A Study in Seduction

by Eva Chase

  I spun head over heels, plummeting downward so quickly my hair whipped across my face. A twisted version of the room I’d left shifted around me. Bookshelves curved, closing me in. Wrought-iron bars like the railing of the stairs crisscrossed over them. I groped for something to catch my fall, but my fingers never connected with anything solid. I careened on down and down, another cry slipping from my throat, toward darkness that was broken by a glint of light.

  I flipped again and plunged into a thicker darkness that closed around me with the cold wet texture of… water? All of a sudden, I was surging upward instead of falling, even though I hadn’t gotten any impression of turning around. The faint light was expanding over the rippling surface above me.

  I kicked my legs and swept my arms through the water, my lungs starting to burn. The currents coursed around me faster and faster…

  With a gasp, my head broke into the open air. I sucked as much as I could into my lungs and got half a mouthful of salty water at the same time. As I sputtered it back out, I swiped at my eyes to take a clear look at where I’d ended up.

  The salty flavor of the water had made me expect a broad expanse of ocean. What I saw looked more like a pond. I could make out the entire shoreline, from maybe twenty feet ahead of me to fifty feet on either side and a hundred or so behind me. Dark stones glittering with mica jutted along the water’s edge. The fronds of enormous ferns and huge waxy leaves from hunched trees shaded them. Over the top of one of the ferns ahead of me, I thought I made out a daisy bigger than my head.

  Where the hell was I? How the hell had I fallen into a mirror? I couldn’t wrap my mind around anything that had happened in the last few minutes, but I definitely didn’t feel secure treading water here over unknown depths.

  I swam for the nearest shore, up ahead, my feet never touching the ground. I had to haul myself out of the water onto one of the twinkling boulders. Drenched and dripping, I scrambled over the rocks onto a grassy path that led between the towering foliage. A rich floral scent wafted over me.

  My clothes were soaked, but the beaming sun warmed me enough to keep me from getting chilled. I wrung as much moisture as I could out of my top and my pantlegs while I watched and listened. Nothing much changed.

  I took one cautious step down the path and then another. After a few more, the foliage thinned enough for me to spot more gigantic flowers like the daisy protruding between the ferns. There was a lily I could have worn as a dress—and a decently modest one too. A tulip I might not have been able to wrap my arms all the way around. A begonia I could have used as an umbrella.

  The head of the daisy turned toward me. Its petals bent to form a sort of mouth.

  “Did no one ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”

  My jaw dropped. If I’d been staring before, my eyes must have been just about popping out of my head now.

  The tulip curled its… lower lip? “My goodness, they don’t teach the walking ones much in the way of manners these days, now do they?”

  I managed to stammer out a few words. “I—um—I didn’t—”

  The lily ruffled its petals and said in a matronly voice, “Now, dear, we’ll never understand each other like that. If you have something to say, do get on with it.”

  My legs wobbled under me. I stiffened them to hold myself steady. “I’ve never met flowers that could talk before,” I said. Had I hit my head somewhere in that fall? Or before? Everything since I’d touched the mirror might be a bizarre hallucination. None of this could be real… could it?

  “Well, it isn’t as if it’s all that strange,” the daisy said, sounding offended. “Why shouldn’t we talk? You can.”

  “Never thinking about anyone but themselves,” the tulip murmured, with a disapproving shake.

  I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, but the pressure felt completely real. Pinching my arm only made me wince. No, wait, that was for dreaming, not hallucinating. How did you wake yourself up from a hallucination? Could you?

  I couldn’t think of anything I’d ever read about that. But the longer I spent talking with giant flowers, the more my head was spinning. I could at least move the hallucination along.

  “Are there other people like me around here?” I asked. “The ‘walking ones’?”

  “Oh, I suppose we aren’t good enough company, then?” the daisy said with a sniff.

  “What did I tell you?” the tulip put in.

  “You look rather out of sorts,” the lily said. “Perhaps it would be better if you put down roots for a little while.”

  Not here. I sidestepped farther along the path. “I think I’ll go have a look for myself. It was very nice to meet you. Uh, goodbye!”

  Then I swiveled on my heel and hurried away. The flowers’ voices carried after me, one or another remarking about how polite I’d managed to be when I was leaving. I tapped my ears as if they might be the problem, but I could still hear them.

  The path opened up to a wider road cobbled with red and blue stones. Trees lined the road, their leaves so vibrant green—this one lime, that one more of a mint—that I had to blink as if a bright light had flashed into my eyes. I looked down the road to my right, saw nothing but more road and more trees, and then turned in the other direction.

  A figure was standing there, several paces down the road: a man in a deep violet suit with a matching top hat. The shirt underneath the jacket was white, but his tie gleamed a rich olive green. The outfit should have looked ridiculous, but somehow it fit him perfectly, from his broad shoulders down his otherwise lean frame.

  He was poised as if he’d stopped in mid-step to stare at me like I was staring at just about everything. As I took him in, he recovered himself. He strode forward with a swift grace that I wouldn’t have expected from his top-heavy physique. His eyes stayed fixed on me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, abruptly self-conscious. I hadn’t bothered with a bra for puttering around the house when I didn’t have much to hold up anyway, and my wet tank top was clinging to the unimpressive curves I did have. If I’d known I was going to be conversing with flowers and dudes who shared their fashion sense with Willy Wonka, I’d have picked my clothes a little more carefully.

