Ensnared (25 page)

The harder I concentrate, the hotter the book gets against my skin. The red glow gushes through my sternum and into my veins. I breathe it in until it boils my blood and bubbles over, then redirect the force to lift the rocks from the ground. Overhead, the branches on the trees snap down and hit my makeshift ammunition with a satisfying
thwack
, sending it shuttling through the haze to leave ragged holes. The cloud begins to dissipate.

“
At last
,” Morpheus says in an overly exhausted tone. “Must it always take my goading for you to realize you have no limitations other than what you place on yourself?”

I can’t see him yet, but the sprites are there, bouncing in midair and snickering. They stick out their tongues, then flitter away between branches, wandering off in the direction Chessie and Nikki took.

The remainder of smoke dissolves like cotton shredding into the sky, fully exposing the mushroom. Balanced flat across the top is a large moth, dark wings flapping low and wide. Its proboscis sips from the hookah pipe and releases another chain of stars and hearts.

“Wait,” I say, anger melting away to confusion. “You can’t be in moth form. You can’t use your magic. It’s all illusions.”

“That it is, My Queen.” His voice tickles the cusp of my right ear, even though I’m still staring at him on the mushroom. “Just like you, using Red’s repudiated memories to give the illusion of power against our pseudo elf’s paintings. Well done, by the way.”

I twist but can’t find anyone around me. “This isn’t real.”

“It is as real as you want it to be.” His whisper teases the left side now, a flourish of tantalizing heat along my neck.

I turn, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

The moth flaps its wings, slow and lazy on its perch. At the same time, the feel of soft lips trails down the nape of my neck. Unwelcome pleasure blooms through me at his touch. “How are you in two places at once?”

“Optical delusion,” answers his voice from behind. He draws me close with invisible hands around my waist.

Invisible hands . . .

“The simulacrum.” I trail my fingers along his unseeable arms. “That’s why the suits weren’t in the duffel bag. You stole them.”

“And you made it all possible by stealing them first. You wise and wicked girl.”

As much as I try to fight it, the netherling in me glows at his praise. My skin sparkles like starlight, reflected in tiny prisms on the ground and trees.

Morpheus coaxes me to face him and slips the simulacrum hood off his head. His wild hair moves in the breeze, the jewels tipping his eye markings glimmer a passionate purple, and the smile that greets me is both savage and playful. The rest of him comes into view as
reality bleeds through the simulacrum’s mirage—silver jacket over a T-shirt, black pants, blue tie, and magnificent wings folded against his back.

I rest my palm on his chest to ensure he’s not a hallucination. “You took the suits so we could sneak past the graffiti guards after Jeb left.”

He steps back, peels off the enchanted fabric, and bows with a flourish.

“It was a good plan,” I admit as he straightens his clothes and preens his wings. “But we don’t have a means for you to fly, or to find our way back.”

He smirks again. “Of course we do, silly truffle. Don’t you know I always think of everything?” Hands on my shoulders, he turns me to the giant moth at rest on the mushroom. “Look through your netherling lenses.”

I refocus and find it’s not one single moth. It’s a hundred or more, clasped together to mimic a larger one. These are the moths that escorted Morpheus here under Jeb’s direction. And the mushroom isn’t typical, either. Its top is hollowed out, with a small door in its side and a harness connected to the moth.

“That was going to be your ride?” I ask on a whisper.

“
Our
ride.” Morpheus claps his hands. Giant wings beat gusts all around us as the moth tugs the mushroom free from the ground. Together they rise, like a hot air balloon and its basket—graceful and majestic. The tree branches open to let the contraption escape far, far up into the sky.

I gawk at its ascent.

“And,” Morpheus says, “we have tea service planned for the trip. The spritelings have gone to fetch us some victuals.”

“But . . . how? The mushroom can’t exist outside of Jeb’s setting here. Right?”

Morpheus pulls slick blue gloves onto his hands. “It can now that I’ve reassigned it.”

“What?”

“Jebediah’s creations are one-half magic, the other half artistic vision. So although I cannot change his masterpieces to another form, they are
convincible
, if one but imagines them a new purpose. Granted, it works better on the paintings that have no specific command from him. The mushrooms here have no assignments other than to look pretty. And his instruction for the moths to keep me busy was too open-ended. They accepted whatever scenario I imagined, so long as I was in fact keeping busy.”

