“Along with everything else she had stashed away.”
“And she thought her buried treasures would keep you from coming. Too bad the words in the margins were indecipherable, aye? Perhaps she should’ve kept her mouth shut and played with her carnations.”
Carnations? Indecipherable words? Understanding creeps over me. “It was you. You smeared her notes so I couldn’t read them. And at the asylum … you’re the one who almost killed her!”
“I admit to nothing. Other than that she was out of control. She needed to calm down for her own safety.”
“Of course she was out of control! You messed with her mind half her life!” I clench my jaw. “It’s your fault she’s in that place.”
Morpheus spreads his satiny wings—a move that blocks the glowing sprites from my view and casts me into shadow. “You have yourself to thank for that. She was handling things fine until you came along. Just ask your father. She never talked back to the bugs and plants before you were born. At least, not in front of anyone.”
“No,” I whisper.
“Don’t listen to him, Al.” Jeb tries to comfort me. “Your mom loves you.”
Morpheus raises his palms over his head and applauds. “Bravo, Gentleman Knight. Did you all see that?” The sprites join the false praise, bouncing around the mushroom, all except Gossamer, who sits on the hookah, observing in dignified silence.
“True nobility,” Morpheus continues, strutting atop the mushroom. “Bound and incapacitated, yet his only thought is for the maiden’s tender sensibilities. And I must admit, he’s right.” The sprites silence their mock accolades, confused. With one flap of his wings, Morpheus glides down and lands gracefully in front of me—looming and beautiful. “Your mum does love you. Very, very much.”
My legs quiver, but I lift my gaze to his, disdain burning behind my eyes.
“Stay away from her.” Jeb thrusts a fist through the net and grazes our host’s leg.
Morpheus sidesteps him. “Ah, ah, ah.” He coaxes the smoke to merge so the net disappears, leaving Jeb’s wrists, ankles, and neck in manacles attached to the mushroom’s base. “If you’re to behave like a trained monkey, you shall be treated as one.”
“Jerk!” I lunge with an open palm, but Morpheus catches my wrist in midair. The impact rattles my bones and shakes my bruises.
“There’s that fire.” Morpheus cocks his head, the expression on his face somewhere between amused and impressed. “Nice to see it still burns.”
“Hands off, you son of a bug!” Jeb struggles against the smoky cuffs, face turning red as he growls with the effort to get to us.
Chuckling, our captor bends low over me, keeping hold of my wrist. “Oh, I do like him,” he murmurs. “Such a wordsmith.” He’s so close that his smoke-tinged breath seeps inside me—sweet as honey and binding as spider’s silk—a comfort from my childhood. “As for you … is that any way to treat an old friend? After all we shared? Tsk-tsk.”
I’m tempted to lean closer, to seek more of the seductive sensations. But the desire is not mine. He’s manipulating me somehow. He has to be.
I thrash against him. His fingernails dig into my glove, making my wrist throb.
Black eyes glitter, frigid and harsh, behind his mask. “Stop fighting and listen. Your mum didn’t have to turn her back on me. She didn’t have to go to the loon-house to protect you.”
“Wait.” An alarm goes off inside me. “You’re saying she chose to go there?”
“All she needed was a few miles of distance between you. She could’ve arranged a divorce, moved to the other side of town, given your father full custody. But she loved you both too much to hurt you like that. She wanted to be a part of your lives … yet still keep you safe. So she sacrificed her life. That is the purest of loves.”
“You’re lying.” My accusation comes out on a wisp of air.
“Am I? You’re the only one I’ve ever reached quite so young. You and your mum had a bond, stronger than any I’d ever encountered. I was able to use her dreams as a conduit into yours. When she realized what I was doing, she went mad. But that was only temporary insanity. Let there be no doubt—the Alice costume, the tea party obsession, the tongue clucks, talking aloud to the bugs and flow-ers—every tic she developed was orchestrated by her, so she would be kept away from you. Out of respect for her sacrifice, I vowed not to approach you myself again.”
“You broke your word, then,” I whisper.
