by A. G. Howard
He grins. “They say you want to race me across the clouded skies of Wonderland, and that you think I’ll let you win.”
A tingling thrill skitters from my feet to my wing tips. “On the contrary,” I correct. “They say we’re both going to win this time.” Balanced on my tiptoes, I throw my arms around his neck and give him the mind-numbing kiss I promised, deepening it when he groans in pleasure. His tongue dances with mine, flavored with dense, sweet black licorice and storm-swept forests—all things exotic, lush, and untamed.
He lifts me into his arms, pressing our bodies together and spinning us around until my dress’s long train trips us. We crash against the purple-striped wall, laughing like children.
My face pulses hot with vitality. “Morpheus.”
“Yes, my blushing blossom,” he whispers, breath ragged along my neck as he helps me untangle my right wing from a red velvet curtain and satiny gold cords of rope.
I’m the one trembling now, imagining being tangled up with him in satin sheets and velvety blankets. “Let’s not put the wedding off for another second. The Red Court needs a king, and I want to sleep in his bed tonight. You’ve waited long enough for your queen, for your dream-child.”
He makes a sound, somewhere between a relieved moan and a blissful sigh, then lowers himself to his knees, using his hands and mouth to appraise the way the dress clings to my curves on the way down. The rosebuds vanish and reappear with his touch.
“Something tells me”—his voice rumbles low against my abdomen as he clutches my hips—“you will both be so very, very worth the wait.”
It’s the first time he’s ever been so intimate with his explorations. I weave my fingers through his silken hair and nuzzle his head, struggling to contain the emotions and sensations rocking through me. Somewhere, locked inside my young body, is an old woman’s wisdom and worldliness. So why do I suddenly feel so inexperienced and exposed?
His hands find their way to the hem of my dress at my feet, and he raises the enchanted fabric just enough to expose my left ankle in the candlelight. He traces where my netherling birthmark is bared, no longer covered by a tattoo. “I must admit, I’m going to miss your tribute to me. But small price to pay, to have everything back as it was the moment I first confessed my love for you.”
I frown, determined to tease him. “I told you, the tattoo wasn’t a moth. It was wings.”
Morpheus slants his head, smirking. “Look at my words from every angle, luv. Consider what they mean, beneath the surface.”
It takes his prompting for me to stop and think . . . for things to fully register—the depth of the change in my body. Everything back as it was when he first confessed his love. Beneath the surface.
My tattoo is gone. Which means I’m sixteen through and through, exactly like the moment I was first crowned in the Red castle. Before I got wings inked across my ankle to hide my netherling birthmark . . . before I became a mother and grandmother. Before I even became a bride.
Against every impossibility, I’m innocent and untouched once more.
I inhale loudly, shocked by the revelation.
Morpheus looks up at me with smug satisfaction.
“You knew all along,” I say, caressing his face. “You knew it would end like this.”
“Of course I did. Isn’t magic a splendid thing?”
I answer him with a shy smile, but there’s something behind it that wasn’t there sixty-four years ago—something coy and expectant.
“Mmmm,” Morpheus murmurs. “Now there’s a smile with scads of potential. Let’s get this forever started, shall we?” He drops my hem back into place, guides me to my knees beside him, and from his pocket drags out a bottle labeled: Drink Me.
We toast to new beginnings and, between greedy kisses, take turns sipping until we’ve shrunk enough to step through the tiny door and into the outskirts of Wonderland.
PREPARATION
“I’m not supposed to feel this much, Alyssa. ’Tis impossible for my kind.” Wearing a tortured frown, Morpheus holds my hand to his smooth chest where his nightshirt hangs half-open, exposing the waist of his black satin sleeping pants. His heartbeat races and his voice grinds, no longer silken and sweet like the one he uses in my lullabies, but wretched and bewildered. It scrapes through my ears and plucks at my heart.
I want him to be happy, and I know he is, in the deepest part of himself. This anguished tone means something else entirely: surrender, and the easiest victory he’s granted me in the nine months since we’ve been king and queen, not to mention all the years he occupied my dreams before that.
