I tell myself I’m keeping her alive to punish her, but there’s more to it than that.
“I came to kill her,” I say, seeking counsel for my conflicting feelings.
“Maybe it’s enough that you reminded her there’s more to living than death and destruction,” Dad says, stroking the top of my head.
“You must decide soon,” Ivory adds. “In just a few hours, after the landscapes have stabilized, I will be waking all the denizens who sleep in my spell. We shall have a banquet, and together assure them our world is safe and strong. However you choose to dispose of Red will set the precedent for how your subjects view you as a queen.”
As if things are too serious for his liking, Chessie dive-bombs me, his eyes relaying his relief that I’m well. Nikki follows yet watches me shyly, with a stranger’s eyes. She’s not exactly the same little sprite. She’s an updated version, but Chessie is still delighted to have her back.
I smile and open my hands so he can nestle there. Nikki perches on my thumb, cautious and inquisitive.
I glance at Ivory. “What about the magic that healed me?”
Ivory looks at my parents. “Might I have a moment alone with your daughter?”
Dad nods and squeezes my shoulder. Mom kisses my cheek reassuringly. Holding hands like teens, they leave the room and shut the door behind them.
“This magic”—Ivory points to my chest—“is made of the most innocent love, Alyssa. The love of children. Pure and unconditional.”
Chessie launches from my hands and flutters about the room with Nikki in tow. I look down at the faint glow behind my sternum. “I don’t understand.”
“Come.” Ivory leads me to the fireplace. The silver flames blink, brushing Ivory’s pale irises, eyebrows, and eyelashes with glitter, like snow in moonlight. We sit together on the crystal lounge and she winds her waist-length silvery hair to one side on the white cushion. Nikki settles atop the coiled spiral and spins herself up in the strands.
The graceful turn of Ivory’s long neck reminds me of the swan form she sometimes takes. Just like Morpheus takes the form of a moth. It fully hits me that my alternate appearance is my human one . . . that my magic will never have a telltale color, because I’m a half-blood. This sets me apart, just like my dreams and imagination. It makes me special to both worlds. Which is what Morpheus has been saying all along. Which is exactly what Red hoped to accomplish by spawning a race of half-bloods, before she lost sight of her original noble intentions.
Red stirs at the back of my head, shrinking in agony.
Ivory holds out her palm and a softball-size bubble appears, luminous and clear.
“Another vision?” I ask, remembering all too clearly the last one she showed me and the life-magic vow that ensued. I don’t plan to make any more vows for a while.
“This is not a vision. Rather, it is a glimpse into your recent past.”
Chessie drops down and, with a poof, dissipates to orange sparkles and gray smoke. His haze drifts across the bubble like a cloud, bringing clarity to the blurry image that takes shape inside.
All of my senses tune in: I see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the moment:
Morpheus carries my unconscious form into this room and places me on the bed atop the snowy quilts. He pauses, staring down at my face, the jewels under his eyes the stormy gray of a tempest. Mom moves around him, her wings fluttering nervously. He steps back as she blots blood from my lips and collapses over me, crying.
Chessie hovers anxiously.
Morpheus turns to him, jaw clenched. “Go through the mirror passage . . . bring Thomas and Jebediah. Hurry!”
Chessie flurries away.
There’s movement at the doorway and Ivory steps inside. “There is only one means of saving her now.”
My mom looks up, the whites of her eyes rimmed with red. Even in her sadness, she’s beautiful, her skin luminous and smooth as if she were twenty years younger. “No. Not yet. She still has another life to live.”
Ivory winds her snowy white hands together. “If you want her to live at all, this is the only way. I’ve already summoned Grenadine to send the crown via Rabid. They’re in the north tower, so he shall be here soon.”
“We can’t do this.” Mom stiffens her shoulders. All vulnerability has faded from her expression. Her wings rise tall behind her. She’s determined, ready to fight.
Ivory steps closer and places a hand on her arm. “By putting the crown on her head, we will renew her netherling heart. She will return to the age she was when she came last year, the age of her coronation. And she will be stronger than ever before.”
Mom arranges the dreadlocks around my head. “But her human half is too weak to endure the surge. It will die. And she’ll always be haunted by its absence.”
“We can give her a forgetting potion,” Ivory suggests. “Banish the memories. She’ll be the Red Queen, with nothing human to impede her reign.”