Ensnared (47 page)

“No.”

“Have I had means or opportunity?”

“Many, on both counts.”

“All right. You’ve learned so much on your journey. Surely you haven’t already forgotten the most important lesson: how words can say one thing, but mean another.” He lifts his cup and regards me
over the rim while sipping, then sets it on his saucer with a clink. “It’s crucial, as queen of the Red Court, for you to keep that upmost in your mind in all situations. You must always consider every angle of every statement before you react emotionally.”

So, this night is both a lesson and a test. He’s teaching me the politics of Wonderland, but at the same time, testing me to see if I can practice what I preach: trust him the way I expect him to trust me.

“Now,” he continues. “I brought the tea to relax you. But you are by no means obligated to drink it. Although, at the very least, after all we’ve been through, one would think you could sit and speak your heart to me. If it would make it easier, use the chess pieces, like when we were little.”

I take a deep breath, gather my skirt around my legs, and sit in the chair across from him.

Concentrating on the Alice figurine, I imagine her alive. She retains her teensy size, but begins to move, stretching out her arms and legs as if she’s been asleep for years. She prances over to the caterpillar and curtsies.

“How do you fare this evening, Mr. Caterpillar?” she says in a milky voice of innocence. “I should like to thank you for not crowning me earlier, for finding another way. It was quite noble.”

Morpheus grins. The blue light at his fingertips snaps out and wraps around the caterpillar chess piece, wriggling it in front of the Alice caricature as if it were moving. He’s the master puppeteer, exactly as he was in our games as children. Exactly as he was in the human realm. Exactly as he always will be.

“Far from noble, My Queen.” His voice is comical and high-pitched. “Self-serving, in fact. Without any memory of your humanness, you would not be the girl I shared a childhood with.
And, I’m loath to admit it, living out your life with the humans you love will make you a better ruler here. You know I always do what’s best for Wonderland.”

Those words have never sounded more beautiful or poignant. I coax my tiny Alice to drag a foot along the board. “You said you were done waiting,” she mumbles under my command. “And you’re right. I cannot ask you to wait any longer. You should find someone else.” As much as it hurts to hear the words leave her lips, Morpheus deserves to be happy.

He dips his chess piece, as if it were slouching, and answers in that nasally lilt. “Bless it, little majesty, have you forgotten what I am? As a solitary fae, I do not require company. In fact, I find the constant give-and-take of companionship tedious on the best day. Although I expect to discover the charm in it, some sixty years or so down the line.”

Tears sting my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. Instead, minuscule streams trickle down Alice’s cheeks. “Then I should like to add that I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to wait so long for so many things.”

Morpheus’s gaze flashes to mine, then back to the chess piece wrapped in his magic. “Stop crying,” his quirky voice scolds. “Queens don’t cry. I taught you better than that.”

I bite my quivering lip, and tiny Alice strokes the caterpillar’s face. “But you’re crying . . .”

Morpheus lowers a wing and shades his cheek along with the transparent glimmer of his jeweled markings. “Well”—his shrill voice cracks slightly—“contrary to my preferences for lace and velvet, I’m not the queen. So I can cry all I like.”

My answering snort is clipped with a sob. I cover my mouth with my fingertips, guiding Alice to dry her face with her pinafore.
“I love you. I don’t want to hurt you,” I murmur behind my hand.

Morpheus’s jaw spasms, his magic tightening around the caterpillar until it twirls in place on the board like a top set to spin. “Your pity is misguided.” His childish voice lowers an octave. “As I’ve often told you, time has no constraints in Wonderland. Jebediah may have your days for now. But an eternity awaits me and you. He’s the one getting the short end of the stick.” The corners of Morpheus’s mouth twitch wickedly. “Which is fitting, considering he’s short in so many other aspects.”

“Shut up!” I say, laughing hysterically. Alice transforms back to an inanimate jade piece as I toss her. My aim is off and she plops into Morpheus’s tea, splattering him and the chessboard.

With a graceful sweep of his hand, he retracts his magic. Tea drizzles down his face as his inky eyes turn up to mine, alight with something both dangerous and daring, shifting moods faster than I can blink.

“Careful, plum.” It’s his deep cockney accent now. He wipes his face with a napkin. “Don’t start something you have no intention of finishing.”

“Oh, I’ll finish it,” I say—spurred by the dark confidence fluttering at the edge of my psyche. The side of me that knows I’m his match in every way. “And you know I’ll win.” I rise from my chair to scope out the room for weapons, vaguely aware of the prisms of glittery light reflected off my skin onto the surroundings.

“I know I’ll
let
you win,” Morpheus says, standing up. “I won’t even put up a fight.” His white-toothed smile spans to something forebodingly provocative, as though mimicking the spread of his wings. “Well, perhaps a small one, just for sport.”

I inch toward the middle of the room, wrestling the smile trying
to blossom on my own face. My heart flutters in an effort to get closer to him, that same magnetic invigoration in my chest that I felt when Jeb hugged me. Yet Morpheus isn’t even touching me.

He studies me knowingly, as if he can
see
my heart’s reaction to him.

“On second thought, playtime can wait.” He snatches my wrist with his blue electrified strands before I can unleash my magic. “You’re too easily distracted, luv. That’s something we’ll work on.” He drags me over, picks me up, and carries me to the bed.

“Morpheus,” I warn, squirming in his arms. I know, with just a thought, I can bring the chandelier crashing down on him like a cage.

