Ensnared (45 page)

I slap his shoulder. “Hey, that’s not funny.”

“Ah, he’ll be okay.” Jeb raises an eyebrow, watching the aerial pursuit taking place outside the glass. “It’s a new genus of vegetarian owls. They’re only in it for the chase. Besides, Morphie-boy can change to his other form anytime he wants.”

I smirk. “That owl is one of your creations?”

Jeb’s grin widens. “It was for bug-breath’s own good. Dude’s ancient . . . he needs to stay in shape.”

I bark another laugh. It’s so wonderful to see his playful side again.

Jeb’s smile gentles, then his expression fades to serious. “Can you finally admit it, your feelings for him?”

My elated buzz evaporates to a nauseated coil in my stomach. “There will always be two different sides to me. And each one loves you and Morpheus in different ways.” I look him in the eye, unashamed of the confession because of the honesty behind it. “I know it’s not fair to ask either of you to be okay with that.”

Jeb tips up my chin with a fingertip. “You didn’t ask. And I don’t want fair. I don’t want easy, either. I want one lifetime with you, and every crazy complication that comes with it. We’ve gone to hell and back to be together. I’ve proven I’m more qualified than any
other human to handle what’s thrown at us. Magical or otherwise. Besides, how is you having two lives any different from any other woman who remarries after her husband is gone?”

“Because Morpheus will visit me in my dreams every night. Do you trust him?”

“I trust you. You’re as strong—no,
stronger
—than he is. He knows it, too. That’s why he gets off on testing you. You just need to prove it to yourself, like I had to prove things to myself. And you’re about to have twenty-four hours alone with him to do that.”

My shoulders slump. The drop cloth wrinkles between the wall and my back. I’d forgotten about my vow to Morpheus. “As soon as I’m free of Red.”

Jeb tucks the ring necklace under his tunic again. “I’m going to keep this until you tell me you’re ready. It’s a huge sacrifice, to build a human family and walk away from it someday. If it’s too much, or if after your time together, you decide you want to be with him now, I’ll move somewhere so we’ll never have to see each other. You need your time in the mortal realm to heal, and I won’t risk ripping you in half again.” His eyes are sincere and intense, his jaw tightened in an effort to be strong, even though I can tell it’s the most difficult thing he’s ever said.

His strength amazes me. I pull him into a hug. Just the thought of living my human life without him triggers pain in my newly repaired heart. Not a rip, but a heaviness, as if it’s filled with rocks. I snuggle under his chin, pulling his chest close so I can feel that magical current between us once more . . . so it can lighten the weight.

He strokes my hair. “About Red. You can’t let her sit dormant inside you forever. What’s your plan?”

I shake my head, grateful for the subject change. “I was going to
release her spirit. Let her wither away. But I want to do something else. Something . . . meaningful.”

He pushes us apart and narrows his eyes. “Something she deserves, I hope.”

I trace the smudges of dried paint and blood on his tunic. “She loved Wonderland once. Before she lost sight of her good intentions, she wanted to change it for the better. Like you said, Sister Two zones in on spirits and drags them out. Since your muse has the residue of Red, maybe Red’s spirit can be joined with it. Then Red could help supply the dreams. She’ll be imprisoned, never able to escape, but at least she’ll be contributing something. It will extend the life of your muse. And it will send a message to my subjects, that if they step out of line, I’ll find a way to make them serve Wonderland forever. Most importantly, it will give Red peace.”

Jeb’s eyes brighten with something akin to pride. “You’re going to make one hell of a queen, you know that?”

A rush of satisfaction warms my cheeks. “I’m going to give it my best shot.”

He kisses my forehead. “Okay. I’ll stand guard here . . . let you back through when you’re done.”

I start for the mirror, but Jeb stops me. I look up at his concerned face, convinced he’s changed his mind and wants to come along since Sister Two and I aren’t on the best of terms. I’m prepared to argue with him, but all he does is lift one of my hands and curl my fingers into a fist.