“No. There was a loophole, you see.” The knuckles on his free hand graze my temple. His touch is warm and delicate. “You found me. Since you were the one to seek me out first, you released me of the bonds of the promise. Clever, clever girl. Now you’re here to set things straight, aren’t you, little plum? To fix what Alice put wrong. Make Wonderland right again, and you’ll break the curse that’s on your family name. The talking bugs and flowers … the ties to this realm. You will no longer be under their spell. At last, your mum can stop pretending to be a raving lunatic, because I’ll have no more need for any of your lineage.”
My chest hurts, as if someone used my heart for a punching bag. That’s why Alison said those things in the courtyard … that if I went through with my plan to find the rabbit hole, she’d have done it all for nothing. She put herself through years of overmedicated humiliation and horror because she hoped to keep me away from here. Then I went and ruined everything by searching Morpheus out.
Which makes what my dad and the doctors are planning even more devastating.
“My fault,” I whisper, trying not to cry. “Everything that’s happened to her … my fault.”
“Al, don’t let him guilt you!” The rustle of Jeb’s clothes as he strains against the cuffs barely registers.
Morpheus tips my chin up. “Yes, bear no guilt. Because you discovered the rabbit hole and were brave enough to leap inside. You’re the only one who’s ever had such cunning and courage since Alice herself. And you’ve already managed to dry up the ocean she left behind. You’re going to fix everything for your mum. For all of us. You’re very special, Alyssa. Very special, indeed.” He tugs at my wrist, lifting me to stand on tiptoe until my nose touches the lower lines of his mask. He’s so close, I can almost taste his licorice-scented lips.
A loud snap cracks the air, and Morpheus breaks his hold on me. I rock back on my heels. The sprites screech as Jeb’s restraints break free of the mushroom.
Jeb rolls on the ground and whips his legs around. The broken cuffs—still attached to his ankles, neck, and wrists—trail him like a scorpion’s coiling tail, and catch Morpheus in the spin, slamming him to the ground. The impact knocks off his hat and evaporates the smoke, leaving both guys wrestling in a tangle of wings and limbs.
Jeb straddles Morpheus and cinches his fingers around his neck. “I told you not to touch her.” His deep voice is hoarse yet calm, making the hair on my neck stand on end.
Morpheus makes the mistake of laughing, and Jeb snaps. One hand clutching Morpheus’s neck, he punches him, crumpling the red satin mask. Morpheus twists his head to dodge the strike. His wings lie wrinkled and hapless beneath him.
My muscles tense. I’m at war with myself. A part of me wants to defend Morpheus—to plead his case with Jeb; the other part roots for Jeb to beat him to a puddle. I bend over, temples throbbing as I drown in a sea of distorted memories and disjointed emotions. The sprites whimper and swarm in the branches above. They’ve obviously never seen their master attacked by anyone.
Morpheus thrusts his knees out to knock Jeb off and they spin through the neon grasses, leaving a flattened trail. This time, Morpheus ends up on top. His wings enfold them like a tent. The outline of Jeb’s face appears, pressed against the black satiny membrane on the other side. A sucking motion reveals an imprint of his mouth.
He’s suffocating.
I burst through my mental haze and launch into Morpheus, toppling him. He rolls on the ground, wrapped within his wings like a pupa.
Dropping to my knees, I lowe
r my face to Jeb’s. His breath warms my nose, slow and even, but he won’t open his eyes. “Jeb! Wake up, please …” I drag his shoulders onto my lap to cradle his head.
Morpheus stands and dusts himself off.
“What did you do?” I scream.
He repositions his crumpled mask, then draws each wing over his shoulders and runs his palms across them, checking for damage. “He’s merely unconscious.” Putting his hat back on, Morpheus touches the handprints on his neck, eyes darkening. “It was a kindness. I could’ve killed him.” He snarls. “Should’ve, actually. No doubt I’ll rue that decision.”
Glancing up at his harem, Morpheus motions the sprites down. “Take the pseudo elf back to the manor. Wake him from his slumber. Make him feel welcome as only you can.”
Gossamer is the first to descend from the trees. There seem to be even more sprites now. Following her lead, they drop down in torrents, a glimmering rainfall.
