Morpheus loses the knife and Hart grabs it as Manti moves back into place between her and the doppelganger.
“Enough delays,” Hart threatens, giving Manti the knife. “The wedding goes on as planned, Morpheus. Try anything else like that, and you’ll be swimming with the eels before the day is out.”
We wrap our vines around Morpheus’s arm and pull him toward us as Manti and Hart turn to the audience, calling out commands to silence them.
Morpheus studies the mutilated mortal. Profound misery darkens his features. He peels our tendrils away, curses under his breath, and throws down his hat.
The little sprite and Chessie flitter out, carrying a miniature hookah. We watch them, suspicious.
As if spurred by the activity, the human prisoner contracts his muscles in a futile effort to break free of his chains. He makes a guttural choking sound—animalistic and gut-wrenching without his tongue.
His agony fascinates us, demands our attention. That sense of knowing twists inside, sharper this time, like a knife. The unwelcome voice revisits:
This isn’t the first time he’s bled for you, it prods. And he has painted with more than mud. How could you forget the room of starlight and snow, ribbons, wishes, and dreams? How could you forget all he’s sacrificed for you?
Chessie appears in front of our face. He sucks on the hookah pipe and blows a puff of smoke. The scented cloud permeates the air and coats our tongue, triggering images: licorice tobacco and a seductive fae with an agenda, ocean salt and a mortal boy’s sweat, maple syrup and a father’s love, a mother’s sacrifice and a lunar garden rich with lilies and honeysuckle.
The human within us dances for an instant, awakened by her senses. Her emotions are overwhelming . . . frightening.
We writhe in place, our vines whipping out to chase Chessie away. But it’s too late. The knife of knowing saws back and forth across the tethers We’ve secured around our heart.
We won’t allow it. It will hurt if the seams are broken.
Concentrate. Concentrate only on the man who will be our king.
Our attention shifts to Morpheus, then to Hart as she and Manti face the priest once more, having placated the bloodthirsty guests. The guards and goons barricade the stairs, forming a line between the wedding party and the audience.
“Wake up, you buffoon,” Hart says to the priest, and the lightning bugs strike him with electrical charges until he giggles so hard his bulging eyes open. “Begin the ceremony.”
The priest smacks his fat, slimy lips. “Do you come into this union free of all binds?” The croaking question bulges from his greenish throat.
Morpheus’s head hangs so low his hair cascades across the left side of his face. His bejeweled profile fades to the color of tears through spaces in the blue curtain. “A life-magic vow stands between us.”
“Then it must be broken, or forfeit the union,” the frogman says, and yawns loudly.
Silence wreathes the courtyard. We look at the flames in the sphere overhead. The brightness burns an imprint on our mind, cauterizing the human emotions trying to weaken us.
“It is time, Morpheus,” Hart presses. “Prove your loyalty to your brides and your world, and you will be rewarded with the key to the gate. Bring me the boy’s heart.”
Morpheus snarls. “First, you show me the medallion. I want to see it.”
Hart offers the shadow box to Manti. She opens the lid to reveal five pulsing life-clocks. With a squishing sound, Hart plunges her fingers into the fattest one, then drags out the medallion. She lays it across her palm, dripping with blood. “Proof enough? Now kill him.”
Morpheus takes our unresponsive hand and holds it close to his lips. His breath cloaks our fingertips, another disarming sensation. “Remember: Memories are your greatest weapons,” he whispers.
We turn back to the suffering mortal. Pictures blink through our mind: the same boy in cargo shorts and a dark tee beneath his Underland vest, black lights highlighting his toned arms with bluish flashes; the boy in his feather-duster mask for the junior prom masquerade; Jeb sand surfing with me on tea carts, then pouring out his blood to save my life over and over and over; Jeb kissing me after I broke his heart, and fighting at prom for me and every other human.
One of the threads on our heart breaks loose with a visceral twang, reviving the voice:
His tongue said beautiful words to you . . . His eyes held you in their gentle gaze. Never again. Unless you stop this. He might still be healed with magic, just as he once healed Morpheus.
It’s my voice—my reasoning—quiet and still, desperate to be heard. But my vocal cords lie dormant as if I’ve swallowed the black mist outside of AnyElsewhere’s gate. Like my body, my words are held captive by Red’s vines.
Still, she can hear my liberated thoughts.