Ensnared

  “No! I hate the wretch.” His face, crisscrossed with lacework shadows, grows somber. “I hate her with the same changeless passion with which I love you.”

  The confession is sweet in its simplicity, reminding me the emotions he feels are foreign to him; being a solitary creature, he doesn’t understand how deeply interwoven love is with trust. “You want me to believe in your love? Then no more secrets. If we’re going to be equals, we have to work together. You’re so used to being on your own, you don’t know how to trust anyone but yourself. That has to change. The human in me, she needs trust. Have faith that I’ll understand and won’t judge you. That I can find a way to help you. Maybe a better way.”

  His stubborn silence mocks me, so I turn to leave.

  “There is no better way!” The desperation in his voice causes me to spin and face him. “If there was, I would never ask this of you. Red put the spell upon Wonderland’s terrain. Only her magic can reverse the decay and return its original splendor. Without her, the nether-realm will fall to ruin, and nothing will redeem our world. Our home. Your kingdom. That’s why we have to smuggle her out . . . and the only way is inside you. You are her lineage, and the only one strong enough to harness her magic and use it for good once we cross the border.”

  Icy tendrils of frost gather around my backbone. “You expect me to let her live inside me forever?”

  He grips the lace again. “Of course not. Only until reparations are made. Then we rid ourselves of her blighted existence once and for all.”

  Chessie and Nikki burst into the room, stirring tiny gusts across my hair as they head toward the lacy prison. They swoop at the cranes in an effort to distract them.

  Jeb brushes past me at the door. His arm scrapes my wing, and a tingle radiates from its tip to my spine. He must’ve made it all the way to the diamond door then realized I wasn’t in tow. Before I can ask, he motions to the hall, where Dad is propped in a sitting position—sleeping soundly.

  Jeb studies the spectacle of the hissing cranes, Chessie, and Nikki, all tangled in the lacework. He turns to me.

  I give a halfhearted shrug.

  He flicks his hand and the gauzy wall dissipates, returning to strands of moonlight and freeing all its prisoners. Jeb commands his birds back into place on their screens. They squawk, step inside, and flatten to embellishments once more.

  Nikki flitters over and tunnels into Jeb’s hair, offering a jingling thank-you and twirling the silky waves around her like a dress.

  Chessie perches on Morpheus’s shoulder as he starts toward me. “Alyssa, you must see how crucial this is.”

  Jeb stops him, his palm on Morpheus’s chest. “Hold up there, moth-nugget. When I was coming back down the hall, I heard that you expect Al to let that monster possess her again. No way that’s happening.”

  Morpheus growls. “This does not concern you. You would rather break Alyssa’s heart than give up the power you crave and face the real world. So you have no say. It’s her choice to make. Her kingdom at risk.” He looks pointedly at me. “More than her kingdom.”

  Jeb shoves him and their bickering escalates. Nikki buzzes around, trying to referee.

  I look at my surroundings: the twisted magic everywhere, rooms filled with nightmares, my father propped against a wall, rendered comatose so he won’t turn to stone.

  Jeb wants to stay here?

  No. This place is poison. We have to get out. All of us; even if the only way to convince Jeb is to capitalize on his addiction to the power . . .

  Chessie catches my gaze, floating over Morpheus and Jeb’s tirade like a ball of glittery orange and gray ashes. His wide, wise eyes speak to me, forcing me to face what will become of him, of the whimsical and strange netherlings stuck inside the memory train in the human realm, of those in Wonderland. Forcing me to reconcile what will happen to them all, once their beautifully bizarre home rots beneath them. How lost they’ll be.

  A sliver of pain slides through the frost encasing my courage and cuts it with precision. There’s no question what has to be done.

  “I’ll do it.” Though my voice sounds like little more than a squeak, it stamps out Morpheus and Jeb’s yelling match.

  They both turn to me, deathly quiet.

  I lift my shoulders so my wings spread tall. “I’ll do anything to save Wonderland”—to save everyone I love—“because I’m responsible. I was weak. I won’t be again.”

