Ensnared (36 page)

I tighten my lips more.

By the resigned set of his jaw, it’s clear he understands I’m teetering on the slippery slope of a life-magic vow.

“Oh, Alyssa,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I feared it would frighten you. He’s the most special of all children. He’s going to save our world. Going to teach everyone how to imagine and dream.” That whimsical countenance returns to his face—a glow of euphoria. “I’ve a list of names for him. And there are so many games we can use to guide his skills.”

“I want him to be happy, Morpheus. Above everything else. To have a childhood.”

His features soften to an acute tenderness. “Of course. I’ll sing him lullabies every night. You . . . you can teach him to view the world through the lenses of innocence. We’ll love him. Dote on him. It would be impossible not to. I cannot stop seeing his beauty—the perfect blend of me and you.” Morpheus catches my smeared hands and laces our fingers. The trio of paint smudges his skin so it matches mine as he holds our fingers side by side. “All the shades of us, in one brilliant rainbow.”

The room grows hazy, or maybe it’s the weird lighting.

Morpheus urges me into his lap and snuggles my head under his chin, securing me within his tobacco-scented embrace. It’s the gentlest gesture we’ve ever shared. “Now you know where you belong, Alyssa. With me and our child.”

Red’s vicious imprint tugs behind my breastbone, gouges into my
heart. I pull back to meet his dreamy gaze, cupping his face in my hands and leaving smudges of paint on his jaw.

“That’s what you’re not seeing,” I say, my voice airy. “He won’t be
ours
. Yes, you’ll be bringing a halfling child into the nether-realm. Maybe that’s all that matters. Even if it’s Red who’ll share that life, not me. As long as Wonderland thrives.”

“No.” He startles me by standing us both up. He swipes his crushed hat and gloves to the floor, sets me in the chair again, then kneels at my feet, taking my hands. “You are my only queen. We will cast her out the moment we repair Wonderland. Before a child is ever conceived. I
swear
this to you.”

I truly believe he wants that, but he doesn’t know I’ve lost my ace or how tired and depleted my body’s feeling. “The diary’s gone. My one chance to defeat her.” I almost tell him it’s his fault for sending Manti’s goons, but what would guilting him accomplish at this point?

Morpheus shakes his head. “That solution was temporary at best. Those memories are still within you, dormant. You can awaken them, weaken her. I believe in your strength. Will you never do the same?”

I tense up. “My heart . . . it’s not strong enough. When she was inside me. She did something to me. I’m sure of it.”

He glides my knuckles along his jaw, smearing the shades of red, blue, and black I left on his skin moments ago. It’s obvious he thinks I’m being hysterical. “You’re frightened. But now that you know how special our son will be, now that you adore him as I do, that gives you even more reason to be brave. And even more reason to accept our union.”

I jerk my hands away. He’s not hearing me. “I can’t marry you today.”

He grinds his teeth and stands, looking down on me. “So, your petty human insecurities are once again more important than an entire world’s well-being?
Two
worlds’? You’ll allow Hart’s special brand of ornamentation to be stamped upon every wall in the human realm? You’ll let Wonderland’s landscapes die?”

“I’m just saying we have to figure out another way to get that medallion, and another way to smuggle Red out of here.”

The pulsing lights shimmer off the paint smudged on his face . . . coloring him with an eerie and dangerous camouflage. “You and your damnable other ways. This isn’t at all about what we do or don’t have between us, is it? There’s something else preventing this marriage . . . something you’re afraid to tell me.”

I hesitate.

“Alyssa!” He clasps my shoulders and draws me to my feet, losing all patience.

My confession tumbles out. “I made a life-magic vow to marry Jeb first. If I marry you instead, I’ll lose all my powers . . . forever.”

With a caress more sinister than comforting, Morpheus drags his hands from my shoulders to my wrists, streaking my skin with paint.

