Through a Looking Glass Darkly: Queen of Swords, Part Two
In addition to a child-mutilating serial killer, they’d scored a major bust on a prostitution ring, big enough that Jelly was able to let all the ones who were obviously children or there against their will go without endangering their quota. The hand that was in charge of Lizard-sitting that day reported no incidents or injuries. All in all, today had been a good day.
But it wasn’t over yet.
First there was the paperwork to deal with. She tapped out her reports on the failed food smuggling bust and the successful serial killer catch, and after a moment’s thought, decided that they were best read in that order. The successful prostitution ring bust went after it, and she put the neutral Lizard-sitting report before that. The only thing missing was this morning’s incident. That report was sitting on her desk, right on top of Bruno’s file.
She thought for a moment, then realized that, from a certain point of view, she had been more or less been ordered to let the guy go free.
“Seven!” she called out. Three men turned to face her, wearing varying expressions of confusion. She mentally rolled her eyes a little. “Seven Tove, would you go fetch Bruno and bring him into my office please?”
She really wished, for the sake of everyone, that she could teach some of her Suits how to hide their body language- especially the ones who hadn’t grown up in Court like she had. The pair of them were entirely too comfortable with being in each other’s personal space, for all that they didn’t so much as look the other full in the eye.
“Close the door behind you, Seven,” she ordered. Quigley did so.
“Gentlemen, this,” she held up one hand, “is this morning’s incident report, as well as your file, Bruno. And this,” she held up her other, “is a lighter.” She clicked the switch to demonstrate. “Before I introduce one to the other, I’m going to need some answers. Do we understand each other?”
They were both wearing identical expressions of confusion, but they nodded anyway.
“Good,” Jelly said. “Are either of you a member of the Resistance?”
Resounding silence answered her.
“Okay, let me ask you something a little less self-incriminating,” she conceded. “Do either of you have contacts in the Resistance?”
“Yes,” blurted out Quigley. Bruno gave him an unimpressed glare, but the Spade moved forwards anyway. “I’m not sure quite sure what his capacity is, but he’s definitely a member.”
Jelly decided against asking who ‘he’ was directly. “Can you put me in contact with him?”
“To what end?” Bruno asked.
“I need an out,” Jelly told him. There. She’d actually said it. “I’m sure this will come as a shock, but I actually hate this job with a burning passion.”
Quigley looked even more confused. Bruno leaned forwards and let his handcuffs clink significantly on the desk. “Why should I believe you?”
For an answer, Jelly turned to Quigley and asked: “Where was I last night?”
“You were in the holding cells back at the Casino, I guess,” Quigley said, with the air of someone who expected to be informed that she’d actually been out frolicking with unicorns.
She nodded and said. “Bruno looks confused, why don’t you explain for him?”
“She and the Queen had a falling out,” Quigley said. “They do that. A lot, come to think of it.”
“I have the King’s favor, at least. That could give at any minute, though,” Jelly explained. “So, I repeat: I need an out.”
“Of the Suits?” Bruno asked.
“Of Wonderland,” she replied.
“Not to shoot myself in the foot or anything,” Quigley said. “But why not go to the White Rabbit instead of us?”
Both she and Bruno stared at him.
“I’m going to have to insist that you attend a refresher for gun safety, Seven,” she said. “But in answer to your question- Agent White and I don’t exactly get along. I don’t trust him not to turn me in or simply shoot me in the back himself, which would rend the whole thing pointless.”
“Since I’m already going to be mixed in with the Twos anyway,” Quigley began. “What makes you think the Resistance is going to be any friendlier?”
“The fact that I’ll be coming with information,” Jelly said.
“What information?”
“That’ll depend on what he asks.”
The men exchanged looks. Jelly flapped the papers a bit. “I have a Scarab to catch soonish. Make up your minds.”
“I can’t promise you that he’ll go for it,” Bruno said. “I’ll try, though.”
“See that you do,” Jelly said, and then turned expectantly to Quigley.
“I will too,” he promised. Jelly continued to stare at him, until he blushed, and fumbled for his keys. “Um, should I?”