  Joining hands to paws, Chessie and Nikki take to the air in celebratory spins.

  “Alyssa . . .” Morpheus’s demeanor is pure reverence. “I always knew you had the heart of a queen.”

  Jeb grips Morpheus’s T-shirt, gritting his teeth. “If you love her the way you claim, you’d let that witch possess you.”

  Morpheus glares at him. “We’re not of the same bloodline. And even if I could, only Alyssa has ever managed to overpower Red. It is fated that she carries her out and defeats her once and for all.”

  “Jeb, please. I’ve made my decision.” My throat hurts, even though I’m almost whispering. I’m so tired. “Dad needs some clothes, and a place to lie down.”

  Jeb releases Morpheus and heads toward the hall. His expression is contained fury as he lifts Dad onto his shoulder. “I assume you’re coming this time,” he grumbles, then starts down the long corridor once more.

  Trembling at the threshold, I cast a glance toward Morpheus. “She nearly tore my insides out once. Her mark is still there. I feel it.” I don’t tell him the rest: that it’s as if the strands of my heart are splitting, that I’m convinced it’s a magical effect from her possession, and each day it seems to rupture a little further. “I’m not sure I have the strength to rip her out again. Not without killing her and me both.”

  His expression shifts to something so close to worry, it freezes my breath. He looks down at the diary. “You have a weapon now. Her memories give you an advantage she’ll never expect. That will weaken her.”

  “We don’t even know that it will work,” I whisper.

  “It will,” he says. “It must.” The concern echoing in the fathomless depths of his eyes belies the confidence of the words. For the first time ever, he shares my doubts.

  We stay like that for countless seconds, staring at each other.

  When he reaches out to comfort me, I step backward into the hall. Without another word, I fall into line behind Jeb, unable to shake the dread that has wrapped itself around my neck in the form of a diary: a child’s toy that will either save my life, or bring it crashing to an end.

  Once we arrive at the lighthouse, Jeb carries Dad to the tower. He dresses him and calls me up. I cover Dad’s sleeping form with blankets then sit on the edge of the mattress beside him, taking off my boots.

  I’ve only been in the looking-glass world a little over a day, yet it feels like weeks. I can’t keep up with the passage of time here. And tonight promises to be the worst stretch of all as we wait to see if we’ll get Dad’s cure, or have to face the Queen of Hearts’s deadly caucus race.

  I stroke Dad’s head, expecting Jeb to try to discourage me from going along with Morpheus’s plan. Instead, he watches me silently as the moonlight and the lighthouse’s beam take turns illuminating the walls.

  “I checked his leg and the venom hasn’t spread,” Jeb finally says, his deep voice velvet-sweet like it was in the human realm, before Red’s magic infiltrated him. How ironic, that my heart isn’t the only one she’s tainted. It makes me hate her even more.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Jeb continues. “He’s the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

  The glimpse of the boy from my past is so vivid, I fall into old habits and spill my soul. “I had a vision about Mom, that she’s alive and safe. I think she’s sending messages through my dreams.”

  Jeb leans against the wall, not even questioning me. He’s seen and worked enough magic at this point to believe in the unbelievable.

  “What am I going to tell her if . . . ?” My voice trails off.


  “No, Al. He’ll get through this because he’s the one dreaming now.”

  I nod. “I hope he’s dreaming about being safe. About the things that make him happy.”

  “He’s probably fishing,” Jeb adds from beside the porthole. “Just like he used to take us.” He forces a short laugh, more sorrowful than happy. “Remember that time you dumped out a whole box of bait?”

  I almost smile. It was the summer before eighth grade. Dad bought crickets at the bait shop. “They were screaming for help.”

  There’s a thumping sound, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Jeb’s knuckles against the stone wall. “That’s when I first started falling for you.”

  I glance at him over my shoulder. With his tousled hair gilded in silvery starlight, he’s as lovely as any mystical sight I’ve ever seen. “You never told me that.”

  He turns his back to look outside. “You were so worried about those bugs. The same girl who stuck pins in them every day for her art. Yet you couldn’t shove a hook through them to catch a fish.”

