"Chesh, what's going on?" I asked frantically as he pulled me with him through the trees in an unknown direction. I hadn't caught everything Rab and Cheshire had said, so I was a bit lost. Cheshire looked upset though, and I knew it had to be serious.

"Dee and Dum's trial is being held early," he explained shortly.

My confusion didn't lessen any. "I got that, but why? Don't people have at least a few months after a trial before their sentence is carried out?" I asked. "Besides, how do you know the Queen will actually sentence them to death?"

Cheshire's eyes narrowed, his pupils going to slits. "The queen is brutal. No matter if the accused is guilty or not, they get a death sentence and she does it herself as soon as the trial ends. It's fun to her," Chesh said.

"Isn't there a court?" I asked. "Someone to defend them?"

Scoffing, Cheshire ducked under a branch and continued on his way. "Yeah, but they're all too afraid. Would you defy someone who cuts off people's heads when they're bored?" he asked. I went to reply but found I had no way to protest my point, so I just shut my mouth. He had a good point, albeit a morbid one at that. Cheshire continued. "Besides, she's the most powerful person in all of Wonderland. Even if they tried, she'd get what she wanted," Cheshire said.

I thought about that for a good minute before it seemed to click in my head. "Wait. So, you mean we're going to go do exactly what everyone else is scared to do because she'd kill them?" I asked.

Cheshire hesitated I his response. "To put it bluntly," he settled to say.

I had to concentrate to keep my feet moving across the ground. It was my fault for asking, but I suddenly felt very sick. I sucked in a sharp breath to allow oxygen to fill my brain and hopefully blow out all the fears I suddenly had about this mission.

Noticing my abrupt silence, Chesh glanced at me. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah..." I replied numbly.

Cheshire didn't believe me. He tightened his grip on my hand and pulled me to a stop. His eyes were serious when he looked at me. "Are you scared?" he asked me.

I glanced in the direction we were going. "Of course. I'm just an ordinary high school kid, and now I'm being asked to risk my life for people I've never met." It sounded selfish, but I had never been the kind of person to stick my neck out for strangers. That had been my mother and I had seen her get hurt enough times to know better than to do it myself. I glanced at Chesh. "What if I screw up?" I asked.

"Then all of us are going to die by having our heads chopped off and fed to the queen's dogs," he said honestly. I frowned and he smiled a little. "I'm just kidding. It doesn't matter if you mess up. No one's perfect, we all make mistakes, but I believe in you. Besides, you have the one and only Cheshire Cat by your side."

I rolled my eyes as he grinned at me confidently. "You better be as good as you say you are," I said.

Cheshire lifted my chin with a smirk. "Need a good luck kiss?" he asked. Before I could say so much as one word of protest, he pressed his lips to mine for a split second, just long enough for me to know he really kissed me. When he pulled away, his smirk remained. "Feel any better?" he asked.

Blinking away my shock, I wiped my mouth. "Definitely not..." I said.

He laughed good-naturedly, but didn't tease me anymore. He knew I would hit him if he did. So, we continued running through the woods until we came to a wide ring of water that looked like a river. I could see a building through the trees on the other side. "Darn..." Cheshire muttered under his breath. I forgot about the moat."

"Moat?" I asked incredulously.

Cheshire sighed at the water with obvious distaste. "Now to get across," he said.

I looked at the motionless water, weighing out options. "We can just swim," I said, stepping towards the water. Chesh grabbed my arm. "Sure. If you don't mind being eaten alive," he said.

"Eaten?" I asked. I looked back at the water, and that was when I noticed the dog-like crocodiles peeking up just above the surface, their eyes yellowed and hungry. I moved back quickly. "Never mind..." I said.

Cheshire continued to frown. "No matter what we do, there's still the chance of getting wet..." he was saying quietly.

I gawked at him. "Are you serious?" I asked. "It's just water. Are you that much of a cat?"

He scowled unhappily, his face a slight pink. "Well, sorry for having issues with water. It's uncomfortably in my fur and it takes forever to dry," he said irritably.

I crossed my arms. "Then how are we supposed to get across?" I asked.

He looked over the water warily. Then he sighed. "Fine. Come here," he said. He grabbed my arm and lifted me up onto his back, telling me to hold on tight because he wouldn't be coming back to get me if I fell off halfway there. Looking back towards the water, Cheshire made one more groan of unhappiness and took off. My body didn't move forward with his and I teetered backwards dangerously, causing me to grab onto the first thing I saw. He gasped and almost fell off the back of one of the dog crocodiles-dogs as my fingers tugged painfully on his ears. "Watch it!" he hissed, tripping over the tail of the next monster as he avoided falling into the water.

I barely heard him. I watched the dangerous looking creatures snap and chase after us greedily, eager for a snack. I could tell Cheshire was putting more concentration into not getting wet than not getting eaten and it was concerning. "Can't you go any faster?" I asked.

