The Mad King

by Jovee Winters

  Brows gathering deeply, I shook my head. “Is it really you? After all this time, can it be that I stand before an angel?”

  Panic flitted briefly in her gaze, and the world around us that’d been a painting of gentle snowfall was now a swirling chaos of ice and thick bands of frost. Alice was doing this. This was my magic, and it lived and breathed like a roaring dragon inside her heart.

  And though my soul trembled with the pain of what she’d gone through, I’d never been more proud of her. Wherever she went, she took the madness of Wonderland with her, and consequently me as well. I just had to make her remember that. Remember us.

  Taking a measured step forward, I felt a moment’s triumph when she didn’t back up. Mere feet separated us, and there was nowhere she could run. I had the forest behind me; she had nothing but an impossibly long cliff face behind her. I was pretty certain she couldn’t die again, but I doubted she’d want to risk injury either.

  She cocked her head, studying me like a frightened but intelligent bird. Her eyes were raking, exacting, distant, cold.

  She had to remember me.

  Hades’s word was law here. Unless she remembered me, Alice could never leave. If I didn’t mean to her what I thought I did, then all was lost. My heart literally skipped a painful beat, and a bleakness began to stain my soul.

  “I do not know you,” she finally said.

  And her words tore at me, left me reeling, left me gasping for breath and hearing a buzzing in my ears. I shook my head. “No,” I said before I thought better of it. “No.” My voice shook hard. “No. You do know me. I’m—”

  “Nothing,” she finished. “You’re nothing to me.”

  As though someone had just shoved their fist through my chest, my mouth flopped open like that of a dying fish gasping its last on land. This didn’t make sense. We were destined. Soul mates. Her soul beat in me—that’s why I’d been so easily able to remember. Surely she could feel me inside her.

  There was a sharpness, a hardness, to her features. Anger. Confusion. Vexation. But her palm was pressed to her chest, and her luminous eyes watered now, and I knew, knew she felt me in her.

  “You do know me!” I growled, then rushed to her, reaching out for her arms, desperate to latch on and never let go. I would kiss her. The kiss of truest love, then she would know, then she would remember.

  And just before I took her in my arms, her eyes widened and terror bled through her whites, and like a wraith she danced just out of my hold. Running, running, running furiously toward the cliff’s edge.

  I watched in horror, too stunned to speak a word, silently screaming in my head for her to slow down. But she didn’t.

  She raced up to the very edge. My heart thundered in my chest, threatening to tear loose. She would stop. She must stop. She had to stop.

  “No!” I roared, finally able to move, finally able to reason as she slipped over the edge. My vision turned hazy and my heart beat so hard I could taste the pulse of it on the back of my tongue. I raced to the drop, sure in the knowledge that I would see her beautiful body twisted and broken on the rocks below.

  But instead I saw her transform mid-fall into the stunning visage of an ice bird, feathers a pale blue, wings thick with hoarfrost and rime, and glowing a shade of pearlescent white, like freshly fallen snow on a sunny winter morning.

  The world danced with frosty chaos, and her melancholy song lingered upon the winds, reaching out to me and plucking at my heartstrings. I did not realize I cried until I could no longer make out the sights around me. I watched her wing away from me, and I dropped to my knees, reaching out my hand to her, silently pleading she return.

  But Alice left me alone in the cold, wintery embrace of the world she’d crafted.

  Chapter 11

  Alice

  I do not know how I turned into that bird, but now I could turn into other things too. I drifted between trees, nothing now but a raven with wings of jeweled ebony, and I watched him.

  The stranger who’d sworn he’d known me, the one who’d come after me. Who’d looked upon me with love, longing, ferocity, and desperation. There’d been madness burning in his dark gaze. And I’d felt something inside me snap. Pull and ache. I did not want to know him, and yet I could not ignore him.

  I’d winged away only an hour, then I’d promptly returned to him in the guise of a field mouse, watching as he sat in the snow, staring straight ahead in that wintery landscape with a bleakness of gaze that matched the ferocity of the storm surrounding him.

  He was a spirit lost.

  Whoever this man was, I did not know him. He was wrong about that. And yet... I could not forget him either. I’d flirted with the idea of returning to Lethe, just for a moment, just to dip my finger in its cold, cold waters, but I’d just as quickly dismissed the idea.

  I liked watching him.

  He was brooding.

  Silent.

  And seemed so lost that it tore my heart in two.

  It’d been only hours since he’d attacked me, and I warred with my instinct to go to him or run away. I’d allowed no spirit close to me, only Amara, and she only briefly.

  But something about this male intrigued me despite myself.

  “I know you watch me,” he said, voice deep and scratchy and guttural, and my neck feathers ruffled with shock.

  I snapped my beak several times back at him. How could he have possibly known that?

  “I will not bother you again, spirit,” he said, voice practically monotone as he continued to stare straight ahead. The wind whispered through his hair, riffling the dark strands. “I would not do that to you.”

  He had not lifted his voice, but somehow the strength of it rang all around me.

  Swallowing, I knew I had to choose one of two options. Leave. Or stay.

  But why did I want to stay? He was handsome, to be sure. In a broody, dark kind of way. There was something about him, something I found oddly appealing. But also terrifying.

