"How did the White Rabbit get out?"

"Oh, there are ways into and out of Wonderland," Araminta clarifies. "But they are controlled by Marcella and the Hearts."

She considers. "Everless might know of an unwatched route, if such exists, and so might the Wandering Seer - although it would be something of a chore to extract such information from the latter."

"Is the White Rabbit not an agent of yours, then? She did not seem very fond of Marcella."

"Oh, no - she is merely one of the more soft-hearted of the Queen's servants, and has managed to stay beneath Marcella's notice to the extent required to keep her heart," she diagnoses.

"The rabbit is not even aware of the Resistance, since we do not believe that either her compassion or her license would stretch so far as to participate in concealing its continued existence."

"She did know to indicate I seek Everless or the Seer if I was keen on overthrowing the Queen."

"Everless has a reputation of handing out knowledge to all comers, regardless of their intentions for it," Araminta explains.

"Said reputation is...not entirely deserved, but certainly accurate in the broad strokes. As for the Seer, he is one of the few Heartless not to serve Marcella, and his powers of foresight, aside from being very useful if properly directed, indicate that Marcella will not always be Queen of Wonderland. This, in itself, is seen by many as seditious."

"How is the Seer still—free, then?"

"He is simply never in the wrong place at the wrong time," she says with a laugh.

"Much of his time is spent on the borders of Wonderland, or beyond, where the reach of the Hearts is less certain. They have tried, many times, to arrest him and bring him to justice, but have failed."

"Ha. Clever."

"Indeed. Now, do you have any further questions?" she asks, bringing the conversation back to business.

"Not at the moment. Something tells me the next plot point is asking Everless about some of the things we talked about but that may just be my curiosity."

The queen nods.

"Everless has a greater chance than I of understanding much of which you speak. We should speak again later, though."

And that seems to be a dismissal; she pulls out paper and pen to begin writing a report of some kind, utterly ignoring Sadde.

Alright then. Where's Everless?

Everless is in the kitchen, ranting to Hatter about something. Hatter sees Sadde coming and motions for her to stop talking.

"Sadde! I see you survived," he says brightly.

"What can we do for you?"

"I did survive! I had a bunch of questions that the two of you might be able to answer that Queen Araminta couldn't."

"Ask, and I will answer those I can," Everless encourages him. 

"Araminta is a very effective leader, but does not seek out knowledge to the same extent that I do."

"Okay, so, do you know much about Marcella's past, and specifically anything that could count as a tragic backstory?"

"Hmm..."

She gives the question some serious thought.

"Unfortunately, very little is known about Marcella's past before she defeated the Red King and took the throne. Most of those who knew her beforehand are now dead, either from old age or various mildly suspicious causes. You may be correct in thinking that there is something which she is trying to hide."

He nods. "Let's hope that's a plot point, then. For that matter I think the White Rabbit is one, as is the whole chess and card game theme going on, but I'll explore that later. Creation myths, and ancient history, what do you have on those?"

"They may as well be the same thing, if one goes far enough back," Everless grumbles. 

"History becomes less certain once you get more than three hundred years into the past, since the war between the Red and White armies destroyed so many records, and Marcella destroyed or confiscated the rest on her ascension. As a result, much of Wonderland's ancient history is speculative, and would be better described as legend or myth. The origins of Wonderland itself have become almost completely lost to the mists of time, and there are multiple competing versions of the story."

"I'm all ears, if none of them is true I'll at least know more."

"One version," she begins, "says that Wonderland has existed forever, and that the struggle between Red and White has been eternal. I do not find this either believable or interesting, but it is popularly believed, especially by those who would see the Red King return. Such people also believe that the White monarchy will re-emerge to continue the fight, which I find far less likely than that our efforts will succeed."

She pauses, to consider which story should come next.

"The next most popular account of Wonderland's origins is the one which claims that all of this is someone's dream, and that if they ever wake up, Wonderland will cease to exist except in their memory."

"That sounds terrifying. And doesn't let me make many new predictions unless I know who is dreaming. First one's more promising as a genre marker."

"It is absolutely no use at all unless one knows the identity of the dreamer," Everless agrees.

"The only purpose it serves is to push the question of origin one step further away, while the first does away with it entirely."

She continues, "Another in the same vein proposes that time is circular, and that eventually it will loop back around to the beginning; our lack of history is because we cannot be allowed to remember previous iterations. This is not only unlikely but impractical considering the existence of a surface world with, presumably, many more than three hundred years of history since you mentioned this as strange."

"Well, it can't really be circular unless I don't count as part of your history. But yes that's strange—my species is thousands of years old, my planet millions, my universe billions."