Agatha Harkness's Arc

Chapter 20 of 21

Agatha flew from the Snow Queen's castle with the soot climbing past her elbow. Frost could not touch it. Ice could not seal it. Wonderland made its own rules, and only one fae ruled there with power over debts and broken promises. Agatha had admired that queen for years without ever daring to knock. Now she had no choice. She turned her broom toward the far court where enchanted cards dealt out justice. A living rabbit hole waited at the wood's edge. Its rim was matted brown fur and twisting roots, its center a spinning dark ringed with cold light. Agatha steadied her broom before the pull and dropped inside. The tunnel folded around her and spat her onto a path of drifting apple blossoms and clear crystals. At its end stood a graceful clocktower wrapped in painted roses, its hands frozen at midnight. Queen Heartalia stood beneath the clock. Her crown of gold antlers caught the moonlight. She held a single card, face blank, and did not look up when Agatha arrived. "You carry a debt," the queen said. "It shows on your arm." Agatha bowed lower than her pride liked. "I have wanted to meet you for a long time. Not like this. The soot is a broken promise. A voice paid to a sea witch. It will not stop spreading." "A broken promise." Heartalia turned the card over. Still blank. "I hate betrayal above all crimes. But this debt is not yours to pay." "Then whose?" "The one who broke it." The queen stepped closer. "Soot cannot be unmade. It can only be sent home. Back to the mouth that gave it away." Agatha's stomach tightened. "Peter. He paid the voice. He owns the rot." "He does." Heartalia pressed the blank card against Agatha's stained arm. The soot pulled toward it like iron to a magnet. Black seeped from her skin into the card and did not stop. The card drank her wrist clean. Her elbow. Her fingers. When the queen lifted it, the face was no longer blank. A single red heart burned there, edged in black. Agatha stared at her arm. Clean skin. No smoke, no red glow. "You took it." "I hold it," Heartalia said. "The card carries his crime now. It will find him. When it does, the debt collects itself." Relief flooded Agatha, then curdled. "And me? What do I owe you for this?" The queen looked at her for the first time. Red eyes, level and calm. "Nothing yet. But my daughter is lost in a world my court cannot reach. You are a witch of four centuries. When I call, you will help me find her." Agatha's peace had a price after all. She nodded once. The rabbit hole yawned behind her. She stepped in clean, but she stepped in owing.