Ensnared

  “Doesn’t matter. Because we’re over.”

  “I don’t believe you.” From beneath my shirt, I drag out the ring he painted in the willow room. “I saw all the beautiful dreams you have for us.”

  Clenching his jaw, he takes my shoulders—carefully, as if I’m made of glass—and maneuvers me so I’m a few inches from the boat, close enough to the ocean for the warm tide to lick my toes.

  “Had,” he corrects. “Past tense.”

  Gaze turned to the ground, he waves his palm above the sand. Each grain sparks with red light and two holes open, sucking me down to my ankles. They close over my feet. I try to move, but I’m stuck.

  Confusion creeps through me. “Jeb?”

  “Another thing your moth prince doesn’t know. I’ve learned how to separate the two strains of magic. I put your dad into his dream trance earlier. Morpheus was just a prop. Too bad I didn’t control his powers on prom night. Maybe you would’ve chosen me instead. Then I could’ve given you all the things I wanted to, instead of only dreaming about them.” He slips the necklace with his ring off my head and dips it in the water until the beautiful band of diamonds and silver disintegrates to a puddle of paint. Only the diary’s key remains.

  Rooted like an unwanted weed, I can’t do anything but watch.

  He drops the necklace back into place over my head and returns the boat to its former glory with a flourish of his hands.

  I recover my voice. “I did choose you!”

  Back turned, he clears off the seat. A breeze scrambles his hair, making the tangles even messier.

  I thrust out a hand and snag his back jeans pocket. “Jeb, don’t do this.”

  He pries my fingers free and moves out of reach. “Do what? Help you get what you wanted?” He coils the rope in the hull. “When your fae boyfriend had his wings around you in your room, you told him all you were asking for was a little while. You said forever was worth that.”

  A breath shunts out of me.

  I had no idea he was listening in the hallway before the kiss. I had touched my lips to Morpheus’s cheek, keeping it innocent. Jeb didn’t see that, because Morpheus’s wings dropped only when he made that kiss into something more. Jeb saw what Morpheus wanted him to see. But worse than what Jeb saw, was what he heard. What came out of my own mouth.

  Sometimes words are louder than actions.

  Understanding ticks through my mind, as vicious and cutting as a razor-sharp second hand on a clock.

  “You needed time to break up with me,” Jeb says. “After I’d just asked you to marry me. I was hoping for forever, but you were already planning it with him.” Jeb heaves the boat into the water and quickly steps inside the hull to keep his clothes dry. He sits, facing me, oars in hand.

  The foamy tide laps at my ankles, melting my leggings until my shins are exposed. I tense my thigh muscles, twist my calves. But I might as well be standing in cement. He’s about to end his life, give up everything, all for the sake of what he thinks I want.

  The diary at my chest glows, yet I can’t slow my racing thoughts enough to use it. My mind is as useless as my body.

  “Wait!” I grapple for the bow, but it slips under my fingertips as the tide pulls the boat into the ocean. “It’s all out of context, okay? I didn’t say I wanted to break up with you!”

  Jeb drifts out of my reach. “What else would you have been asking time for, if not to let me down easy? I get it. I tried to choke you. I’m not worthy of trust.” He drags the oars through the water until he’s several feet away.

  No. I can’t let him believe that. The only arsenal I have is the truth. My vow to Ivory stated I wouldn’t tell anyone about the vision of my and Morpheus’s child. But the prospect of my immortality is fair game.

  “I can have two futures. One with you in the mortal realm. Then, later, as a netherling queen. What you heard on prom night was me asking Morpheus to give me and you space. To wait for my human life to end.”

  Jeb pauses rowing. Water sloshes around the hull, towing the boat out further. The lighthouse flashes across him and his labret sparkles as he watches me. “How is that even possible?”

  I attempt to explain it, that I’ll age in the mortal realm, but won’t die. That when I’m old and frail, I can fake my death and go to Wonderland. That once my crown is placed on my head, I’ll return to the age I was when I first became queen.

  What I don’t say is how much it hurts to consider outliving the people I love, to leave my human family behind. I can’t say it, because Jeb’s pain concerns me more.