“You got this,” he says, and bumps my knuckles with his. “She’s wanted Red back in her keep for over a year. You hold all the cards.”

“Exactly my thinking.” I smile at him.

He smiles back. “And one more thing . . .”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time for you to find peace, too. The bad is behind us now.”

I caress his face, then turn to the mirror. Sliding the drop cloth off my shoulders into a pile at my bare feet, I release my jeweled wings and envision the cemetery in the glass. My reflection looks back as I wait for the destination to appear: netherling eye patches, glittery skin, hair that’s wild and alive.

I see what Jeb saw, the reason he’ll never try to be my protector again. It’s a great feeling, knowing I’m strong and capable.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe the bad is behind us.

I can’t be sure until I know where things stand with my mentor-tormentor; the wisdom keeper who saved my life more than once, who holds the other half of my heart in his manipulative hands, and who made my metamorphosis to Wonderland’s Red Queen a possibility in the first place.

Gossamer hovers next to my ear as I stand in one corner of Ivory’s enormous crystallized banquet hall. The sprite has visited me throughout the day, providing pleasant company in spite of her unrequited affection for Morpheus. Working together to lead the mome wraiths from my school gymnasium a month ago seems to have bonded us.

As for Morpheus, I haven’t seen him since the owl chased him from the tower. He’s even stayed out of my head. Although he sent a message via Gossamer, concerning how pleased he is with my decision for Red.

Silver flaming candles, floating upside down from the ceiling, softly light the room. A string quartet plays without players; the frosty, glacial instruments glow and pulsate with the colors of the rainbow. The music is as crisp and breezy as morning air, yet muted, like melodious whispers echoed in a cave of ice.

Gossamer and I are playing the role of wallflowers beside an open doorway, watching Mom and Dad waltz alongside Ivory and Finley. The four of them—graceful and beautiful—stand out like pristine toppers for a wedding cake among the bizarre netherlings dancing spastically around them.

I danced earlier with some of the guests. Chessie, Nikki, and Rabid. Zombie flowers, shrunken back to their original size. Sprites. Hobgoblins. Even Herman Hattington joined in, his face switching like a TV screen between me and our other dance partners, the Doormouse and March Hairless.

Jeb stole me away once for a slow, romantic song. He’s gone now, shut up in his room in the castle. He was exhausted. Having wrangled Red’s and Morpheus’s magic for a month, survived facing his demons in a barbaric otherworld, breathed life into a dying landscape, and given up his muse forever, I’m not surprised. Yet I can’t help but wonder if the main reason he left was because he doesn’t want to be here when Morpheus comes to whisk me away.

I stare at the door Jeb took when he left, unable to shake him from my thoughts.

“Your mortal knight is most unique,” Gossamer says in her chiming voice as she follows my line of sight. Her coppery bulbous eyes, glowing green skin, and glittery scales seem almost phosphorescent in the dimness.

I bite my lip, considering her words. My tongue stings pleasantly
from the cinnamon-red lipstick the other sprites applied earlier with my evening makeup.

Hovering in front of my nose, Gossamer tilts her teensy head. “Which bids the question . . . Before all this. Before the compromise for your heart. Had you reached a decision? Which man? Which future?”

I return her steady gaze, still not sure if Morpheus is willing to compromise anything. “I was going to choose Wonderland, and rule alone. I could never live an eternity knowing I’d broken one of their hearts for the other. Especially now that I know how excruciating a broken heart can be.” I let out a shaky sigh. “Maybe I still should choose that. It seems wrong, for them to endure so much to bridge my two sides. It feels like I’m being selfish.”

The sprite makes a tiny sound, something between a snort and a sneeze. Her astute dragonfly eyes reflect the rainbow-colored lights from the instruments.

“What?” I lean against the door’s icy frame, amazed by how the ice isn’t cold to the touch, yet it can freeze a damaged heartbeat or suspend a rotting landscape.

