Unhinged (Splintered, #2)(70)
As if he’s been waiting for me to connect the dots, he dissolves into orange sparkles and gray smoke. He drifts like a cloud over the glass beads and acts as a filter, bringing clarity to the lines of the mosaics. Once he’s in place, it’s like watching a monochromatic film play out: First, there’s a giant spider chasing a flower; in the next mosaic, one Red queen is left standing amid a storm of magic and chaos; and in the last one, there’s a single queen whose upper half is wrapped in something white, like web.
Disturbing clues I can’t quite fit together.
Shaken, I descend the ladder, leaving the mosaics where I found them.
On the floor, I hold Jeb’s shirt up in the sun. Something dark is caked all across the front. The scent reminds me of blood. I suppress a moan.
“We have to find him.” I slap stray tears from my face and toss the shirt aside.
Chessie hovers around one of the covered easels. Maybe the remaining paintings will tell us where Jeb is now.
I nod, giving my netherling companion permission to do what I’m too scared to do myself.
Holding a corner of the cloth in his paws, he flits his wings and drags it away. Instead of canvas stretched over a frame, there’s a pane of glass streaked with red paint so fluid, it dried in drizzles. I study the runny lines, the image unmistakably more of Jeb’s handiwork.
The same coppery scent that was on Jeb’s shirt overpowers me. Following a hunch, I scrape off some of the red paint and touch it to my tongue. Nausea follows in the wake of the salty-metallic flavor.
Blood.
My mind tumbles to a dark, terrible place, but I haul it back and hold myself steady. Jeb needs me to be strong. I can’t imagine him draining his veins for paint like he did last summer in Wonderland. But he survived it once. He will again. He’s okay. He has to be.
I look closer at the painting. It’s familiar beyond Jeb’s style. It’s an abstract version of one of my mosaics—one of the ones now hidden somewhere under a bridge in London. Chessie helps me remove the cloth from the second one. It’s also a glassy rendition of my artwork. The last easel holds a clean pane next to three empty plastic vials. The same ones Nurse Terri used to take samples of blood at the hospital.
My blood.
Morpheus pointed out that even if Red had access to my blood, she didn’t have the imagination to set the visions free. Since I’m partly human and an artist, creation is my power.
Jeb’s an artist, too. And he’s fully human. Morpheus was right about my blood being used as weapon against me. And Jeb unwittingly wielded the sword in the form of a paintbrush.
Once again, he’s caught in the middle of my identity crisis.
My eyes well with tears, but I don’t have the luxury of time to cry.
Chessie blinks at me, waiting, and I give him permission to help decipher the artwork.
He uses his magic veil again to animate the glass paintings: What was a stationary queen on a rampage in Wonderland becomes three fighting queens, just as Mom described. They move across the glass, using magic and wit to one-up each other and gain the crown. Another woman spies from behind a cluster of eight spindly vines.
Chessie rakes his paws through the residue left on the first pane of glass and smears it on the next glass painting, as if transferring his magic. This time, only two queens are left to battle for the crown, while the third is eaten alive by some vile creature. The mystery woman who was watching from behind the vines retreats. As she leaves, the vines go with her. They appear to be coming out of her bottom half. She’s not hiding behind a plant at all—the appendages are a part of her. And the top half is too humanoid to be a zombie flower, so it can’t be Red.
Chessie materializes and lands on my shoulder. I’m too numb to even thank him for his help. There’s little satisfaction in our discovery because I can’t understand what any of the mosaics mean. All I do know is that they’re proof that Red has used my blood to gain the upper hand in our battle. Even worse, Jeb has been in her clutches and is now gone.
My heart hurts—a pain that sucks the breath out of me. Unable to stand on my trembling legs, I sit hard on the floor, knees curled up to my chest. It’s like my sternum is caving in. All this time I was trying to protect Jeb from my past by hiding it. And now he’s been swallowed by my future.
I know I need to think beyond this world, to what this means for Wonderland. Red is one step ahead of me. She’s seen five of my six mosaics. I can only hope she wasn’t able to interpret them, because they show the results of a war that is only just starting to play out. She wants to alter the ending to her benefit, and I need to find the last mosaic so I can be a step ahead.
But she’s got Jeb.
I hold his locket to my lips to taste the metal, burying my face behind a curtain of hair. Our plans for London, our life together. His chance at being a world-renowned artist … it can’t be gone.
If it is, I don’t know how to go forward.
The door slams shut, making me jump. I shove my hair back and look up.
I nearly scream when I see Jeb standing there. I’m off the floor in an instant. He’s wearing his black jeans from yesterday, but that’s all. Even his feet are bare. Sunlight shimmers on the dusting of chest hair between his pecs. His olive skin glistens with sweat, and colorful paint smudges his torso, covering several of his scars. There’s not a hint of magic to him, yet he’s the most spellbinding thing I’ve ever seen.