by A. G. Howard
Discomfort slinks into my bones as I consider the wraiths I tamed in the gym. To imagine Dad’s nightmares as any more ghastly than those makes my skin crawl. “How could he have found his way to the looking-glass world as a child? I thought the only entrance was through Wonderland, the tulgey forest.”
“Morpheus once told me there’s another way in, from the human realm. There’s a way to open mirrors without keys, an ancient trick that only the anointed knights know.”
I stand, needing to move or I’ll throw up. “So, you think when Dad was a kid, he got inside through a mirror and ended up crossing AnyElsewhere all the way to the other gate that leads to the tulgey wood … inside Wonderland?”
Mom shrugs. “That would explain how he fell into Sister Two’s keep. The answer is in his lost memories. But I can’t watch them again. It felt like I was betraying him. Viewing pieces of his life that he would never have access to. That’s not right. No. We just have to move forward. We’re his family now, and that’s enough.”
I sit again and try to digest everything she’s told me. The quiet becomes unbearable. I’m hyperaware of the time passing, and of Jeb in the next room filling his head with lost memories. There’s nothing I can do now about my family’s messed-up past, but there’s still a mosaic to find and a battle to fight.
“You’re right,” I say to get us back on track. “We need to move forward. Why are you here? Did Dad tell you what happened at school?”
She nods and plays with the straps on her tote bag. “I knew he was keeping something from me. I finally got it out of him. He wanted me to go with him to look for you because he was afraid to leave me alone. But I insisted on staying behind in case you came home. When he left, I called for Chessie. He led me here.”
“But we don’t have any mirrors at home. And you don’t drive.”
“I have a mirror in the attic, Allie. A netherling always has an escape plan. Surely that’s one of the first lessons Morpheus taught you.”
I smile sadly. I hope he remembered his own lessons. I hope he had an escape plan to get out of Sister Two’s web.
I consider telling Mom that he lied to me, that it’s his fault everything is such a mess in the human realm, but after seeing what he did for my dad and watching my mom betray him—no matter how happy I am that she made those choices—it doesn’t feel right to let her rake Morpheus over the coals.
I understand now, why he needed me to experience Dad’s memories for myself. He knew I wouldn’t have believed him if he just told me. It’s so hard for me to accept the good in him.
Though that’s starting to change.
I see why he hid so much from me about the tests last summer. Why he kept me in the dark as I fulfilled his plan, bit by bit. He was honest with Mom in the beginning, and she made him believe she’d be the one to help him. Then she backed out at the last minute.
He wasn’t about to take the chance I would do the same, not with his spiritual eternity in the balance. Although it doesn’t excuse everything he’s done, it does make his motivations sympathetic. More human than he’d ever dare admit.
“What’s in the bag?” I ask as Mom tugs the canvas straps toward us.
She pulls three mosaics from the tote. “Chessie said you found the others, but he wouldn’t tell me where.” She waits, as if thinking I’ll fill in the blanks. When I hold my tongue, she continues. “These are the ones I had hidden.”
My blood races, and I get on my knees to help her lay them out. “Mom, you’re the best.”
She beams.
Some of Chessie’s sparkly silt remains on them. I copy Ivory and smear the residue around on the one mosaic I have left to decipher.
The animation shows some sort of celebration. A crowd of creatures weaves through barren trees. A few have crowns; others have beaks or wings. All of them wear masks. Some glide and float, as if standing on magic carpets. Chaos erupts when feral toys bust out from the shadows, attacking the creatures.
An uneasy dread uncoils in my chest as the image blurs away. I look at Mom, who’s watching over my shoulder.
“Red,” I murmur.
She tucks the mosaics away in her bag again, her mouth pressed into a worried line.
“I was wrong.” I nibble my lip. “I thought that the one I hadn’t seen yet was the end of the war. But that was the first one I made, Mom. It’s the catalyst. You’ve been to Wonderland. You saw places I haven’t seen yet. Can you tell me where the party is?”