  My heart beat erratically at the sight of him, and my body ached. Deep down, so deep I wasn’t even sure where the ache was, only that it was there.

  But why?

  Why?

  “You were not who I thought you were, female. Please forgive me for my transgression against you. I will leave now.”

  And it was only when he reached down to do exactly that, that I made my decision.

  Drawing from that endless wellspring of something powerful inside me, I transformed again. To my human form. But this time I did away with the hospital gown, opting for a pair of comfy jeans and a pale pink sweater. Then, squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath and stepped out from behind my grove of trees.

  ~*~

  Hatter

  I thought seeing her again might be easier, but it wasn’t. It was infinitely harder. She did not wear the fanciful gowns I’d grown accustomed to seeing the past month in the moving images of her, but she’d never looked more beautiful to me.

  I drank in the sight of her like a drowning man.

  She was dressed in the mundane clothes of her world. But she could have been wearing a potato sack and nothing else, and I’d still have thought her the most beautiful creature I’d ever beheld.

  Her skin was the same honeyed shade I remembered adoring in the other life. That alluring widow’s peak of hers drew a wistful smile from me. Once I’d had the honor of being able to kiss the tip of my finger before pressing down upon it. It seemed to have been one of my favorite forms of expressing my love for her.

  Her lips were supple, full, and tempting, her eyes that enticing shade of melted chocolate that’d so infatuated me right from the very beginning. Even before I’d been willing to admit to myself just how very much I’d fallen under her spell from the moment I’d seen her drop to the cold, hard ground in Wonderland.

  Then she’d been wearing a sexy pair of nightclothes, a cami and shorts with vivid drawings of her Earth’s version of Alice in Wonderland upon it. She’d also worn a smile, one so sultry and
unwittingly hypnotic that I’d instantly fallen under her spell.

  I’d grown angry at her for it too, treating her roughly, imagining that she was just as conniving as her great-grandmother. Only there’d been no artifice in Alice, not then and not now.

  Because now there was no sultry smile of greeting upon her lips. No hopeful twinkle in her hypnotic eyes as she gazed upon me. The only things that greeted me now were wariness and even a touch of fear.

  Her lips weren’t curved up but tipped downward, and there was a tight crease between her brows. And it hit me then, as it hadn’t before, that we were standing now in the underworld and my Alice was dead.

  She was before me. But she was dead.

  I swallowed hard, agony making it difficult to breathe. I should have found her sooner. Should have saved her. Should have heard her call. In the other life, she’d called to me at her time of death, and I’d been able to dispatch Danika to her in time. To rescue her. To save her from death’s kiss.

  But this time I’d heard nothing.

  I’d felt nothing.

  I’d let her down.

  Feeling suddenly woozy and sick, I listed forward, clutching the snow-covered grass like a lifeline as I tried to breathe through the cloying dizziness of just how badly I’d let her down.

  Let us down.

  “Sir,” she said, and my soul cleaved in two.

  I was sir now. Not her hatter. Not her lover.

  I laughed.

  The sound was so full of pain that I was shamed by it, but I could not stop it. I was lost to the icy grip of madness, sinking farther and farther into despair. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t get her back. Not in three days. Maybe not ever.

  She gripped my shoulder tightly.

  “My God, sir, what’s wrong? Don’t you realize you’re a ghost now? You’re not supposed to get sick. What’s the matter, what’s—”

  Feeling wretched but not wanting to torture her with it, I tried as best I could to shake off the stupor of desolation and forced myself to meet her bright and worried gaze.

  And it was terrible of me, but I couldn’t help but lean into her touch, even knowing it wasn’t love that caused her to hold me but rather very real fear for my sanity. Alice had found me once before on the verge of near total collapse, and I was ashamed to admit I felt myself very nearly there again. So I imagined that it was love that held me fast, and for just a moment I was able to gather the dregs of sanity that remained me and smile sadly back at her.

  “I am fine. Really,” I said again when she didn’t look convinced the first time.

  Far too soon she released me, and it was all I could do not to sink back into that despair and depression. But she was with me now, and I could be strong for her. For Alice, I could be anything she needed me to be.

  So I fought my inner demons, and I smiled brightly. Well enough that the doubt finally lifted from her gaze.

  Twisting her lips, she nodded slowly. “Well, okay, if you say so. Do you mind if I sit with you for a while? Just to make sure you’re really feeling better?” she rushed on to say.

  Goddess, yes! I wanted to cry. Wanted to take her into my arms, hold her close, and never let go. But I’d succumbed to desire once already and almost lost her. It was difficult, but I kept my hands to my side and only dipped a short nod at her.

  She sat beside me but left a good foot of space between us, and I closed my eyes. There may as well have been an ocean between us, that was how great the distance felt. Curling my fingers into the grass, I began to yank up great big clumps.

  I was here.

  She was here.

  And nothing at all was the same.

  Silence stretched long between us, and though I knew that if I didn’t do or say something soon, she’d leave, I was paralyzed by fear. This was the woman of my soul, my life, my everything. Always we’d been able to share everything with one another, but now I was a perfect stranger to my Alice.

