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 annoyance.
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 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."
My mom looks up, the whites of her eyes rimmed with red. Even in her sadness, she's beautiful, her skin luminous and smooth as if she were twenty years younger. "No. Not yet. She still has another life to live."
Ivory winds her snowy white hands together. "If you want her to live at all, this is the only way. I've already summoned Grenadine to send the crown via Rabid. They're in the north tower, so he shall be here soon."
"We can't do this." Mom stiffens her shoulders. All vulnerability has faded from her expression. Her wings rise tall behind her. She's determined, ready to fight.
Ivory steps closer and places a hand on her arm. "By putting the crown on her head, we will renew her netherling heart. She will return to the age she was when she came last year, the age of her coronation. And she will be stronger than ever before."
Mom arranges the dreadlocks around my head. "But her human half is too weak to endure the surge. It will die. And she'll always be haunted by its absence."
"We can give her a forgetting potion," Ivory suggests. "Banish the memories. She'll be the Red Queen, with nothing human to impede her reign."
"And in the process," Morpheus says from beside the fireplace, "you'll destroy some of her best qualities."
Mom and Ivory glance at him, as if taken aback to hear those words coming from his lips.
He sits hard on the chaise lounge, wings draped over the back, then slouches with elbows on knees. The silvery flames flicker across his bejeweled face. "What of her whimsy and curiosity, her compassion and loyalty? Her imagination, her dreams. These are all part of her humanness."
My mom stares at him in disbelief. "This is thanks to your schemes. You pressured her to choose you…to choose Wonderland over her other side. What did you think would happen?"
Morpheus hunches lower, miserable.
"Alison." Ivory sits beside Mom on the mattress. "You are being too harsh. This rift was not caused merely by her efforts to choose between her worlds or between her love for Morpheus and her mortal knight. Red put a spell upon her netherling side, in hopes it would dominate and destroy the other one. You cannot blame him for that."
"I can, because it all started when Allie came here last summer." Mom glares at Morpheus again. "Now you're finally going to get what you wanted. To have her here in Wonderland with you. To have her break all ties with mortals forever. You should be celebrating. You won."
"Won what?" Dad asks from the door.
Before anyone can answer, Jeb comes up behind him. He curses and rushes to the bed with Dad.
Ivory moves aside while explaining everything, including the plan on the table.
Dad starts toward Morpheus. "Are you happy? You made it all about Wonderland. Now she'll be a queen without a family who loves her."
Jeb grabs Dad's arm before he can get across the room. "Thomas, it wasn't just him. We were pulling her apart, too. Trying to convince her to stay in our world. We have to be unified now, to think of Al and how to keep her alive." There's torment behind his green eyes, because he knows he's about to give me up forever. But there's no doubt, only pained resignation.
"Jebediah is right." Morpheus meets Jeb's gaze. An unspoken understanding passes between them. "But this isn't the path to Alyssa's salvation. Were she able to speak for herself in this moment, she would insist there must be another way."
"I can think of none, and we're out of time," Ivory answers sadly. Her wings hang low at her back, appearing heavy.
"Put her on ice then," Morpheus suggests. "Freeze her heart and give us a chance to come up with options."
Ivory agrees.
An arctic surge rushes through me and my blood slows in my veins, like icy slush. The pain in my chest vanishes.
Mom pets my frozen hair and Dad slumps to his knees next to Jeb, burying his face against my frosted gown.
"If only we still had the diary," Jeb says absently, rubbing my fingers inside his, as if trying to keep me warm. "The magic inside. Maybe we could've used it somehow."
Morpheus tilts his chin. "The diary. Of course." He stands and stares pointedly at Ivory. "We're looking at this all wrong. We need to think of her heart as an object…like a toy. What makes abandoned toys such powerful casings for Sister Two's souls? 'Tis not so much what they are, but what is used to seal them."
"A child's love magic." Ivory purses her pale pink mouth. "It could work, since you've both shared her childhood at different times."
"It's worth a try, at the very least," Morpheus adds.