“Go take him outside and then let him go,” Jelly said, clicking the lighter on. “If anyone asks, he took a long walk off a short ledge.”
The door closed just as the paper was beginning to burn.
~*~
The ash had just begun to settle in the trashcan when her top Nine walked into her office without bothering to knock.
“Funny thing about these surveillance devices,” Othello said, pulling out the chair from her desk. “They keep breaking.” He dislodged the camera from the wall and let it smash on the floor. “We should really do something about that.” He then jumped on the pieces for good measure.
“I was about to do that, you know,” she told him.
“I’m being serious,” Othello continued, as though he hadn’t said anything. “It’s all very well for them to be this easy to destroy for when we’re ‘building community relations’ and whatnot,” There was the sound of glass and silicon shattering from outside; Othello raised his eyebrow and closed the door. “And morale’s certainly improved since we started letting the other Suits smash them as needed. But we also need them to hold up to the Resistance a little better- it’s not like we can’t bring them out ‘round the back and shoot them if need be. We need something hardier.”
She nodded reluctantly. Actually, they should probably have something with a live feed, like the one that came in from the Eye Room sometimes, rather than something that caught stills three times a minute and stored them on site. However, she’d decided early on in her career that she’d live longer if their cameras sucked a bit. Othello had a point- they were here to catch Resistance members along with genuinely destructive criminals, and sometimes they ran out of destructive criminals.
“Speaking of camera smashing,” Othello continued. “Why is Tove signed up for the gun safety refresher?”
“He’s deficient in irony. I’m hoping to cure him of that,” Jelly replied.
Othello thought about that. “Because a gun refresher course would fix that better than, say, pressing Hatter for a bottle of Sarcasm?”
“Yes,” Jelly replied. It was the most honest thing she’d said all day.
Othello looked at her for a minute, then pulled the chair back to the desk and sat down. “You know, we don’t always understand that way your brain works, but we follow you anyway because your plans generally work out. Except for the radishes, but even then, we got our man in the end.”
He waited, fiddling with his bowtie expectantly. Jelly struggled with herself a bit. They’d had these types of conversations before, and for all his inevitable complaining, Othello had stood by her, whether the next words out of her mouth were something as crazy as ‘Well, first I’m going to need a chicken,’ or a treasonous as ‘we need to open a dialogue with the food smugglers’. But this was different; this was dangerous in ways even coming to terms with potential Resistance agents paled before. She settled on another honest statement. “It’s probably better for you if you don’t know.”
“Fair enough.” Othello shrugged. “Just don’t get yourself killed. I like the way my life expectancy has crept up since you got here.”
He stood up, and kicked the camera bits out of the door’s path. “I’m out early tonight.”
“Have fun on your date,” Jelly said, sweeping the reports she was going to file off her desk and into a folder. “But not so much fun that I don’t see you here tomorrow.”
Othello rolled his eyes and left, and Jelly followed shortly after, locking the door behind her. She’d pretend that the camera broke overnight.
The Scarab had just arrived, but would only wait as long as it took for the White Rabbit to load their Oysters up, so Jelly had to hand control over to her other Nine, Uthar, with a rushed “Congratulations, you have the run of the place, don’t use it for strippers,” and leave as he was still spluttering that he never even thought of strippers, not even once. Uthar was a good guy, and crack shot, but he was a great lover of rules, and her unorthodox policy of ‘let’s do whatever is going to get the least number of people killed’ was pretty harsh on the rules. The fact that she could sometimes get the rules changed to reflect said policy was only a minor balm for his nerves.
She managed to find a seat in the center of the Scarab for the trip home, and disembarked just as the stars were beginning to sparkle. The Casino was quieter at night, especially since Jack’s parties had been tamped down on, and it made the way her boots clunked along the hallway and her key slide into the lock seem too loud.