To think, this is all it took to win without a fight. I almost smile, but can’t get my mouth or jaw to release their clenched muscles.
I squint through my lashes in the candlelight given off by floating, self-sustained wicks that never burn down, studying him where he sits on the edge of our bed—the bed that once belonged to him alone. He arranged to have it brought here from his manor, along with his moth and hat collection, the moment we were married and he moved into the Red castle.
I’m on my side, naked beneath the covers, knees pulled tight to my swollen abdomen in a futile attempt to ease the electric pulses radiating along the muscles there. The waterfall canopy holds its trickling stasis wide enough for me to see around the outline of my king’s body and his blue hair, still messy from sleep. Other than when he moves to trigger them, the curtains refuse to open any farther than a few inches from him, as if allowing us this sanctuary out of respect for the monumental event that’s under way.
On the other side of our canopy, the royal bedroom is a flurry of activity.
Morpheus’s harem of sprites buzzes about: some coaxing pieces of blue, fluffy, cotton candy clouds through the door to line the cradle, and others herding wasp-size flying elephants with antennae on their heads and pollen sacs on their legs toward a cluster of luminescent flowers.
The flowers were sent by Grenadine. She’s found she’s happiest tending the gardens. Something about the scent of the plants helps her remember how to care for each one; they’re the sensorial equivalent of the whispering bows she wears on her toes and fingers.
The blossoms she sent to our room are colored like rainbows and shaped like bells. They hang from vines secured upside down from the ceiling, just above the cradle. When the blooms are pollinated by the winged elephants, they jingle and release a honeyed fragrance while spinning, which paints the velvet-draped walls with prismatic light. An enchanted baby mobile, made especially for an enchanted prince.
Lorina, the dodo bird’s wife, carries a bucket handle with her wing tips and leaves the sloshing, thick liquid a few feet from the bed. Her humanoid face shimmers with excitement. “I brought the treacle sap Gossamer requested!” She ruffles her red feathers as her booming words reverberate. “I also woke the royal advisor so he might boil it.”
The jarring timbre of her voice shakes Morpheus’s moth-filled terrariums on their shelves and rattles my spine. Morpheus winces and I grind my teeth impatiently, hoping the bird-woman doesn’t stay. I can usually overlook her lack of manners for her kind heart, but I’m too high-strung tonight.
There’s a clatter in the corridor, and two seconds later, Rabid White hops over the threshold wearing a nightgown of wrapped fabric that resembles toilet paper. His matching nightcap drags the floor behind him, hanging askew off one antler. He blinks his pink eyes sleepily and rubs them with skeletal knuckles. “Late be I?” He yawns. “The Red Prince, at last arrived did he?”
“Not yet, sleepy bones.” Gossamer flitters in the door and pushes Rabid toward the bucket of treacle beside Morpheus’s feet. “Now, remember what I told you. We need this heated.”
My royal advisor brightens the light in his eyes and concentrates on the floor.
“What in bloody hell?” Morpheus bellows at Rabid as his bare soles turn bright red.
“Your feet cold, were not?” Rabid asks, frothy lips pouting. “Gossamer said . . .”
We
all stare at Gossamer.
“I said his feet would do well to be cold,” she scolds Rabid. “Master displays a startling lack of caution when it comes to certain aspects of his life.” She smirks and flutters around us, trying to look busy and innocuous in spite of how her coppery eyes flash with mischief.
When I first left to live my human life in reality, the sprite and I had mended fences. But since my and Morpheus’s wedding, she’s become increasingly prickly and envious, as if living all those years as Morpheus’s confidante in my stead rekindled her unrequited affections for him.
Rabid frowns remorsefully at Morpheus. “Rabid White gave you a hot foot . . . not necessary?”
“No, blast it!” Morpheus barks, lifting a sole to observe the flaming, tender skin. I grasp his hand, a reminder to be gentle. He squeezes my fingers in response and his furious expression softens to annoyance. “My feet were not cold.” He casts a warning glare Gossamer’s way. “Nor will they ever be where Alyssa’s concerned.”
The sprite looks down, green skin darkening with a flush.
