Everless almost falls off her perch. "You...what? Tell me everything!"

So she relates the encounter with the knights and her decision not to bother the King, and her second meeting with the Cheshire Cat.

"Interesting," Everless pronounces this. "A different person, he said? I wonder..." 

She shakes herself, feathers ruffling up. "But let us return to politics. Marcella's court is composed of the ten Hearts, along with her husband and son, plus her lesser servants, the Spades and Clubs. Spades are domestic servants, while Clubs are guards. Neither pose any great threat to us; it is the Hearts one must worry about.

"Each Heart has a number representing his or her rank in the Queen's favour, with Two being the lowest and Ten being the highest - the Ace seems to be outside of this ranking system. This can also be used as a rough estimate of their relative power levels, both politically and magically. The Ace's capabilities are unknown, and may even be variable. 

"The Hearts are each tasked with the oversight of one particular aspect of Wonderland. Eight has control of the labyrinth and its monsters; Five is in charge of propaganda and censorship; Four oversees exploration beyond Wonderland's borders; Six is the head of the Inquisition. The latter is our main concern; he is tasked with searching out the Resistance."

"I think it would be very interesting to know more about this place's magic. And also geography—is there a map?"

The Hatter snorts. "A map? You've been wandering around this place for a while now; does it seem like it has consistent geography to you?"

He shakes his head. "Once you've lived here a while, you develop a certain feel for how to navigate it - but the Cheshire Cat is the only one who can get you where you need to go every time, without fail."

"Conceptual map? Magic map that changes with the geography? It can't be completely inconsistent otherwise no one would be able to develop this certain feel you mention. And she did say there were borders."

"There are rules," Everless agrees. "But even I do not know exactly what they are, not to the degree required for a map to be useful. It's far more practical to simply memorise a series of routes or contingencies for travelling between a small number of locations, and to ask for directions from someone who has memorised a slightly different set.

"Or, if one is unusually lucky, from Chess," she adds.

"What's his deal, exactly? What does he want?"

Everless sighs. "You know as much as I do about the Cheshire Cat, at this point." She does not seem pleased about this.

"Now, I believe you asked about magic? Unfortunately, our knowledge there is also somewhat limited, since the most relevant, and potentially useful, magic system is in the hands of the Queen and the Hearts. None of the Resistance have any magic to speak of, unless one counts Chess as both magic and as a member (both of which are debatable), with the exception of the Wandering Seer."

"—I see. That sounds suboptimal." Pause. "Who else is in this Resistance?"

Hatter takes over the explanation. "Our leaders are Queen Araminta, called the Queen of Diamonds or the queen without a court, and her consort, King Faramund. Queen Araminta is currently in hiding, but can be reached if necessary, and King Faramund is undercover in the Court of Hearts as a minor noble of little consequence."

A wry smile. "He has cultivated the appearance of an eccentric fashion sense which requires that he purchase a new hat every two weeks or so."

"Smart. But if you already have a Queen and King then how's succession after Marcella's deposed in question?"

"Because the Queen and King of Diamonds are remnants of a defeated royal line which no longer has any claim to Wonderland. The Red King's son, if he indeed lives, is the true heir - and the Red King himself would rule if he could be woken," the Hatter explains. 

"If the prince cannot be found and the King cannot be woken, the next in line would be the King's daughter, who was a baby when Marcella took power. Unfortunately, she also vanished. There are rumours that one of her nursemaids was instructed to take the child somewhere safe, but no-one knows where that might be."

He sighs. "So you see, it is all quite up in the air. I have no trouble believing that you might be able to take the throne, in the absence of anyone with a better claim."

"I could be the long lost baby! That'd explain why I'm nothing like my father."

"I...suppose it's possible that she might have been taken to the surface world?"

He frowns, and counts on his fingers. "No, it would be too long ago, I think. I'm not sure exactly how many years it's been, but certainly at least thirty. I hesitate to ask your age, but I feel reasonably confident in guessing you are under twenty?"

"I am in fact sixteen," she nods. "Alas, I guess I'm not that many levels of Chosen One."

"It has been long enough," Everless comments, "that you could possibly be her daughter. But how to test it..."

She shakes her head. "Let us return to more urgent matters. Hatter, you should contact our royals and make arrangements for Sadde to meet them. Meanwhile, I believe we should find somewhere for her to sleep before too much longer - and perhaps provide food as well."

"That sounds useful, yeah. And then I'd like to know what I can actually, you know, help with. Power trips are fun but I don't have any skills applicable to a rebellion I don't think."

"You provide a fresh perspective that may be more valuable than you know," Everless says.

"You seem to know certain pieces of the puzzle before they are explained to you, although you describe them strangely; perhaps your knowledge will be the key to defeating Marcella."

"Pieces of the puzzle? Like what?"

"You guessed at the existence of a prophecy, for one, and turned out to be right that it likely refers to you. I will grant that we do not yet have confirmation, but it does fit with what we know."

"Ah. Well... it's mostly that this world seems to run on story logic. So I'm trying to follow story logic and figure out what the next interesting plot point will be before the authors make it obvious."

"You see? This is information we natives do not possess." She sounds envious.

"Does story logic provide any hints for how an evil queen might be defeated?"

Hatter has quietly left the room, presumably to contact the leaders of the Resistance.

She starts counting on fingers. "The Power of Love and Friendship's been falling out of style lately, but it's still pretty common. Greed and overconfidence are typically failures that bring villains down, pretty often in the form of a trusted subordinate who betrays them because they're too evil. Sometimes the Power of Love and Friendship is combined with that and a trusted subordinate betrays the evil leader after befriending one of the Good Guys and Seeing The Light. Hmmm... this is also a fantastical scenario, so perhaps she has a mystical weakness she protects at all costs, the source of her power or something like that, and it's guarded by riddles and mystical barriers only the Heroes can beat."

"Hmm," is Everless' first response to this.

"We know the source of the Queen's power, at the least," she offers. "It is the stolen hearts of Wonderlanders which enable her and her underlings to perform magic. She makes sure to keep more for herself than she gives out to any one person, which means she carries at least eleven at any one time. However, there is no reason for all of them to be on display, and she may very well keep still more hidden beneath her clothing or in her hair."

She huffs in what might be amusement or frustration. "As to the possibility of turning one of her own against her...I believe it unlikely. The Hearts, the only ones who might stand a chance against her, are chosen and promoted for their loyalty, which is then further ensured when she removes their own hearts. Those, I would expect that she always keeps personally, and would certainly never return to their original bearers."