Sam’s office was empty, as it general was after supper, and Jelly deposited her file on the desk, turned on the lamp, and then sat herself down in his chair to read. There wasn’t very much to report on: Still no word on either Mad March’s head or his killer. Otter reported a minor incident involving a Lust-steeped Diamond and a good-looking Oyster. Dudley had put in a request for one of her hands- she decided to sleep on that. If she were going to be in deep cover, she’d feel better knowing that her station was sporting a full deck. There were, in total, forty-three executions ordered throughout the day, of which only twelve would actually take place. Jack’s guard’s status report was also incident free- he’d neither tried to run away nor had anything smuggled in to him.
She remembered Duchess’ preoccupied expression that morning, and decided that she had time. What with Mad March to resurrect and everything, Dad probably wouldn’t even be off work yet.
Things became busier as she reached the Royal Wing- there were still a few courtiers milling about here and there, and several of Darrel’s men engaged keeping their glasses topped off and keeping things from getting out of order. The people thinned out again as she came to the actual quarters- the only two Suits she could see were the two guards Otter had posted outside Jack’s room after dark.
“Ace,” the top Six- Albus, she thought he was called- acknowledged. She nodded back, and knocked on the door.
“Come in, Jelly,” Jack replied.
She entered, eyebrow raised. Jack raised his eyebrow right back. “What?”
“How did you know it was me?” Jelly asked.
“You’re the only who bothers to knock,” he replied, gesturing towards the small blue setae.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to walk in on you and Duchess,” Jelly joked as she sat down, hoping that he might let something drop about what was going on.
But she was disappointed. Jack merely began to fiddle with his cufflinks and replied “No, you wouldn’t,” before immediately changing the subject by asking “What brings you here?”
“We haven’t really talked in a while,” she said. “I thought maybe we could grab some dinner. It wouldn’t violate your curfew if the guards came with.”
Jack’s face didn’t quite fall at that last statement, but it was a close thing. “I don’t suppose you could give them the night off?”
“No,” Jelly replied. She felt for the prince, she really did- but his freedom wasn’t worth the heads that would roll should the Queen found out.
“Well then,” Jack said. “I think I’ll stick with my original plan, and turn in early. If would be so kind?”
He indicated the door with a grand sweep of his arm.
“Of course,” Jelly said, not willing to push things further. She’d have to ask Duchess if she wanted the heads up on potential problems in Court’s working. She should probably talk to Duchess anyway, but it was difficult to do these days without wondering who exactly she was talking to. “Good night, Jack.”
“Goodbye, Ten.”
She made a stop to the mess anyway, and after a thought, she had the Club working at it fix her two dinners as he exchanged gossip with her. His consisted mostly of an over-the-top retelling of the incident with the Diamond and the Oyster, but he did let slip that the Queen was getting antsy about Mad March’s lack of resurrection. That made up her mind for her- come morning, she would give Dudley a hand. The last thing she wanted was for her father’s head to end up under the axe, and if nothing else, the killer could tell them where to find the head.
Speaking of her father, as she rounded the corner into the hallway where he lived she saw him balancing two boxes of take-away in one hand as he unlocked the door with the other.
“It looks like we both had the same idea,” she said.
“Great minds, Jellybean,” Dad joked as he pushed the door in. “Great minds.”
They ended up stealing the best bits of each meal as they balanced the containers on the kitchen sink, the kitchen table having long been buried under read-out, projections, graph paper and a ticker. As they ate, she checked him over. He looked tired, worn- then again, he had looked so pretty much since Mom had been executed. Things had gotten worse lately. He seemed empty, some times. He was starting to space out; he bumped into things he should have been able to avoid, and sometimes seemed like he was just… not there. She’d woken up a few weeks ago to find him sitting in bed, crying, and he couldn’t tell her why. It was terrifying.
She blamed the recent provisions that allowed the White Rabbit to kidnap juvenile Oysters. She didn’t like to think about it too much, but she did remember that Dad had had even less choice about his profession than she had had with hers. Given one, he would have chosen just about anything else- but the Queen needed his expertise, and so he became Carpenter.
But that was beside the point. The point was that Wonderland was killing her father, and things had just hit a sharp decline. She needed to get him out. She needed to get him back home.