“Sorry I am, Majesty.” My apologetic advisor bows so low he nearly tumbles headfirst into the bed.
Morpheus catches him by his antlers then nudges him toward the bucket of treacle. “There, Sir Bumble-noggin. That’s what you’re to be heating. Get to it.”
Rabid nods and readjusts his visual aim until the metal bucket glows orange. The syrupy liquid bubbles and pops, filling the room with a cherry scent. Having done his job, the rabbit-size netherling gathers some fallen cloud residue to make a pallet on the floor, curls atop it, and starts to snore.
“I don’t understand why you sent for treacle,” Lorina caterwauls to Gossamer, so loud my eardrums clash inside my head like tambourines. “Humans always use boiled water. I’ve seen it in their box pictures.”
“You mean their tellie-visors,” Gossamer corrects, and as if to make up for her earlier wickedness, hustles Lorina out the door and offers a polite thank-you for her services, assuring the bird-woman she had brought the right bucket.
“Televisions,” Morpheus growls to everyone and no one at once while rubbing a still-red foot. “Also, what in the name of Fennine and all the fairy saints is the treacle for?”
“Perhaps we use it to christen the baby?” a chorus of sprites twinkles.
“Yes, yes. We christen it!” echoes another. “Wait . . . what does that mean?”
“Dunk it, headfirst,” a lone sprite chimes.
I yelp, horrified.
“Everyone, shush!” Morpheus barks the order. He strokes my hair in a calming rhythm. “Do not worry, blossom. No one is dunking our prince in boiling syrup.”
Gossamer returns, rounding up her sprites like a drill sergeant. “Treacle sap comes from the sassyfras tree, Master.”
“I’m aware of its origins, pet.”
Her bulbous, brass-colored eyes brighten, a sure sign she’s pleased to have his full attention. “Being as it’s the most flippantly happy of all the trees in the wilds,” she says to him, intent on holding him captive for as long as possible, “I sent for undiluted syrup to sweeten and tame the beastly toys.”
“Ah, well played.”
Gossamer beams at his praise.
“To your posts then.” Morpheus shoos everyone off the bed. “Our queen needs her rest.”
Pouting, Gossamer leads the sprites away. They settle beside the boiling treacle as Chessie and Nikki drag over a box. Inside is an octopus-like creature the size of a half-dollar with rattlers similar to a rattlesnake’s tail sprouting from each tentacle—venomous and creepy enough to entertain even the most cynical member of the Red Court; a self-playing xylophone made of living fish bones; and some teething rings formed of actual snapping teeth, among other oddities.
Using Chessie’s tail as a rope, the sprites dip one of the snarling teething rings into the boiling syrup. It resurfaces—nothing but gums . . . soft and rubbery. They do the same with the octopus-creature, transforming it into an eight legged rattle—colorful, brittle, and harmless.
Upon seeing the fate that awaits them, the other toys hiss and clamber over each other in an effort to escape the box, desperate to retain their wild, dangerous forms. The sprites screech and give chase.
The scene is morbidly chaotic and funny enough that I giggle. It’s a mistake, for the muscles in my abdomen respond with a set of contractions hitting me in a flourish of electric pain. I wail as it runs the length of my torso, then through my lower back and upper thighs. Fingers of blue light, so like Morpheus’s magic—yet entirely unique to the one causing them—follow the path of the spasms beneath the sheets and inside my belly. I tuck my head under the edge of my pillow, whimpering.
Gossamer and the other sprites give up their chase to poke their heads through the space between Morpheus’s body and the water canopy, curious and concerned.
Morpheus rubs my abdomen and glowers at them. “Why are you all flitter-flattering in midair like mindless twits? This isn’t some pageant put on for your amusement! You’ve no business being in this room lessen you have a task, aye?”
Gasping at his ill-tempered outburst, they retreat to chase the toys once more.
“All this hovering is inane and senseless . . . and not in the good way,” Morpheus grumps. “May as well have charged admission. We should keep that in mind for next time.”
“Next time?” I sob, trying to breathe through a contraction. “No, no next time. I won’t survive this time.”