I shake my head. The master of word manipulation strikes again.

The moth carrier bounces atop the air currents, carrying my curiosity to new heights. “But you’re a full-blood netherling. You don’t know how to use your imagination.”

“On the contrary. I do. Thanks to you. I followed your example in our childhood. I absorbed it without even realizing. Then, when I was stuck here deprived of my magic, I had to find something to while away those weeks and hours. Perhaps that was the silver lining to this entire debacle. The lack of magic is what leads humans to fantasize in the first place. And Alyssa, what a wonderfully powerful force an imagination can be.”

His expression is awestruck, exactly the way he used to look at me during our childhood escapades. How inconceivable, that I was his teacher, too. He once told me I was, but I never grasped what he meant until now.

Ivory’s words about Wonderland from weeks ago rise and bounce
on the wind, much like Morpheus’s flying apparatus:
For so long, innocence and imagination have had no place there . . . Morpheus experienced those things via you . . . Through your child . . . our offspring will become true children once more; they will learn to dream again. And all will be right with our world.

Morpheus has always had dream manipulation; he’s different from any other netherling in that respect. Now that he’s learned to harness imagination, too, it makes him the only full-blood netherling who could father a dream-child.

The diary warms against my chest. Such a child would fall right into Red’s plan. Discomfort itches my throat as it hits me: She’s had so many pawns lined up on her chessboard. Her husband, her sister. Rabid White, Carroll, Alice, Mom, me. And Morpheus. Most of all, Morpheus.

“Do you want her for your own?”
Queen Red’s words resurface in my memory from that agonizing moment over a year ago, when Red inhabited my body and tried to make Morpheus help her break my will.

“So very much—”
he had said.

“Then do my bidding. She’ll be yours physically, and there the heart and soul will follow in time. You can romance your way into her good graces. You shall have forever to win her.”

Red was using Morpheus even then. She was holding all the cards. He didn’t know about the child at that point. Not until he saw Ivory’s vision just a few months ago. Ivory specified that, and out of all the netherlings, I believe in her honesty the most.

But how can a child that Morpheus and I share give
Red
power?

“Alyssa?”

I must be gaping again, because he taps my chin, nudging my mouth closed.

“Where did your mind wander just now?” he asks.

I need to tell him that I’ve seen the vision of our son. I need his input on how this could tie into Red’s revenge. But I have to analyze the wording of my vow to Ivory. There must some way around it . . . some way to tell Morpheus without
telling
him.

The tinkling sprites return and drop a silky cloth on top of my head. Morpheus drags it off and holds up what appears to be a garment bag. He scowls at the sprites. They clap and twirl in midair, as if they’ve discovered buried treasure.

“Naughty little spritelings,” Morpheus admonishes. “That’s not what I told you to fetch. I sent for a picnic basket, yes?”

They flitter around my head, pointing at me, their cheeks growing fat and red as they throw aerial temper tantrums.

“Well, I suppose this
is
the time to give it to her,” he concedes. “But I should be the one to open it.”

The sprites unite in a wave and shove the bag toward me.

“Fine.” With a sigh, Morpheus hands it over.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Just be careful,” he instructs.

I loosen the drawstring and thousands of thin, shimmery monarch wings billow out from the opening. It’s a hoard of scorpion flies!

A scream erupts from my throat.

Morpheus takes the bag back as the sprites’ laughter rings in my ears—a melody of mocking jingle bells.

“I told you to be careful,” he scolds, and peels off the bag. The wings aren’t attached to bugs at all; they’re part of a gown, each wing
meticulously hand sewn to form tiers. Jeweled centipede legs are embroidered along their razor-sharp edges to make them safe to the touch. The fringe adds a green, glitzy glimmer to the red, orange, and black display. The bodice is sleeveless and fitted, while the skirt poufs out to a knee-length hem.

The tiers shimmy in the breeze and produce a metallic jangle like a hundred tiny chains.

I can’t believe my eyes. “You
made
this? For me?”

Morpheus rakes a hand through his hair, leaving several blue strands reaching up like the tree branches around us. “I knew you’d be coming to end Red. I rather hoped you’d wear it to face her. It is the only coat of armor worthy of your dangerous beauty.”

