
After a moment, Yama turned back to look at her in the mirror and smiled.
“Of course we do,” she said warmly.
Ami nodded in apparent agreement, though she wouldn’t look at Hiyori, and her hands fluttered nervously without anything to occupy them.
“In the meantime, we must get you prepared for the garden party,” said Yama briskly. “Those flamingos won’t wait, and neither will the King.”
She laid her hands lightly on Hiyori’s shoulders, prompting her to sit back down in front of the vanity.
Hiyori stared into the mirror at the space above her head, where a crown would hopefully never rest.
“I hope,” she said, “that the King will wait for a very, very long time.”
❤ ❤ ❤
Though she intended to let the King win in the end, Hiyori was still disappointed by her own poor performance in the tournament. Her flamingo had melted to a limp, feathery putty in her hands, and no amount of coaxing could enliven it.
“Please,” she cajoled. “I’ll give you a scone. Don’t flamingos like scones?”
The flamingo burrowed its beak deep into its feathers, untempted by scones.
The hedgehog at her feet gazed sleepily up at her. It had been so long since she had swung at him that he had curled up and taken a nap. Meanwhile, across the court, King Fujisaki swung the royal golden flamingo and sent his hedgehog sailing through the arches of the twelve card courtiers who rushed to line up in front of him.
Hiyori bit the inside of her cheek and prodded her flamingo’s wing.
“They’re blackberry lavender scones,” she cooed. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“It does indeed. Certainly too nice for a flamingo.”
Hiyori and her flamingo both squawked as she dropped it straight on its head. The voice at her shoulder was rich with laughter.
She whirled to confront the speaker, and found herself face-to-face with the Joker.
“I’ve heard the King himself is partial to blackberries,” he continued, unbothered. “It would be a shame to waste such a prize on an ungrateful bird.”
He was standing behind her, leaning flippantly on the feet of his own flamingo, who had buried its beak in the soft turf of the croquet lawn. The hat was off his head, twirling lazy circles around his index finger. Without the hat obscuring his face, Hiyori could see it properly.
He was indeed young–younger than she had realized. His black hair stuck out a bit over his ears and forehead where the hat had been pressing it down. A mask of kohl covered his eyelids, blending into the dark line of his hair. He had a sharp, mischievous smile in an equally sharp, mischievous face.
But it was his eyes that stopped Hiyori’s breath.
They were a bright and savage blue. As blue as cornflowers, or forget-me-nots.
The trickster grin on his lips widened as her hesitation stretched.
“I apologize for startling you, Lady Iki.”
He bent from the waist, and hair flopped forward over those frightening eyes.
“After all, we have not yet been properly introduced.”
Hiyori recovered composure, and retrieved her flamingo from the ground.
“You did startle me,” she said with a touch of frost. “And you insulted my flamingo.”
The Joker peered up at her through his hair. Her chest gave a warning squeeze as their eyes met.
“Your flamingo is asleep,” he said.
She glanced down at the bird in her grip. It was indeed snoring.
“Oh.”
She tapped its beak gently against the ground, hoping to wake it without further violence. The response was another determined snore.
Hiyori sighed, nudging her bored hedgehog with the toe of her shoe.
“I suppose my goose is cooked.”
She narrowed her eyes at the King, who was wrapping up his most recent victory with a majestic trick shot through three Spades, who leapfrogged over each other to keep pace with his hedgehog.
“This loss is not strategic, then?” asked the Joker, who sounded like he was trying very hard to not laugh. Hiyori’s mouth twisted in annoyance, and she turned her back on him.
“I have no idea what you mean by that, Sir Joker. And quite frankly, I do not find you half so charming in conversation as you are in performance.”
“It’s Yato.”
She glanced over her shoulder. The Joker had straightened from his bow and still smiled at her, though no longer with the edge of mockery.
“Pardon?”
“Yato. It’s my name.”
He spun the hat on his finger one more time before flipping it back onto his head. His blue eyes shone out at her from under it, and Hiyori wondered how she failed to notice them before.
“It was presumptuous of me to take so much of your time, Lady Iki. I hope you will forgive me.”
Hiyori did not imagine that he tilted his head ever so slightly toward the King.
“Especially when you have such a very nice goose to finish cooking.”
He gave her a wink, then sauntered away down the lawn, the bells on his hat tinkling merrily.