And with the belligerence of the White Rabbit and things accelerating wrongwards, that left one option: sell out herself and everything she knew to the Resistance, in return for his safe passage. She wasn’t sure if it was enough- all other things aside, she was pretty sure the Resistance would be reluctant to help a Suit like her. At the very least, they might up the price out of spite. It was why she needed to go about this carefully: if the King thought that she was in deep cover, it would keep her father safe from reprisals, and give her a way back in if she needed one.
Things were going about as smoothly as could be expected, though, so she forced herself to get off that particular train of thought, and concentrate on telling Dad what she’d done at work that day, skipping merrily over the part where she’d been shot, and concentrating on the failed food bust, which he would consider much more cheery news. He didn’t say much about his work, but then again he rarely did, and before long they were shoveling the remains of their dinner down the compacter.
“Are you staying tonight?” Dad asked.
“Yeah,” Jelly replied. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
Technically speaking, her room had been converted into Dad’s study when she’d begun her Spade training. Realistically speaking, it was something that had been done at the insistence of the Queen, and with her quarters being what they were and her father being who he was, Jelly found she much preferred sleeping next to the ironically empty desk that three floors down and four corridors across. She doubted they were fooling many people, but the request had been unusual enough that it passed without comment. Most Suits lived with their parents until they began courting, and as Jelly hadn’t had much time to think about who she might like to settle down with, let alone start the process.
She pulled on her sleepwear, folding her suit and putting it on the desk. Then she poked her head into the kitchen, where Dad was seated at the kitchen table.
“I think I’m going to turn in,” she called. There was no reply. “Dad?”
Nothing. She walked over to where he was seated, staring off into space.
“Dad,” she called again. There wasn’t so much as a blink. She took a deep breath, and then put her hand on his shoulder. “Daddy.”
He jerked, looking surprised to find her there. “I’m sorry Jellybean,” he apologized, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s late. I think I’m going to turn in.”
“Yeah, me too,” she replied. “Good night, Dad.”
“Good night.”
She walked into her room, drawing the curtains shut behind her and sitting shakily down on her bed.
It was going to be okay. He’d get better once he was out of Wonderland. He had too.
She repeated it over and over again to herself until she finally managed to fall asleep.
But it wasn’t over yet.
First there was the paperwork to deal with. She tapped out her reports on the failed food smuggling bust and the successful serial killer catch, and after a moment’s thought, decided that they were best read in that order. The successful prostitution ring bust went after it, and she put the neutral Lizard-sitting report before that. The only thing missing was this morning’s incident. That report was sitting on her desk, right on top of Bruno’s file.
She thought for a moment, then realized that, from a certain point of view, she had been more or less been ordered to let the guy go free.
“Seven!” she called out. Three men turned to face her, wearing varying expressions of confusion. She mentally rolled her eyes a little. “Seven Tove, would you go fetch Bruno and bring him into my office please?”
She really wished, for the sake of everyone, that she could teach some of her Suits how to hide their body language- especially the ones who hadn’t grown up in Court like she had. The pair of them were entirely too comfortable with being in each other’s personal space, for all that they didn’t so much as look the other full in the eye.
“Close the door behind you, Seven,” she ordered. Quigley did so.
“Gentlemen, this,” she held up one hand, “is this morning’s incident report, as well as your file, Bruno. And this,” she held up her other, “is a lighter.” She clicked the switch to demonstrate. “Before I introduce one to the other, I’m going to need some answers. Do we understand each other?”
They were both wearing identical expressions of confusion, but they nodded anyway.
“Good,” Jelly said. “Are either of you a member of the Resistance?”
Resounding silence answered her.
“Okay, let me ask you something a little less self-incriminating,” she conceded. “Do either of you have contacts in the Resistance?”
“Yes,” blurted out Quigley. Bruno gave him an unimpressed glare, but the Spade moved forwards anyway. “I’m not sure quite sure what his capacity is, but he’s definitely a member.”
Jelly decided against asking who ‘he’ was directly. “Can you put me in contact with him?”
“To what end?” Bruno asked.
