Tina snored and her long tail twitched, curled up towards her face. Her chest rose and fell with each unconscious breath she took, slightly rocking on the rocking chair next to the baby crib she was guarding. Both chair and crib were antiques and neither made any noise; only the sleeping, old dormouse, snoring as the baby fidgeted in her blanket.

A loud boom and thud from the other side of the castle startled both the dormouse and baby. The baby began to wail and her minder scurried out of her chair and cooed at the small child. But the child would not stop her crying. Tina began to worry at the red tinge on her cheeks and laid a hand across the little one's forehead. The elderly dormouse squeaked and began worriedly pacing about the room - it was royally spacious, fitting for the baby princess - Tina had plenty of space to scurry about in her distress.

She immediately stopped when the doors opened and a gracile woman dressed in whites and greys walked in. A sense of a power swirled about the woman. Her jaw was set and her eyes steely with a determined resolve, but they softened a little bit when she saw the baby crib.

"Your majesty! Your majesty! Your daughter has a fever - won't you help her?" Tina scurried to her Mistress' side. They came up to the crib and looked down upon the red-faced baby. Another dull thud reverberated through the stone floor and walls and the cries increased in its volume.

Tina fearfully looked about the room. "A siege will fall upon us if we do not flee. Please take the child to safety," she begged her queen.

"Nonsense. I will not leave my people without their queen."

Innogen ran a finger along her daughter's cheek. The baby caught her finger with her two small hands, holding onto her mother with an intense instinct. Innogen gently pried the little hands from her finger and then moved to the dressing table against the wall. She rummaged through a drawer and came out with a small sewing kit. Her baby had resumed her crying. Innogen shuffled Tina out of her way, her dormouse maid had been trying to calm the babe without much success.

"Your majesty, her fever..."

"Calm down, Tina, it will be fixed," Innogen chided. She removed small, white scissors from the kit and deliberately cut a little of her daughter's nightcap. With dainty fingers, she threaded a needle and tied off its end with ease. Carefully, because her babe was moving about with such distress, Innogen bent over and began to sew the nightcap back up again. She hummed a tune as she worked to distract the child's crying; another cannon blast reverberated through her castle. The thread glowed with a golden warmth and her child stopped her cries. Much to her surprise, the little one began to hum too, weaving a melody with her mother's tune. Innogen smiled sweetly to her child and, at the end, gently patted her mended cap.

Her daughter looked up with large purple and pink eyes, gurgling with a large smile, full of pink gums and wet drools.

Innogen then left the cot and moved to a large floor mirror at the other end of the room. The mirror was was tall and rectangular, with roses carved into its corners. The border was painted white, the flowers silver. She stood still in front of the clear reflection of herself and the room behind her. Invisible waves of magic swirled and focused about her and the mirror. She slowly lifted her hand up, as if hypnotised, and touched its cold surface. The glass of the mirror rippled. Satisfied, Innogen turned her back to it; the glass flickered with an image of a different room before returning to its normal state.

Tina felt baby princess' forehead and sighed with relief at the babe's normal temperature. Her queen's healing magic was wonderful, and the joy that filled Tina's heart when it was used was indescribable; but during a war with many casualties and falling morale, her queen's powers were drained to almost nothing. Tina, the queen's private maid and keeper of her secrets, knew of the desolation her queen harboured inside her heart. And of the steely darkness too.

"Your majesty," Tina ventured.

"Tina, the portal ready. Our next stage should begin."

Tina observed her Queen's anxious pacing with a quiet foreboding. She had privately thought that it was a crazy risk for her queen to have fallen pregnant during the fighting, but her misgivings had been washed away when the Princess first smiled her toothless grin at her. Then, Tina vowed to do anything to protect the child.

The details of the plan Innogen had revealed to her last night had broken her heart into a million pieces. Tina worried about the pain Innogen must be going through, ten thousand times worse because she was giving up a child of her flesh and soul. "What of her father?" Tina carefully asked. She was the few who knew the real identity of the new Princess' father.

Innogen stiffened, now down on her knees, and was silent, intent on looking through the mirror. "Her father has not seen her and so would not know any babe from his own. It would suit my purpose well..." her voice trailed to a contemplative silence. "So long as it is not my child who will die."

Tina felt her stomach drop.