He shot me a glare over his shoulder. "Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can," he said.

Precariously, we finally made it to the other side and he set me down in the grass, both of our legs wobbling under us as we took several steps away from the edge of the moat.

Once we had caught our breath, I looked up at the giant wall in front of us. "Now what?" I asked. Chesh looked up too and scanned the wall with sharp eyes as he started tapping on the stone wall with his knuckles. "What are you doing?" I questioned.

"I know it's around here somewhere..." he murmured thoughtfully. Suddenly, when his hand knocked on a hollower sounding rock, a small hole in the ground opened up beside us. Chesh grinned. "I had started wondering if they'd gotten rid of it," he said. He jumped down and looked up at me from the semi-darkness of the hole. "Princess, would you care to join me?"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't flatter yourself," I said, but hopped down next to him anyways.

He looked disappointed. "I would've caught you," he told me.

We started walking down the dark corridor silently. I wondered where it lead, but I didn't bother to ask. I trusted that Chesh knew what he was doing. He'd get us there to save the twins and we'd get out just as easily. Well, maybe not easily, but we would get out; that I was sure.

After five minutes of wordless walking, going down passages and up several flights of stairs, we came to a door. "Where does this open to?" I asked, keeping my voice low in case someone was on the other side.

He looked tense as he reached for the door knob, ignoring my question. I strained to see his face in the dark as he pulled the door open and peeked out. Then he sighed in relief. "Phew. Glad my hunch was right," he said.

I looked out too and saw we were in a lavish room with ornaments and a grand chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Almost everything in the room was red with the exception of some gold sheets and furniture. "Where are we?" I asked as we entered.

Cheshire looked to be reminiscing. "The Queen's bedroom," he said.

I gaped at him. "Someone could have been in here," I whisper urgently. "You based our lives on a hunch?"

He shrugged. "It was a seventy-five/twenty-five chance since everyone's probably at the trial," he said. When I didn't look consoled, he tried, "Better than a fifty/fifty chance, right?"

I wanted to slap that smug smile right off his face, but I reluctantly did not. I needed him if we were going to get out of here safely. With grudging steps, I followed him out of the room and we made our way through the palace. Cheshire was acting casual, hands folded leisurely behind his head, and it made me nervous. "You act like this is just a walk in the park," I said.

"Well, I am-... er..." He frowned as if rethinking his choice of words, "was the Queen's cat. I lived her a long time ago before all the bad stuff happened," he explained.

He seemed a little upset and I apologized. "Sorry. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories," I said.

Glancing at me, Cheshire's smile returned and he patted my head like I was a mere child. "Don't be," he said. "I'm a free kitten now, so it's not like I'm upset or anything."

Deciding it seemed okay to venture into his past a little bit, I asked, "What was your job when you worked for the Queen?"

Cheshire stuffed his hands in his pockets, a finger poking through a hole in one of them. "I was there to entertain her. She'd use me for stress sometimes. Whenever she was angry or upset she'd give me a back rub and it would relax her." He smiled as he talked, reliving the good memories. "Every now and then she'd ask me for a favor like going and delivering a letter, or something easy like that. It was always fun here in the palace, before the White Queen was forced out and the Red Queen took over. I can't say I don't regret leaving, but... I do wish she'd stop her antics so I can return."

"You'd rather live here?" I asked curiously. "I like your house a lot. Don't you?"

He shrugged. "It's a nice place, but what house can compare to the easy life. When I lived here, I could sleep all day and do whatever I wanted. I rarely had to catch my own food, and even when I did, it was more of a tame than a chore." His smile looked sad. "That's the life for a cat."

I frowned at that thought, disagreeing with it. "But that's too easy. Don't you want to do something with your life?" I asked.

He shrugged again. "Not really."

I looked at him seriously. "Even a cat has dreams, right?" I asked.

He slowed a little, considering this idea like it was a piece of savory salmon on the tip of his tongue. "I used to imagine marriage. I wanted to have a wife at one point, but..." He shot me a grin, "I'm not cut out for that. It's not for me."

I was about to reply when we heard loud voices echo through the halls of the palace. Before I could say a word, Cheshire pulled me down to the floor and we peeked over the edge of a nearby balcony. "You have been accused of betraying the queen. For this, the punishment is death," a small announcer said from his podium. "How do you plea?"

Looking around the courtyard we saw an audience of people, young and old, watching the trial with dismal expressions. In the middle of the courtyard were two young men in shackles, bruises littering their scrawny arms and legs. They were glaring at the announcer who stood in front of a beautiful lady. She looked at them coldly, her long red hair pulled up into a mess of curls on the top of her head to show off her pale complexion and rosy lips.

I glanced at Chesh nervously. "What are we going to do?" I asked.

Cheshire didn't look at me. "You, nothing," he said. "Me... I'm going to rescue my friends."

*******

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