“I need an out,” Jelly told him. There. She’d actually said it. “I’m sure this will come as a shock, but I actually hate this job with a burning passion.”
Quigley looked even more confused. Bruno leaned forwards and let his handcuffs clink significantly on the desk. “Why should I believe you?”
For an answer, Jelly turned to Quigley and asked: “Where was I last night?”
“You were in the holding cells back at the Casino, I guess,” Quigley said, with the air of someone who expected to be informed that she’d actually been out frolicking with unicorns.
She nodded and said. “Bruno looks confused, why don’t you explain for him?”
“She and the Queen had a falling out,” Quigley said. “They do that. A lot, come to think of it.”
“I have the King’s favor, at least. That could give at any minute, though,” Jelly explained. “So, I repeat: I need an out.”
“Of the Suits?” Bruno asked.
“Of Wonderland,” she replied.
“Not to shoot myself in the foot or anything,” Quigley said. “But why not go to the White Rabbit instead of us?”
Both she and Bruno stared at him.
“I’m going to have to insist that you attend a refresher for gun safety, Seven,” she said. “But in answer to your question- Agent White and I don’t exactly get along. I don’t trust him not to turn me in or simply shoot me in the back himself, which would rend the whole thing pointless.”
“Since I’m already going to be mixed in with the Twos anyway,” Quigley began. “What makes you think the Resistance is going to be any friendlier?”
“The fact that I’ll be coming with information,” Jelly said.
“What information?”
“That’ll depend on what he asks.”
The men exchanged looks. Jelly flapped the papers a bit. “I have a Scarab to catch soonish. Make up your minds.”
“I can’t promise you that he’ll go for it,” Bruno said. “I’ll try, though.”
“See that you do,” Jelly said, and then turned expectantly to Quigley.
“I will too,” he promised. Jelly continued to stare at him, until he blushed, and fumbled for his keys. “Um, should I?”
“Go take him outside and then let him go,” Jelly said, clicking the lighter on. “If anyone asks, he took a long walk off a short ledge.”
The door closed just as the paper was beginning to burn.
~*~
The ash had just begun to settle in the trashcan when her top Nine walked into her office without bothering to knock.
“Funny thing about these surveillance devices,” Othello said, pulling out the chair from her desk. “They keep breaking.” He dislodged the camera from the wall and let it smash on the floor. “We should really do something about that.” He then jumped on the pieces for good measure.
“I was about to do that, you know,” she told him.
“I’m being serious,” Othello continued, as though he hadn’t said anything. “It’s all very well for them to be this easy to destroy for when we’re ‘building community relations’ and whatnot,” There was the sound of glass and silicon shattering from outside; Othello raised his eyebrow and closed the door. “And morale’s certainly improved since we started letting the other Suits smash them as needed. But we also need them to hold up to the Resistance a little better- it’s not like we can’t bring them out ‘round the back and shoot them if need be. We need something hardier.”
She nodded reluctantly. Actually, they should probably have something with a live feed, like the one that came in from the Eye Room sometimes, rather than something that caught stills three times a minute and stored them on site. However, she’d decided early on in her career that she’d live longer if their cameras sucked a bit. Othello had a point- they were here to catch Resistance members along with genuinely destructive criminals, and sometimes they ran out of destructive criminals.
“Speaking of camera smashing,” Othello continued. “Why is Tove signed up for the gun safety refresher?”
“He’s deficient in irony. I’m hoping to cure him of that,” Jelly replied.
Othello thought about that. “Because a gun refresher course would fix that better than, say, pressing Hatter for a bottle of Sarcasm?”
“Yes,” Jelly replied. It was the most honest thing she’d said all day.
Othello looked at her for a minute, then pulled the chair back to the desk and sat down. “You know, we don’t always understand that way your brain works, but we follow you anyway because your plans generally work out. Except for the radishes, but even then, we got our man in the end.”