“No!” I throw myself across Jeb. I slash at them with my fists. On Gossamer’s command, they collide with my arms and ribs at full speed, stinging like hail. I refuse to move until Morpheus snatches my collar and forces me to my feet.
My writhing in his grasp only makes him more resolute. His arm winds around my waist, as hard and strong as a metal clamp. He holds my back pinned at his side with my feet dangling. Fifty or more sprites raise Jeb up by his clothes. His head lolls, and his shirt and pants pucker beneath their grips, as if he’s being hoisted on ropes.
“Jeb!” I shout. Tears blur my vision when he doesn’t respond. “Be careful with him.”
The tiny females are only able to carry him a few inches off the ground, and the long grasses bend under his weight as he’s dragged from the clearing. Some of the remaining sprites tug the backpack behind the procession. When the last stretch of grass pops up in their wake, I shove against Morpheus and break free, though it’s only because he lets me.
“If our time together ever meant anything to you, you won’t hurt him.” Hot tears pour down my cheeks.
Morpheus reaches out to catch a teardrop on his fingertip. He holds it up in the pale glow that radiates from the few remaining sprites above us. A curious frown curves his lips. “You cry for him yet bled for me. One must wonder which is more powerful. More binding. I suppose we shall one day know.”
My throat dries. “What are you talking about? Bled for you?”
He rubs my tear into his skin as if it were lotion. “All in good time. As to your toy soldier, spare no grief for him. He’s getting scads of attention. And once he’s oblivious in his ecstasy, he’ll forget where he is and who he came with. Though I imagine I’ll have to send him to some other part of Wonderland to keep him out of my hair.”
Terror grips me. Bad enough those pint-size nymphets are going to seduce Jeb, but if they make him forget who he is, he’ll be lost here forever. Jeb’s here because of me. He doesn’t deserve an ending like this. “Please, just send him back to our world.”
Morpheus shrugs. “Not possible. We’re having a bit of trouble with transportation here in the nether-realm.”
“That can’t be true.”
He steps closer. “Can’t it?”
I take two steps away. “You visited me at home, at work. Watched me. Almost choked Alison with the wind …”
He throws his head back and laughs, raising his arms as if he’s some grand performer. “Imagine that. Me, controlling the wind and weather. Why, I must be a god.”
I glare at him. “I know what I saw.”
He straightens his sleeve cuffs. “I used reflections to visit you. The gazing globe at the asylum, store mirrors … the mirrors in your home. Through them, I projected an illusion, but I couldn’t fully materialize because the portals are obstructed. Your mind was my stage. No one else could see or hear or feel me. Only you. And you did feel me, didn’t you, luv?”
Thinking of the way his phantom breath tickled my neck as he hummed—hot and teasing—leaves me rattled to the bone. I lift my chin, a lame attempt to hide his effect on me. “There was magic … with my mom’s braid. It moved, locked my fingers around her throat. That was you.”
He buffs his fingernails on his lapel. “It was magic, I’ll admit. Misguided magic. And not mine.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re not yet ready for me to answer that.”
Tired of his manipulations, I shove him off balance and sprint for the opening in the trees where the sprites disappeared, nearly tripping over my heels in my desperation to find Jeb. There’s a harsh flapping overhead; then Morpheus drops into my path. I skid to a stop.
He crouches with wings spread parallel to the ground and stares up at me intently, like a giant bird of prey—dark and dangerous. I’m familiar with this side of him … his temperamental black moods. There will be no reasoning with him unless I can get the upper hand.
He stands and catches my shoulders before I can bolt again.
“Enough games,” he says. “It’s time you fulfill your destiny. I did not spend the first third of your life training you in vain. Alice has left ripples in our world that only you can smooth. I’ve waited over seventy-five years for this day to come … made too many sacrifices to watch it all fall to rot. You fix what she broke, and it will open the way for you to break the curse and get back home. Until then, I make the rules.”