"INNOGEN!" She sharply yelled at the woman. The White Queen looked at her maid with shock. It had been many years since she had heard her personal name pass through those small lips. Her childhood reaction of dread resurfaced; Tina had only called out on her whenever she had done something terribly wrong. Innogen felt her shoulders droop towards the ground. She supposed that her plans are worthy of the reprimand. Maybe she should not have confided to Tina?

Tina scurried up to her queen, her whiskers trembling with anger. "Do not make me raise my hand against you, my lady. How could you ever contemplate putting another baby through such dangers? Death? Why would you ever put any child at such a risk?!"

Innogen stood up and brushed at her dress. She turned away from the fuming dormouse and looked at the mirror again. "It would never satisfy him," she answered the question as if she was thinking out loud.

"Innogen!" Tina made a mighty leap, with her hand raised high, and would have come crashing down upon her queen had the latter not caught the dormouse. Innogen almost immediately dropped the heavy weight of the old maid.

"How dare you," she seethed.

"How dare you!" Tina threw back the accusation.

"I do what is necessary for my kingdom. I have always done that, I have always put them first before my own!"

Innogen was majestic, towering above her maid. She strode towards the window and looked across at the red weapons of war that lined upon the hills outside of her castle walls. The White Queen barely felt the reverberation of another cannon hitting her towers - her attention was focused upon her bleak future.

A sunset afterglow outlined Innogen, standing fearlessly at the window. Tina made a small growl and pulled her queen away, "Beware the arrows!"

Innogen allowed herself to be directed towards the old rocking chair next to her baby's crib. Tina looked with concern at the queen's trembling hand. It was barely visible, made known to her only by their physical contact. Innogen was looking down at her little girl, now immersed with her mobile hanging above her.

"Why another child?" Tina asked.

"He would keep killing the little ones until he is satisfied that it was mine... ours."

"Is he such a monster?" Tina was aghast.

"Maybe I made him so?" murmured Innogen. "It is not his fault."

"But Innogen, don't do this to a child - never a child! - This is not your way. You're sending this little one away to a place he could never go, to a place none of us can go - let him know of it and maybe he would be satisfied that way."

"I wonder..."

Tina harrumphed. "Then you loved a block-head fool and good riddance to him! Our princess would be intelligent and beautiful."

"Oh Tina," Innogen smiled at her maid. "I hope our princess would have your strength of heart."

The compliment melted the remainder of Tina's anger, already softened by her queen's child-like smile. "Little one," she addressed the small baby, who was reaching her chubby fingers up at a low-hanging star, "Do not be afraid to hurt the boys' hearts - you will be the most beautiful and kind-hearted princess in both of these worlds!"

Just then, a clear chime rang through the room and both women looked up at the mirror. It no longer reflected the white marble floors, but showed a small bedroom with wooden furniture and a small country piano against the back wall. Crisp sunlight highlighted the dancing dust motes. It was tranquil.

Innogen felt the key pendant about her neck. It was warm to the touch. Without being bidden to, Tina went to one of the many tables and picked up the small, open package. Innogen could see the brilliant white glow of the object within.

"My lady," Tina was almost whispering. It was time.

Innogen picked up the small necklace from the package within Tina's hands and clasped it about her baby's neck. She then gestured for Tina to stand away, she wanted to privately speak to her child. These were secrets shared only between a mother and her daughter, a queen to her princess.

The lovely babe was like a soft peach, round and with cheeks tinted with a pink blush. Wispy white hair covered her head and Innogen marvelled at the fine eyelashes framing her large and colourful eyes. They were whirls of pink and sky blue, and beautiful.

"My baby," Innogen said with both love and sadness. "My baby darling." She removed her gloves and laid them over the edge of the cot. She wanted to touch her child's warmth for the last time. Her daughter gurgled with the happy laughter of a newborn baby when Innogen gathered her into her arms. The queen's hair was promptly pulled upon. Innogen gave a laugh that was more of a sob, and gave her a tearful kiss.

"Listen and remember well, my princess," she whispered into the baby's ear. "You are a child of both Houses, and therefore more royal than everyone in Wonderland."

She kissed her child’s forehead, whispered a prayer, and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. Tina came up to the cot, holding a basket lined with the comfiest blankets she could find. The two women silently wept as the babe was transferred into the basket and carried to the mirror. And then the White Princess was on the other side, out of reach, and out of danger.