He waited, fiddling with his bowtie expectantly. Jelly struggled with herself a bit. They’d had these types of conversations before, and for all his inevitable complaining, Othello had stood by her, whether the next words out of her mouth were something as crazy as ‘Well, first I’m going to need a chicken,’ or a treasonous as ‘we need to open a dialogue with the food smugglers’. But this was different; this was dangerous in ways even coming to terms with potential Resistance agents paled before. She settled on another honest statement. “It’s probably better for you if you don’t know.”
“Fair enough.” Othello shrugged. “Just don’t get yourself killed. I like the way my life expectancy has crept up since you got here.”
He stood up, and kicked the camera bits out of the door’s path. “I’m out early tonight.”
“Have fun on your date,” Jelly said, sweeping the reports she was going to file off her desk and into a folder. “But not so much fun that I don’t see you here tomorrow.”
Othello rolled his eyes and left, and Jelly followed shortly after, locking the door behind her. She’d pretend that the camera broke overnight.
The Scarab had just arrived, but would only wait as long as it took for the White Rabbit to load their Oysters up, so Jelly had to hand control over to her other Nine, Uthar, with a rushed “Congratulations, you have the run of the place, don’t use it for strippers,” and leave as he was still spluttering that he never even thought of strippers, not even once. Uthar was a good guy, and crack shot, but he was a great lover of rules, and her unorthodox policy of ‘let’s do whatever is going to get the least number of people killed’ was pretty harsh on the rules. The fact that she could sometimes get the rules changed to reflect said policy was only a minor balm for his nerves.
She managed to find a seat in the center of the Scarab for the trip home, and disembarked just as the stars were beginning to sparkle. The Casino was quieter at night, especially since Jack’s parties had been tamped down on, and it made the way her boots clunked along the hallway and her key slide into the lock seem too loud.
Sam’s office was empty, as it general was after supper, and Jelly deposited her file on the desk, turned on the lamp, and then sat herself down in his chair to read. There wasn’t very much to report on: Still no word on either Mad March’s head or his killer. Otter reported a minor incident involving a Lust-steeped Diamond and a good-looking Oyster. Dudley had put in a request for one of her hands- she decided to sleep on that. If she were going to be in deep cover, she’d feel better knowing that her station was sporting a full deck. There were, in total, forty-three executions ordered throughout the day, of which only twelve would actually take place. Jack’s guard’s status report was also incident free- he’d neither tried to run away nor had anything smuggled in to him.
She remembered Duchess’ preoccupied expression that morning, and decided that she had time. What with Mad March to resurrect and everything, Dad probably wouldn’t even be off work yet.
Things became busier as she reached the Royal Wing- there were still a few courtiers milling about here and there, and several of Darrel’s men engaged keeping their glasses topped off and keeping things from getting out of order. The people thinned out again as she came to the actual quarters- the only two Suits she could see were the two guards Otter had posted outside Jack’s room after dark.
“Ace,” the top Six- Albus, she thought he was called- acknowledged. She nodded back, and knocked on the door.
“Come in, Jelly,” Jack replied.
She entered, eyebrow raised. Jack raised his eyebrow right back. “What?”
“How did you know it was me?” Jelly asked.
“You’re the only who bothers to knock,” he replied, gesturing towards the small blue setae.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to walk in on you and Duchess,” Jelly joked as she sat down, hoping that he might let something drop about what was going on.
But she was disappointed. Jack merely began to fiddle with his cufflinks and replied “No, you wouldn’t,” before immediately changing the subject by asking “What brings you here?”
“We haven’t really talked in a while,” she said. “I thought maybe we could grab some dinner. It wouldn’t violate your curfew if the guards came with.”
Jack’s face didn’t quite fall at that last statement, but it was a close thing. “I don’t suppose you could give them the night off?”
“No,” Jelly replied. She felt for the prince, she really did- but his freedom wasn’t worth the heads that would roll should the Queen found out.
“Well then,” Jack said. “I think I’ll stick with my original plan, and turn in early. If would be so kind?”
He indicated the door with a grand sweep of his arm.
“Of course,” Jelly said, not willing to push things further. She’d have to ask Duchess if she wanted the heads up on potential problems in Court’s working. She should probably talk to Duchess anyway, but it was difficult to do these days without wondering who exactly she was talking to. “Good night, Jack.”