Heat raged up Hiyori’s neck and into her cheeks. Her white-knuckled fingers strangled the legs of her flamingo, and the snoozing bird woke with a croak.
“Your ‘urtin’ me delicate knees,” it said in an offended tone.
Hiyori grit her teeth, tried to relax her grip, and was about to take another futile swing when a high-pitched voice from across the lawn shrieked:
“Wait! Stop!!”
Hiyori turned at the sound of the voice, only to see something small and pink hurtling toward her like a misfired rocket.
It was a hedgehog.
In a sliver of a second, Hiyori saw across the lawn where Kofuku held both hands over her mouth, her eyes round with horror.
But there was no time to move, no air to scream; the airborne hedgehog was bearing down on her, quills-first. She clenched her eyes shut, cringing.
There was a soft whoosh of air very close to her face. Then a thump, and a squeak.
Hiyori felt something against her cheek, but instead of the unfriendly prick of hedgehog quills, it seemed to be soft fabric. She opened her eyes.
For a moment, the smell drove nearly everything else out of her head. It was wild, earthen, peppery. Her heart jumped hard, and for a moment it felt like it was trying to leap straight out of her chest.
But then the Joker stepped away, and the smell faded. He held his scarf in one hand, bundled around something small and squirming.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her, quite sincerely.
Hiyori stared at him, and then at the wriggling scarf, out of which popped a pink nose, and then the rest of the hedgehog. The animal plopped to the ground and scuttled away, squealing and grunting.
“No,” she said, still shaken. “I’m…I’m all right.”
Kofuku was running toward them, tripping over her skirts in haste. Several of the other courtiers were looking over, their interest piqued by the commotion. Even the King had turned to see what was going on. Hiyori self-consciously smoothed her skirt, and avoided looking at him.
“I’m so sorry!” Kofuku cried. She stumbled over the uneven grass, collapsing into Hiyori’s arms.
“I didn’t even know I could swing that hard! Are you all right? Did I hit you?”
She blinked up at Hiyori with wide, apologetic eyes. Before she could respond, the King was on his way over to them, an entourage of Cards in tow. Hiyori gently disentangled herself from Kofuku and summoned a smile.
“I’m perfectly all right. It’s just a wonder you didn’t take the game with that shot.”
She tried to calm the quivering in her chest before looking at Yato.
“And thank you, Sir Joker, for sparing me the embarrassment of picking porcupine quills out of my hair. Your chivalry will be remembered.”
Yato bowed deeply and swept the hat from his head, its bells jingling against the grass.
“It is an honor to provide my humble services.” He straightened again, and his eyes were laughing at her. He tucked the hat back onto his head and brushed past her.
“Especially to the King’s beloved.”
Hiyori choked on indignation. But before she could retort, Fujisaki had arrived, full of pompous agitation for her welfare. She was busy for the next while deflecting his worries, and so forgot the Joker’s insolence.
She did not forget the smell, or the glow of his unearthly eyes.
❤ ❤ ❤
Once the initial explosion passed, Hiyori had been able to mollify her mother’s fury at the impropriety of dreaming forget-me-nots all over her room. It didn’t hurt that Ami and Yama had been hard at work for several afternoons carefully digging up and replanting the carpet of blue flowers.
“Just think what else might have happened,” she told the hysterical Marchioness. “Why, I could have dreamed up a plague of rocking-horseflies!”
The Marchioness blanched, holding a vial smelling salts to her nose. “That would have indeed devastated the upholstery,” she whispered.
“A few little flowers aren’t so bad,” Hiyori prompted. “Right?”
“Right,” the Marchioness repeated, still pondering the tragic consequences of a rocking-horsefly plague.
“But Hiyori,” she said firmly, returning to herself.
Hiyori winced. “Yes?”
“You must not let your mind run to fancy before you sleep. All of Hearts will talk if word gets out that the daughter of the Marquess…”
She fluttered her hand in the air in a vague gesture that was meant to represent all of Hiyori’s shortcomings.
Hiyori’s hackles raised.
“I can’t help what I dream,” she said with a touch of sharpness.
“Nonsense.” Her mother’s voice answered with equal bite. “You’re simply not trying hard enough.”
Hiyori’s scalp prickled. It was impossible, completely impossible to talk to her mother without wanting to rip her own hair out by the handful.
Blissful in her cruelty, the Marchioness continued:
“Any day now, the King will make the announcement, and you will be safe from such rumors. I expect he will proclaim the engagement at—”
“He has asked to court me, Mother, not for an engagement.”
