Morpheus offers a sad nod and Chessie hangs limp over his shoulder, his smile turned upside down.
“I thought she was trying to save her creator,” I add as we all walk through the portico and onto the bridge. “But she was trying to save her friend.”
“She was a brave little spriteling,” Morpheus acknowledges. “And speaking of small but fierce females, it’s time for you to spread your wings, luv.”
I don’t feel so fierce. Just the short walk across the courtyard has left me winded. I’m not sure how long I have before Red’s power runs dry and the tendrils holding me together give out.
For one second, I consider telling the guys about her spell, share my concerns so I don’t have to shoulder them alone. But what good would it do? They would only be tormented because they can’t fix this. No one can.
Red herself said there was no magic that could heal me.
My eyes burn at the edges. I’ve never felt more alone.
“Let’s go get your mom.” Jeb stands back so my wings can sprout open.
I force a smile, pushing past the tearing sensation behind my breastbone to take flight, eager to see Dad and hug him. With Jeb carried by his shadow on one side and Morpheus and his shadow on the other, we head for the cliff and our transport to the Wonderland gate.
As we fly, the memory of my vision about Mom buffets me like the wind currents. She’s safe, but Wonderland’s heart is ailing. What will we face when we get there? I only hope I can fix things before my own ailing heart gives up the fight.
I can die happy, if I know Wonderland will live.
I have just enough time to absorb my wings, slip out of my deadly dress, and pull an extra tunic over my leather leggings before we’re sucked into the wind tunnel and dropped in front of the gate that leads to Wonderland. After I fill everyone in on my vision about Mom and Ivory, Uncle Bernie hugs me and Dad good-bye. We promise to visit once we’re back in the human realm.
It’s a promise I’m afraid I won’t be keeping.
Leaving Uncle with the other knights, we make it through the gate without anyone knowing I’m harboring a fugitive. After that, aside from the horrible rotting stench, traveling through the tulgey’s quarter-mile-long throat isn’t nearly as terrifying or dangerous as I expected. Partly because Dad has ventured through once before and leads the way, but also because the tulgey is frozen. Literally.
Morpheus expected as much, even prepared us for it. He said according to my vision, Ivory froze things to slow Red’s decaying spell. To give us a chance to stop it.
The tree’s open mouth comes into view, offering a misty silvery light to see by. Our breaths form clouds of condensation as we maneuver around the giant ice-slicked gray tongue, using the splintery teeth like stepping-stones.
I leap from the unhinged jaw into the heavily wooded thicket behind Dad. Jeb and Morpheus bring up the rear. The neon grass glistens with frost and crunches beneath my boots. A mildewed scent hangs on the air, even though everything is cloaked in winter.
Tangled branches and looking-glass rejects—netherlings that have been spit back out of the tulgey in strange and awful forms—all stand motionless. Morpheus names the creatures: a carpenter ant with a body made of tools; a hornet with a trumpet for a nose; and a grasschomper with a locust’s body and a horse’s head, sporting a clump of frosty grass sticking out from its muzzle—as if it was suspended mid-chomp.
The scene is uncannily like the frozen tea party Jeb and I encountered on our first trip here. But unlike the tea party, there’s no broken watch that has suspended time in its icy thrall. This is something else entirely.
I meet Jeb’s gaze and he tips his head, acknowledging the memory.
Morpheus stops beside me. Glowing blue flecks swirl around his hands like fiber-optic mittens. They brighten and dim, then brighten again. His magic is stuttering as it warms up, like a car’s motor that has sat too long without use.
“Are you sure you told us everything about the vision?” he asks me as Jeb and Dad search for a path.
“I think so.” I rub my forehead. “I was . . . in a weird place when I had it. Why?”
Morpheus purses his lips. “I expected the terrain to be under a perpetual winter. But Ivory froze the residents. I can’t understand her motive. It was the landscapes that were in danger of falling into disrepair. Not the netherlings.”
I nibble on my lip. Something nudges at the back of my mind. Didn’t Mom use a strange word to describe the sickness that had fallen over everything? But I can’t remember what it was . . . it started with a D.
Frustrated by my amnesia, I trundle over to where Dad and Jeb are clearing away fallen branches from a trail that appears to be the only way out.