“Seems that way. But I only have a few hours left me—she did not return to me today. So I’m not sure that it matters.”
Hades snorted, sounding almost angry. “If you give up now, then you deserve the fate you get.”
Those words had sounded far more personal than they should have. Lifting a brow, I gave a slight shake of my head.
“I didn’t let you into my world, boy,” he snarled, “to have you piss away the privilege all because the task is too hard.”
Finally intrigued enough to force my weary bones to move, I rotated on my arse until I was able to make eye contact with him.
Today Hades was dressed in knight’s armor the shade of deepest shadow with wickedly long, curving horns on the helmet and a broadsword in his fist that flamed neon blue. The helmet was open around the eyes, nose, and mouth, allowing me to see the orange glow radiating through his gaze. His lips were set in a harsh, thin line.
We stared at one another for the longest time, and though he was a god of legend and I knew I should feel some sort of fear or dread of him—he was after all death incarnate—I was too exhausted to care.
Inhaling deeply, I finally said, “Are you certain you speak of me, Hades, and not yourself?”
“What?” he growled, causing the earth to rumble beneath me.
He could kill me. In fact, he looked like he wanted to with the way his free hand suddenly curled into a tight fist and the blue flames danced higher and brighter off the blade.
I shrugged. “You’ve taken a keen interest in mine and Alice’s affairs, and I cannot help but wonder why that is.”
Eyes thinning to dangerous slits, he growled. “I take a keen interest in anyone who moves through my kingdom. You, a living, it is unnatural. And I cannot help but wonder why I have allowed this farce to continue on. You tell your silly little story, trying to act as though her smiles and the sounds of her laughter don’t wound you. But I see inside you, Hatter. You will fail.”
His words pierced my heart like a blade, but deep down I was certain that his hatred was not for me alone. Death rested in his touch. If he’d truly wanted me gone, he could have done it already. No, Hades didn’t want me here, but not because I was a living.
“It isn’t my failure that’s bothering you. It’s yours. Somehow you see yourself in me, and you don’t like it.”
No sooner had the words left my lips than Death was upon me, body transforming into a black mist that undulated through the winds like a sail before reshaping into his familiar form, and yet not at all the same. His features—now gaunt and skeletal and radiating such power I had to clench down on my molars to keep from screaming at the sudden flash of agony I felt every time his breath washed against my flesh—were radically altered.
Just that slight touch felt like razor-sharp blades of fury and madness shredding me to ribbons. But I refused to be cowed. I was here for Alice and Alice alone. And though I’d lost hope of ever succeeding, I would not leave until the final grain of sand fell in the hourglass of my life. His upper lip curled, and then with a hiss, he pulled back.
Gone was the skeletal visage of death, again he was a man. But I knew who he really was. Blinking, I wet my lips and tried to still the heavy hammering of my heart in my chest, ignoring the beads of sweat that’d popped out along my forehead and brows and now ran down the sides of my neck.
“Your impertinence deserves death. No man has ever spoken to me thus. Who are you to dare?”
Giving my head a slight shake, I murmured, “I’m just a man, desperate to save a woman who no longer knows I exist.”
Whatever words I’d said stopped Hades cold. The flame died in his eyes, and his sword was now nothing but burnished silver.
“Save her, Hatter. Prove to me the impossible can be done.”
His voice sounded weary and full of gravel. And then he turned slowly, looking as heavy laden as I felt, his footsteps plodding as he moved through the constant wake of snow that floated down from the darkened skies above him.
Chapter 15
Danika
I watched it all with my heart in my throat, staring at the vision bubble and praying to all the gods above—that I did not even believe were capable of much more than fancy parlor tricks—for a true miracle. I felt much as Hades did.
Lost.
Alone.
And scared.
I understood the Lord of the Underworld in a way I’d never believed possible before. Any chance of reconciling Kingdom’s happily-ever-afters, let alone my own, was being played out before me through the eyes of another.
There were few romances I’d consider legend.
And though the stories had often shown Alice and Hatter to be crackpot and childlike, the truth was, their lives had always been inseparably bound. They were legend, and nothing without the other.
If those two could not succeed, then what chance did anyone else have?
Hades had been very clear that no one could interfere in his realm. He’d even banned Aphrodite. The poor dear wasn’t taking her exile well.
But I was no kind of fairy godmother if I didn’t allow myself to bend the rules now and then.
Hatter’s story was all well and good. But there was only truly one way to bring his Alice back. Magic had wrought this curse, and only magic could undo it.
The magic of love.
There were many different forms of love.
Eros.
Agape.
Pragma.
The last especially applied to me. Pragma was long-standing love. The kind that lasted an eternity. The kind that could only be built through long years together. Of all my Bad Boys, Hatter had always been a particular favorite.
It was wrong of me, I know. No mother ever wanted to admit to having a favorite, but I did.
How lost he’d been. How alone. And how mad.
I’d worried over him most of all.
And then when Alice had come, my love had simply encapsulated them both, cherishing her as I had him.
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye. For I knew what I was about to do would be irrevocable. I was a mother cleaved in two. Wanting to save her child. And wanting to selfishly save herself.