  “Because they were already dead when I used them for mosaics. I didn’t have to hear their suffering.”

  “I didn’t know that. All I knew was there was so much more to you under the surface. So I started sketching you—trying to make it come through, to read between the lines.”

  He always drew me as a fairy, as if he really was deciphering my secrets. I’m heartsick that he’s lost the ability to paint me while he’s been here, that it almost broke him to try.

  “And your dad,” Jeb continues. “He didn’t get mad that you turned the bugs loose. He just pulled out the aluminum lures, and that’s what we used from then on. I never knew a father could be like that. Forgiving. Kind. He’s the best guy I know. Pretty sure he saved my life a time or two.”

  I sniffle and swipe my nose with the back of my hand, then tuck the blanket under Dad’s chin, studying his serene face. “He was supposed to be a knight.” My vocal cords constrict. “Instead, when Mom was committed, he had to be both parents. I used to think he was boring because of that. But that made him the biggest hero of all.” To keep from crying, I bury my face in Dad’s shoulder, taking comfort in the rush of his breath at my temple. His skin smells of the paint that earlier coated his body.

  I barely notice the weight settling beside me on the bed’s edge.

  “Al,” Jeb whispers, closer than he’s been since I first arrived at the mountain. His fingertips trace the edge of my wings.

  “I want my family back. I want you and Morpheus safe, and I want to fix Wonderland.”

  “I know.”

  His empathy strips away my defenses and I lift my face to unleash my darkest fear. “But I’m terrified to let Red inside me again.” I stop short of telling him why—that my heart feels like it’s breaking, literally—because he looks away.

  The mattress shifts as he stands. “I should go guard the entrances.”

  Though it’s not the pep talk or comforting hug I was hoping for, I try not to be disappointed.

  He heads toward the door. “Get some sleep, okay?”

  I nod. My body, heavy with exhaustion, wants to do just that: curl up beside Dad. But as Jeb’s boots clomp down the staircase, it dawns on me why he didn’t try to talk me out of going through with Morpheus’s plan. Jeb feels responsible for Dad’s plight. He thinks he can get the cure himself so I won’t have to face Red’s possession at all.

  Wonderland’s repair isn’t Jeb’s priority. Getting Dad and me to Mom safely is all he’s thinking about. But if he’s captured in that castle, they’ll use him as a vessel for their magic until there’s nothing left, just like Morpheus said . . .

  I close the curtains around Dad and race down the stairs. When I pass through the empty kitchen, dread comes to a rolling boil inside my veins.

  I shove through the door. “Jeb!”

  He’s already at the lower quarter of the winding stairs, silhouetted by shadows and headed toward the shore and the rowboat.

  “Jeb, wait!”

  I spur my wings to fly and land in the same instant he drops from the last step. Sand grits under my bare soles as I plant myself between him and the boat, out of range of the lighthouse’s beam. “Don’t do this.”

  He tenses, his T-shirt tightening around his muscles. “It’s my place.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s not about whose fault it is. It’s about destinies. I’m the one who has the best chance against Red.”

  I frown. “What are you talking about?”

  “Give me some credit. We’re artists. We know colors, how they combine. Red’s magic and Morpheus’s.” He holds up his wrist where his tattoo glows. “There had to be a reason mine was purple.”

  My jaw drops. “You knew?” I’m so astonished I don’t even move as he steps around me.

  “I’ve known all along. When did you figure it out?” he asks, unwinding the anchor rope from the post.

  “When I saw inside your rooms.”

  He pauses. Exhaling loudly, he sits on the boat’s bow. Elbows propped against his knees, he winds the rope between his fingers. “So you understand why I can’t leave now. My creations, they need me.” His misplaced devotion makes me ache. “Besides that, this . . . hatred. It’s become too big for the human world. I could hurt someone. Jen, Mom. You. I’d be just like my old man.”

  I tell myself the sting in my eyes is from the salty air. “No. You’ll never be like your dad. You’ve made conscious choices not to be. Even with Red’s venom feeding your soul, you’re still gentle with me.”