  I didn’t have anywhere else to go, though, and this guy didn’t look threatening, just intense. So I stood and waited until he came to a stop a couple steps away. Spiky tufts of dark blond hair poked from beneath his hat, and he had at least a couple days’ scruff on his narrow jaw. His eyes, still studying me, were nearly the same rich shade of green as his tie. I’d never seen any depiction of Willy Wonka I thought was hot. This guy was definitely several steps up, weird clothes or not.

  “It looks as though you got yourself rather drenched,” he said in a light tenor that had a little bite to it. His lips formed a thin smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. I got the feeling he wasn’t all that happy to see me.

  “I, um—there was a pond—” I waved vaguely in the direction of the water. Okay, Lyssa, time to get a grip and find your tongue. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m not really sure where here is. So, any help in that department would be hugely appreciated.”

  “How exactly did you come to be here, then?” the guy asked.

  Good question. “Ah, there was this mirror, and I touched it, and I… fell into it somehow.” I peered at him, gauging his reaction, but really, how insane could that explanation sound to someone who lived in a world with giant talking flowers? He was either used to craziness, or he was part of my crazy hallucination.

  “Hmm.” The man adjusted his hat, his own gaze searching. I couldn’t tell what for. Then he held out his hand with the same tight smile. “I’m Hatter. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Interesting name, but I couldn’t say it didn’t fit. I gave his hand a quick shake, hoping mine was dry enough. “Lyssa.”

  “Lyssa,” he repeated. Something about the way he rolled the two syllables over his tongue, as if tasting them, sent a giddy shiver through me. He spun aw
ay from me in one smooth movement, motioning for me to follow him at the same time. “Why don’t you come to the city, and I’ll see what I can do with you. You never know who else you might run into wandering around out here.”

  I wasn’t sure running into him was the best luck ever, but at least he sounded like he was trying to help. I hurried after him, swiping my damp hair away from my face. “Thank you. I didn’t mean—if you were on your way somewhere else—”

  “Just taking a stroll,” he said. “I’d have ended up heading back this way anyway.”

  We passed more trees with their radiant leaves. Buildings came into view up ahead, some short and stumpy and others stretching several stories high, all of them a little odd. One had only windows on its first floor and what looked like a front door up on the third, doorstep and all. A bungalow there appeared to have been flipped right upside down. Another, taller structure shot up narrowly toward the sky with a bulge around its middle where one floor jutted out twice as wide. Farther in the distance, a silver spire of a tower glittered with the sunlight.

  The closer buildings were all painted in hues just as vibrant as the trees and the road and Hatter’s clothes: this one mauve and robin’s egg blue, that one crimson and daffodil yellow. Just looking at them made me feel dizzy.

  “People really like their bright colors here, huh?” I said when I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. In my pale peach top and gray pants, I stood out like a sore thumb. A very drab sore thumb.

  “It keeps us entertained,” Hatter said in an inscrutable tone.

  Some of the other people that “us” must have referred to ambled past us as the road veered into the city. A lot of them looked normal other than their flashy clothes, though no one else I saw wore the full suit-and-hat ensemble my companion had opted for. And some…

  My legs locked at the sight of a figure with a man’s body and a frog’s head, topped by a little wool cap. And there, a couple storefronts beyond him, was a sheep in a lavender sundress walking on its hind legs, a purse slung over its shoulder. My mouth opened and closed and opened—and Hatter tugged me off to the side by my elbow.

  “This way,” he said, the bite in his voice more obvious. I yanked my gaze away from the strange figures and followed him through the doorway of a shop that gleamed orange and turquoise, but at least had the doors and windows approximately where I’d have expected them to be.

  Hallucination, I reminded myself. Or else this place was simply crazy. Frog-dudes and walking sheep weren’t any weirder than me having a conversation with a daisy.

  The building we’d come into was a shop. Hats of all colors and shapes perched on display ledges and counters around the room. Hatter’s place of business, I guessed? He led me past all that to a door at the back, where a flight of stairs led us up to an apartment.

  Maybe I should have been a little more worried about going into some stranger’s home, but I felt a whole lot safer in here than I did out there with the animal-people. Especially when we stepped into the open-concept living-dining room, and I could breathe again.

  The wooden furniture was painted in a variety of colors but faded with time so the cacophony wasn’t anywhere near as stark as outside. The walls were a tame beige. Hatter motioned for me to sit at the little dining table, which had four seats around it: a bar stool, a beach chair, a beanbag cushion, and a velvet wingchair.

  “Let me get you something to dry yourself off with,” he said, “and then we can determine what to do with you.”

  What thrills and horrors will Lyssa discover in this bizarre world? You can start reading right now, free with Kindle Unlimited! Grab Wicked Wonderland here.

  About the Author

  Eva Chase lives in Canada with her family. She loves stories both swoony and supernatural, and strong women and the men who appreciate them. Along with the Moriarty’s Men series, she is the author of the Looking Glass Curse trilogy, the Their Dark Valkyrie series, the Witch’s Consorts series, the Dragon Shifter’s Mates series, the Demons of Fame Romance series, the Legends Reborn trilogy, and the Alpha Project Psychic Romance series.

  Connect with Eva online:

  www.evachase.com

  eva@evachase.com