Wonderland was not what Maggie expected.

  She'd imagined something whimsical. Colorful. Maybe a little weird, but in a charming way.

  This was weird in a way that made her head hurt.

  The trees grew upside down, roots clawing at the sky. The path they walked on kept changing direction—sometimes literally rotating under their feet. Flowers with faces watched them pass, whispering to each other in voices just too quiet to understand.

  "This place is insane," Jay muttered.

  "That's the point." Mark led them forward without hesitation, clearly familiar with the terrain. "Wonderland operates on dream logic, not real logic. The more you try to make sense of it, the harder it gets."

  "So how do we fight here?"

  "Same as anywhere else. You adapt." Mark stopped, holding up a hand. "Speaking of which—we've got company."

  Maggie tensed, looking around. At first she didn't see anything. Then the bushes parted, and—

  Playing cards. Actual playing cards, but person-sized, with arms and legs and spears. Five of them, all from the Spades suit. Their flat faces somehow managed to look menacing.

  "Card soldiers," Mark said. "Low-level. Good for practice."

  The cards charged.

  "Maggie, take three. Jay—" Mark glanced at him. "Try something."

  Maggie didn't wait. She launched forward, muscle memory from Mark's training kicking in. The first card swung its spear at her head—she ducked, came up inside its guard, and drove her fist into its flat body.

  The card crumpled like actual paper, folding in on itself before dissolving.

  "One down," she breathed.

  The second card was smarter, keeping its distance, jabbing at her with the spear. She grabbed the shaft, yanked it forward, and kicked the card in what would have been its stomach if cards had stomachs.

  It folded too.

  The third one tried to run. She caught it in two steps and punched it into confetti.

  "Nice," Mark said.

  Jay, meanwhile, was having less success.

  He stood with his hands extended toward the remaining two cards, face scrunched in concentration.

  "FIREBALL!" he shouted.

  Nothing happened.

  "FIRE BOLT!"

  Still nothing.

  "FLAMES OF THE BURNING SOUL!"

  One of the cards poked him with its spear. He yelped and stumbled backward.

  "Ow! That actually hurt!"

  The card raised its spear for another jab. Maggie was already moving—she grabbed Jay by the collar and yanked him back, then drove her heel into the card's flat face. It crumpled. The second card tried to flank her, but she spun and caught it with a backhand that sent it flying into a nearby tree, where it exploded into paper scraps.

  "You're welcome," she said.

  Jay rubbed his arm where the spear had poked him. "I had it under control."

  "You had nothing under control."

  "I was building up to something!"

  "You were about to get skewered."

  Mark stepped between them. "Both of you, enough." He looked at Jay. "Your problem is you're thinking too big. You want to cast a level-one fireball, but you're imagining a massive explosion. That's level-fifty stuff. You don't have the MP for it."

  "But in games—"

  "Games start you with basic spells. A spark. A small flame. Not a city-destroying inferno. You need to tone it way down. Think of the smallest fire you can imagine. A match. A candle. That's your starting point."

  Jay looked at his hands, frustration evident. "But that's so lame."

  "That's how growth works. You start small and build up. Or you stay useless forever. Your choice."

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  Jay's shoulders slumped, but he nodded.

  They kept walking. More cards appeared—sixes, sevens, a few eights. The higher the number, the tougher they were, but none of them posed a real threat to Maggie. Her training with Mark had prepared her well for basic combat.

  But Mark wasn't satisfied with basic.

  "You're good up close," he said after she'd dispatched another group. "But what happens when an enemy is out of reach?"

  "I close the distance."

  "What if you can't? What if they're flying? What if there's a gap between you?" He paused. "What if you shouldn't? Remember that monster with the gas? If you'd been able to hit it from a distance, you wouldn't have gotten poisoned."

  Maggie winced at the memory. Her lungs still remembered that burning.

  Mark pointed to a card soldier on a ledge twenty feet away. "Hit that one. Without moving."

  Maggie stared at him. "How?"

  "You've seen it in anime, right?" Jay perked up, apparently recovered from his earlier failure. "The shockwave punch! Where you hit the air and the force travels forward!"

  "That's the general idea," Mark admitted. "Though the execution is more nuanced. You're not punching air—you're projecting force. Extending the impact beyond your fist."

  Maggie tried. She punched toward the distant card with everything she had.

  Nothing happened. The card didn't even flinch.

  "Harder," Mark said.

  She tried again. And again. By the tenth attempt, her arm was aching and the card was still standing there, mocking her with its existence.

  "This is impossible."

  "It's not. It just takes practice." Mark walked over to stand beside her. "Think of it like throwing your punch. You're not trying to hit the card—you're trying to throw the hit itself. The impact is a separate thing from your fist."

  Easy for him to say.

