Ensnared (42 page)

Fuzzy purple light twinkles behind the corset’s bodice. The glow radiates from
inside
me . . . under my skin and behind my sternum.

My stomach flips. The last time I saw magic like this, it came from inside Jeb—a combination of Red’s and Morpheus’s strains.

Clacking footsteps bring my attention to the crystal doorway. A bald head shimmers in the shadows. Pink, dewy eyes glitter from inside the albino skin that hangs in rolls of wrinkles like a shar-pei puppy’s.

“Late, I say. Queen Alyssa. Late I be.”

I smooth my gown and smile. “Rabid. I was worried you were frozen.”

“Invited to the castle of ice, were we. Before the winter summoned by Ivory-fair.”

So that’s what I saw in my first dream of Mom. Ivory brought her, Grenadine, and my royal advisor Rabid White to stay here, where they’d be protected from the doldrums.

Rabid’s bunny-size silhouette waits in the hallway, unmoving.

“Please, come in.” I wave him forward. He hops across the threshold. His frothy lips pout in concentration as he balances the ruby crown on a pillow atop his gloved hands.

His skeletal body knocks against itself inside his red tailcoat with each ambling movement. I put a finger to my mouth to hush him.

He glances at my sleeping parents and slows his hops to awkward steps, intuitive in spite of his grim and wide-eyed appearance. That’s what makes him such a formidable royal advisor. Like most netherlings, he’s ambiguous. Introspective and unreadable when necessary. That’s how he tricked me last year into thinking he was out to kill me, when all along he only wanted to set me upon my throne.

He’s dressed like he was that first time I met him, except today his coat is flocked and has black velvet buttons and a matching fur collar.

Sympathy rushes through me for the hideous form hidden under the lavish clothes. I will never forget how Red stripped him of his pride and his skin. A part of me wants to tell him the truth. That she caused his deformity; that when she saved his face from the acid, it was all a ploy to secure his loyalty. But what good would it do to tell him he was a pawn? Red isn’t a threat anymore, to anyone. It’s actually sad, how worthless and helpless she is now.

A twinge of deep remorse nudges inside my skull where she hides. It grows as Rabid gets closer to the bed, enough that Red whispers inside me,
“Please . . . relieve me of my misery
.
Let me tell him of my regret for my actions, then release me so I may cease to exist.”

Too little too late
, I whisper back internally, fighting any inclinations toward mercy.
I’ve yet to decide your fate.

Rabid arrives beside my bed and holds up the pillow. His fuzzy white antlers almost topple him as he kneels. I place a hand on his head to balance him. We went through some crazy stuff together when he snuck into the human realm before the prom-pocalypse. He’s earned my everlasting trust and affection.

He sighs—a contented sound—then continues, “Time it is, Queen Grenadine says.” Foam slathers around his mouth as he speaks. “Crown Queen Alyssa, she commands.”

Puzzled, I take the pillow, setting it on my lap over the covers. Coiled in the crown’s center is a new ruby-tipped key and filigreed chain. I place it around my neck. I’ve missed wearing the key to the kingdom against my chest. My fingertips trace the crown’s intricate golden frame, and I hold it up so the rubies shimmer in the faint light.

“Alyssa, no!” Mom’s startled voice causes poor Rabid to lurch headfirst to the floor. I set the crown aside, throw off the covers, and swing my bare feet down to help him stand. Mom and Dad are next to me in an instant, blinking their bleary eyes.

“Hi?” I say, more of a question. They hug me, sandwiching me between her floral perfume and his mossy clean scent. Mom kisses my forehead, and Dad nuzzles my curled and primped hair.

“We were so worried,” Mom whispers.

“I’m okay,” I answer. I glance up at Dad. “But I don’t understand how . . . ?”

He opens his mouth, but clams up as Rabid scales the bed and digs through the blankets for the crown, holding it out once more. “Ready to serve Queen Alyssa, be I. Long time await. Have much and many debts to pay. Loyal, always and forever-evermore.”

“It’s not time yet.” Mom wipes tears from her face and takes the crown from Rabid’s hands.

Rabid hisses, his sharp teeth bared, eyes glinting hot. “Otherwise, Queen Grenadine says.”

I place my hand on his head and he bows again, obediently relaxing.