The sprite perches on my shoulder, her wings tickling my ear. “You’re thinking like a human again. Seeing things in black-and-white.”

It’s my turn to snort. “Right. I forgot. It’s all about the gray in Wonderland.”

“It is. I once told you that no one knows what he or she is capable of until things are at their darkest. When you were dying, both your men came face-to-face with that moment. They combined forces, looked within one another instead of themselves, and found the gray—the common ground.”

I frown. “Are you saying that it changed them?”

She sits down and, propped against the curve of my neck, lifts one leg at a time to adjust the pointed green shoes on her feet. “You’ve always brought out the softer side in my master. But he hasn’t changed. He’s as changeless as he is ageless. He’ll always be selfish, manipulative, untamable. He knows no other way to be, for he is all things Wonderland. The event simply gave him a new means to determine the direction of his actions when dealing with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“A mortal moral compass. Just as your Jebediah now understands Wonderland’s magic and feral desires, Morpheus understands the human world’s emotional needs and insecurities. He and your mortal knight have always been your perfect mate, split in twain. But now each of them has gained enough insight to provide what you need in either realm. It is not the men bridging your heart. It is your heart bridging
them
. They are wiser because of their love for you. I daresay even happier. Yes, they could subsist without you, but they are better men
with
you. They are the ones who need
you
to be complete, to be all they were meant to be. That does not make you selfish. It makes you indispensable.”

I smile. The idea is empowering, and as fascinating, twisted, and beautiful as Wonderland itself.

My attention wanders back to the dance floor and the guests representing the Red kingdom, the White, and even the solitary of our kind. I recognize a few more of the attendees: Mustela fae—ferret-like creatures with long, venomous fangs and vulnerable craniums, a hedgehog being with the face of a sparrow, a pink woman with a neck as long as a flamingo.

There are also some that are new to me, with batlike wings and
fishy faces, or sensuous females as dark as mud, with amphibious plants sprouting out of their supple skin.

I may not know every netherling, but I know their gifts and powers. Morpheus taught me in my childhood.

The bridge troll’s dreadlocks are enchanted with a telepathy that brainwashes his victims into being so fearful of staying in place, they cross his bridge even when they know he’s waiting on the other side to turn them to stone. And the nameless muddy vixen uses an alluring song to draw lesser-minded beings into the water where she sucks the life from them.

Not all of them are deadly, but each one is deranged and strange enough to tease my darker side with the possibility of chaos. I’m eager to start visiting in my dreams so I can learn their weaknesses and how to manipulate them, because reasoning is never the law of the land in the Red Court. It’s all about who’s the trickiest, who’s the wiliest with words. And who’s the most determined to get their way.

Which is why Morpheus will be the perfect Red King one day.

Jeb mentioned earlier that he and Morpheus talked while I was recuperating from being frozen. He told Morpheus he was letting me out of my vow, in hopes Morpheus would play the gentleman, too. But I don’t expect him to fight fair. Just as I know he doesn’t expect me to be an easy mark.

I fidget in the dress he sent over this afternoon: white corset bodice with miniature crimson rosebuds sewn upon the neckline and satiny black laces that crisscross, then dangle in a bow at my waist. A fitted red and white pin-striped, ankle-length skirt hugs my lower half, and a matching choker collar is secured over my key necklace. Per his request, my hair is loose and long, and writhes around the roses pinned in place. Every part of my ensemble feels
like a seduction. Even my long sleeves—sheer poufs of black netting with twirling swirls of red ribbon woven throughout the length—cling like soft kisses to my arms.

“Did you tell him my last message?” I ask Gossamer as one song ends and another begins. Earlier, I thought upon the wording of my life-magic vow: that I was to give him one day and one night. I never stated consecutive hours, or that they would be spent in Wonderland. Since I’ve pointed out that we accumulated at least twelve daylight hours together in AnyElsewhere, he’ll have no choice but to agree that only the night half of my vow is unfulfilled.