“It looked like a forest,” she answers, her voice shaky. “But I didn’t recognize it.” She rubs her temple. “I don’t understand how Red could release the restless souls. Sister Two isn’t one to let her guard down. Especially not since she lost your father.”
I gulp. Mom doesn’t realize Sister Two has discovered who stole her prize in the first place.
I take both her hands in mine, putting on a brave face so she won’t see my fear. “Sister Two’s not in Wonderland to watch her side of the cemetery. She’s here. She knows you stole Dad all those years ago.”
Mom pales. Her fingers go limp, and for a minute I think she’s going to faint. “She’s coming after Thomas?” she whispers.
“Dad’s safe. No one knows who the dream-boy grew up to be, other than Morpheus and Ivory. Sister Two just wants revenge.” I try not to let my voice waver. “She has her sights on Jeb.”
“No.” Mom’s face falls even more. “I’ll help you protect him.”
The offer means so much, considering how she’s always tried to keep me and Jeb apart. I think now I understand. He reminded her of Dad in too many ways: a young mortal man with a noble heart at the mercy of a cruel Wonderland.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Jeb’s here with us on the train. He’s getting a chance to relive last summer. He’ll be safer with the memories intact.”
“It should never have come to this.” She’s about to break into tears again.
We don’t have time for any more regret. I stand and offer her my hand. “I think Morpheus hoped I would forgive you if I saw Dad’s memories. He hoped you would forgive yourself, and we’d find our way back to each other. He wants us to work together. It’s the only way we’ll have the power to stop Red and send Sister Two packing. Are you up for it?”
She clasps my hand and nods. In the time it takes her to stand, the fear and trepidation fall away from her face. She looks determined, regal. Her confidence feeds mine, and we step out the door arm in arm.
I run smack into Jeb’s solid chest. He’s against the wall on the other side of our door. One look at his face and I know he’s remembered everything.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge my mom, just stares at my wings, then at the netherling patches around my eyes.
Mom squeezes my arm. “I’ll keep the conductor occupied. But don’t take long. We have to find out where Red’s sending her army.” Before walking down the aisle, she touches Jeb’s shoulder.
He meets her gaze, and an unspoken understanding passes between them. Then she makes her way to the front of the passenger car and whispers something to the conductor, coaxing the beetle outside.
Without a word, Jeb takes my hand and leads me toward his room. Expression set in stone, he guides me in and closes the door behind us. It’s identical to the room I was in, only Jeb’s cologne mixes with the almond scent and his plate of cookies is empty except for some crumbs. The theater curtains are still drawn open on the stage, as if it’s ready to start playing his memories again.
I watch him and shiver, unbalanced by his silence. As hard as I try, I can’t talk, either. What would I say? How do I explain a yearlong lie so life-altering?
He steps close, traces the patches around my eyes with the lightest touch, then surprises me by spinning me around. He touches my wings, arranges them with gentle veneration, as if they were the train to an heirloom wedding gown. He draws me close to his chest and nuzzles the tangled hair bunched at the back of my head.
“I never got to touch them,” he says,
voice muffled. “Not once. But he did, didn’t he?”
How do I answer that? I’m glad my back’s to him, that he can’t see my face, afraid of what my expression would say.
He strokes my wings—featherlight—affecting every sensory receptor in my body. “Tell me that’s all he touched, Al.” He opens his palms along the veinlike cross sections, letting them graze the jewels.
My heart skips a painful beat. “I kissed him.” It’s brutal to admit it out loud, but I can’t lie anymore. “I was trying to get my wish back, so I could save us.”
Jeb makes an anguished sound, somewhere between choking and growling. I need to see his face—even if that means him seeing mine.
He steps away from me, leaving my back and wings cold. I turn, and his muscles tense. With a snarl, he shoves the chaise lounge and sends it scraping along the wall. It knocks over the table and shatters the empty plate. My body goes rigid at the sound.
“Morpheus.” Jeb bites down on the name, as if trying to chew it up. “He visits your dreams and flies with you. How can a human compete with that?”