“The plan has changed,” Dad says, moving with caution as he helps the netherling climb down. He walks him to the door. “We sent word to Grenadine, but she must’ve forgotten. She doesn’t have her ribbons to help her remember right now. Why don’t you get Ivory for us? She’ll explain everything.”

Rabid’s pink eyes lose their shimmer, hazy like cotton candy. Before the door closes he mutters, “Zombies in Toyland?”

Dad pauses shutting him out and exchanges a worried glance with Mom.

I giggle. “It’s a game on my phone. Rabid beat my high score a few weeks ago.” I smirk at my little advisor. “We’ll play it again soon. I have to get my title back.”

His eyes brighten. “Generous are you! Cookies, too? Rabid White hungry be. Always.”

I laugh. “Yeah, always. I’ll have Mom make you some cookies.”

He grins, then hops away down the hall, looking more like a rabbit than a demented otherworldly being.

Dad shuts the door and both my parents stare at me as if I’m a mirage that could disappear any second.

“Okay.” I’m done being in the dark. “What’s going on?”

Mom’s gaze falls to the purple glimmer radiating from my chest. I’d forgotten about it with Rabid’s unexpected arrival. I hold my hand over the gown, pressing my key against the place that glows. A warm flash of happy memories surges: Morpheus and me as children, then Jeb always there during my middle school years. Their voices follow, blended together and filled with love and encouragement:
You are the best of both worlds . . . You got this, skater-girl-fairy-queen.

I look up at my parents, seeking the answers I see in their faces.
“Where are Jeb and Morpheus?” I ask, my throat dry. “I can’t believe they’re not here. I almost died.”

“They would’ve been here, but . . . Ivory will explain their absence.” Mom turns her eyes to Dad. Behind her black lashes and blue irises flecked with turquoise, there’s anxiety.

Absence?
A knowing stirs in my gut. This change within my heart
is
a combination of them and their magic. I still have no idea how Jeb kept Red’s power after we stepped into Wonderland from AnyElsewhere, but the biggest question gnawing at me is why aren’t they here?

I waver as my mind rocks with horrible scenarios.

“Butterfly, sit down.” Dad supports my elbow and slides me back onto the bed. He offers his Elvis smirk, but I’m not buying it because of the eyelid twitch that follows.

“The guys,” I squeak.

“They’re fine,” he answers. “They’ll be by to see you soon. They’re busy right now.”

I let out a breath, my relief so palpable I can almost taste it. “Busy with what?”

“Re-creating Wonderland,” Mom answers.

I stand back up. “
I
was supposed to help Ivory with that. It takes two queens working together, from both kingdoms. This is one half my world, and wholly my responsibility.”

Dad’s face flushes. He drapes a quilt around me. “It takes two queens’ crown-magic. Ivory will explain. And you need to get some clothes on if you plan to leave this room—”

“She can’t leave,” Mom interrupts. “Allie, there are instructions for the magical sutures.”

I tie the quilt around my neck, forming a robe. “Sutures?” I back up to the bed and prop my hips against the mattress’s edge. “But Red said there was no magic she knew of that could help me.”

“That is true.” Upon the sound of Ivory’s voice, I look over at the door. Both her milky skin and her layered floor-length dress glisten like the crystallized ice on the walls of this room. “This brand of magic has never been experienced by Red, or by most netherlings.” She steps inside. Chessie sits atop her left shoulder and Nikki on her right, confirming I didn’t imagine the little sprite earlier. There’s only one explanation: Jeb repainted her.

“Jeb wasn’t drained of Red’s magic,” I venture.

Ivory’s wings sweep behind her, resembling a feather cape. “His muse has been forever altered. The tie was so strong between his creative drive and Red’s closed-minded obstinance, they fused together and became an entity. So although Morpheus’s magic returned to its original vessel, Red’s stayed within your mortal knight. His talent for painting is a living thing now, retained within him. And it is more powerful here than it was in the looking-glass world, for there is no iron to taint or weaken his creations. They cannot be washed away with water. They become as real as you or I.”

As outrageous and unsettling as the concept is, it makes sense. “So, because his power comes from Red, it retains her royal bloodline and her crown-magic.
He
helped re-create the landscapes with you.”

“Yes,” Ivory says, smiling. “And Morpheus guided us, as he knows every nook and cranny of Wonderland, even the wilds occupied only by the solitary fae. It was his place to make the sketches for Jebediah to follow. We are finished now.”

