"Is there something between the two of you?” I pause at the threshold, waiting. “No! I hate the wretch.” His face, crisscrossed with lacework shadows, grows somber. “I hate her with the same changeless passion with which I love you.”

“Dance with me, blossom,” he coaxes, and when I hesitate, he reels me in with his magic. I snuggle into his chest and let myself savor his vitality, wishing I could absorb it.He wraps an arm around my waist and clasps my hand with his. Lips pressed to my dreadlocked head, he hums the lullaby’s tune while his inner voice fills my head on a frequency only I can hear: “You dazzled me today. So uninhibited. So filled with malice.”

“I believe I’ll keep that one to myself, luv. If I told you all my secrets, there would be no more mystery in our relationship.”“I’m not a big fan of mysteries.” That roguish smile I once hated curls his lips and curls my insides. “Rubbish. You adore them.”

My mom stares at him in disbelief. “This is thanks to your schemes. You pressured her to choose you . . . to choose Wonderland over her other side. What did you think would happen?” Morpheus hunches lower, miserable.

“And in the process,” Morpheus says from beside the fireplace, “you’ll destroy some of her best qualities.” Mom and Ivory glance at him, as if taken aback to hear those words coming from his lips.He sits hard on the chaise lounge, wings draped over the back, then slouches with elbows on knees. The silvery flames flicker across his bejeweled face. “What of her whimsy and curiosity, her compassion and loyalty? Her imagination, her dreams. These are all part of her humanness.”

"The decision falls to you. She’s too weak to make it for herself. Red’s greed and vengefulness saw to that when she made Alyssa’s heart the battlefield.”“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Morpheus and Jeb answer simultaneously without hesitation.

He stretches languorously under me, and the silvery scar on his abdomen catches the light, that telltale mark from Sister Two when he fought her inside Butterfly Threads just weeks ago. When he almost died to help me and Jeb escape. But I didn’t let him die, because I couldn’t imagine a world without him.I can’t imagine a future without him, either. Not anymore.

I crumple, my palm skating along the tree’s frozen face as I plop to the ground.“Alyssa?” Morpheus crouches beside me in an instant. He catches my chin and forces me to look at him. “Are you feeling anemic again?” I struggle to breathe. It grates inside my chest, like inhaling angry bees. Blood creeps into my throat and gags me.Morpheus’s jeweled markings flash through an anxious kaleidoscope of colors.

“He’s already been found, like I said,” Jeb answers, his attention on the hand pressed at my neck. He narrows his eyes, and with a subtle flick of his fingers, Morpheus’s shadow rises from the floor and wrestles Morpheus away from me.Growling, Morpheus shoves the dark silhouette aside, then glares at Jeb. “Amateur. Cheap parlor tricks.” Jeb gives him a vicious grin. “A pupil is only as good as his tutor.”