Or maybe, as with Lissa, his better judgment was corrupt and he was trying to force a square peg into a round hole because letting go of Lissa, of that night under the stars when they’d loved and laughed and revealed their innermost souls, had felt so real that to believe otherwise felt wrong.
All his life, Aeric had been a fighter. It’s what he’d been born to do, when the curse of the sands had become his, he’d not fought it; he’d learned to accept it, adapt to it. But he’d always yearned for more, always believed that even he could find a destiny greater than slaughter and death.
He’d thought he’d found that with Lissa. It was why he kept clinging, kept hoping that Chrysalis would make this right. Would absolve Lissa’s guilt, would open his eyes and his heart and make him see.
“How come Lissa never had the bleeding heart?” It was bothering him enough to ask.
“I told you, hunter, I am Lissa, but she is not me. I’ve always been aware of Lissa, but she’s never known of me. So I sent her to you but I shielded her. Kept her diminished, by doing so I was able to control what you saw. You stabbed me, if you’d seen her covered in the markings of a fight, you’d have known immediately.”
“Is that why she was solid in cat form?”
“Yes, because it wouldn’t matter what there was, the fur covered her. It wasn’t until almost at the end of our quest that my ability to shield her no longer functioned.”
“Explain from the beginning.”
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her slim body and rocking softly. “I don’t have a lot of time, reflection is growing stronger, when she comes I cannot control myself. I will tell you what I can before she returns, but know this, man, no matter what she says or how she looks, I do not want her in me anymore. I know that now.”
He clipped a hard nod.
“When I was born,” she began. “I was cursed by the moon. My parents tried for years to hide my affliction, but I always knew I was different. As I grew older I learned of my different side, Lissa was fun and carefree. Completely harmless. Then one day I noticed another presence and realized it’d always been lurking deep, deep down.” She grimaced as she briefly rested her palm upon her heart. “It was dark, but it was quiet and easy to pretend it was nothing. Until the day it showed itself. Manifested itself in front of Danika. The fairy knew immediately. She tried to teach me how to control the evil, how to bury it deep and keep it away and at first the spells worked. I could contain the darkness, but as I grew, it grew stronger. Reflection is powerful, she does not know everything I do, only what I tell her. Lissa knows nothing of any of us, she is young, spirited, and very innocent.”
He had no time to dwell on those words. “How many of you are there exactly, are there more than three?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t believe this story. I can’t.”
She snorted. “It is my story, man, and yet you tell me it is an impossibility. It is very possible. You see me here,” she pointed in front of her, “but do you not also see me there?”
Frowning, he followed her finger and couldn’t believe his eyes. A misty figure hovered between trees. A blue spirit with billowing black hair floating behind her as she vanished behind a thick trunk. Suddenly a memory came to him, Lissa mentioning once or twice that when she’d seen Chrysalis only she’d been in ghostly form.
How long had Chrysalis been doing this to Lissa?
“Who you just saw was Lissa, my split. But when Lissa is in control, that is how she sees me.”
“You were the one guiding her here?” His heart jerked at the realization. Was that how Lissa knew to come here exactly? Had she been following the trail of a ghost?
Chrysalis nodded softly, as if answering his unspoken question.
“Lissa tells me you’ve walked these woods since age four. Is that true?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“But you’ve been locked in the Hatter’s garden for ages, how is that possible?”
“I am the daughter of the Hatter, there’s much I can do, I walked these woods as a shade for many years. Learning it, exploring it, mimicking its madness.”
“Have I even been in Wonderland?”
“You are in Wonderland now.”
“Yes, but a Wonderland I barely recognized. You say you led me here, to you, so that we could speak. Did you drug me at Pillar’s? Was that you too? Just how much of this journey did you plot?”
She shook her head, but knowledge seemed to twinkle back at him. “I did not tell the caterpillar to give you anything. Though I’ll admit that I did lead you to her to find me there. Or rather Lissa.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to make reflection believe I was actively trying to kill Lissa. You were not the only one who didn’t realize Lissa and I share a body. Reflection has no idea that Lissa isn’t just another creature of Wonderland, but an actual part of me. The surest way to keep Lissa and reflection in the dark was to pretend she’d been abducted before I could reach her.”