  “According to Morpheus, I almost strangled you a month ago in our world. When I was strung out on Tumtum juice at the art studio. You were so desperate to hide it from me, you made an irrevocable deal with the devil.”

  Anger crashes through me. So Morpheus did tell him. All because I wasn’t crafty enough to make him vow never to speak of it to Jeb. Well, I’m done being naive and careless with my words. From now on, I make life-magic vows that work to my advantage.

  This is why Jeb couldn’t paint my portraits. It wasn’t Red’s hatred, but his own guilt for almost choking me. My insides shrink, empathy causing the feeling instead of an enchanted bottle inside a rabbit hole.

  I watch the rope slide through Jeb’s fingers, his movements graceful despite his hands’ masculine shape.

  “I didn’t want you to have to struggle with what happened,” I say. “I was wrong.”

  He shrugs. “I’m not so sure, judging by the things I’ve created.”

  “No. It’s this place. Red’s influence. We just need to get you through the gate. Cleansed of her power. Then you’ll be yourself again.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve suppressed this rage for years. Coming here and hiding in this mountain, it gave me an outlet, brought it all to the surface. Now that I’ve given it free rein, I don’t know if I can control it anymore.”

  His face changes to that of the wounded little boy again. Morpheus was wrong. It isn’t me Jeb has given up on. It’s himself.

  I step closer, sand sifting under my feet, as I realize another truth. “Wait . . . if you’ve known all along about Red’s magic, you’ve been playing Morpheus, letting him think he was playing you.”

  “Yeah.” He smirks. “I tricked the trickster. Ironic, right?” A hint of pride shines through, making his eyes glimmer the color of spring leaves.

  “You could’ve turned her power against him. Hurt him. But you didn’t. Why?”

  “Because hurting him would’ve hurt you.”

  The confession buckles my knees. I sink down beside him on the bow. My wings hang limp inside the hull of the boat and warm sand fills the spaces between my toes. “I don’t understand how you can’t see it.”

  “See what?”

  “I’m the priority, over your own feelings. You have complete control over your anger. So much so, you chose not to hurt Morpheus because he’s my friend.”

  Jeb’s back stiffens. “It’s mo
re than that. You want to be with him. To live with him in Wonderland. Forever.” He taps the rope against his thigh in a lighthearted manner, but there’s no hiding the heaviness in his shoulders.

  A lump rises in my throat. “What are you talking about? That vow I made was just for twenty-four hours.”

  “Prom night,” Jeb says, getting to his feet. “After I helped your mom with your dad. When I came back to your bedroom.” He nudges me off the boat.

  I stand and rub my arms, chilled by the direction the conversation’s taking. “Jeb, that kiss wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t mean for it to.”

  “Yet when I got back today, you were in his room. Your clothes were wrinkled, your face flushed.”

  My cheeks burn. So he did notice. “I’m so sorry.” And I’m so tired of lame apologies. “I can’t seem to balance this. My two sides . . . they’re always at war. I’m not trying to lead you on. Or him, either.”

  Jeb’s frown deepens. “I know you’re not playing games. I also know you’re not the kind of girl who kisses a guy for no reason.”

  “You’re right. The first time was to get my wish back. And the second . . . it was supposed to be a peck on the cheek. He changed it to something more.”

  “Oh, come on!” Jeb shouts, causing me to flinch. “This is what makes me crazy. That you can’t admit it to me or yourself. You kissed him because you have feelings for him.”

  Feelings . . . such a simple word, except to a half-blood netherling queen whose life is not only unraveling, but her heart, too. I tighten my lips.

  My silence triggers an unsettling expression across Jeb’s face . . . like a storm slowly building.

  The boat behind him starts to rattle, a physical manifestation of his emotional turmoil. I jump as a loud pop splits the wood’s seams. The panels snap open so it’s nothing but an emaciated skeleton.

  “I tried to tell you,” he says in an unsettling monotone. “I can’t trust myself.”

  I square my shoulders. “The anger wasn’t directed at me. And it never will be.”