A strange wave of sadness washes over me and I sit again. “I was supposed to be a part of it. It was my duty.”

“No, Alyssa,” Ivory scolds. “Your duty was to rest and heal, for your kingdom needs a queen, not a corpse. Correct?”

I nod in agreement, but it’s halfhearted.

Mom sits next to me, her arm around my waist. “Allie, there’s still something very important for you to do. Only you can decide what will become of Red. Are you going to cast her out and destroy her? Or give her back to Sister Two as a restless spirit?”

Restless spirit.
Red’s the furthest thing from that. I’ve never seen anyone so dejected and weary. Her unforgotten memories are immovable chains around her.

She whimpers inside me, curling up tighter.

It’s not so easy to crush her now that she’s remembered. Now that she has regrets. She even knows what became of her king, how he’s forever imprisoned in the jabberlock box, because of events she set into motion. Her vendetta has lost all meaning.

I tell myself I’m keeping her alive to punish her, but there’s more to it than that.

“I came to kill her,” I say, seeking counsel for my conflicting feelings.

“Maybe it’s enough that you reminded her there’s more to living than death and destruction,” Dad says, stroking the top of my head.

“You must decide soon,” Ivory adds. “In just a few hours, after the landscapes have stabilized, I will be waking all the denizens who sleep in my spell. We shall have a banquet, and together assure them our world is safe and strong. However you choose to dispose of Red will set the precedent for how your subjects view you as a queen.”

As if things are too serious for his liking, Chessie dive-bombs me, his eyes relaying his relief that I’m well. Nikki follows yet watches me shyly, with a stranger’s eyes. She’s not exactly the same
little sprite. She’s an updated version, but Chessie is still delighted to have her back.

I smile and open my hands so he can nestle there. Nikki perches on my thumb, cautious and inquisitive.

I glance at Ivory. “What about the magic that healed me?”

Ivory looks at my parents. “Might I have a moment alone with your daughter?”

Dad nods and squeezes my shoulder. Mom kisses my cheek reassuringly. Holding hands like teens, they leave the room and shut the door behind them.

“This magic”—Ivory points to my chest—“is made of the most innocent love, Alyssa. The love of children. Pure and unconditional.”

Chessie launches from my hands and flutters about the room with Nikki in tow. I look down at the faint glow behind my sternum. “I don’t understand.”

“Come.” Ivory leads me to the fireplace. The silver flames blink, brushing Ivory’s pale irises, eyebrows, and eyelashes with glitter, like snow in moonlight. We sit together on the crystal lounge and she winds her waist-length silvery hair to one side on the white cushion. Nikki settles atop the coiled spiral and spins herself up in the strands.

The graceful turn of Ivory’s long neck reminds me of the swan form she sometimes takes. Just like Morpheus takes the form of a moth. It fully hits me that my alternate appearance is my human one . . . that my magic will never have a telltale color, because I’m a half-blood. This sets me apart, just like my dreams and imagination. It makes me special to both worlds. Which is what Morpheus has been saying all along. Which is exactly what Red hoped to accomplish by spawning a race of half-bloods, before she lost sight of her original noble intentions.

Red stirs at the back of my head, shrinking in agony.

Ivory holds out her palm and a softball-size bubble appears, luminous and clear.

“Another vision?” I ask, remembering all too clearly the last one she showed me and the life-magic vow that ensued. I don’t plan to make any more vows for a while.

“This is not a vision. Rather, it is a glimpse into your recent past.”

Chessie drops down and, with a poof, dissipates to orange sparkles and gray smoke. His haze drifts across the bubble like a cloud, bringing clarity to the blurry image that takes shape inside.

All of my senses tune in: I see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the moment:

Morpheus carries my unconscious form into this room and places me on the bed atop the snowy quilts. He pauses, staring down at my face, the jewels under his eyes the stormy gray of a tempest. Mom moves around him, her wings fluttering nervously. He steps back as she blots blood from my lips and collapses over me, crying.

Chessie hovers anxiously.

Morpheus turns to him, jaw clenched. “Go through the mirror passage . . . bring Thomas and Jebediah. Hurry!”

Chessie flurries away.

There’s movement at the doorway and Ivory steps inside. “There is only one means of saving her now.”