Ivory nods, then casts a wise and knowing glance from him to Jeb. "The seal would only be a temporary fix, to hold her together until she can heal. You both must be willing to compromise…see past your needs, and accept that she is meant for more than fulfilling your expectations for her. You will have to support one another as constants in her life if you're to bridge her human and netherling heart. She must live in both worlds for equal amounts of time. This will allow her heart to grow and mend, piece by piece. Once it has healed and is unified, she'll no longer need the sutures, and she can endure being crowned without losing either part of who she is. Are you willing to let her have this dual future? The decision falls to you. She's too weak to make it for herself. Red's greed and vengefulness saw to that when she made Alyssa's heart the battlefield."
"I'll do whatever it takes," Morpheus and Jeb answer simultaneously without hesitation.
The bubble in Ivory's hand bursts, Chessie rematerializes, and the moment is gone.
I frown, overwhelmed by Jeb's and Morpheus's devotion, but still confused.
Ivory lays my palm over my heart. "What do you see inside?"
I curl my fingers into a fist. "Some of my happiest memories with each of them, when we were younger. But it's from their points of view, not mine."
"Therein is the magic. They have both loved you with a child's love, and now a man's. It is the child's love that holds you together…cemented by the moments you shared with them that they treasure most. They had to bare their minds, hearts, and souls to one another and send the sentiments directly into you, riding on their magic to seal the two halves of your heart. Those are the sutures. And their love for you as men has given them the strength to look past their pride and compromise. Throughout the day, you will spend your human life in the mortal realm, but at night, as you sleep, Morpheus will bring you here in your dreams. You will continue to learn the politics of our world and acquaint yourself with your subjects and your dominion; you'll learn to trust, understand, and work with him, so one day-should you choose to wed one another and reign together-your bond will be unbreakable. And Wonderland will be unassailable."
I'm astonished that both guys would agree to the arrangement. Especially Morpheus…because he has to go back to dream duty and wait to be with me in reality. He said he was done waiting. Would he really postpone our life together and the birth of our son? Our son…
I grasp Ivory's hand. "Wait. Sister Two. We have to appease the need for borogroves in the cemetery. There must be dreams for the restless souls. Or else she'll keep taking human children. She won't have a choice."
Ivory studies my face. "At last you realize the rules are there for a reason, even if they seem barbaric. But in truth, I should like to see this particular practice altered, every bit as much as you. Our kind has never been in the business of seeking the most humane way to do things. We're of an ends-justify-the-means mentality. But with two queens who care enough to find another way, this can change. And our realm will be stronger once we need not rely on outside commodities." The black dragonfly-wing markings that flank her temples crinkle in thought. "For now, we have a compromise that will last as long as your mortal knight lives. He has volunteered to be Sister Two's dream-boy."
My stomach falls.
Dream-boy. I'm slammed with the image of my Dad's brain being siphoned of dreams and nightmares as a child. My hallucination in the hospital a month ago comes full circle: Jeb sheathed inside a thick sheet of spider silk, me slicing it open, then him staring dead-eyed back at me. Was it a vision all along?
Ivory didn't mention him in her earlier explanation of my future, only that I would live out my life in the mortal realm.
Jeb is planning to sacrifice his existence so no more humans will suffer, because that's what he does. He protects the vulnerable. No matter what it costs him.
My skin flashes hot and cold. Not this time. Not when he's finally found his way.
Without another word to Ivory, I scramble up and sprint out the door, insisting Chessie show me where Jeb is. He takes to the air in front of me with Nikki skirting behind. Ivory calls out, but time is too precious. I don't stop.
I turn a corner that opens to a long, sleek corridor.
There's no traction on the white marble floors. My bare feet slip. Righting myself, I untie my makeshift robe and leave it behind as I release my wings and take flight down the wide expanse. I pass a dozen or so elfin knights who watch with detached curiosity, but make no move to stand in my way.
I don't even feel embarrassed that I'm wearing a transparent gown. There's no need to be proper or modest. I'm the Red Queen: untamed, wild, and maniacal. I dare anyone to question my choice of clothes.
I'm on a mission. Sister Two isn't going to use Jeb up until his heart stops and he's a dreamless corpse.
That is not the ending my mortal knight deserves.
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