She smirked, feeling bolder outside the confines of her home. ‘I’m well aware,’ she said. ‘Impossible is your speciality.’

His face brightened with that true smile again. He whistled and she heard the flap of bird’s wings overhead. Raven appeared from the shadows and perched on Jest’s shoulder as he tugged Catherine towards the road.

‘Where’s the nearest Crossroads?’ he asked.

‘Under the little bridge over the creek.’

Once they stepped off the lawn, Jest released her hand, and Cath attempted to hide her disappointment even from herself. He did, however, offer his elbow, which she accepted, folding her fingers around his arm and surprised to find more muscle there than his lithe frame would suggest.

It was a short walk to the bridge that crossed over Squeaky Creek, where a set of steps branched off the road and led down to the embankment. Cath took the lead, guiding them to the shore and pointing at a green-painted door that was built into the bridge’s foundation.

Jest tipped his hat and held the door for her.

The Crossroads was an intersection that connected all corners of the kingdom. A long, low hall lined with doors and archways, windows and stairwells. The floor was made of black-and-white-chequerboard tiles and the walls jutted off in every direction. The shape was constantly shifting. Some of the walls were made of dirt, with tree roots growing through them. Others were covered in fine gilt wallpaper. Still others were made of glass, and water could be seen pressing on them from the other side, like a fishbowl.

Jest led Cath to a hollow tree trunk with an opening that looked like it had been cut out by a hatchet. He took her hand again and pulled her through.

On the other side, Cath found herself on a dirt pathway that was succumbing to moss. Trees towered overhead and through the close-grown trunks Cath saw a spot of golden light. This was the direction Jest headed, picking his way along the shadowed path.

The forest opened into a meadow and the source of the light was revealed – a small travelling shop. It had a canvas roof and rickety wagon wheels and a hitch on the front that no longer had any horses or mules attached to pull it. A round door was on the back of the shop with a sign above it that read, in flourishing gold script:

Hatta’s Marvellous Millinery

Fine Hats and Headdresses for Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

Cath tilted her head to one side, brow furrowing. ‘We’re going to a . . . hat shop?’

‘The finest hat shop,’ Jest corrected. ‘And I assure you, the Hatter throws the maddest tea parties this side of the Looking Glass.’ He paused. ‘Probably on either side of the Looking Glass, now I think about it.’

Anxiety was fast seeping into Cath’s thoughts. She started to laugh, questioning how she’d come to be here. ‘I’m not sure I want to go to a mad tea party.’

Jest winked at her. ‘Trust me, my lady. You do.’

Stepping up to the back of the shop, he pulled open the door.

CHAPTER 18

CATH FROZE ON THE THRESHOLD, overwhelmed with the scent of herbal tea and the painful noise of an off-key duet. The millinery was easily eight times as large on the inside as it was on the out. A fire crackled in a corner fireplace, and the walls were covered with hooks and shelves that displayed an assortment of elaborate headdresses. Top hats and bowlers, bonnets and coronets, straw hats and tall, pointed dunce caps. There were hats covered in living wildflowers and hats blooming with peacock feathers and hats fluttering with the wings of dozens of vibrant dragonflies, some of them occasionally giving off a puff of flame and smoke.

As Catherine stared, Raven abandoned Jest’s shoulder and swooped inside. The wind from his feathers beat against her hair and – for but a moment – his shadow elongated across the shop’s wooden floor. Cath’s heart stuttered as she remembered the ominous shadow that had followed her over the castle lawn. The hooded figure, the raised axe.

She blinked, and the chill was gone. Just a bird, now settling on a ceramic bust of a clown with its silly, grinning face painted with black diamonds.

Jest drew Catherine towards the long table that stretched down the centre of the hat shop. The surface was draped in bright-coloured scarves of various textures and cluttered with teapots and cups and cream and sugar dishes and spoons of silver and gold and porcelain. The chairs around the table were just as mismatched – from wingbacks to schoolhouse benches to ottomans to a sweet little rocker. At the far end of the table was a chair that was luxurious enough for the King himself to have sat upon.

The occupants of the table were equally assorted. A Porcupine stabbed at a plate of scones with one of his quills; a Bloodhound spoke in hushed tones with a petite grey-haired woman who was working at knitting needles in between sips of tea; two Goldfish swam figures of eight around each other inside a fishbowl filled with tea-stained water; a Dormouse dozed inside the mane of a Lion who was singing low to himself in vocal warm-up; a Parrot argued with a Cockatoo; a Bumblebee skimmed a newspaper; a Boa Constrictor tuned a fiddle; a Chameleon squinted in concentration as she attempted to match the exact pattern of her upholstered chair; a Turtle dunked half of his cucumber sandwich into his cup.

The noisy whooperups at the centre of it all were a March Hare, who stood on top of the table, and a Squirrel perched on his head. They each wore ridiculous floral bonnets, though holes had been added to allow their ears to poke through. Together they were the source of the very loud and rather obnoxious duet that had first pierced Cath’s eardrums. The song was about starfish and stardust, though they both seemed too hoarse and confused to get any of the words straight, and they were horribly murdering the tune. Catherine cringed as the song dragged onward.