The Marchioness’ cheeks drew inward, souring her face.
“That cannot be correct.” She looked at Hiyori down the length of her nose.
“I would have heard. Your father and I would have been consulted.”
Hiyori felt for the note in her pocket, which felt as heavy as a metal rolling pin. It had been slipped between her bedroom shutters the day before by an unseen hand. When she started to unfold it, she saw that it bore the King’s ostentatious wax seal.
Refolding the note quickly, she stuffed it deep in her pocket. That night, when she was quite alone in her bedroom, she took it out and read it.
The contents made her feel faintly ill.
To My Dearest, Most Delightful Miss Iki,
It is impossible for me to keep my feelings a secret any longer, and were it not for the counsel of my closest and most trusted advisors, I would ask you to wed this very night. However, it has been suggested to me that such a speedy commitment might be unwise. Regardless of impediments, my adoration of you remains unchecked.
I hope against hope, Miss Iki, you can find it in your heart to receive my attentions, and perhaps one day return them. If it is not too great a presumption, would you do me the very great honor of accompanying me to the theater tomorrow night?
As you consider your response, I have composed this poem to extemporize on your beauty and grace, though of course words alone could never hope to capture what nature’s divine hand has fashioned.
Hiyori had stopped reading, quite shocked at the King’s tone in the note. In all their encounters, he had never struck her as having any particular mastery of language.
Then she started to read the poem, and things made a bit more sense.
Your eyes are like scrumptious pools of chocolate, and your lashes like tree branches.
Your hair is as brown as
(—and here tree branches was crossed out, the King apparently remembering that he used it in the previous line—)
Dirt.
I wish you would smile at me, because your smile is prettier than a stack of cranberry tarts, and twice as juicy.
(This line was emphatically underlined. Hiyori thought either he had been especially proud of it, or possibly just hungry.)
When you look at me I feel so warm, like a cake fresh out of the oven.
(Definitely hungry.)
If you bake me a cake sweetened with your love, I will eat the whole thing in one bite.
This Poem Composed By your Beloved: The King of Hearts
Hiyori set the note on top of her nightstand, facedown. One read was quite enough.
Despite the lateness of the hour and the taxing length of the day, Hiyori couldn’t abide the thought of crawling into bed and lying still. Her mind would be free to turn over the enigmatic contents of the letter, or to dwell on the Joker’s face, on his eyes like blue coals.
A tap came from behind her and Hiyori whirled, heart hammering.
Outside her bedroom window, a large feline shape was perched on the sill.
She hurried to the window, and after a moment of deliberation, unlocked it. The Joker’s cat slipped silkily through the gap and sat on the inner ledge, regarding her with unblinking yellow eyes.
“Hello,” Hiyori said, at a loss.
“He doesn’t consider himself much of a conversationalist,” came a voice from outside.
A shiver cascaded over Hiyori’s shoulders. She opened the window further, letting more of the cool night air inside.
The Joker was perched on her windowsill, much like his cat had been. How he had managed to get there was just mystifying as everything else about him, but Hiyori wasn’t mystified by it. Of course he could be perched on her windowsill. He was the Joker.
He was also nearly in her bedroom.
Hiyori pulled back and considered shutting the window right on him. Before she could act on it, his hand shot out in supplication.
“I do apologize for the intrusion on your privacy,” he said.
It sounded sincere enough, though his voice was smiling.
“I only wanted to know if you received the message without incident. The King is eager to hear your response.”
Logic clicked into place. The eloquence of the note, followed by the painfully juvenile poem.
“You’re…helping him?”
Her voice was brittle, and the Joker’s smile lost some of its mischief.
“Lady Iki,” he said, quite gently. “You must believe that I am working on your behalf.”
“I must do nothing of the sort,” she said frostily, remembering the note’s nauseating contents.
“If truth be told, Sir Joker, I doubt your intentions very much indeed. May I ask what you mean to accomplish, peeking into a lady’s window at night? Besides casting her reputation into jeopardy?”
The Joker did not seem chastened in the least by her questions. As he leaned into her window, the cool night breeze carried with it a hint of wilderness, a heady scent that made her stomach drop away.
He offered her a gloved hand, and blue embers lit in his eyes.
“My lady, would you like to attend a tea party?”
❤ ❤ end part one ❤ ❤