Then, unspeaking, he takes out a handkerchief from his jacket and wipes the smudges clean. His delicate touch leaves chill bumps on my arms. After scrubbing his face and hands, he tucks away the handkerchief and lifts his crumpled hat from the floor.

In a sweep of black wings, he turns his back and paces, pounding the dents from the red and burgundy topper in time with his steps. His lean muscles move in fluid, powerful lines beneath his tailored suit, exaggerated by the pulsating lights.

He’s precise and controlled, but his mind is spinning. Underneath all that grace and restraint, a savage prepares to strike—a pupa, waiting to emerge as a scorpion fly and turn Jeb to stone.

I take stock of the room once more, sizing it up for nets. There are limitless possibilities, yet I’m not in any hurry to imprison him again. Not when he’s spent all these weeks trapped and humiliated without his own magic.

“How could you use a life-magic vow so flippantly?” His snarling voice breaks through my silent scheming. The question scores like a venomous barb, making my breastbone burn as if hot wax drizzles down the center.

I study the wet paint on my palms and fingertips, then turn them, moved by the colorful fingerprints he stamped on the backs of my hands when we discussed our child. “There was nothing flippant about it. It was the one way to ensure you’d let me share Jeb’s mortal life . . . to give him hope, so he would leave this world.”

Morpheus stops in his tracks. I have his full attention. “So, you manipulated us both with one vow.” His long black lashes tremble, and admiration shimmers behind his wounded gaze—the same look I’ve received throughout my life each time I please him. Although the dark, angry crimson of his blinking jewels belies any true pleasure. “Bitterest irony. It would appear I trained you too well—”

A small buzzing sound interrupts him, out of sync with the hearts’ rhythmic pounding in the room. We both see it: a minute disruption in front of my face where an ear mite stutters in midair.

Morpheus tries to trap it in his hat, but it zigzags between us, throwing my voice out in perfect mimicry
: “I made a life-magic vow to marry Jeb first. If I marry you instead, I’ll lose all my powers.”

The bug parrots my confession once more before I take a swipe
at it. It dips low and flies for the door. Morpheus leaps too late. The ear mite skitters under the space at the threshold, escaping.

Placing his hat on his head, Morpheus casts me a scathing glare. “I assume Jebediah is in this castle somewhere. He would ne’er let you come alone now that you belong to him again.”

I seek Morpheus’s gaze beneath the shadow of the hat’s brim. “Your intentions?”

“He’s about to be in grave danger if that ear mite gets to Red before me.”

I can’t argue that Morpheus is the lesser of two evils where Jeb’s well-being is concerned. “He’s in a simulacrum suit, looking for you in the dungeon.”

Morpheus’s face darkens. “Don’t dare leave this room. All I need is you running about and mucking things up more than you already have.”

Before I can respond, he flings the door open and slams it behind him. He scuffles with the guards, then talks his way out of being taken into custody by suggesting they “lock the blasted door to contain their magical ward, considering she’s the biggest threat to AnyElsewhere.”

Then he makes up an excuse about needing to find the queen.

His determined footsteps fade down the hallway and I mentally hurry him along. He has to catch the ear mite before it reports to Red, and even more pressing, has to find Jeb before anything happens to him.

I tell myself that’s why he left in such a hurry . . . to protect Jeb. Not because he’s jealous and wants to eliminate him, rendering my vow null and void. The two have forged an understanding over the past month. They’ll never like each other, but they’ve spared one
another countless times, and have learned to work together, because they both love me.

I have to believe that Morpheus isn’t acting on his desire for our future to start today. That he’s not being driven by his romantic ideals: a tapestry of emotions and actions as fierce and unpredictable as the wildness of Wonderland itself. I’ve seen his compassion and how he struggles to do the right thing.

“Have faith in him,” I whisper to no one but me. “He’ll one day be your king.”

He told me to stay put. Little does he realize, I have no choice. I’m too weak and woozy to leave my prison.

I return to the easel and swipe my fingers across the drying paint to blur it beyond recognition. It’s bad enough that Red is hoping for a child between us. Once she’s possessed my body and sees him for herself, it’s only going to make getting rid of her that much harder.

