Author's note: Sorry about the wait everyone :\ but here's your next chapter! Please enjoy slowly with a good wine :)

Chapter 2

Through the Looking Glass

Recap:

"...Alice of Legend is en route to the Eighth Square of Sessa!" He smiled then, triumphantly, like his job was done. Hatter would see to it that it wasn't.

"Take me to her." Hatter whispered huskily, letting go of him.

"I'm sorry?" Was the Pawn's timid reply.

"You said she was on her way to the Eighth Square of Sessa. Take me to her." The Pawn gawked at him confusedly, "Now!" Hatter's voice came out higher than he expected. He wanted to intimidate this Pawn, not a difficult task taking into account their heights, but he couldn't seem to extinguish that gnawing panic that set in when she vanished. The Pawn nodded curtly and hobbled away, Hatter followed with one quick glance at the closed apartment door behind him. Carroll would start to worry. Oi, he thought, she'll never forgive me for this.

Somewhere along the way in Wonderlands history someone discovered fate. Due to the strange antics of time in Wonderland the exact date of its discovery is a little sketchy- but dates don't matter. All that matters is that fate was discovered and since then it hasn't stopped butting in on important appointments, parties, or events and bossing them around. In this case it was very clear to Hatter, Alice, and the Pawn that fate wanted Alice in Wonderland. And fate would have its way.

Alice found herself on a cold, solid slab of unidentifiable origin. She kept her eyes closed and slowly breathed in- her mind not yet caught up to where her body was. Dust tickled her nose and she coughed, realizing finally that she wasn't were she should have been. Her eyes opened but nothing came into view immediately. She stiffly propped herself up on her elbows and made an attempt to sort things out.

It was cold. It was dark. And the air smelled like scorched wood. Not much to go on, she thought. She prodded the recesses of her memory to come to some conclusion as to where she was and how she had come to nap there. She was at the apartment with Hatter. That certainly explained a lot of this. Her memory supplied the bits in between and then came to the door- and the little Pawn. A suspicion wiggled its way up her spine... she jumped to her feet. The darkness around her had receded slightly into grey- there was a light source. It came from just above the jagged edge of a wall. She stood on her toes and pulled herself up as high as she could onto the wall. This was quite clearly not New York.

A short distance from the wall she found the charred remains of a walnut bed and realized that the dust she had breathed in was not dust at all- it was ash. At the former head lay an unharmed clock. In the dull light it appeared new but the hands that had once labored to keep up with the strange Wonderland time were now at peace, resting eternally on 12:00. Against the stone wall and just across from the bed gleamed an unframed mirror. It bent the little light that it caught in strange ways and Alice imagined that it might have the ability to ferry people from one world to the next. She was, in fact, half-right.

It was a very good thing that no one was out and about tonight. The strange little man would've doubtlessly received attention. Hatter had expected to be led to the construction site where he would've followed the Pawn through the largish ornamented mirror. He had no such luck. What was left of Hatter's luck once he found Alice had flitted away when the Pawn knocked on Carroll's door. The mirror that the Pawn took Hatter to lay quietly in an uninviting alley. Hatter held his breath, the alley held scents that he didn't dare name. The Pawn didn't seem to notice the stench as he hobbled up to the abandoned mirror. He stopped to the side of it and waited for Hatter to catch up. He stared at the mirror, not convinced that it would lead to the same place as the other mirror.

"What, do all mirrors lead to Wonderland or somthing?" he asked the Pawn with a little laugh- unable to remain completely serious for long periods of time.

"No, of course not." The Pawn looked at him as one looks at someone who has just asked if all mirrors lead to Wonderland and answered in the only way he knew how. "All mirrors lead to New York... you just have to reverse the polarity and..." Hatter held up a hand

"Forget it." he stepped back from the mirror and ran at it head-long, diving back into where he came from. He assumed, as he fell head first down the odd vacuum, that the Pawn had followed him. What he didn't know was that exactly 13 seconds after he jumped into the mirror two things happened. 1) The Pawn cautiously stepped towards the mirror readying himself to plummet through it and 2) the mirror ceased to work.