Colleen Oakes - Queen of Hearts

Originally published as Queen of Hearts:

Volume One: The Crown in 2014 by Spark Press

This edition published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers Inc. in 2016

This edition published in Great Britain in 2016 by

HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © 2016 by Colleen Oakes

Colleen Oakes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Typography by Jenna Stempel

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008175399

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780008175405

Version: 2016-04-05

“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice.

“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on,“—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.”

— Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph “How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice. “Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on,“—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.” — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Read on for an excerpt from: Blood of Wonderland

About the Publisher

“Oh, my future queen, you’re late!” Harris hopped from one foot to the other, his plump face soaked with a cold sweat. He pulled off his thick-rimmed glasses and wiped them on his white checkered ascot. “Dinah! Walk faster, Your Highness! We are late, late, late!” He looked down at his pocket watch with an exaggerated sigh.

Dinah, Princess of Wonderland and future Queen of Hearts, rolled her eyes.

“Harris, I’m walking as swiftly as I can.”

“With all due respect, my dear, we have a very important summons from the King of Hearts. Your father wishes to see you. You know he is not a patient man.”

Dinah continued to shuffle down the Hallway of the Golden Birds feeling quite like one of the ridiculous bronze fowl perched on the golden pedestals that surrounded her.

A little bird ran across her path, and Dinah stomped near its feet, sending it shrieking into the air.

“My child!” thundered Harris. “Control your emotions! I beg of you—do not let your father see that behavior or you will be sleeping in the Black Towers.”

“I doubt it,” snipped Dinah glumly. “I wish that would happen, because then I would get to see inside them.”

Harris gave Dinah a disappointed look. “Never wish yourself inside the Black Towers,” he said gravely. “You have no idea the evil that lurks there.”

Dinah considered slowing her pace just to annoy him but took pity on her guardian and tutor, the man who had raised her from childhood. Harris had once been a dashing Card, or so Dinah had heard, but now he was somewhat walrus-like, a portly man with white hair and a dozen varieties of checkered outfits. Without a doubt, he loved Dinah deeply—something she lacked in other areas of her life. Dinah raised her voice, its sharp tone bouncing off the ornate halls of Wonderland Palace.

“Why should I have to go to the Great Hall? I never get to say anything, and Father won’t even talk to me.” Or look at me , she thought.

Harris patted her roughly on the head. “You shouldn’t say such things about the King of Hearts.”

Annoyed, the Princess of Wonderland turned her head as she walked past a bright, open balcony, breathing in the fresh air that filtered in between red panes of glass.

Her black eyes could make out the various landmarks of Wonderland spread out like the threading of a distorted quilt—the horizon that would soon be hers to govern and rule. Dinah allowed herself a deep breath of pleasure as her eyes hungrily ate up everything in sight. To the north stretched endless fields of wildflowers, and eventually, the Ninth Sea, though she had never seen it. Beyond that, she knew from her studies, were the dreaded Caves of Mourning and the Todren, home to mermaids and sea monsters, of children’s tales and nightmares. To the east, beyond the plains, she could vaguely make out the topless Yurkei Mountains that lay past the Twisted Wood, where adventurers went to die at the hands of the brutal Yurkei Mountain tribes. To the south lay the Darklands, a place of untold horrors.

Closer to her was Wonderland proper: small towns, roads, windmills, and rivers that sat just beyond the iron palace gates. This was her country—the heart of Wonderland, as far as the eye could see. Dinah raised her arms as if to embrace it all.

Harris snapped his watch open. “Stop dillydallying, child! You do not want the king to be even angrier than he already is.”

Dinah gave her body a final shake in the sun and sullenly sped her pace, her feet tripping on the hem of the ornate and ridiculous dress she had been forced to wear. The high, stiff collar of the dress was lined with hard gemstones that bled down her chest in a wild pattern that made her neck itch.

Dinah hated this dress. Dinah hated all dresses.

Her ebony hair was twisted up in an insufferably tight bun, one that exaggerated Dinah’s already-large black eyes. Upon her head sat the princess crown—a thin string of red ruby hearts outlined in gold spikes. Even though it was thin, it was still heavy. It glittered in the sunlight, and it was the only thing Dinah was wearing today that she liked. On her feet twinkled a pair of molded white slippers, inlaid with tiny white diamonds. Before her mother, Queen Davianna, died, she had taken up the lady’s hobby of slipper making. Dinah hated the way the petite stones cut into her toes and heels.