Still, her anxieties resurfaced in Blood’s unexpectedly long silence. Did she seem more suspicious now? Through the pounding of her nervous heart, she blurted, “M-maybe I’m asking too much.”
Blood puffed out a short breath.
“You want to stay? Even when you seem to know so much about what goes on here?” His thin lips stretched into a smile. “Your mind works in strange ways…even for an Outsider.
“All right—you can stay, if a young lady finds so much appeal in a Mafia stronghold. Are you bored or something?”
Alice felt the blood come back to her face. “I…I wish it was just that. But ever since I came to this world, I’ve never had time to be bored.”
It sounded like he was treating her like an exotic pet. So I’m doomed to that every time I meet him, huh? Ugh.
“I’m not asking you to keep me here for free. In lieu of rent…well, you can put me to work, if that’s enough.”
“Work that a little princess like you can do? I’ll think about it. But it’s a shame.”
“What is?”
He tilted his head and lifted the brim of his hat a bit. “I could’ve had a different kind of fun if you were an enemy operative under cover.
She would never be stupid enough to try to slip into Hatter Mansion as a spy. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she muttered.
He gave a short laugh at her comeback, but it didn’t sound relaxed. He lacked that incredible sense of calm from the Countries of Hearts and Clover.
She couldn’t “handle” this man. He seemed fiercely private, cold, and intimidating. She could only benefit from his thrill at finding something rare.
“……”
On the other hand, he’d been like that when she’d first met him in Hearts.
She was a rare Outsider. Someone with a real heart who came from a different world. It was the only reason Alice could stay in Hatter Mansion without fearing for her life.
“I’ll expect you to show me a good time outside of work hours, too,” Blood drawled. “But let’s get right to it. If you’re going to live in this mansion, you’ll follow my one simple rule.” He flicked up his index finger. “Never leave the grounds without my permission. If you break that rule and leave the house, we’ll hunt you down like a fugitive.”
“…You think I could actually run off with your secrets?”
He’d acknowledged that she wasn’t an enemy operative, but he was still clinging to his doubts about her? She was a little…wounded, honestly.
He didn’t even blink. “I’m allowing an unknown entity to stay close. I think the rule’s reasonable. If you’re going to argue something this simple, I don’t see how you can live here.”
“Fine,” she said quickly. “I get it, kinda. I consider myself warned.”
Alice still didn’t know for sure what kind of man this Blood was, but the back and forth made her feel a little better. He seemed…younger than the Mad Hatter she knew. Like he had the same abilities, but not full control of them yet.
And maybe he lacks confidence.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, the door burst open. Two black shadows flew in.
“Hey, Boss! We got the orders for the next job, but that’d be overtime, an’ you said we had a butt-load of vacation time that we could take! Now you’re goin’ back on that?! We never get to go to the castle an’ have fun!”
“Yeah, an’ you’re sayin’ we might not get overtime pay?! Gah! Ya gotta motivate your workers, Boss!”
The twins, still in their adult forms, waved their axes around as they complained. It was always a little weird to see them acting like kids in those bodies.
Alice was familiar with that trick—every Role-Holder in Wonderland could apparently advance through time at their own pace, taking on the form of a young or old person at will. More often than not, the Bloody Twins looked like youngish teenagers, not these 20-something adults.
In their underage forms, they were so much trouble that only Blood could tolerate them. As adults, they were even more dangerous, and even louder. It was like a storm had blown through.
Blood scowled, his tolerance for them clearly strained. “You two don’t know how to shut up, do you? Elliot was supposed to handle this.”
As if in response to Blood’s words, the shadow of the third man—beast?—came barging into the room.
“You little brats have balls to ignore me and piss off Blood!” Elliot shouted. “I oughta—hrck!”
Blood threw an ashtray at Elliot that knocked the man (beast?) to the floor.
“Shut up, all of you! Didn’t I just say that I’m sick of hearing about this?!” Blood took a long breath.
Dee kept going. “Boss—listen, Boss! Isn’t there a whole clause about vacation time in our contract? We lose our juice if we don’t get time off!”
“Yeah!” Dum added. “We work our butts off an’ deserve the extra pay!”
Blood sighed. “The noise never ends…”
The twins spent the next few minutes proving his point, although their clearly annoyed boss wouldn’t answer their demands.
Maybe Alice felt a little less tense in the noisy room, because she found herself asking, “Are you two ever going back to being kids?”
After all, they used the “we’re just kids” excuse for everything they did, even when no one asked. They’d used that excuse to run wild on her.
Alice asked it with a bit of nostalgia in her heart, but the twins just cocked their heads and exchanged glances. When Dee answered, he had an odd tone to his voice.
“What’re you talkin’ about, lady? Go back to bein’ kids?”
“Yeah, I just mean—”
Dum laughed. “Man, you’re weird! Maybe you think we’re somebody else. Nobody in the Hatter territory’s gonna hire kids!”
“Wait…what?”
Looking at Alice’s surprised face, Blood continued where the twins left off.
“You wish they were younger? I never thought your tastes would run that way, but… Sorry to disappoint you, but there are no children here. Although you may see some at the upcoming event.”
Alice bristled. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some kind of pervert, okay? I just mean it feels weird when they… God, how do I put this?”
The first time Alice had ever seen the twins as adults, they’d all been at Assembly in the Country of Clover. After that, whenever she saw them take adult form on a whim, it unnerved her—since she had always thought of them as basically kids.
Elliot had recovered from the ashtray to the face. He twisted his head at Blood as he struggled to his feet.
“Event…? Crap, that reminds me.”
Blood sucked his teeth. “Exactly. I know it’s a rule, but it’s a pain.”
“A rule? Do you have to go to an entertainment event again?” Alice asked.
Blood’s eyes widened slightly. But he swiftly erased the expression from his face and raised an eyebrow in question.
“How long have you been living in this world?” he asked her. “You call us by name, not by title, and you completely lack respect. And now you know about our entertainment events?”
The only “entertainment events” Alice had experienced were the Ball in the Country of Hearts and the Assembly in the Country of Clover. She’d learned all about them by participating.
Was it stupid for me to say that? Blood looked…edgy.
“Um… Yeah, I guess…” She tried to backpedal a little. “I’ve heard about those events before, but I don’t know which ones take place here. Would you please tell me?”
“It’s the Survey Meeting,” Dee cut in. “But you can make bets, an’ there’s even a party! Sounds fun, right?”
“You can get rich quick on one bet!” added Dum. “It rocks!”
A Survey Meeting? She didn’t know what that meant.
“We’ll explain the Survey Meeting some other time,” Blood said, as if reading her mind. “All you need to know is that it runs over three separate meet-ups and is a pain in my ass.”
“……”
If it didn’t end in one meeting, it was closer to the Assembly than the Ball. Alice sucked in a breath.
She needed to mentally prepare before she asked her next question.
The White Rabbit had first brought her to Wonderland, leaving her in the Country of Hearts. The first time she’d “moved,” she’d ended up in the Country of Clover.
And then…
She paused.
Wait. Before finally arriving in this country, had she wandered into some hallucination, too…?
Shaking off the vague disquiet, she took a breath. “Blood,” she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “What is this country? What’s the name of it?”
She feared the answer. If he told her the name, and it was a place she’d never heard of…she would have to face that reality.
But the Mad Hatter’s reply just sounded bored.
“You don’t know where you are?” he asked. “This is the Country of Diamonds—under the rule of the Queen of Diamonds.”
“The Country of…Diamonds…?”
It took Alice a long moment to find the strength to nod.