Audrey nods, but doesn't interject.

"Well," Faramund says eventually, "I am happy to have you on our side - and would rather that than the opposite, I must say."

He holds out one meaty hand, and Jabberwock, after a long moment of hesitation, hops onto it.

"Welcome to the Resistance, Jabberwock," he says formally.

"I don't have the foggiest idea how I'll explain this to Araminta," he continues in a lighter tone, "but that's my problem and not yours."

"Alright, now that everyone here is in the Resistance, it's time to share information. King Faramund, what do you know about Marcella and her court? Who serves her, and why? Why did she overthrow the Red Queen? How does she steal hearts? What was the Red Queen like? Do you have any idea where her reflection might have gone?"

Audrey pauses. 

"Um, I should probably let you answer some of those before I keep going."

"Yes, that would be helpful," Faramund says dryly.

"What do I know about Marcella's court...Well, it is remarkably easy to infiltrate, if one is willing to put in years of work, and possibly gain a few stone in weight," he jokes.

"Her inner circle, on the other hand, is much more exclusive and far more stable - the only ones whom she trusts with sensitive information are the Hearts. They are occasionally killed by various misfortunes and a new Two is found, or the internal hierarchy is rearranged, but generally the same people stay in the same positions for years at a time."

"Marcella has the Hearts' hearts, doesn't she? They... need the other hearts, maybe as replacements. Four seemed a little more whole than the Wandering Seer, but it was all they could do to let me touch one, they were terrified of losing it."

She tilts her head. "Well, that was my interpretation at least. They might have been terrified by something else relating to the idea."

He nods, chins wobbling.

"I have noticed, now that you mention it, that the higher-ranking Hearts seem more...personable. Less like puppets whose strings Marcella is constantly pulling, and more like, well, people. The effect is lesser once one gets to, say, the Eight, who seems to have no less of a personality than the Ten."

"... When I touched the heart Four offered me, I had the very distinct impression that it had a desire to create healing food - it was clearly the heart of someone who put their passion into helping people through their cooking. If a heart is - the thing that motivates people, that makes them want to interact with the world - then no wonder the low ranking Hearts are terrified to lose the ones Marcella has given them. And..." 

Audrey frowns. "... Maybe Marcella is organizing the Hearts in such a way that the ones with high rank are composed of desires she likes. How many hearts does she have? Do we know? It must be quite a few, at least ninety-one."

"Ninety-one?" Everless cuts in before Faramund can respond.

"How did you arrive at that figure?" 

"One for the Ace, two for the Two, summed up to ten for the Ten, then eleven hearts for the Jack, twelve for the Queen, and thirteen for the King. If Marcella has given less or more hearts than that to anyone in that list, she's broken from the underlying pattern and we can likely exploit it somehow."

Audrey smiles. "I suspect she carries more hearts than that, or her King carries less."

"It might interest you to know," Faramund says, "that the Queen is never seen in court wearing fewer than thirteen hearts."

He rattles off the list: four around her neck, two attached to her sleeves, three at her belt, three more on her skirt, and a thirteenth in her crown. 

"One wonders how she moves for the weight of them."

"She's claiming the power of a King despite being a Queen, then. Which means that she's breaking the rules of her own game, as cheaters do everywhere." 

Audrey hums. "And that description of her is making me wonder something. Let's go back to the number of hearts - do we know how many people have lost theirs?"

Everless takes this one. 

"Every member of the Hearts, which makes ten. The Red King and the Wandering Seer make twelve. The rest of the Red King's advisers add another five, and his senior generals account for eight, bringing the total to twenty-five. The Hearts have had considerable turnover in the past decade, and the Ace is the only one who has remained from the initial ten, so there is another - nine at least, although the total is likely higher."

She pauses to think. "Heartlessness is offered as an alternative to the death penalty for criminals. In the past decade, twenty have been offered this choice and nine have accepted; they became servants under the oversight of the Nine of Hearts. Oh, and the rest of the Hearts' underlings are also required to relinquish their hearts."

After a long pause, she comes up with a number: "One hundred and forty-two, at a minimum, although several of those people are now dead, and I do not know whether or not this renders the hearts useless."

"In that case, given that Marcella is apparently unable to trust anyone with more hearts than herself, she must have some stash somewhere. Fifty-one hearts is far too many for her to carry on her person."

"I agree that there must be hearts stored somewhere in the palace or its grounds," Everless says.

"But how did you reach the number fifty-one? The Hearts carry fifty-five between them, leaving a remainder of eighty-seven. Even if one assumes that the hearts of the dead no longer function, that only accounts for ten or eleven, and I have not yet told you the precise number for those, so you cannot have included it in your calculations."

"Marcella carries thirteen openly, so we know where they are. Assuming Jack has eleven and Rodion twelve, that still leaves fifty-one left over, either carried in secret or otherwise hidden."

"Ah, I see. I was assuming that you included those thirteen in your count, as those are also carried on her person."

Everless nods. 

"It is not always wise to assume, especially when it comes to the distribution of magical power, but I do not think there is any harm in assuming the King and Prince to carry such power, when at worst we will discover that they do not, and are therefore less dangerous," she muses.

"There is not an important difference between fifty-one hearts in a hoard and seventy-four: either way, this is a large collection. The greatest difficulty is that we have no idea where to look for them, and Wonderland is too large to make a systematic search practical."

"... okay, next question. What is Marcella actually like, personally?"

"She is...I don't know how to say this any other way than 'Queenly'," Faramund says. "Perfectly, unfailingly so; it is a flawless act."

He scratches his stomach while he thinks.

"But she's ruthless, too, and a touch paranoid. She doesn't trust anyone who still has their heart, not really."

"That's an interesting choice of words, there. You think she's concealing her true personality?"

"I do not doubt it."

He casts about for examples, waving one pudgy hand in the air while he thinks.

"She behaves differently depending on who is watching: she can be one way in the law-court, when there are ordinary citizens to intimidate, another with her courtiers, and still another with her Hearts when she thinks no-one else can see." 

"... does she change between outfits depending on what role she's playing?"

Faramund takes a moment to answer, thinking back over the last few years to determine any possible pattern.

"I have not noticed a pattern to which outfits she wears in which contexts, and I think it unlikely," he concludes.

"Particularly as she often moves from one to another quite seamlessly within the course of a single day. She will take one of the Hearts aside into a private room, for instance, and then emerge and return to presiding over the court."

Audrey nods thoughtfully.

"We should consider the possibility that something happened to Marcella's heart as well, even if she doesn't change which hearts she holds over the course of the day. She has a previously unknown magic based on stealing hearts, she seems to be continually acting, and she's never seen without at least thirteen hearts on her person. It's all circumstantial, but..."

Faramund looks troubled, struck by a possibility which has never before occurred to him.

Everless points out, "If all the stolen hearts did was substitute for a lost one, they would be far less dangerous, and the Resistance would have succeeded by now. They also convey great magical power, through some unknown mechanism, and this alone could be enough reason for a paranoid queen - who has been the target of two failed assassinations - to go around armed at all times with more than any other single person bears."

"I agree, we don't have enough information to be certain. It's possible that Marcella is independently a social chameleon and in fear for her life and the only practicitioner of a type of unknown magic that steals heartfelt desires from people. Maybe I'm looking too hard for a way for everyone to be innocent in this. But I don't think we should discount the possibility that Marcella's a victim of her own magic - or whoever or whatever she got it from."