  “So, after everyone dies, you’ll go to Wonderland and be perpetually sixteen?” The bitter bite in his voice punctures like thorns. “I’ll be gone. And you’ll spend forever with him. What am I supposed to do with that, Al?”

  I fist my hands, worried he might split the boat again and fall into the water. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do. I’ll go to the castle, get your dad his cure, and send you and Morpheus off on your merry way. So you can skip the whole aging-in-the-real-world thing and be eternally young now. I mean, who wouldn’t want that, right?”

  “Jeb, no!” My vocal cords strain and it registers how far he’s drifted from the shore. We’ve been shouting at each other without my realizing it.

  In fact, he’s been moving farther out without even rowing.

  A red glimmer undulates through the water, lighting the depths with pulses, as if there were a living heart underneath. On each vibration, Jeb’s boat rides a wave closer to the opposing shore and the exit. He’s controlling the ocean, just like he does everything here.

  “The sands will release you when I’m gone, and you can stay with your dad,” he calls over the distance. “By tomorrow morning, you’ll be on your way to Wonderland with Morpheus.”

  Frustrated tears singe my lower lashes. Here we are again, in a mystical hostile world, battling each other instead of the dangers lying in wait. “You have no idea what they can do to you!”

  I simultaneously tug on my legs and flap my wings until my ligaments feel like they’ll snap. The harder I fight, the hotter the diary gets. Determined to stop him, I recall step-by-step how I used the tiny book as a catapult for my powers in Morpheus’s room.

  When the crimson glow seeps into my veins, I redirect the flow, hurling it at the ocean. It works, rolling a wave that reverses the rowboat back my way. The lighthouse blinks, illuminating Jeb as he stands up in the hull. Balanced gracefully like a surfer, he chucks the oars down. Despite the span between us, I swear I can see him sneer.

  It stokes my darker side. She relishes the challenge.

  “Want to play, do you?” I whisper.

  His hair whips around his head. He raises his tattooed wrist—glowing purple like a beacon—and coerces another wave, higher than mine. The water heaves him toward the opposite shore. In turn, I do the same, dragging him back to me. Our aquatic tug-of-war escalates, our drunken determination dancing on some sentient level, until the ocean sputters and snarls.

  Gusts whip through our hair and clothes. A splash melts my leggings to mid-thigh and leaves my skirt’s hem a jagged fray. A stray upsurge splatters across Jeb’s shirt, rendering him half-naked.

  A spark rides the air between us—not visible, but visceral, like all those times we played chess while fighting our feelings for each other. That’s what collides and teases the ocean to a raging, frothy roar—even more than our magic.

  I notice the giant red bubble in the depths too late to stop it, an accumulation of our power that bulges until it erupts into a tidal wave. Jeb slams into the water. His head bobs for an instant in the lighthouse’s glare before the boat capsizes and pounds him, then he disappears in the swell.

  I’ve killed him.

  “Jeb!” I scream. The wall of water shifts my direction, blocking the starlit ceiling. The ground shakes and hauls me down until the sand swallows my knees, embedding me even deeper.

  I bend at the waist, digging until my fingertips sting and bleed. It?
??s futile. The wave curls and arcs—two stories above me. I wrap my wings around myself, my arms over my head, and brace for impact.

  The water crashes down—sweeping me under and knocking the air in my lungs loose. A silent scream erupts from my mouth in bubbles. My wings snap open and flail, scraping my body. I fight the urge to breathe as my spine contorts and twists.

  The murky water blinds me. Warm brininess seeps into my nostrils and the seam of my lips. Grappling for the diary and key at my neck, I’m relieved to find them still there, though I can’t remember why. My arms, legs, and wings go limp and I fold.

  A warm pressure grips around my waist, startling me to alertness. The sands release my legs. Jeb holds me in his arms and we surface together. I gulp air and cough up salt water.

  After dragging us to shore, Jeb collapses beside me, sputtering. The ocean laps gently under his instruction, as if it wasn’t trying to tear us apart seconds ago.