“This isn’t a competition,” I say. “I made my choice.”
“Is that why you lied for so long?” He won’t meet my gaze, concentrating instead on his boots. “Because you made your choice?” His jaw clamps so tight I can see the muscles twitch beneath the skin. “No. You lied because I’m just a skater. Just an artist. I have nothing to offer. He can give you a world of magic and beauty.” His eyes slowly trail up to mine. They’re like a forest trampled by a storm. “A world that you were born to rule.”
Words bottle up inside me. I’m so furious, I want to shake him. How is it possible he watched everything play out yet overlooked the most important part of our journey? What we learned about ourselves, about each other?
No. He’s going to watch those memories again a second time, and I’ll make sure he sees what I see.
I sidestep him and turn the dial on the wall to dim the lamp. The screen lights up. This time, I’m pulled into his point of view, seeing things from Jeb’s eyes. Fighting the flower fae, defeating the octobenus, figuring out how to wake the tea party guests.
There are things that are new to me, like him rolling me over to face him while I slept in the rowboat, stroking my hair and promising to keep me safe. Or how the sprites lulled him to sleep while we were apart at Morpheus’s mansion, how they tried to make him forget me, but my face kept surfacing in his dreams. And how hard he fought to escape when Morpheus shrank him and put him in the cage, while I was being forced to win the crown.
Then the most dreaded scene comes, the one I’ve only imagined in my darkest nightmares.
Gossamer slips into Jeb’s cage, her size matching his. Seated atop a wedge of pear tottered on its side, she tells him my fate. I feel his terror and helplessness as he leaps up, so desperate to get to me he pounds his head against the cage until his skin is gashed.
“Would you die for her, mortal knight?” Gossamer’s words stop him.
Hands clenched to the bars, he looks at her, blood drizzling into his eyes—burning. “If it will send her home.”
Gossamer stares back, unblinking. “Are you willing to go beyond death? To be lost to everyone, even yourself, in a place where memories wash away with a tide as dark as ink? For in order to free Alyssa, you will have to take the Ivory Queen’s place in the jabberlock box.”
There’s a moment when he hesitates. I feel it: his heartbeat stumbling for self-preservation, his mind racing to find another way. Then, his heartbeat slows, resolved again.
“Yes. I’ll do it.”
“And so you shall.” Gossamer flies him out of the cage, leading him to a pewter box the size of an armoire.
Jeb strokes the giant white-flocked roses on the outside of the box, studying Ivory’s face as it bobs to the surface. He draws a knife from his pocket. Rolling up his sleeve, he runs the flat side of the blade across his arm as he considers the roses. His canvas. His shoulders slump, defeated. “It’ll take every drop I have.”
“Is that not the true meaning of sacrifice? Giving more than you ever thought you had, to save the one you love?” Gossamer asks from behind him.
His jaw tightens. “Is there a paintbrush?”
The sprite hands him one.
He concentrates on his hands. They’re fidgeting against his will. “I—I can’t stop shaking.”
Gossamer squeezes his wrist. “You can. You are an artist. And this is the most important piece you will ever create.”
Jeb dabs at the beads of sweat inching along his forehead. “My old man never thought I’d accomplish anything with my art.”
Gossamer smiles sadly and hovers in midair to give him room. “Then with every stroke, you will prove him wrong.”
Jeb grinds his teeth against the pain as the snow-white roses turn red with each sweep of his brush.
The image flicks off, the curtains drop, and the lamp snaps on.
Jeb and I face each other.
“You tell me,” I say over the emotions piled like rocks in my throat, “how can anyone compete with that?” Tears gather behind my eyes, but I hold them at bay. “Just an artist. You painted my freedom with your blood. Just a skater. You flew across a chasm on a skateboard made of a tea tray to get me to safety. You don’t need magic, Jeb.” I touch his face, and he leans his stubbled cheek against my palm, all of his anger and hurt seeping away. “You held your own against everything that was thrown at us, using only human courage and ingenuity. You’re my knight. There’s nothing left to prove anymore. Not to your dad, not to my mom, not to Morpheus, not to me. You’ve already proven you’re the guy I always knew you were. The guy I love.”