  I was nothing.

  I was no one.

  I was empty.

  “What’s your name, male?” she asked delicately, so softly that I almost hadn’t heard it above the din of the whistling winter wind.

  She’d said male. Alice had originally hailed from Earth before she’d fallen down the rabbit hole and into my heart forever. She would never have referred to anyone as a male on Earth, but it was an idiom she’d picked up after her long life among Kingdomers.

  Whipping my head around, I had to shake it several times just to be able to gather my thoughts into some semblance of coherence. And for a split second, an infinite moment in time, I felt hope gather and bloom in a brilliant roar inside me. Right before the curse had flung her from my arms, she’d promised me that deep down inside she’d fight. She’d remember. I only needed to be strong and bring her back.

  I knew I was clinging to threads here, but threads were all I currently had.

  “Hatter,” I said quickly and without thought, then froze, realizing what I’d just done. Hades had told me of Alice’s hatred for Hatter now. How could I have been so stupi—

  “Oh,” she said sweetly, “that’s a strange name. My name’s Alice.”

  She held out her hand to me as though to shake it in greeting, but all I could do was stare down at her fingers in numbed horror.

  She did not know me.

  Alice did not know me at all. And that hope that I’d felt just seconds ago was razed to the ground in a fiery heap of rubble.

  The smile of greeting soon slipped from her lips, and just as she was about to lower her hand—no doubt believing I did not wish to shake it—I scooped it up, slipping my palm against hers and trying like hell to fight the sudden trembling that coursed through every inch of me at the first true touch of her exquisite flesh to my own.

  My Alice.

  This was my Alice.

  My lover.

  My everything.

  Her palm was as callused as I’d known it would be. Like me, she’d worked with her hands all her life. She’d had strong hands, but yet delicate too. Hands that’d run over every inch of my naked body with tender, loving devotion.

  I swallowed painfully. “Good... good to meet you.” I forced the lie past my lips. Forced myself to act as though I didn’t know her, but I did. I knew everything about her.

  Everything.

  My entire world had revolved around her and our daughter Chrysalis for so long that Alice was as familiar to me as my own flesh. Because she was me, and I was her.

  “So,” she said a second later, letting go of my hand before curling her fingers so tightly upon her lap that her knuckles whitened, “what was that earlier? Why did you act like you knew me?”

  And for just a moment, I wanted to tell her the truth, tell her everything. But I already knew I couldn’t. I’d tried before, and she’d flown away from me like a frightened animal.

  Alice had died believing I did not care. And whether she remembered me now or not, someplace deep within her knew. She was talking to me now. And that had to be enough.

  So I swallowed my terror at the thought of losing her all over again and stayed as close to the truth as I could without frightening her away.

  “You scared me,” she finally said, words soft and fragile.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I did not intend to. I am new here you see, and you reminded me of someone.”

  Her brows lifted. “I do?”

  Notching my knees, I wrapped my arms around them, simply to give my hands something to do, and nodded. “Aye. A woman I loved a long time ago and who loved me once too.”

  Her lips twisted as her body began to slowly move away. I gripped her forearm, refusing to let her go this time, and violently shook my head.

  “But I was wrong. You are not her. And I am sorry for scaring you as I did. But please don’t go. I know no one here. And your company”—I breathed, aching so deep in my chest that I wondered if I might actually die before the three days were up—“is a salve to my weary mind.”

&nb
sp; She glanced down at my hand, and though I did not want to, I forced my fingers to relax and release her.

  She rubbed at the spot where my hand had been, and for a moment I was sure she would flee again, leave me here in this desolate wasteland, alone and dying. But she didn’t.

  Alice stayed.

  “What was her name? The girl you loved.”

  Closing my eyes, I forced aside the imprint of her name on my tongue and whispered brokenly, “She had many names, but only one I can give you.”

  Lifting her brows, she seemed curious despite her misgivings, and if that was all I could get, then I would make the most of it.

  “Mine.”

  She swallowed, and I gave her a weak smile, feeling sentimental and foolish. But then she patted my hand, the touch featherlight and quick, but enough to make me feel as if she’d scorched me.

  “That must have been nice,” she murmured, then shook her head. “Being a ‘mine.’” She finger quoted. “I was never anyone’s mine.”

  My lashes fluttered heavily; my stomach ached. I wanted to tell her. The words settled like lead on the tip of my tongue, but I checked my words and let her continue to believe that lie.

  “Well, Hatter, you’ve caught me on a good day. I am relatively new too and know no one here. So I guess that means we have an eternity to talk about your ‘mine.’ Tell me, what did she look like?”

  I shook my head, lost as to what I could possibly say to her, when an absurd idea suddenly struck me. Inside my chest, I felt the faint stirrings of my magic, more alive now because of her proximity.

  It was a stupid, silly idea and likely wouldn’t work at all. But I’d seen Danika do this times aplenty, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe I might be able to keep Alice with me longer if I made sure she was entertained.

  “Alice,” I said slowly, “if I ask you something wild, would you trust me?”

  She frowned deeply, leaning away, but I shook my head.

  “It’s nothing like you’re thinking, I’m sure.”