True love’s kiss was potent, so powerful that no dark magic could stand against it. Bringing my shaking fingers to my lips, I poured all that love into that kiss. And when I pulled my hand away, I stared at that glowing orb of love, feeling the pulse and sway of that most powerful magic dance around me.
Hatter’s cottage suddenly seemed to come alive. The plants that he had placed everywhere began to writhe and bloom. Bronzed miniatures he’d placed above his mantel—images of birds and monkeys and a horse—animated. The bird swooped into the air, its clockwork circuitry dinging with each flap of its gorgeous wings. The monkey chattered and hopped from vine to vine. And the beautiful mare rose up on her hind legs and neighed. A tiny field mouse that’d hidden itself in his living room popped his head out and looked at me—not with black beady, soulless eyes—but darling eyes that spoke of intelligence. And the name suddenly popped into my head.
Leonard.
As if he’d heard his name called, the mouse gave me one bobbing nod before scampering back down his hole. And then just like that, all the movement ceased. The plants were just plants again, the miniatures nothing but pretty works of art. And the mouse was looking for any crumbs of food.
I’d been shown a vision, and it only strengthened my resolve to do this. Though I knew the sacrifice I made, it was worth it if only to see Wonderland restored to the magical place I knew it could be again.
I could only use the magic of true love once.
My heart ached, knowing that as I did this, I gave up any chance to prove to Jericho who I really was. But a mother’s love was deep and unconditional, and it was all I had to give.
And whispering into that golden orb’s pulsing magical soul, I told it to go to him. The orb would have to battle through the darkness to get there. But it was a magic that not even
Hades could deny. I only hoped that it arrived in time.
And when it bobbed away from me, beginning its journey toward the underworld, I turned my eyes briefly up to the moon and whispered a heartfelt “I’m sorry, my beloved. Forgive me for what I’ve done.”
~*~
Alice
Such unbearable sadness beat at me that it felt like a millstone tied to my neck, dragging and pulling me under. Staring into the deepest night from high above the clouds, I was embraced by velvety twilight and the silvery glow of millions of stars. And I couldn’t help but imagine that Hatter would probably like it here. He seemed like the type who lived for the strange and unusual. I smiled wistfully and looked down toward my left. To where I knew he would be sheltered within a thick grove of trees.
Even now I was aware of him.
And thanks to the dreams, I was beginning to suspect there was so much more to his story than what he was telling me.
Standing, I wiped at the back of my pants, dusting off broken bits of twig and moss.
Why did I have magic?
That question would answer everything, I knew it. I’d lived in a land of no magic. Mundane. Boring. Sameness. There’d been sleight of hand, movie magic, and maybe even the occasional miracle.
But the real stuff, like transforming myself into a bird or creating a flower from nothing, that simply didn’t happen. Not in my world.
I’d winged over much of Elysium today, studying the spirits below me. Looking for any trace, any sign, of that kind of magic.
And I’d not found it.
I found ladies dancing. Not upon clouds or streamers of gold, but upon grassy, verdant knolls. Some men fought with swords, laughing and jesting as they drank tankards of ale and sang bar songs that seemed universal no matter what part of the world you’d come from.
But I hadn’t seen anyone transform into something like me. I hadn’t seen any other parts of Elysium change and alter as they often did around me. There was no snowfall or the roll of wind and thunder, just perpetual sunshine and blue skies.
People seemed happy and perfectly, boringly normal.
Clutching at my breast, I stared at the copse of trees hiding him. And in that moment I did not think of him as Hatter, but as “mine.”
Click.
Click.
Click.
I gasped, rocking suddenly back on my heels as though pushed by a giant’s hand, because suddenly a great swell of magic had just steamrolled through me. And I remembered why I’d gone to the river.
To forget him.
Because he’d betrayed me.
Images bombarded me then. Lying in that hospital bed, crying out for him. Believing myself mad and sick in the head.
“He never came.”
I sucked in a sharp, trembling breath and could not fight the tears anymore. They came in torrents.
I didn’t know how it was that I could remember—Lethe was supposed to have stripped me of it all—and yet I did.
With an angry and sharp cry, I jumped out of that nest, transforming mid-fall into my powerful alter ego, and winged toward him, crying out as I went, letting all the world hear my rage and sorrow.
I landed several wing strokes later, dropping with a jarring thud to the ground, not at all trying to hide my arrival, and stared at him through angry, beady eyes.
He looked up, weariness etched on every line of his face, and he did not get up, but there was a knowing look in his gaze that told me he knew I’d come awake.
Shifting, I stared at him coldly.
And time stretched her infinite fingers between us. The silence grew foreboding and fraught with tension. And I didn’t know what to say to him anymore. He’d lied to me.
None of that story he’d shown me had been real. True.
How could it have been?
Unless it hadn’t involved me at all and he really had had a great love he’d come to the underworld to look for.
That thought snatched the breath right out of me and caused my knees to suddenly buckle beneath me. I landed in a heap, digging my fingers into the ground and shaking my head as his image turned into a wavering mirage of tears.
“Why?” I croaked, hating to see the look of anguish in his eyes even as I cursed him for not coming to me when I’d still been alive.
