“Mayhap you’d like a derby style?” Hattington says as he feels his temporary cheekbones. “I have some fine red felt back home.”
“Hmm …” Morpheus brushes soot off his lapel. “I was thinking one of buckram might be nice.”
“Hey!” Jeb slams a fist on our end of the table. The group turns to us. “Al’s in danger of becoming someone’s human parakeet. She’s finished what she came to do. Fulfilled the requirements to break the curse. Now we need to get back to our world. Like yesterday.”
“Yesterday, you say?” the hatmaker warbles in his bouncing timbre. “Yesterday is doable.”
Guffawing, the hare slaps a knee and adds, “Although two yesterdays would be impossible.”
The Door Mouse snickers, slipping back into his uniform. “No, no! You can retrogress as many yesterdays as you please. Simply walk backward the rest of your life.”
They all bend at the waist, holding their ribs as they laugh hysterically. Their lack of sobriety stuns me, and Jeb looks like he might snap at any minute.
With a flick of his wings, Morpheus lands on the grass beside us. Gossamer nestles in his hair. “There’s more bad news, as per your leaving here.”
Jeb narrows his gaze. “How can it get any worse?”
“When the Red army raided my home, they found the jabberlock box and stole it back again. It is no longer under my protection, and without the Ivory Queen, her portal will remain closed. That makes it ever more imperative we get the sword and defeat Grenadine and her king.”
Jeb inches closer to Morpheus. “And how do you propose we defeat them when the sword is at their castle under the keep of some mutant watchdog?”
I grip his shoulder from behind, reminding him to use restraint. Morpheus is our only ally, however infuriating his tactics are.
“All is not lost,” Morpheus says. “Chessie can subdue the bandersnatch since his other half resides within.” He tickles his sprite’s tiny swinging feet with his finger. “You will get Chessie’s head for me. He’ll have full control, and I can steal the sword and defeat Grenadine, then send you both home via whichever portal you like, Red or White.”
“No!” Jeb lunges in a move so swift, it almost jerks my arm out of its socket. He catches Morpheus by his lacy shirt and lifts him onto tiptoe so his wings drag on the ground. Gossamer dangles from a strand of blue hair. “This is all a ploy to get Al to do another ‘task.’ Right? Another test. What I want to know is what she’s being tested for. What happens when she passes them all?”
Smug, Morpheus taps Jeb’s fingers, one by one, as if he were playing a flute. “Ah. Gossamer’s been running her little pretty mouth again, aye? Jealous little nymph.” The sprite scrambles off his shoulder and flitters into the tree overhead. “You know, you should never trust a woman with green skin. Just ask any man who’s had a hangover from absinthe.” Morpheus gazes at me. “All I’ve ever wanted is to free Alyssa and return her to her proper place.”
“And where would that be?” Jeb moves his head in front of me so Morpheus has to look at him.
“Her home, of course.” The jewels at the edges of Morpheus’s tattoos turn clear and sparkle like liquid, mimicking the sincerity of real tears. “I’d like nothing more than to get Chessie’s head myself. But, because of our misunderstanding over the moth spirits I harbor, the Twid Sisters and I aren’t on the best of terms. They’ll not let me set foot nor wing anywhere close to their gate.”
“Wait.” I step up. “What does this have to do with the cemetery?”
“That’s where Chessie’s head resides,” Morpheus answers. “Because he’s technically ‘partly’ dead, he was able to find solace there. So the solution is simple: Save the cat to subdue the bandersnatch, free the Ivory Queen with the sword, and then you get to go home.”
“What a load of crap.” Jeb shoves Morpheus away. His netherling wings swipe wide, maintaining his balance before he crashes into a chair. Gossamer drifts down from the leaves, hovering over him.
Jeb takes my hand. “Let someone else go after the cat. Al’s in danger out here. We need to hide until we can get home. She’s done everything you asked. The curse is broken, right?”
Morpheus looks at me, not Jeb. “What good is breaking the curse if you never go home? If Alison never sees her daughter again, she’ll be worse off than she is now. Her insanity will no longer be an act.”
I shudder. Morpheus is right. Alison would never forgive herself if I was lost for her sake.
Morpheus glances over his shoulder toward where the tea party crew argues over who gets to drink the mouse’s bathwater from the hare’s boot. The edge of his mouth curls. “The inner garden is hallowed to our kind. We’re forbidden to walk upon those grounds. You’re the only ones I can send.”
I squeeze Jeb’s hand, hating what I’m about to say. “We have no choice, then. We’ll go.”