Heartbroken

The story is narrated in part by the Odd Sisters: Lucinda, Ruby, and Martha, three powerful witches residing in the Underworld with Hades, the god of the dead. Speaking through a magical tome called the Book of Fairy Tales, they explain that when Hades rescued their daughter Circe from the Place Between the living and the dead, the fabric separating the many worlds fractured. Shards of broken realities fused to form Wonderland, a chaotic land where time is concurrent and nothing follows logic. The Odd Sisters' expelled rage and madness found a host in a playing card from a London drawing room, given life when a sliver of London merged into Wonderland. That card became the Queen of Hearts.

In the present, the Queen sits in her morning room consumed by fury, plagued by voices in her head and an insatiable craving for cake, the only thing that dampens her rage. She decides to behead every subject at a lavish garden party, writes invitations, and orders the White Rabbit to deliver them. Her husband, the King of Hearts, mentions that a girl named Alice has arrived in Wonderland, and the Queen demands Alice attend as well.

The narrative flashes back to the Queen's first day in Wonderland. She woke beside the King with no memory of who she was. Terrified, she fled into a hedge maze, where she met the White Rabbit, a talking rabbit in a tweed suit who also had no memory of his past. He proposed they discover the mysteries of this land and, if they disliked what they found, escape together. He named her the Queen of Hearts, and she decided to bake cakes for all her subjects as a greeting. Recognizing her anger was rooted in fear, the rabbit guided her while a caravan of servants followed.

Their first excursion turned disastrous. After encounters with the cryptic Tweedle brothers and a haughty Caterpillar, the Queen drank a shrinking potion, and she and the rabbit settled on being the same height, reflecting her desire for equality between them. When they turned back, their servants had vanished. Following tracks into Tulgey Wood, they found the servants' burned cart and were chased by the Jabberwock, a fire-breathing dragon. After escaping, they met the Cheshire Cat, who suggested the dragon was already full from eating the servants. The Queen invited the cat and his mistress, the Duchess, for tea and named the land Wonderland.

The Duchess's subsequent visit worsened the Queen's isolation. She barged in with a screaming baby and a cook who peppered every dish, insulted the Queen, and manhandled the White Rabbit. The Queen banished her permanently. The King gave the Queen gold teardrop earrings from a mysterious source, but she dismissed them as cursed and refused to wear them, resolving to trust no one except the rabbit.

A parallel storyline follows Circe, the Odd Sisters' daughter, who rules the Dead Woods alongside Primrose and Hazel as the Ladies of Light. They face converging crises: Queen Tulip, embittered by the Beast King's past cruelty, has declared war on his castle, and a blood oath compels the Ladies of Light to aid her. Meanwhile, Snow White's dead stepmother, Grimhilde, is haunting the castle mirrors, and the Jabberwock has gone missing from the Dead Woods. Circe travels to the Underworld, encountering the White Rabbit in the dungeon throne room of Hades's fortress on the Forbidden Mountain. The rabbit has been using rabbit holes to search for a world where he and the Queen can live in peace.

In the Underworld, Lucinda reveals the truth: The Queen exists only because of the Odd Sisters' expelled rage, and removing it would revert her to a playing card. The enchanted earrings were designed to control her bloodlust. Lucinda warns that the Queen must never enter the Many Kingdoms, the broader realm outside Wonderland, where the Odd Sisters' old vendettas would ignite within her. She also reveals that Bald Mountain, a shard from another reality now lodged in the Dead Woods, houses a demon called Chernobog whose awakening could converge all timelines and destroy every world. Circe must stop Tulip's war before the army of the dead rouses the demon.

Back in Wonderland, the Queen plans an elaborate ball, but not a single guest attends, their opinions poisoned by the Duchess's gossip. The White Queen escalates tensions by sending arrest warrants for the rabbit and the Queen, accusing them of future crimes. When the rabbit persuades the Queen to visit the Mad Hatter for advice, the White Queen's guards arrest them at the hatter's tea party.

In the dungeon, the Odd Sisters appear to the rabbit in shadow form, giving him a pocket mirror and instructing him to present the Queen with a choice: wear the earrings or cease to exist. At his trial, the White Queen admits that imprisoning the Queen of Hearts will drive her to commit the very murders she is being punished for but insists it is her duty to punish future crimes. She sentences the Queen to indefinite imprisonment and forbids visitors.

Nearly three years pass. The rabbit visits the dungeon gates daily, always turned away. When the Queen is finally released, the King has replaced her beloved red roses with white ones on the White Queen's false advice. The Queen returns haggard, her hands bruised and bleeding, and is devastated to find white roses everywhere. Convinced the rabbit abandoned her, she orders the servants who placed the roses beheaded, her first mass execution. She refuses private conversation with the rabbit, who still carries the earrings, and sends him to deliver invitations to the murderous garden party.

While delivering invitations, the rabbit realizes that Alice, a girl from another world, can serve as a distraction from the Queen's plans. Back at the castle, he presents the earrings as a homecoming gift, and the Queen puts them on, giddy with delight. But years of isolation have pushed her rage beyond the earrings' power. She rampages through the croquet game and trial, then chases Alice into a rabbit hole.

Lucinda resolves a separate crisis by finding Grimhilde trapped in the Place Between, her anguished cries echoing through Snow White's mirrors. Lucinda sends her through a magical doorway to a new existence where she can love Snow White as she always wished she had, and the mirrors fall silent.

Watching the Wonderland mirror, the Odd Sisters perform an incantation that reveals the Queen's mind trapped in a storm of replayed traumas. They realize she is running from herself, not chasing Alice. When the rabbit contacts them through the pocket mirror, Lucinda proposes letting the Queen pass through the rabbit hole into London, where she will revert to a playing card, freed from rage. At that moment, Chernobog awakens in the Many Kingdoms, the mirrors go black, and the earth shakes.

The rabbit races through the rabbit hole into London, becoming an ordinary rabbit. On the grass lies an ordinary playing card: the Queen of Hearts. He picks it up and hops back through the door. In Wonderland, he is restored to himself, and the card transforms into the Queen, alive, bewildered, and without memory, just as she was on their very first day. She asks who she is. The rabbit tells her today is her first day, that their story starts here, and all that matters is who they are today. When she suggests baking cakes, he gently steers her toward a different plan and promises to show her the way to her castle.