  My wings wrinkle beneath my back and I absorb them, skin prickling against the sand. All my clothes are gone—everything but my lingerie, sopping wet and clinging to me. My pulse spikes as I realize Jeb’s clothes have vanished, too, other than a soaked pair of periwinkle boxers that look a lot like the fabric of his tuxedo shirt.

  Propped on his elbows, he turns me to face him and rakes wet snarls of hair off my face. He loops the diary and key behind my neck so they’re no longer between us.

  Water beads along his whiskered jaw and gathers around the edges of his labret. “Didn’t I tell you never to scare me like that again?”

  My mind clears instantly: That’s what he said when we weathered the original ocean of tears in Wonderland.

  “You came back for me.” I press myself to him, fill the words with as much awe and gratitude as when I used them to respond a year ago.

  His hands cradle my head. “I’ll always come back for you, Al,” he whispers.

  I hold his wrists and our heartbeats slam between us. “And that’s why you’ll always be a better man than your dad.”

  His features soften to a poignant frown and he leans in to skim his mouth along mine, leaving a warm imprint of salt so illusory it could be a teardrop. The moment I start to respond, he breaks contact and pushes away.

  I bite back a sigh.

  He sits on his knees, appearing far too pensive for my liking. I’ve seen that look before. He’s about to scold me for taking risks.

  “I won’t apologize for being reckless.” My defensive rebuttal leaps out before he can even open his mouth. “The more I think like a netherling, the more conniving and strong I become. How’s that a bad thing here?”

  “You’re right.” His confession shocks me. “Listening to your darker instincts is the only way to survive and master these worlds. I get it now.”

  Of course he does. He’s been around since I was an awkward kid in middle school. He knows the human side of me better than anyone. And now, after becoming a netherling in his own right, it’s given him new insight into the Wonderland side of me, too.

  Goose bumps coat my arms as a breeze blows over me.

  He stands. His bared skin glistens in the starlight, each chiseled line brushed with water and sugared with sand. “You’re cold. Let’s get you some clothes.”

  As I start to take his hand, his eyes pass over my lingerie slowly.

  “Where the hell did you get those?” He obviously recognizes the fabric. “How does that cockroach know your measurements, huh?”

  I frown and drop my arm. “I could ask the same thing about your boxers. You can’t even sew a button onto a shirt. You’ve always had Jen around for that.”

  He pauses, jaw clenched. Thankfully, the diary at my neck flickers and distracts him. He lifts its string. “This book . . . it has something to do with your great-great-great-grandmother, doesn’t it?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You used it against her magic inside me. I saw it glowing red from across the ocean. It caused the surge. I—I even feel different.”

  “You do?” I flip his wrist to study where his tattoo glows.

  “Yeah. I still feel her power. It’s just . . . tamed.”

  I furrow my brow. “These are memories she forced herself to forget. They’re enchanted. They hate her and want revenge.”

  We both look at his palm where the diary left its imprint. He drops the string so the tiny book dangles at my neck again.

  “Al, do you know what this means? You don’t have to let Red inside you to fix Wonderland. Maybe Morpheus hasn’t realized it yet—or maybe he’s too big of a jerk to care—but you have the key to reversing her destruction right there. And you’ve already learned how to master it.”

  I inhale a sharp breath. Why didn’t I think of that? I can pit her memories against her damaging spell over Wonderland, use them to put everything back the way it was.

  There’s a nudge inside my chest, a reminder that I have to face Red, fix my heart, and end this thing between us. But my top priority is healing Dad and leading him, Morpheus, and Jeb into Wonderland to help Mom. I’ll reverse Red’s spell on the landscapes, then come back and finish things here.

  “Okay”—I sort out the new plan aloud—“all we have to do is get Dad’s cure, then we can get out of here.”

  Jeb looks down on me. “You can get out.”

  “Jeb, please.”

  “I’ve got nothing to go back for.”

  I want to scream ME! but it won’t make a dent. “You can just forget your mom and Jen? They need you.”

  There’s no masking the sadness in his eyes at the mention of his family. “They’re better off with me here. I can still take care of them . . . be a liaison for the guards at the gates, protect the human realm from the inside.”