When my fingers glide across the image of our little boy, smudging him to an indiscernible blob, that stitch in my heart ruptures another agonizing degree. A coppery taste stings my tongue. I cough, cupping my mouth with my palm. As I pull my hand away, fresh blood spatters the paint between my fingers. I double over, struggling for breath.

The room shakes to the beat of a thousand pulses. Streaks of burgundy and black mingle with shivering light. My arms and legs ache. I absorb my wings to lighten the load, but my spine curls and I lower myself to my knees as darkness swarms my vision. I shut my eyes, focused on breathing. Rolling to my stomach, I let the shag carpet cushion my cheek as I drift toward unconsciousness, into the hazy, numb warmth of a vision . . .

My body is light as air, free of pain. A black oily sludge drips from the walls and seeps across the floor toward me. The puddles rise into phantom shapes like smoke.

Mome wraiths.

They engulf me, sniffing my hair, wailing in my ears until my bones clatter. Oily marks stamp my skin where they grip my arms, fingers of shadow and illusion biting into me. They drag me to the top of the castle’s tower and toss me down. My stomach leaps into my throat.

Far below, the rabbit hole opens—a black, spiraling tunnel. I fall fast, racing past open wardrobes, stacks of floating books, pantries, and jars of canned goods pinned to the tunnel’s sides with thick ivy curls. I clutch at a wall, knocking into furniture and tearing at vines until my descent slows.

Below in the darkness, a struggle takes place. Sister Two wrestles in midair with my mom, who’s strung up by webs. Mom uses her magic, animating wayward books and pinned-up furniture to bombard Sister Two’s head and torso. The grave keeper’s eight legs and poisonous, scissored hands are preoccupied deflecting the attack, which buys Mom time to break free. She slips out of the spider’s thrall and starts falling.

“Mom!” I shout.

She looks up. “Allie!” she calls back and reaches for me.

The wraiths wail overhead and pull the rabbit hole closed, shuttling us all out of the tunnel and propelling us into Wonderland on a landslide of dirt.

I dig myself out into the flower garden. Lightning slashes the sky, casting fluorescent hues across the landscape. A pungent, charred scent carries on a loud and melancholy wind. Dark purple clouds fill the sky.

Mom is just within my reach, surrounded by vicious zombie flowers as tall as trees. Sister Two scuttles toward her with an army of undead toys.

I clamber up to help Mom, but my hand passes through her. I’m nothing
but a ghost here, and I realize I’m reliving her entry into Wonderland that fated night.

A white swan swoops down, transforming into Ivory. Landing on the ground, she glitters from wing tips to toes. Her magic radiates in the purest strains of silver. She twirls like a crystalline ballerina and white mist streams from her mouth. Frost cloaks the ruthless flowers, slowing their movements.

A man breaks through the trunklike stems. I recognize him as Finley, the mortal Morpheus used as an imprint when he was in the human realm. Finley’s dressed as an elfin knight and commands Ivory’s army. With a collective shout, the elves attack the flowers, their swords clanging against the iced stems, cutting through in one sweep. The flowers scream and fall, writhing on the ground. Sister Two hisses and herds her undead toys into the heart of Wonderland, retreating to the garden of souls.

Ivory turns and offers a hand to my mom.

Mom takes it, then looks back at me. “I’m safe and we’re surviving. But the heart of Wonderland is dying. The doldrums are closing in. Come soon. We’ll hold them off as long as we can.”

I try to make sense of her warning, picking my mind apart for the definition of
doldrums,
but it escapes me.

“Allie!” Mom screams. “Wake up . . . wake up!”

Lightning streaks across the sky and splits into my chest, slamming me back into my broken body and the reality of unquenchable pain.

Someone has propped my back against what feels like cool tiles. I’m too weak to even lift my eyelids. I inhale and strangle on the liquid filling my lungs.