Unhinged: 2 (21 page)

The blossoming mistrust smothers any last traces of compassion, and I hurl the cruelest insult I can think of. “I don’t know who you are anymore. But I do know one thing. You’re a bigger liar than Morpheus ever was.”

I can’t face Mom’s devastated expression, so I brush her aside, gather up my dress’s train, then make a beeline to the back hall.

She stays behind, her soft sobs ringing louder than any scream … louder than the train that almost crushed me earlier today. Maybe it would’ve been better if I had been crushed. That pain would’ve been instantaneous and then gone. It wouldn’t linger and eat away at me like what I’m feeling now.

Poor Dad.
I can’t believe how dishonest she’s been with him—the man she vowed to love and stay with forever. And I’m becoming just like her, lying to the guy I love. Which is something I never wanted to do again …

Mom’s footsteps drag heavily across the living room; then the back door slams. Instead of coming after me, she went to her garden to commiserate with her chatty plants. It’s fitting. They know her better than I ever did.

I sag against the wall outside my bedroom, willing myself to stop trembling before I face Morpheus. Chest tight and eyes stinging, I peek through the door.

There are a few puddles around the aquarium’s base. The eels seem okay, gliding through bubbles as if nothing happened.

On my bed, Rabid White is wrapped in a bath towel. The only part of the bunny-size netherling that shows is his bald head: pink doelike eyes set within wrinkled, albino skin. Fuzzy white antlers rise behind his humanoid ears.

He’s so out of place here. He needs to go back. Problem is, with my cheval broken, I don’t have a mirror big enough to send him into London and through the rabbit hole. The netherling world once again has me under its thumb with all of its one-way tickets. The portals from the Red and White kingdoms only lead
out
of Wonderland. The rabbit hole only leads
in
. I just wish there was some way around the rules.

I also wish I could be as carefree as Morpheus.

He sits Indian style in front of Rabid in an oddly endearing scene, like one friend comforting another. He’s tucked a pair of earbuds into Rabid’s humanoid ears. The creature’s ancient face fills with wonder as he bobs in time with the music.

A wave of affection washes over me, for Rabid and Chessie, and all the netherlings in Wonderland—followed quickly by anger at Morpheus. He let me believe he used my mom’s mind to approach me so young because he was desperate to be free of his own curse. I
made peace with that, empathized on some level. One of the things he and I have in common is our fear of being constricted or imprisoned in any way—mind, body, or spirit.

Now I suspect he wanted revenge on Mom for backing out of their deal. That’s something I can’t forgive.

Morpheus offers Rabid something shiny and silver to play with. It’s Jen’s thimble. She must’ve missed it in her hurry to pack and leave. Rabid tries to eat it, but Morpheus stops him.

“Warm it with your eyes,” he instructs.

Rabid sharpens his glowing irises until they radiate red heat. Under his concentration, the thimble turns a soft orange.

Morpheus places the tiny inverted cup on one of the four prongs of Rabid’s left antler. The orange glow seeps down his fuzzy horn and evaporates every drop of water in its path, as if the heat is traveling through him.

“Now, we only need seven more to warm and dry you,” Morpheus says, then laughs as Rabid clacks his bony hands together in applause.

I don’t know what to think, seeing my dark tormentor caring for one of his own—gentle and teasing. He’s like that with me sometimes, too.

I fight the tears building at the inner line of my lashes. I’m utterly alone and confused, but a queen doesn’t let her vulnerabilities show.

As I step in, I clear my throat.

Morpheus looks up. His true likeness fades beneath Finley’s masquerade, although an echo of his jewels remain. They blink a hazy lilac-gray, the same hue of my boots. It’s the color of bewilderment, as if he’s sympathizing with my turmoil. As if he didn’t have a hand in it all.

“What did your mum tell you about the mosaics?” he asks.

“Why is he here?” I sidestep his question, pointing at Rabid. I’m not sure I can trust Morpheus with anything my mom said, or my mistrust in her motives.

Before Morpheus can respond, Rabid notices me. His pink eyes grow to the size of half-dollars.