  “So your plan is to stay and siphon magic off of Red forever?”

  A muscle in his jaw spasms. “At least that way I get a forever.” He holds out his hand, unspoken insistence we head to the lighthouse.

  A sense of enormity overwhelms me: Dad was spot-on. I’m the only one who can convince Jeb to leave this place. I have to show him that life is worth living outside this horrible realm, even if it comes with mortal limitations.

  I lace my fingers through his and tug him down so we’re face-to-face. The gritty terrain jabs my naked knees.

  He digs a fist into the sand. “What are you doing?”

  “Reminding you that I’m still human enough to need you.” I rake my hands across his biceps and down his pecs. Water and sand crumble to shimmery, granular trails along his chest hair in my wake. As I touch him, his breath catches and his long, dark eyelashes close in exquisite agony.

  I splay my fingertips and open my palm to match his cigarette burns to my scars. His muscles answer with tiny twitches, every part of him strong where I’m soft.

  “Jeb.”

  He opens his eyes and we lock gazes.

  “This is why we fit. Because we’re both damaged, in a way that can’t be healed. Even by magic.”

  His gaze holds steady.

  “I love you,” I whisper. “Do you still love me?”

  He leans closer, bracing his knuckles on the ground beside my hips. “I’ll never stop.”

  My stomach somersaults. “Then come home.”

  “What good will it do?” His mouth is inches away and the question scalds my lips. “Things can never go back to the way they were.”

  My chin tightens. “You’re right. Because we’ve both grown and changed. Because we understand each other on every level now. I’ve seen all your secrets. You’ve seen mine. We can live for today. Not think about forever.”

  He lifts a sand-covered hand and traces the red streak of my hair. “You’re being naive. Morpheus won’t let us. He’ll dangle your magical eternity in front of me, knowing it’s something I can never give you. Knowing, as a human, I have nothing to offer that compares to that.”

  He starts to draw back, but I grasp the waistband of his boxers where it hugs his abs. I hear the husky intake
of air as he looks down at my hand, then back up at my face.

  “You’re wrong. There’s something you already offered that’s every bit as magical and rare as forever. You offered to grow old with me. That’s something Morpheus can’t do.” I stroke my fingertips over his whisker-rough jaw. “I didn’t get to answer that yes, I want to marry you.”

  For an instant, Jeb’s eyes sparkle with a hopeful light.

  “Do you still want that?” I ask.

  His fingers weave through my hair, so tight they pinch my scalp. “There’s no one I’d rather spend my life with. Make a family with. But you made a vow to Morpheus. Twenty-four hours alone together. He’ll do anything to keep you from coming back to the human realm.” He presses our foreheads together. “I would fight for you, Al. Until the day I die. I just don’t know how to fight magic without magic. Not anymore.”

  So I’m the reason Jeb doesn’t want to leave or give up his power. It’s been me all along.

  His agonized expression scores my insides raw. Morpheus’s promise on the day I made that vow dances along the edge of my psyche: I’ll show you the wonders of Wonderland, and when you’re drunk on the beauty and chaos that your heart so yearns to know, I will take you under my wings and make you forget the human realm ever existed. You’ll never want to leave Wonderland or me again.

  It’s not that Jeb doesn’t have faith in me. It’s that he’s seen the writing on the wall. Morpheus always finds a way to win. He’s the most manipulative and brilliant strategist I’ve ever known.

  But he’s met his match. Or, rather, he’s created her.

  “You don’t have to fight for us.” I trace Jeb’s tattooed wrist. “I can fix it so Morpheus will leave us alone.”

  Jeb frowns. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.” My voice is resolute and strong, almost as strong as Morpheus’s when he told me the secret to getting the upper hand: Once you know someone’s weakness, they’re easy to manipulate.

  Jeb touches my face, as if shaken by the seriousness of my tone.

  I could argue that Morpheus brought this on himself by forcing Jeb to live with the knowledge that he almost choked me in spite of our arrangement . . . by always manipulating every word, action, and promise to his advantage. I could say he’s taught me well and I’m finally thinking like a netherling. Like him.