I knew my reaction was irrational, but I couldn’t understand or process how it was that a man I’d almost come to believe couldn’t be anything other than myth now sat before me.
“Alice, I—”
And I couldn’t help my response to the sound of my name falling off his lips. Lashes fluttering, I cocked my head as my heart squeezed like a vise inside me.
“Who is she? Who is this woman you came here for? Who is your mine?”
His brows gathered, and even in the gloom of the night, I could make out every detail of his beloved face.
My thirteen-year-old memories of his ghost had been so eerily acute that even I was shocked I could ever, even for a moment, have forgotten him. There was a small scar just above his upper lip that added to his devilish appeal. The thick dark brows. The dark, knowing eyes that glinted with stolen bits of starlight trapped within. The razor-sharp cheekbones and square jaw so chiseled and perfect it was impossible that he could be real.
“Alice, don’t you know? You’ve woken up now, haven’t you pieced the truth together yet?”
I shook my head. “You never came for me. I cried out to you in that bed, surrounded by machines and people who called me a liar. My heart cried out to you, and you never came!”
“No!” he barked. “It’s not like that.”
And it was as animated as I’d seen him get in days. His face was contorted with what looked to be raw agony, and his hands were fists at his sides, but still he sat on his ass, not coming to me.
Just as before.
My jaw trembled. And the agony I’d thought I’d buried with the forgetting now came pouring out of me in a deluge. “Why, Hatter? What was so important that you could not come to me?”
The question was stupid—anything was more important than me. He hadn’t known me. And I’d barely known him, but there’d always been a certainty deep within me that he’d been mine and I’d been his. And that should I call him, or he me, we would always somehow manage to find our way to each other.
“Was it her? Is she here? Who is she, Hatter? Who?”
“Alice Hu, it’s you,” he said simply.
And I shook my head, trying to drown out those words in denial. “No. No. Don’t say that. Because that story you painted for me, it’s not real. We never built a life of magic together as you claim. It’s all been one huge, beautiful lie.” I hiccupped.
And I watched as his face crumpled and he made to stand. His movements were plodding, agonized, and I couldn’t understand what it was I was seeing.
“What is wrong with you?” For days I’d noticed something off about him, but seeing him now, as each step he took broke him out in a wash of sweat and twisted his face into a tight grimace of obvious pain, broke me.
I ran to him, grabbing his elbow and taking his weight upon me. “What’s wrong with you?” I practically screamed as he leaned so heavily against me that the only thing I could do was gently lower us to our knees. He was such a big man and far too heavy for me to bear the brunt of his weight for much longer.
He was gasping, his face white as a sheet, and shaking his head. “I had to touch you, Alice. Just once, when you know who I really am.”
And when his hand framed my cheek, I sobbed even harder, feeling broken in two and completely shattered. His thumb was so tender as he swiped at my tears.
“Don’t cry, my dark angel. I cannot bear it,” he said, but there were tears in his own eyes.
“You’re dying, aren’t you?” I squeaked out, my words reed thin and unbearable to think.
But when he did not deny it, I knew I was right.
“You bloody bastard.” I cursed at him, banging my fist against his chest. “How dare you die!
How dare you.”
And then he curved his hand behind my head and brought me into the cool shelter of his broad chest, and I trembled as I felt him place a kiss against my forehead.
“I was lost, Alice, lost and confused. So very confused. But we did live that life. And it was lovely. Everything we’d ever dreamed of.”
I wanted to embrace the lie, and so I did. I pretended with him. But in a sudden surge of strength, he gripped my forearms so hard that it made me gasp. I looked up into his eyes, which were bright with pain and alive with hope.
“Alice, it’s all true. Every part of it.”
“No.”
“Yes!” He shook me so hard that my head lolled. “And I am dying, Alice. You’re right. I came here to find you again. To try, somehow, someway, to break through the curse that drove us apart from the greatest and only love we’ve ever known.”
“No,” I said, the word only a mere whisper of sound.
But he heard, and a growl like that of a wounded animal spilled off his tongue. “Listen to me, my dark beauty. All I’m about to tell you is true. This life you knew, this life, was the lie. We were cursed. Much of Kingdom was cursed. Separated by some unseen hand. But you were once mine, all mine. And I was only ever yours. We lived a full life together, but I’m a selfish bastard and I want so much more. I want you back, Alice. I cannot exist without you. We are the story of legend, and I need you back. That is why I struck a bargain with the dark underlord himself to come find you. Alice, I am not dead. I am very much alive, but not for much longer. If you do not come with me, if you do not accept me as your own again, then I will simply cease to be. It is why I’ve so very little energy left to me. Please, Alice. Please, say you’ll come. Come home with me.”
Shocked by what he was saying, knowing that his mind was well and truly cracked—just as the stories always said they’d be—I stared at the beautiful man I’d thought I’d known, only to realize he was nothing more than a stranger to me now.
That life had never been. Though I wished it otherwise, I could never have forgotten a life that wonderful.
But I did not want him to die. He was the Hatter, after all, the object of my youthful infatuation and a man I’d come to care for deeply in the short time I’d gotten to know him.
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