Jeb helps me up from the chair and pulls me in for a hug. It feels good to be in his arms, even if I’m unsure of his motives.
Our host settles his hat into place. “Bless me that I didn’t eat; elsewise, I’d be qualmish at such a nauseating display.”
Jeb kisses my forehead to spite Morpheus. I pull back, because I’d rather he kiss me for myself.
“The pig.” I offer up a change of conversation; I’m in no mood to play referee to any more of their wrestling matches.
“Yes,” Morpheus answers without breaking his scowling match with Jeb. “The pig is in fact a hobgoblin, born to the duchess.”
Bits and pieces of Lewis Carroll’s story drop into place. Someone was making soup for the duchess with lots of spices. That’s why the fan and gloves smelled like pepper. And she had a baby that became a pig. “So, what did he give you in exchange for the gloves and fan?”
Morpheus holds up the small white bag. “The key for waking Herman Hattington at the tea party—free of charge.” He hands it to me, and Jeb starts to work at the ribbon.
Morpheus’s thumb flattens on the bow. “You don’t want to do that. It is the most potent and priceless black pepper this side of the nether-realm. And you’ve only enough for one dose.”
Jeb’s forehead wrinkles. “Black pepper. What kind of subpar magic is that?”
Before Morpheus can answer, a horde of sprites floods the dining hall, fluttering in from the main door.
“Master, we have company,” Gossamer cries. “Bad company!”
“Go,” Morpheus says to Jeb, bending down to grab a mallet.
Jeb tucks the bag of pepper into his pocket, then takes my hand. We’ve only taken two steps toward the secret exit when a deck of cards—each one complete with six sticklike legs and arms—marches through the main door. The card guards keep pouring in until the walls are lined with them.
On closer examination, these guards have bugs’ faces with trembling antennae, and their paper-thin torsos are actually flattened shells, jagged at the edges and painted red and black to resemble suits of cards. With their oddly jointed limbs and piercing mouth-parts crisscrossed at their mandibles, they look more like insects than cardboard.
All these years I’ve been killing bugs, and now karma’s here to make me pay, in spades.
The bugs separate into suits: five hearts and five clubs on one side, five spades and five diamonds on the other, with Rabid White in their center. The sprites, tiny and helpless, look down on the situation from where they’re gathered around the chandelier.
A red waistcoat and matching gloves hang off Rabid’s short, skeletal frame. One hand holds a trumpet and the other a rolled-up scroll. He tilts his antlered head to blow three loud blasts from the instrument. Then, with a flick of his wrist and a rattle of bones, he throws open the parchment.
“Alyssa Gardner of the human court is hereby beckoned to the presence of Queen Grenadine of the Red Court.” His glittery pink eyes turn up, locking on me. A shock of terror races through me.
Both Jeb and Morpheus shove me behind them. So much for fending for myself …
“She’s going nowhere with you, Rabid.” Morpheus raises his mallet.
“Otherwise, Queen Grenadine says.” Froth slathers around Rabid’s mouth, and his eyes glow like lit coals, red with fire. “Otherwise, her army commands.”
On his signal, the cards against the wall shuffle together and leap toward us, as if dealt by an invisible hand.
The sprites drop from above, trying to run interference. Morpheus spreads his wings wide to block me and Jeb from the attack. Spears hit his wings, stretching them but not breaking through. My palms flatten against Morpheus’s back, absorbing the shock as his muscles strain with every swing of his mallet. His grunts drown out the clatter of guards hitting the floor.
“Get her out of here!” he shouts over his shoulder as he backs us toward the secret exit to the mirrored room, still using his wings as a barrier.
Jeb grips my elbow and drags me over the threshold.
“No!” I wrestle against him. “We can’t just leave him to fight alone. There are too many!”
Gritting his teeth, Jeb scoops me up over his shoulder. “He’s handling them. And you’re all that matters.” His arm locks around my thighs, my head and torso hanging upside down across his back. The winding black marble stairway bounces by beneath us, and blood races to my head.
I squeeze my eyes closed, listening to the battle in the dining hall grow farther and farther away.
The memory of how Morpheus and I played in our childhood, of the way he healed my bruises today, the sound of his beautiful lullaby—all of it boils over in a confusing brew of emotion. I think of the wish tucked within his jacket … the wish he wanted me to have for some reason. If I had it now, I’d wish to be in the dining hall, helping Morpheus fight.
I’m just about to make an escape attempt when I hear the sound of pots and pans clanging.