“Majesty, ever and always yours!” The netherling sheds the towel and knocks the thimble off his antler. The scent of fishy water and dusty bones hits my nose.

Rabid scoots to the edge of the mattress, plops to the floor, and bows. The earbuds pop out and tangle in his antlers. Morpheus catches the tails of the creature’s wet waistcoat to stop him falling face-first into the glass-speckled carpet.

“Penitent be I.” Rabid laces his skeletal fingers together in a prayerful gesture. The white, foamy saliva that earned him his name dots his lips.

“Why are you penitent?” I ask, cautious.

His glowing gaze drags across the shards sparkling on the floor. “Broke your gateway I did
not
.”

I frown. “I know. My mom did that.”

The creature bows his head. “Betrayed my kingdom … so says Queen Grenadine.” He offers a red piece of ribbon tied in a bow.

Grenadine was born an incurable amnesiac. The bows she wears on her toes and fingers are enchanted with the ability to remind her of important things she wouldn’t otherwise remember.

A whisper greets me as I press the velvety ribbon to my ear.
“Queen Red lives and seeks to destroy that which betrayed her.”

The fingerprint upon my heart, the one Red left as a warning last summer, flares—a sharp jolt that pushes the air from my lungs. I
drop the ribbon and it flitters away. I meet Morpheus’s gaze. He lifts an eyebrow, making the scar on Finley’s temple curl.

“What does this have to do with you?” I ask Rabid, struggling to keep the quaver from my voice.

“Imprison me you will, Queen Grenadine said.” He lifts his hands toward me, bones grinding as he waits to be handcuffed. “Chains for you I’ll wear, Queen Alyssa. Contrite I’ll be.” He falls to his cadaverous knees.

I wince when he lands hard on the broken glass but check myself. Bones aren’t susceptible to superficial cuts.

Morpheus removes his hat and stands, towering over Rabid.

“What do you know about this?” I ask him.

A shadow of wings distorts the air behind him, like a wave of summer heat radiating off an asphalt road. “He helped Red find a body to inhabit. He’s the reason her spirit survived.”

I snap my attention back to my kneeling subject. “Why would you do that? You swore your allegiance to me.”

Rabid shudders, and his bones sound like tree branches clacking together. “Other obligations tainted good intentions …” Groaning, he keeps his head low. His antlers block his face.

“As you know, Red saved his life once,” Morpheus clarifies, dropping his hat onto his head. He runs a finger along the moths draping the brim. “Rabid had to repay his debt to her. Only she could set him free.”

“Free?” I ask.

“Free to be your faithful subject,” Morpheus explains. “He made a trade. Red’s life for his loyalty. In order to be true to you forever after, he had to betray you one last time.”

Logic wrapped within nonsense. Par for the course for Wonderland.
“So is Red here?” I ask, fighting a clench of dread in my chest.

Rabid doesn’t answer. Everything that’s happened today—Taelor seeing me and Morpheus, the mosaics going missing, the near-death car ride, my mom’s betrayal—hangs over me, a noxious cloud of black emotion. The power inside me begs for free rein, promising to
make
him talk. To make him obey.

I surrender to it: envision the earbuds lifting and swaying like cobras. The song that’s playing grows loud and screeching. Rabid plugs his ears, howls, and backs up. The buds follow and strike. Though they have no fangs or venom, they’re vicious in their pursuit.

Wearing an amused expression, Morpheus steps back to allow Rabid to scramble onto the mattress. The black cords slither up the edge behind him.

“The insects, listen you should!” Rabid yelps as the cords strike and wrap around his antlers, yanking him to his stomach atop my quilt. “Please, Majesty!”

I hold up my hand, and the earbuds go limp.

“I said,
Is Red here?
” The power behind my voice surprises even me.

Rabid shakes his head no as Morpheus helps untangle his antlers. “A flower she chose to be. Lead the forest in a revolt. Amplifying pastries for all. Thorns the size of dragon talons. First, they wake the dead. Shake the foundations, free the consecrated.” Frothy white saliva drizzles from the corners of his lips. “Then divide and conquer the living. Enslave them all.”