Alice has left ripples in our world that only you can smooth. The zombie flowers said something like that, too. That only a descendant of Alice could fix this. And the octobenus insisted that the Wise One—Morpheus—was desperate for my help. Desperate.
He’s the one who prompted me to keep the sponge, the one who’s been teaching me about Wonderland for years. Why? He must have some kind of personal stake in this.
“You need me.” I raise my voice, taking a chance on my assumption. “It’s not that my ancestors couldn’t figure out the way here. They didn’t want to come. It has to be by choice. You can’t force them; otherwise, you would’ve abducted one and already fixed this mess. I’m the first who’s ever been willing to come this far, and I don’t have to do anything you ask. So what if I’m stuck here? I’ve always been an outcast. I’ve already learned to live with it. Alison … she’ll survive, like she always has.”
Morpheus doesn’t have to know the truth: that Alison’s quality of life teeters on my success. I’m seeing this bluff through to the end.
“This is your one chance.” I rest my hands on my waist. “Screw with me, and you could end up waiting another seventy-five years.”
A strange expression drifts over my childhood companion’s face. If not for the mask, I might get a better read, but it seems like there might be a glint of pride.
His fingers grow light on my shoulders. “What are your demands?”
“Jeb and I will be reunited, today. You’ll call off your sprites and leave his memories intact. He’ll be treated as your equal, not your pawn. And I want clarity … how you can claim to be Alison’s friend, if you and I grew up together; how you knew my ancestors if you’re my age. And what your stake in this is.”
He releases me from his grasp. “That’s all you ask?”
Recounting what the octobenus said about vows among the netherlings—a fact verified by the promise Morpheus kept to Alison not to contact me—I add one thing more. “I want your word … an oath.”
“Well, drat.” Sighing, he holds a palm over his chest as if pledging allegiance. “I vow on my life-magic not to send away or harm your precious boyfriend as long as he’s loyal to you and your worthy cause. Although I reserve the right to antagonize him at every given opportunity. Oh, and I will happily explain all your questions.” He bows then—every bit the gentleman.
Leather suit and crumpled mask, that morbidly sexy hat. He thinks he’s a rock star. Maybe he is one in this place. But he’s given his word and he has to uphold it, or his wings will shrivel up and he’ll lose all his mojo.
Straightening, he takes a full step forward so his boot ti
ps touch mine. “There. Since that unpleasantness is out of the way, shall we proceed? Seeing as we’re both grown up now, we have some re-acquainting to do.”
I scan the trees. All of the sprites have left. Nerves jump beneath my skin. “Where is everyone?”
“Preparing a celebratory banquet for us at the manor. We have no chaperones. Might as well take advantage.”
Panicked, I take a step back, but his wings curl around me and hold me in place, blotting out everything but him. It’s like we’re sharing a cave.
His skin is almost translucent in the dimmed light. “Time to let me inside, lovely Alyssa.”
Before I can respond, he peels off his mask and drops it to the grass underfoot. What I thought was makeup around his eyes are actually permanent markings—like tattoos, but inborn. They’re black like overblown eyelashes, with teardrop-shaped sapphires blunting the pointed ends. The effect is beautiful, in a macabre, circus-folk sort of way. I can’t resist the urge to reach up and touch the glistening tears. The jewels flash through a spectrum of color until they’re no longer blue sapphires but fiery topazes—orange and warm. His lashes close as if in bliss for all of two seconds. Then his inky gaze opens and swallows me whole.
“I am ageless.” His voice echoes inside my head, though his lips don’t move. “I can use magic to mimic any age I wish. Using this power affects netherlings mentally, physically, emotionally. We become the age in every way. So, in essence, the only childhood I ever had was with you in your dreams. Open your memories, and you will see.”
The song comes to life once more—Morpheus’s lullaby.
This time, I don’t fight it. I wrap my mind around the fluid notes, letting them permeate my every thought until …
Slivers of my past play out like movies across the black screen of his wings. I’m a newborn, lying in my crib. A soft satin blanket swaddles me—red with white-ribbon trim. My window is open, and a summer breeze whispers under eyelet curtains, swaying the mobile over my head. Rocking horses and ballerinas dance above me.