There’s a grunt inside the cloud. “Truly, Alyssa. You wound me. I’m grand company.”
My eyes snap open. “You lied to him. You didn’t want him to know it was Red’s magic that was making him hate me. How did you pull that off? He had to see those memories in the rose-petal room.”
“In spite of the magic he wields, your mortal is out of his element here. He’s had no one to trust but me. No one to confide in but the source of his power. So when I told him the images in the rose-petal room were my memories, of times I’d spent with the royal family, he had no reason to question my sincerity.”
I tighten my fingers around the rock. “Sincerity. Like you know what that is. You let him get eaten up by her hatred just to drive a wedge between us.”
Morpheus clucks his tongue from inside his clouded veil. “Had he known about Red, he would’ve turned her magic against me. Killed me with a flick of his wrist. It was self-preservation. The fact that it put distance between the two of you, that was simply a fringe benefit.” A tendril of smoke lifts free and breaks into vaporous shapes: hearts, rings, music notes.
I growl. “Yeah. Anything that gives you an advantage.” I wave away a smoky heart, breaking it in half.
A large, dark wing cuts the smoke and disappears again, enveloped in the haze. “You’ve driven me to it. You have that boy on such a high pedestal. It’s far too slippery up there for one so unprincipled as a solitary fae. It’s not as if I haven’t tried to drag him down. I looked inside his soul. Hoped to find his weaknesses. Only to discover that even those could be considered strengths under the right circumstances.”
“Wait. What?” I glare at the cloud, wishing he would come out and face me. “What do you mean, you looked inside his soul?”
“I rode the memory train a few months after you left Wonderland. Before you and Jebediah visited on the day of your prom. How’s that for sincerity?”
Hot fury blossoms in my face. “You spied on his lost memories? You had no right!” The branches overhead start to shake, as if triggered by my outburst. The diary heats up against my shirt, becoming effulgent.
“Oh, please,” Morpheus taunts. “Save your righteous indignation for someone who has not stood eye to eye with your manipulative side. You did no less, viewing your mum’s memories. Your father’s. Red’s. By the by, using a toy diary enchanted by a child’s love-magic to hold repudiated memories at a safe distance . . . bloody brilliant. If I weren’t already head over heels for you, that stunt would’ve pulled the rug out from under me and left me flailing flat on my back.”
I clench the diary under my clothes. “How did you know it was her forgotten memories inside?”
“The same way you know Red has poisoned your mortal toy’s muse. Netherling intuition and superior reasoning. Proving once again that you and I are alike in more ways than you care to admit.”
“We’re nothing alike.” A lie, and I know it. Even worse, he does. “My motivations are honorable. I stole Red’s memories to stop her from ruining anyone else’s life.”
“A queenly enterprise indeed. But it all comes down to this one truth: You are a lady of action, and I am a man of same. We excel at risks and trickery, and won’t hesitate to use them if it’s the only way to preserve what we love. Which is why, in spite of my ethical shortcomings when compared to your cardboard-cutout prince, you will ultimately choose me.”
His certainty seeps into my brain, making a mockery of my own irresolution. “It’s more than that. It’s choosing which side of me to embrace, and which one to turn my back on. I will fix Wonderland. And I’ll be there each time the nether-realm needs me.” I’m almost woozy from the burn in my heart, as if it’s been scored down the middle with a hot knife. Red’s fingerprint is getting deeper by the hour. “But I can’t choose beyond that yet.” Not without falling to my knees from the pain.
“And that, my plum, is where your selfishness comes full circle, and it’s confirmed without a doubt that you are a malicious queen of the Red Court through and through.”
“Enough!” Control snapping, I chuck the rock into the hookah smoke. It sails straight through without stopping and clunks to the ground on the other side of the mushroom. Morpheus’s mocking laughter spurs me to toss another one, but two holes in the cloud offer little satisfaction. I want to launch every rock in my path as a missile until Morpheus is a piece of Swiss cheese.