Terror, as dark as a raven’s wing, casts a shadow across my thoughts. So that’s what the bugs were trying to tell me. They weren’t referring to the flowers here in the human realm but to the ones in Wonderland. Queen Red has gathered a giant flower army.

“It won’t work, will it?” I ask Morpheus as he adjusts the volume on the earbuds and coaxes Rabid to listen to the music once more. “The cemetery is hallowed ground. Right? No full-blooded netherling can step inside the cemetery gates. That’s what you told me.”

Morpheus sweeps the towel off the bed and crosses to my aquarium, blotting up the puddles. “That’s true for those of us who
live
,” he answers without turning, “but Red is a dead inhabitant in a living body. She’s no longer held to the natural laws of our world.”

His flippant use of the term
natural
in reference to Wonderland almost makes me snort.

“Red can cross the boundaries of the cemetery gates because part of her belongs there already,” he continues. “If she made it inside, she could free the dead, for she knows the secrets of the maze. But she would have to get through the Twid Sisters. That wouldn’t be easy.”

“I remember.” My feet jitter as I picture both the twins’ spidery bottom halves beneath their gowns. Sister One has her charms, but Sister Two …

I faced her side of the cemetery, felt the cold chill of blades along my neck as she threatened me with her mutated hand. I stood under her trees ornamented with toys possessed by the spirits of the dead. I’ll never forget how their eyes pierced me with agony.

“When the twins stand united,” Morpheus continues, “they are the two most formidable netherlings in all the land. The only way for anyone to defeat them is to put them at odds so they aren’t working together. Since both twins hate Red for her successful escape last year, it’s doubtful she could break them apart.” He says the word
doubtful
quietly while tracing the glass of the aquarium. His profile is troubled as my eels follow his finger, mesmerized.

Morpheus loves his world. It’s why he’s so adamant about getting
my help. I’ve seen the destruction in my dreams, and the violence in my mosaics. It would be heartbreaking for such a beautifully unique and bizarre land to succumb to Red’s schemes.

Nausea winds through me. This entire disaster is my fault. I made it possible by drying up the ocean last year, by giving the flower fae a path into the heart of Wonderland, and by freeing Red’s spirit from the cemetery so she’d have access to a new body.

I stumble toward my bed, almost tripping over my dress. Morpheus is at my side in an instant and steadies me until I’m seated next to Rabid.

Rabid drops the earbuds to the floor, scoots close, and pats my gloved hand, brittle fingers snagging on the lace. “Majesty,” he croons. “Please … no exile for Rabid of the family White. Ever your loyal subject. Stay with you always.” He reaches inside his wet waistcoat and offers a key that looks just like mine with a ruby on top.

“You’re not staying here,” I answer, wrapping his bony fingers around his key. I point to the closet behind us. “Get back inside until we can figure out a way to get you home.”

Rabid’s pink eyes lose their shimmer, as if a curtain of cotton candy has fallen across them. He tucks his key into his coat’s inner pocket and shivers. “Rabid wet be.”

Touched by his discomfort, I pick up the thimble and give it to him. “Dry yourself off and keep quiet in there.”

The light in his eyes reignites. “A prize to keep! Generous are you!” He presses the thimble into place on his antler, scoots across the bed, drops down, and shuts himself in the closet, leaving me alone with Morpheus.

“You said
home
.” Morpheus looks down at me, expression hopeful. “You admitted it. Wonderland is your home.”

I shake my head. “I meant
his
home.”

Didn’t I?

I shake the doubts from my head, suspicious again of Morpheus’s part in all of this. “You were with the flower fae in my dream when I was drowning.” I look up at him pointedly.

He steps back, scowling. “Obviously Red hadn’t yet bribed them to aid her cause. Stop finding reasons to doubt me. We need to work together.”

My fingers trace the pearls on my dress, letting the slick, cool bumps soothe me. “I don’t know how to work with you.”