“Armor?” I can’t stop looking at his rumpled hair. “This is incredible. How many times did you risk your life to make it?”

“Oh, come, Alyssa. I know my way around a needle and thread. Sewing is hardly fatal.”

I laugh, reminded of our childhoods when he would string moth corpses onto threads and fasten the morbid strands to his hats for decoration. An eccentric habit he practices to this very day. “Seriously. You could’ve ended up a stone statue. Or sliced to pieces. How many wings did it take?”

He shrugs. “I lost count after one thousand seven hundred and twenty-two.” A sideways smirk curls his lips.

I grin. There’s still something in the bag. I drag out a pair of crimson knee boots made of leathery material, along with shoulder-length gloves and leggings to match. “Are these painted?”

“Oh, they’re very real. Made entirely of a bat’s hide. The creatures are quite huge once full-grown. I had my griffon round one up for
me.” He puts everything away then cinches the garment bag closed and hands it off to the sprites.

I wind my hands in my miniskirt as the tinkling little netherlings disappear through the trees again. “You always keep me on my toes.”

He surprises me by catching me around my waist. “Then I shall have to amend my strategy. My intent was to sweep you off your feet.”

Before I know what he’s doing, he lifts me, my boots dangling at his shins. He spins us both, wrapping us in his wings until I’m dazed and giggling.

“
I wanted to lift you above me and swing you in circles until we were both dizzy and laughing
,” he murmurs against my neck as we tumble to the ground, trapped beneath his tented wings.

My body aches on impact—but it’s a delicious ache. I can hardly breathe with the weight of his ribs covering mine, with the scent of his tobacco surrounding me, smothering and intoxicating. The curve of his smiling mouth glides along my collarbone and I gasp at the velvety sensation. I force his head up so I can look at him . . . break the spell.

He slips the bejeweled headband from my hair, sweeping stray strands from my face. The slickness of his gloves grazes my eye markings.

“
I wanted to kiss your lips and share your breath
,” he says softly as he leans close.

It hits me that he’s fulfilling the desires listed in the note he sent with the lingerie.

I remember the last kiss we shared—the taste of his tongue, the way it made my spirit soar but trampled Jeb’s into the ground.

Jeb—who’s out there with Dad, trying to pave the way so we can get to Mom. Even with Red’s hatred seeping through him, he’s still endangering his life to help me.

I push against Morpheus’s shoulders. “I—I’m not ready—”

He lifts my hands over my head and holds them against the itchy, phosphorescent grass, pinning me in place. His grasp is gentle enough that I could break free at anytime.

“You came here to destroy Red,” he says. “Which means you
are
ready . . . ready to claim your throne because you’ve embraced your love for Wonderland. And lest you forget,
I
am Wonderland. As are you.” Even in the eclipse of his wings, the sparkle from my skin lights up his face. He drags me into that inky gaze framed within long lashes, sets me adrift in the madness and beauty there.

“Jebediah has given up on you, but I never will. I can offer you the security you desire. If you’ll but be mine, your heart will forever be sheltered in my care. Yes, we will quarrel incessantly and fight for dominance. And yes, there will be ravishes of passion, but there will also be gentle lulls. That is who we are together. You’ll never need fear that your love is not reciprocated. For although you’ve made me feel things I am not equipped for . . . I cannot
stop
feeling them.” His chin quavers. “You opened Pandora’s box within me. Set loose the imaginings and emotions of a mortal man. And there is no closing it ever again.” The jewels under his eyes twitch between dark purple and blue. “As much as I abhor being anything akin to human, Alyssa, I wouldn’t dare try to close it. Because that would mean losing you.”

The confession is lovely and brutal—laced with honesty that I not only hear in the rasp of his voice, but feel in the quaking of his muscles as he holds my hands over my head.

“You think me egocentric and incapable of sincerity,” he continues,
entwining our fingers so the scars beneath my lace are pressed to his gloved palms. “’Tis true. Your mortal knight was willing to die for you with no way out, selfless to a fault. I had the vorpal sword when I let the bandersnatch take me in your place; I knew I had a means of escape. Perhaps that made Jebediah’s sacrifice greater. But I have made sacrifices, too. I stayed away so many years after our childhood, after your mum went to the asylum, so you could live your life.”