“Goodbye, Ten.”
She made a stop to the mess anyway, and after a thought, she had the Club working at it fix her two dinners as he exchanged gossip with her. His consisted mostly of an over-the-top retelling of the incident with the Diamond and the Oyster, but he did let slip that the Queen was getting antsy about Mad March’s lack of resurrection. That made up her mind for her- come morning, she would give Dudley a hand. The last thing she wanted was for her father’s head to end up under the axe, and if nothing else, the killer could tell them where to find the head.
Speaking of her father, as she rounded the corner into the hallway where he lived she saw him balancing two boxes of take-away in one hand as he unlocked the door with the other.
“It looks like we both had the same idea,” she said.
“Great minds, Jellybean,” Dad joked as he pushed the door in. “Great minds.”
They ended up stealing the best bits of each meal as they balanced the containers on the kitchen sink, the kitchen table having long been buried under read-out, projections, graph paper and a ticker. As they ate, she checked him over. He looked tired, worn- then again, he had looked so pretty much since Mom had been executed. Things had gotten worse lately. He seemed empty, some times. He was starting to space out; he bumped into things he should have been able to avoid, and sometimes seemed like he was just… not there. She’d woken up a few weeks ago to find him sitting in bed, crying, and he couldn’t tell her why. It was terrifying.
She blamed the recent provisions that allowed the White Rabbit to kidnap juvenile Oysters. She didn’t like to think about it too much, but she did remember that Dad had had even less choice about his profession than she had had with hers. Given one, he would have chosen just about anything else- but the Queen needed his expertise, and so he became Carpenter.
But that was beside the point. The point was that Wonderland was killing her father, and things had just hit a sharp decline. She needed to get him out. She needed to get him back home.
And with the belligerence of the White Rabbit and things accelerating wrongwards, that left one option: sell out herself and everything she knew to the Resistance, in return for his safe passage. She wasn’t sure if it was enough- all other things aside, she was pretty sure the Resistance would be reluctant to help a Suit like her. At the very least, they might up the price out of spite. It was why she needed to go about this carefully: if the King thought that she was in deep cover, it would keep her father safe from reprisals, and give her a way back in if she needed one.
Things were going about as smoothly as could be expected, though, so she forced herself to get off that particular train of thought, and concentrate on telling Dad what she’d done at work that day, skipping merrily over the part where she’d been shot, and concentrating on the failed food bust, which he would consider much more cheery news. He didn’t say much about his work, but then again he rarely did, and before long they were shoveling the remains of their dinner down the compacter.
“Are you staying tonight?” Dad asked.
“Yeah,” Jelly replied. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
Technically speaking, her room had been converted into Dad’s study when she’d begun her Spade training. Realistically speaking, it was something that had been done at the insistence of the Queen, and with her quarters being what they were and her father being who he was, Jelly found she much preferred sleeping next to the ironically empty desk that three floors down and four corridors across. She doubted they were fooling many people, but the request had been unusual enough that it passed without comment. Most Suits lived with their parents until they began courting, and as Jelly hadn’t had much time to think about who she might like to settle down with, let alone start the process.
She pulled on her sleepwear, folding her suit and putting it on the desk. Then she poked her head into the kitchen, where Dad was seated at the kitchen table.
“I think I’m going to turn in,” she called. There was no reply. “Dad?”
Nothing. She walked over to where he was seated, staring off into space.
“Dad,” she called again. There wasn’t so much as a blink. She took a deep breath, and then put her hand on his shoulder. “Daddy.”
He jerked, looking surprised to find her there. “I’m sorry Jellybean,” he apologized, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s late. I think I’m going to turn in.”
“Yeah, me too,” she replied. “Good night, Dad.”
“Good night.”
She walked into her room, drawing the curtains shut behind her and sitting shakily down on her bed.
It was going to be okay. He’d get better once he was out of Wonderland. He had too.
She repeated it over and over again to herself until she finally managed to fall asleep.