Urgency darkens his eyes. He drags me roughly to him, kisses my eye patches, then glides his lips to mine, his thumbs against my temples, caressing sweetly. He tastes of moonbeam cookies—almonds, sugar, and enchantments.
He pulls me into his arms and holds me so tight my lungs can barely expand. I nuzzle the soft hairs where the jacket opens at his chest. Even with our frayed emotions surfacing, being wrapped in his warmth is still the safest place in the world. I never want to leave.
“What happened after that?” he asks against the top of my head, his voice so hoarse it chills my momentary bliss. “I need to know what you gave up to get me out of the box. It had to be more than a kiss.” He pushes us an arm’s length apart. “You have to tell me, Al.”
I lead him to the overturned chaise lounge. He flips it upright and we sit. I tell him everything: how I used my one wish, how I battled Queen Red, and what Morpheus gave up for me, so I could return home. Then I break down and tell him how Morpheus has come back. How he tricked me. But I can’t say why, because I’ve made a life-magic vow.
“So Red is back, too,” Jeb mumbles.
“She plans to destroy Wonderland. I’m the only one who can stop her.”
The dread on Jeb’s face makes my blood run cold. “Why you? Let Morpheus face her.”
“Morpheus isn’t here to face her. He put himself between Sister Two and us, so I could get you to safety.” A sharp jolt of worry stops me short. Why hasn’t he shown up yet?
Jeb scrubs his face with a hand. “Okay. Set aside the fact that he’s done one or two noble things. He dragged you into this, using me to do it. You walked away from that world. You chose our side of your blood. Chose to stay here. But he didn’t respect that choice, and he manipulated you into his plans again. You can’t go back there. You nearly died the first time, masquerading as one of them.”
Everything else Jeb says falls on deaf ears as the word masquerading echoes in my head like a gong.
My mosaic.
The creatures weaving through barren trees, some wearing crowns, others beaks or wings. All of them wear masks. It’s a masquerade. The wings and beaks and crowns are part of the costumes. Fairy-tale costumes. The forest is made of props, probably whatever trees they could salvage from the burned-out mess I left behind in the gym. The creatures gli
ding on magic carpets are people skating.
Underland.
And the senior class’s collection for the orphanage—the perfect cover for an army of undead toys.
My face burns. “We have to get my mom. Now.” I catch Jeb’s hand and force him to stand, towing him to the door.
“Why?”
Queen Grenadine’s ribbon flickers through my thoughts again, along with its odd wording: Queen Red lives and seeks to destroy that which betrayed her.
“That which betrayed her,” I say, weighing each word. “Red wants revenge on the life I chose to live over her. In her mind, that’s what caused me to betray her. My normal teenage life. She’s planning to attack prom!”
We lost track of time while on the train. Night has already fallen over London when we fly back to the garden mirror beneath the dim glow of starlight. Mom can’t use her wings without ruining her dress, so she and Jeb ride on moths and I carry the backpack. On the way, we make a plan for prom.
To keep Dad home and safe, Mom’s going to slip him some of my sedatives. No one from school has seen my gown except Jen. Once I have my mask on, I should be able to sneak by, and Mom’s already signed up on the chaperone list. Jeb still has a key to Underland from when he worked there last year. He’s going to smuggle us in before the other kids and chaperones arrive. I’m surprised he hasn’t put up a fight about my part in the plan. Maybe because his sister could be in danger. Whatever the reason, it’s great to have him watching my back without standing in my way.
If we don’t find anything suspicious before the party starts, we’ll just blend into the crowd and guard the mirrors on the dance floor wall. Hopefully we’ll stop Red before she can come through and start a war. If we keep this first mosaic from coming to pass, maybe the other events will never take place. The biggest challenge will be our impaired vision. Underland is strictly glow-in-the-dark.