Ensnared

My eyes tear up, because my magic is only as strong as I am, and Red’s is waning.

Morpheus strokes my hair where it hangs between my shoulder blades. “There is a silver lining, luv. You won’t have to cast her out. You’ll simply use her up. And then she shall be defeated at last. Gone forever.”

He doesn’t realize I’ve already used most of her up. In trying to keep myself alive, I’ve damned Wonderland to die. I never considered how closely entwined our fates might be.

I crumple, my palm skating along the tree’s frozen face as I plop to the ground.

“Alyssa?” Morpheus crouches beside me in an instant. He catches my chin and forces me to look at him. “Are you feeling anemic again?”

I struggle to breathe. It grates inside my chest, like inhaling angry bees. Blood creeps into my throat and gags me.

Morpheus’s jeweled markings flash through an anxious kaleidoscope of colors. He whips off his jacket, wraps me in it, and rolls up his shirt cuff. “Take off your boot so I can heal you.”

I clench my teeth against moving. The only way to manage the agonizing pain, to keep my heart from ripping any further, is to stay frozen like everything around me.

Morpheus gives up waiting, peels away the boot, and pushes up my legging’s hem. He traces the tattoo that he loves to tease me about, then presses our birthmarks together. A spark rushes between us, expanding like a flame through my veins. The power heals his neck and my arms, yet never quite reaches my heart.

During the euphoric rush of warmth, Morpheus’s gaze locks on mine and I’m bared to the bone. He sees what’s wrong.

“Oh, little plum.” His voice is a croak of despair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I clamp my eyes shut. “I’m sorry.” The apology turns into a wheeze.

“No,” he snarls. “You did try to tell me. In the mountain. And in Hart’s playroom. I was too bloody preoccupied to listen.”

No more guilt. He needs to be thinking of our home. “Find a way.” I gulp back another rush of blood and saliva. “Save Wonderland.”

Morpheus lifts me into his arms, cradling me gently. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.” Even though I can feel his warmth seeping through our clothes, I shiver.

Through half-lidded eyes, I watch blue lightning zap from his fingertips to the branches overhead. Using it like ropes, he tugs the canopy apart. His wings flap, stirring up snowy gusts. We launch out of the woodland and into the sky. Wonderland’s sleeping terrain passes beneath us at dizzying heights—white and glittering. Black fringe dots my peripheral vision.

My stomach kicks once, reminding me I’m alive. Then I close my eyes, and face the darkness waiting there.

The sound of chimes wakes me, tinkly and melodious. A flurry of sprites skitters along my body. My dreadlocks are gone and my hair fans my pillow in lustrous, white-blond waves. The sprites sweep makeup brushes and sparkling jeweled clips into place with as much precision and proficiency as an automatic car wash, leaving the scent of perfume and powder in their wake.

One sprite rushes by my nose and tickles the tip. She looks so much like Nikki, I do a double take. The itch she caused evolves to a sneeze, sending all the tiny fairies in a scatter like dandelion seeds.

They chitter in a

I rub my eyes, sit up, and take stock of my surroundings.

I’m sunken inside a large bed under downy quilts so white and fluffy they look like drifts of snow. The sprites gather up baskets from the white marble floor, four to a handle, and flitter through the half-opened door.

I blink. I’ve never been here, but I know this place from the sketches Morpheus once drew in the back of Mom’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland book. This is Ivory’s glass castle and I’m in an ornate chamber: glass walls frosted with ice to give me privacy from the other side, and crystal candleholders with no candles or wicks. Their silver flames float, like glowworms suspended in midair.

A crystallized chaise lounge sits in front of a fireplace where more silver flames crackle. Somehow, they give off heat and light without melting the ice on the walls. Mom and Dad sleep soundly atop the white cushion, her in his lap and their legs tangled together. His handsome profile is scruffy, his nose buried in her long, pinkish blond hair. The strands twitch, alive with magic. Her gauzy wings are folded behind her like a butterfly’s at rest.

They look so lovely together, the White knight and his fairy bride, in one another’s arms at last. In spite of all they went through to reach this place, their love never faltered. They deserve this more than anyone I know.

My heart swells with happiness and I prepare for the tearing pain that’s sure to follow. Instead, a small ripple echoes the emotion. It’s like a dragonfly butting against my sternum—delicate and exhilarated. I take a deep breath, stronger and more at peace than I’ve been since I began this journey, maybe in my whole life.

Something stirs in the back of my skull. Red is still there, curled up in mourning, but she’s losing power by the second. It’s just a matter of time until she seeps out of me and withers away to nothing. I’m the only thing holding her inside, though I can let her go when I’m ready. Her spell on my heart has been mended.

How?

I look down at the vintage nightgown covering me. It’s stitched of sheer white fabric and lace—as transparent as the glass surrounding this room—with slits in the back for wings. A lacy silver corset bodysuit offers a modicum of modesty underneath.

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 bu

“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.