“Tut. Don’t do anything rash,” he scolds as if reading my mind. Swiping the waterfall aside, he lays me atop the fragrant, silky rose petals. “I’m only asking one thing of you tonight. And it will not compromise your human future. We’ll keep on our clothes. No hanky-panky.” He presses his palm over his heart in pledge fashion. “I vow on my life-magic never to come between you and Jebediah Holt again.”

I gasp. The profoundness of such a gesture, from a self-seeking fae, touches my soul. The only thing predictable about my future king is his unpredictability. “You once told me you wouldn’t be a gentleman. You lied.”

He leans over and caresses my cheek with his knuckles, so tender it hurts. “Oh, I stand by that statement, little blossom. For you see, there’s the chance
you
will break down and come between the two of you. Every night we’re together, I will tempt you to the edge of madness. I will tease you to torments. You will have to earn Jebediah’s happy life by being strong and unbending, as all good queens should be. Though
this
night, I’m giving you a lull.”

His words come back to me from our afternoon inside the
mountain:
Yes, we will quarrel incessantly and fight for dominance. And yes, there will be ravishes of passion, but there will also be gentle lulls. That is who we are together.

“When next I see you in your dreamscapes,” Morpheus continues, bringing me back to the present, “our trial by fire will begin. You wanted it, you shall have it. I intend to push you to your best, infuriate you to your worst. It is the only way for you to rule over a world of creatures both mad and cunning.”

I let the smile I was suppressing have free rein, because I’m up for any challenge he can throw in my path. The chance to prove it thrills me beyond all reason. “I understand now. What the sentence on the chessboard means. That you want to sleep with me . . .”

He crawls across my body and lies on the other side of the bed, leaving the liquidized curtain open behind me. “Do tell.”

Covering up with one of his wings, I surround myself with the scent of licorice and honey. “You want to hold me while I sleep. You want to watch my face as I dream like you never have—from the outside.”

He traces my eye markings with an elegant fingertip. “That will be my memory to cling to, until you’re mine forever at last, both in waking hours and sleep. The question is, do you trust me enough to give me that? To rest in my arms tonight?”

I hold his soft palm against my cheek. “Will you sing me my lullaby?”

He weaves his fingers through my hair and presses my forehead to his. “Forever and always,” he whispers.

As he hums the tune that has been inside my mind and heart all my life, I close the waterfall canopy, cocooning us within our own frozen pocket of time.

Jeb and I lived out our life in Pleasance, with Mom and Dad visiting often when they weren’t in London with the Skeffingtons.

I’ll list no other details: how many children and grandchildren, the nieces and nephews given to us by Corbin and Jenara, how old Jeb was when he died. All I’ll say is that our mortal life together was everything and more than I’d hoped. Even when death claimed my family members—one by one—there was happiness in its wake, a wash of treasured memories and laughter hanging like priceless art on the walls of my heart.

I made a name for myself with my mosaics, while Jeb was renowned for marble maze toys so intricate and ingeniously crafted
they were compared to Rube Goldberg designs. Although the true legacy he left for our children and grandchildren wasn’t the wealth or awards he obtained with his mechanical prowess. It was his gentleness, sense of humor, and unconditional love.

Mom and I wanted our descendants to have the normal life we never did, and I was able to silence the bugs and flowers in their ears simply by commanding it—a perk of my crown-magic. Still, I left them an opportunity to stumble upon their Wonderland heritage: hundreds of mosaics filled with bizarre and mystical landscapes, and a box full of heirlooms along with a map and a key. I hid everything in the attic for them to find should they go looking for answers.

Maybe they’ll think it’s the ramblings of a senile mind. Or maybe they’ll believe and take that same leap of faith that once led me, and a curious little girl named Alice, to venture into the rabbit hole.

I’ll be there to welcome them, if they do . . .

Leaving my human family behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. After faking my death, my final sojourn to the rabbit hole is less of a leap than a fall. Morpheus is there to catch me. He takes my wrinkled and age-freckled hand, helps me inside, and kisses away the tears from the old, frail, white-haired woman I’ve become.

He doesn’t recoil or flinch. He sees past my age, to what I am inside. To the ruler he’s helped shape in my dreams since my childhood: adept at pandemonium and manipulation, tempered by wisdom.

He places the crown on my head and my hair thickens and warms with the pale blond of youth, alive with magic. My bones, skin, and muscles smooth and straighten to toned suppleness. My wings sprout anew.

I am sixteen once more.

“I shall give you time to grieve,” he whispers, but the desire burning in his eyes belies any patience.

Though my heart is heavy, it is also strong and unbreakable, thanks to two men who put my needs above their own.

Morpheus and Wonderland have waited long enough for their queen, for their dream-child. I touch the bejeweled face I’ve come to love so dearly, not in spite of his infuriating tactics, his word wizardry, his tender malice . . . but
because
of them. “The Red Court needs a king,” is my answer.

We marry, surrounded by a mishmash of creatures: some clothed, others naked, all more bestial than humanoid. They are our subjects, and my heart brims with affection—for their weirdness, for their madness, for their loyalty.

Morpheus and I both wear red: me, a gown of real roses, netting, and lace; and him, a beautiful crimson suit.

When the moment comes, I proudly state, “I do.”

He lifts my hand and presses soft lips to the scars that mar my palm. “I always knew you would,” he teases. Then he smiles, his jewels glistening gold and bright.

Donning our ruby crowns, we fly together into the sky.

“Shall we dance in the clouds, luv?” my King asks.

I remember a vision from a lifetime ago—our souls and bodies bared to a brilliant inferno—and answer, “I want to waltz on the sun.”

And there, in the midst of blinding orange, yellow, and white flames, our forever begins.