I’ve only been in the looking-glass world a little over a day, yet it feels like weeks. I can’t keep up with the passage of time here. And tonight promises to be the worst stretch of all as we wait to see if we’ll get Dad’s cure, or have to face the Queen of Hearts’s deadly caucus race.
I stroke Dad’s head, expecting Jeb to try to discourage me from going along with Morpheus’s plan. Instead, he watches me silently as the moonlight and the lighthouse’s beam take turns illuminating the walls.
“I checked his leg and the venom hasn’t spread,” Jeb finally says, his deep voice velvet-sweet like it was in the human realm, before Red’s magic infiltrated him. How ironic, that my heart isn’t the only one she’s tainted. It makes me hate her even more.
“He’s going to be okay,” Jeb continues. “He’s the strongest man I’ve ever known.”
The glimpse of the boy from my past is so vivid, I fall into old habits and spill my soul. “I had a vision about Mom, that she’s alive and safe. I think she’s sending messages through my dreams.”
Jeb leans against the wall, not even questioning me. He’s seen and worked enough magic at this point to believe in the unbelievable.
“What am I going to tell her if . . . ?” My voice trails off.
“No, Al. He’ll get through this because he’s the one dreaming now.”
I nod. “I hope he’s dreaming about being safe. About the things that make him happy.”
“He’s probably fishing,” Jeb adds from beside the porthole. “Just like he used to take us.” He forces a short laugh, more sorrowful than happy. “Remember that time you dumped out a whole box of bait?”
I almost smile. It was the summer before eighth grade. Dad bought crickets at the bait shop. “They were screaming for help.”
There’s a thumping sound, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Jeb’s knuckles against the stone wall. “That’s when I first started falling for you.”
I glance at him over my shoulder. With his tousled hair gilded in silvery starlight, he’s as lovely as any mystical sight I’ve ever seen. “You never told me that.”
He turns his back to look outside. “You were so worried about those bugs. The same girl who stuck pins in them every day for her art. Yet you couldn’t shove a hook through them to catch a fish.”
“Because they were already dead when I used them for mosaics. I didn’t have to hear their suffering.”
“I didn’t know that. All I knew was there was so much more to you under the surface. So I started sketching you—trying to make it come through, to read between the lines.”
He always drew me as a fairy, as if he really was deciphering my secrets. I’m heartsick that he’s lost the ability to paint me while he’s been here, that it almost broke him to try.
“And your dad,” Jeb continues. “He didn’t get mad that you turned the bugs loose. He just pulled out the aluminum lures, and that’s what we used from then on. I never knew a father could be like that. Forgiving. Kind. He’s the best guy I know. Pretty sure he saved my life a time or two.”
I sniffle and swipe my nose with the back of my hand, then tuck the blanket under Dad’s chin, studying his serene face. “He was supposed to be a knight.” My vocal cords constrict. “Instead, when Mom was committed, he had to be both parents. I used to think he was boring because of that. But that made him the biggest hero of all.” To keep from crying, I bury my face in Dad’s shoulder, taking comfort in the rush of his breath at my temple. His skin smells of the paint that earlier coated his body.
I barely notice the weight settling beside me on the bed’s edge.
“Al,” Jeb whispers, closer than he’s been since I first arrived at the mountain. His fingertips trace the edge of my wings.
“I want my family back. I want you and Morpheus safe, and I want to fix Wonderland.”
“I know.”
His empathy strips away my defenses and I lift my face to unleash my darkest fear. “But I’m terrified to let Red inside me again.” I stop short of telling him why—that my heart feels like it’s breaking, literally—because he looks away.
The mattress shifts as he stands. “I should go guard the entrances.”
Though it’s not the pep talk or comforting hug I was hoping for, I try not to be disappointed.
He heads toward the door. “Get some sleep, okay?”
I nod. My body, heavy with exhaustion, wants to do just that: curl up beside Dad. But as Jeb’s boots clomp down the staircase, it dawns on me why he didn’t try to talk me out of going through with Morpheus’s plan. Jeb feels responsible for Dad’s plight. He thinks he can get the cure himself so I won’t have to face Red’s possession at all.
Wonderland’s repair isn’t Jeb’s priority. Getting Dad and me to Mom safely is all he’s thinking about. But if he’s captured in that castle, they’ll use him as a vessel for their magic until there’s nothing left, just like Morpheus said . . .
I close the curtains around Dad and race down the stairs. When I pass through the empty kitchen, dread comes to a rolling boil inside my veins.
I shove through the door. “Jeb!”