Jeb swipes my gloss from his mouth. I lick my lips, struck by an inexplicable stab of guilt.
Morpheus’s lullaby plays softly in my head, melancholy and pinched. The words to the song seem to have been altered to fit his mood:
Little blossom in peach and red,
Trapping boys with your pretty head;
Tease and play, be coy and smart,
For you will one day break his heart.
The lullaby sours to shrieking notes in my ears, making me wince.
Grunting deep in his chest, Morpheus turns to a mirror and brushes his clothes with his gloves. He’s wearing a white flouncy shirt under a red brocade jacket that swings at his thighs. It’s double-breasted with brassy buttons on both lapels. His pants resemble tights—crushed red velvet. Black lace-up boots stop just at his shins. He could be Romeo straight out of Shakespeare’s play if not for the blue hair and wings.
He whips his wingspan to its full magnificence. The jewels at the tips of his eye markings flash with his temper, from red to green. “Don’t you know, elfin knight”—he turns back to us—“that it is very untoward for a guard to proposition his innocent charge?”
I frown. What, do I have the word prude stamped across my forehead? “You don’t know anything about me.”
Morpheus twists his mouth into a wry grin. “Perhaps you were simply pretending, then? To blush like an unblemished peach?”
Jeb drags me behind him. “She’s not having this discussion with you.”
Morpheus huffs. “A little late for chivalry. Had anyone else seen that display, your masquerade as a knight would have ended before it ever began. Did you forget to tell him about a knight’s first order, pet? About keeping his hands and emotions in check?” Morpheus’s attention falls to his right shoulder. Gossamer peers out from beneath his hair. She and Jeb exchange a glance.
Morpheus’s eyes fall back on me, slicing like onyx blades. All I want to do is bask in the memory of my first kiss. Instead, I’m wrestling the notion that I’ve betrayed some nether-realm guy I haven’t seen in years, and for some reason, the thought of hurting him is unbearable.
Jeb’s stance stiffens. “Change of plans,” he says. “Al’s not going to help you play out this little game, whatever it is. You’re sending us back. Now.”
Morpheus lifts one side of his mouth in a sneer. He addresses Gossamer again while still staring at me. “Seems you were wrong. You told me the mortal wasn’t a threat. Perhaps you underestimated the allure of our crafty Alyssa.”
Gossamer studies her teensy feet. Her wings flap slowly, like a butterfly’s at rest. “I thought he preferred someone—”
“Shush! That’s not your secret to tell!” Morpheus shouts. The volume of his voice knocks Gossamer off her perch. She flutters in midair, hands slapped over pointed ears.
Morpheus touches a finger to his mouth. “Read my lips, loose-tongued little spriteling. Get. The. Bloody. Box. It’s time to show our maiden and her toy soldier what kind of welcome they’ll receive, should they turn their backs on their one ally.”
Gossamer whisks out of the corridor.
“And bring me my Cajolery Hat!” Morpheus calls after her. His command is still echoing when he spins on his heel to study us. Smug, he coaxes his gloves on. “There’s a problem with your request, pseudo elf. I can’t simply send you back. And Alyssa knows this.”
Jeb casts a glance over his shoulder, eyes wide with questions.
“Oh, dear me.” Morpheus slaps a palm to his cheek, as if stunned. “Were you too busy to talk about anything pertinent? Or perhaps our innocent maiden was feeling guilty for the money she ‘borrowed’ from your other girlfriend’s handbag, and you, being the noble knight, decided to comfort her.”
Jeb turns to me. “Wait … that money in your pencil box. Tae did leave her purse at the shop? You stole from her.”
Morpheus leans in between us. “Well, how else was our Alyssa to skip off to London to find me?”
Jeb’s gaze doesn’t budge, heavy with accusation. “I can’t believe you lied to my face. You stole money to get a fake passport and planned to go to London all along.”
“Two for two,” Morpheus taunts, behind me now. “A liar and a thief. That pedestal’s getting slippery, isn’t it, little plum?”
I elbow him hard enough that his wings rustle. “I did what had to be done to help Alison,” I grind out to Jeb, disregarding Morpheus’s smug smile as he walks by in my periphery. “I only borrowed the money. I’m going to pay it back.”
Morpheus stops beside Jeb. “She has a point. Motivation always justifies the crime. That’s the law of the land here.”
“Hear that?” Jeb says, piercing me with the mockery in his voice. “The local cockroach has given you his stamp of approval. And you wonder why I can’t trust you to go off on your own.”
A tiny fire burns at the base of my throat, an annoying need to justify myself rising like acid. “I had a plan.”
“Oh, great plan.” Jeb motions to the room around us.