Ensnared

Speckled with lime green moss and bright yellow lichen, the ground feels springy under my plastic soles. Happy memories of playing childish games with Morpheus nearly overwhelm me, entangled with all the confusing adult emotions he’s awakened over the past year.

Sprites drop down from the trees, luminous and temperamental. They shake their fists at me, intolerant of my presence like most of Jeb’s creations. When they start darting at me like marble-size hail, hard enough to leave welts, Nikki comes to my rescue with Chessie close behind. They round up the others and herd them toward the hookah haze. The sprites’ grumbles clang like silverware being tossed in a drawer as they retreat into the cloud.

“Carousing Cap!” Morpheus shouts from inside.

Chessie and Nikki dart out and disappear through the trees in search of Morpheus’s missing hat.

“You sent them after the wrong one,” I protest. “We won’t be doing any celebrating.”

“There’s a pity.” Morpheus’s voice floats out from the cloud, as sultry as the smoke that carries it. “You’re certainly dressed for it. Your mortal has outdone himself.” He puffs and a wisp of smoke drifts toward me. “I suppose, though, since we shan’t be showing off your stu

The skin under my lingerie tingles. I stiffen my chin, determined not to let him see his effect on me. “I saw the rooms.”

“Ah,” comes his disembodied answer without a hint of surprise. “Well, before you rain down all the usual accusations, I should clarify that I wasn’t going to let you kill Red. Not until we flush her from your mortal toy’s system.”

I fake a laugh. “Right. You want Jeb dead as much as her. Two birds with one stone.”

“If that were true, he wouldn’t be here now. When we landed, the goon birds started swarming overhead. They prefer live food, so I faked killing Jebediah. I hid him to protect him, just as I’ve been doing ever since.”

Taking a few steps closer, I stub the toe of my boot on a baseball-size rock. I pick it up, rolling its smooth surface between my lacy gloves. “You’re not protecting him. You’re hoarding him. He’s your crown jewel. With the magic he rations out to you, everyone treats you like a king—” I stop myself short because it’s a role Morpheus will play again for real, if I pledge my eternal future to him one day.

His deep chuckle curls up on a tail of smoke. “Does it ever disarm you, Alyssa . . . how well we see through one another? It does me.” His voice softens on the admission—a depth of vulnerability he doesn’t often use.

Of course it disarms me; everything about him does. I toss the rock from one hand to another. “Birds of a feather. Yada yada yada. The cliché is kind of boring.”

“I rather like to think of us more as moths of a flame. And trying to predict which of us might get burned first is far from boring, luv.”

A trickle of excitement drizzles through me at the underlying challenge. “You realized Jeb had been touched by magic. That’s why you saved him.”

Another chuckle thickens the smoke around the mushroom cap. “I saw crimson dribbling from the end of the vine and the purple light under his shirtsleeve. Somehow, the iron dome caused a magnetic reaction, merging my and Red’s magic into him. Yes.”

“So, that’s when you came to the mountain?” I press.

“Jebediah did a sketch with some mud out in the open. His creation came alive. So we made a makeshift paintbrush and paints. With those, he hollowed out the mountain and tamed the ocean and its inhabitants by altering the existing world. It’s how his landscapes work: He reshapes the water into lakes and moats . . . molds the terrain to mountains, hills, or valleys. Each time I venture out, he changes my surroundings to keep the wildlife confused and clear of my path. But this ability has emotional limitations. Though he has no trouble conjuring landscapes and crafting creatures, when it comes to his more personal paintings, he’s plagued by an artist’s block. And the less satisfied he is with the results, the deeper he falls into despair, which gives Red’s magic a tighter hold on his muse.”

My eyes water, either from the smoke or my fear for Jeb’s sanity. His warning to Morpheus when I first saw them together in the studio makes sense now: Remember what happened when her face turned up in my paintings. “Something went wrong when he tried to paint me.”

“He could never get you right. You were missing legs and arms. Gaping holes in your face. Just like the self-portrait he made.”

My stomach knots. “But I thought the other paintings attacked CC.”

“Sometimes the paintings attack one another. But that one was Jebediah’s doing. He can’t see past the broken image that his father trained him to see. So he ca

I lean against a tree and press the cool rock against the ring hanging under my shirt, to ease the pricking sensation in my chest behind it. No wonder rage and violence are ruling Jeb’s heart. He’s subsisting on powers siphoned from two of the most potent, brilliant, and manipulative Wonderland denizens. He’s at war with himself trying to contain it. Just like I used to be. Yet his struggle is greater, because he’s two parts netherling to one part human.

I close my eyes. “He must’ve felt so alone.”

There’s a grunt inside the cloud. “Truly, Alyssa. You wound me. I’m grand company.”

My eyes snap open. “You lied to him. You didn’t want him to know it was Red’s magic that was making him hate me. How did you pull that off? He had to see those memories in the rose-petal room.”

“In spite of the magic he wields, your mortal is out of his element here. He’s had no one to trust but me. No one to confide in but the source of his power. So when I told him the images in the rose-petal room were my memories, of times I’d spent with the royal family, he had no reason to question my sincerity.”

I tighten my fingers around the rock. “Sincerity. Like you know what that is. You let him get eaten up by her hatred just to drive a wedge between us.”

Morpheus clucks his tongue from inside his clouded veil. “Had he known about Red, he would’ve turned her magic against me. Killed me with a flick of his wrist. It was self-preservation. The fact that it put distance between the two of you, that was simply a fringe benefit.” A tendril of smoke lifts free and breaks into vaporous shapes: hearts, rings, music notes.

I growl. “Yeah. Anything that gives you an advantage.” I wave away a smoky heart, breaking it in half.

A large, dark wing cuts the smoke and disappears again, enveloped in the haze. “You’ve driven me to it. You have that boy on such a high pedestal. It’s far too slippery up there for one so unprincipled as a solitary fae. It’s not as if I haven’t tried to drag him down. I looked inside his soul. Hoped to find his weaknesses. Only to discover that even those could be considered strengths under the right circumstances.”

“Wait. What?” I glare at the cloud, wishing he would come out and face me. “What do you mean, you looked inside his soul?”

“I rode the memory train a few months after you left Wonderland. Before you and Jebediah visited on the day of your prom. How’s that for sincerity?”