“Of course you will. Do you not remember? We both saw the vision in your blood mosaic a few weeks ago. We’ll be welcoming a daughter after our son turns five.” His is the voice of gentle and measured reason, a stark contrast to the teasing lunacy he usually emanates. “Now, stop worrying about what’s happening out there. For you hold me captive here.” He lifts his wings so I can no longer watch what’s happening outside, so I’m grounded on our bed where it’s just us and our own little island adrift on raw emotions and soft-spoken ploys. “This is the perfect opportunity to take advantage and regain your pride. Or perhaps you don’t mind that I trampled you at chess yesterday morn.”
The pain recedes and I unclench my jaw. “No, I won,” I manage.
He narrows his eyes. “I had the checkmate, luv.”
“But it was strip chess, remember?”
His gaze tours my body. “Oh, I remember that detail vividly.”
“So, with each counterattack you executed . . . I dropped another piece of clothing. With each glimpse of skin . . . you found it harder to concentrate. In the end—chessmen and checkmates aside—all you could think of was how much you wanted me. Isn’t it me then, who ultimately captured her opponent’s king?”
An appreciative laugh rumbles in his chest. “Sneakie-deakie.”
I laugh with him, and then stop myself. As unbelievable as it seems, tears glisten along his beautiful face in the candlelight. Not only the gems, clear and pristine, but rivulets of water that capture the glow like tiny currents of lightning along his luminous skin. He hasn’t realized they’re there yet.
“You’ve been crying,” I accuse, gently.
“Have not,” he retorts.
“Have, too.”
“Well, I’m not the queen, so I can cry all I like.”
He said those very words to me on our last night together before I left to live my human days in the mortal realm. It’s the loveliest of rarities—to have his feelings exposed and him helpless to stop them. He’s usually either in complete control or manipulative enough to force my hand before he shows his.
As moved as I am, I’m holding the ace this time, and I can’t let human tenderness sway me. I’m one of the two most powerful netherlings in the Red Kingdom, and I won’t miss this chance. Who knows when my rival will surrender again without making me work for it?
“Flatter me,” I insist with a wicked, teasing smile. “As the official winner of the chess game, I get to choose your penalty. I demand words of persuasion and praise.”
Morpheus glares at some sprites wriggling through the water curtain’s spaces. They pause at my lips to offer sips of cooled cherry treacle to give me positive energy. Afterward, they fluff my pillow and move down to straighten the blankets.
He waits until they’re pulling up the sheets at my feet before focusing all his attention on me. “Your beauty terrifies me,” he says, swiping his tear-slicked cheeks with the back of his ruffled sleeve.
I smile wider, because it’s exactly what I want to hear, and he knows it.
The sprites stall in midair and swoon at their master’s unprecedented lovelorn display, their reflective dragonfly gazes moonstruck.
“Privacy, pets,” Morpheus snarls, and they scramble out from the canopy. He folds his wings low around my head and arms, shutting out everything and offering solitude within the shadows. My sparkling skin reflects across his face. His elegant fingertips trace my neck and collarbones, warm and soft. He watches the trek, still fascinated by the same curves he’s felt a thousand times by now. His hand stops atop my breast, thumb pressed to my sternum, seeking my heartbeat.
My breath catches.
“Your savagery dazzles me.” His sweetly scented whisper warms my face. “I desire you endlessly. More than a precarious fall through the constellations, more than a game of malice upon the checkerboard sands, more than a treacherous traipse through the wilds.”
“So you admit it,” I gloat, clutching him by his shirt placket, our lips a hairsbreadth apart as I suppress my instinct to raise the stakes in our game with a flurry of pandemonium. “You expect me to hide such blatant disregard for the rules of your kind, solitary fae? A Red Queen never rations out favors . . . even to her Beloved Moth.” I lose my hold on his shirt as another surge of contractions shudders through me. Gripping my abdomen, I groan. “Unless there’s something in it” —I struggle to find my voice— “for her or her kingdom. Give me whatever I ask, or I will make a royal proclamation. King Morpheus worships his bride more than Wonderland itself.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he croaks, playing along. He lowers his wings, exposing us to candlelight again.