  Meanwhile, Jay was making progress. Tiny progress. After an hour of trying, he'd managed to produce a spark between his fingers—barely visible, gone in an instant.

  "I did it!" He stared at his hand in wonder. "Did you see that? I made fire!"

  "You made a spark," Mark corrected. "But yes. That's progress."

  "I'm a mage! I'm actually a mage!"

  "You're a level-one mage with approximately zero usable spells. But sure. Celebrate the spark."

  Jay didn't seem to care about the caveats. He was grinning like he'd won the lottery.

  Maggie, on the other hand, was still failing. She'd punched at that stupid card maybe fifty times now. Her arm was sore, her frustration was mounting, and the card was still just standing there.

  "Maybe try something else," Mark said. "Running on air—that might come easier to you."

  "You can do that. I've seen you."

  "Anyone can do it with enough practice. The principle is the same—you're creating a surface where there isn't one. Projecting your will into empty space."

  Maggie looked at the sky. Then at the ground. Then at Mark.

  "How do I start?"

  "Jump. And when you're in the air, don't fall. Just... decide there's ground beneath you."

  "That sounds insane."

  "You're in Wonderland. Insane is normal here."

  Maggie jumped.

  She fell immediately.

  "Again," Mark said.

  She jumped. Fell. Jumped. Fell. Jumped—and for one brief moment, she felt something under her foot. A resistance. A surface that wasn't there.

  Then she fell again.

  "Better," Mark said. "You're getting it."

  · · ·

  Three days passed.

  Or what felt like three days—time in Wonderland was as unreliable as everything else. The sun rose and set at random intervals, sometimes lasting hours, sometimes minutes. Meals appeared when they felt like eating, vanishing when they didn't. Sleep came in fits and starts, interrupted by the occasional card patrol that needed dealing with.

  But they made progress.

  Jay had upgraded from sparks to a small flame that he could maintain for almost ten seconds. He'd also created himself a new outfit—a dark blue robe with silver trim that he insisted was "proper mage attire." It looked like something out of a fantasy game, complete with an oversized hood that kept falling over his eyes.

  "Nice robe," Maggie said when she first saw it.

  "It's not a robe, it's a mage's vestment." Jay pushed the hood back for the third time in as many minutes. "There's a difference."

  "Does the difference involve the hood actually staying up?"

  "I'm still working on that part."

  Maggie had made progress too. She could manage three steps in the air now before gravity remembered she existed. Not enough to be useful in combat, but enough to prove it was possible. The ranged attacks were still eluding her, but she'd gotten close once—felt the force leave her fist and travel a few feet before dissipating.

  Mark had been pushing them hard, but fair. More card soldiers, higher numbers. A few face cards that actually put up a fight. Jay had even managed to burn one with his flame—not enough to destroy it, but enough to distract it while Maggie finished it off.

  They were starting to work as a team.

  On the third day—or what they'd decided to call the third day—they reached the garden.

  It stretched out before them, a maze of hedges that towered thirty feet high. The leaves were red—not autumn red, but the red of playing card hearts, glossy and artificial. Somewhere in the distance, Maggie could see the spires of a castle rising above the maze.

  "The Queen's garden," Mark said. "The maze leads to her castle."

  "So we just... go through?" Jay asked.

  "You do. I don't."

  Maggie turned to look at him. "What?"

  Mark was already stepping back, his expression unreadable. "Papa's gotta go take care of some things. You kids have fun."

  "You're leaving us?" Jay's voice cracked. "Here? Alone?"

  "Locke will stay with you." The husky padded forward, sitting down between Maggie and Jay. "He'll keep you out of trouble. Mostly."

  "But—" Maggie started.

  "You're ready. Or ready enough. The card soldiers in the maze are stronger than what you've been fighting, but nothing you can't handle. Work together. Don't do anything stupid."

  He looked at Jay specifically when he said that last part.

  "Hey!"

  Maggie's mind was racing. She hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected him to just... leave. But she could see in his expression that arguing wouldn't change anything.

  She straightened her shoulders. "Fine. We'll handle it."

  "Obviously I'll be leading," Jay announced. "As the mage of the party—"

  "I'll be leading. You can barely keep your hood up."

  "The hood is a minor technical issue!"

  "The hood is a metaphor for your general competence."

  "That's not even—"

  "Take care." Mark's voice cut through their bickering. He was already walking away, heading back the way they'd come. "I'll see you on the other side."

  He paused, glancing back over his shoulder.

  "Good luck out there."

  And then he was gone, disappearing around a bend in the path, leaving Maggie and Jay standing at the entrance to the maze with nothing but a husky and each other for company.

  Maggie looked at Locke. Locke looked back at her with calm, intelligent eyes.

  "Well," she said. "I guess we're doing this."

  Jay pushed his hood back again. It immediately fell forward.

  "We're so dead," he muttered.