The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(102)

Snatching it from the air, she cupped the warm metal in her palm, and suddenly an idea sprouted. “You created this garden for me, didn’t you? To remind me of home.”

His smile was large, revealing the white rose petals of his teeth. “Do you like it?”

It was amazing to her how well he could formulate his thoughts now. When she’d first met him, it’d been difficult trying to decipher the madness of his words. But the more she was with him, the less Hatter depended on poems and sonnets to verbalize emotion.

Wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, she dragged his earthy, delicious scent deep into her lungs and kissed the peach fuzz of his face. “I love it. Thank you.”

Patting the back of her head, he pointed and there was another door. “We’re almost there. Are you hungry?”

His question was odd, but she realized the moment he asked it that she actually was. Her stomach took that moment to growl loudly, causing her intestines to cramp up. Grabbing herself, she nodded. “Now that you mention it, I am a little.”

“Open the door, Alice,” he commanded.

And she did.

Immediately his scent of flowers disappeared and she held nothing but air. But she wasn’t sad because the sight looming before her awakened a hunger she hadn’t felt in ages.

She stood upon the very tip of a frosting mountain. The combined smells of cream cheese and sugar and vanilla smacked her in the face. Her bare feet squished into layers of rich frosting. Moaning, she bent and scooped up a handful, bringing it to her mouth.

The taste was unlike anything she could ever make, and she was a baker, a damn fine one. But this wasn’t just frosting. This was the elixir of life.

Every swallow settled like sunlight in her stomach, filling her limbs with warmth and verve. She tasted the sweetness of vanilla and cinnamon, the tanginess of lemon and lime, the salty smoothness of velvety, salted caramel.

Each bite was unique and different, and so much sweetness should make her sick, but it didn’t.

“This is how I feel when whenever you are near me.” His words feathered through her ears. Smiling, she glanced up, but this time he was little more than a stack of black smoke, looming like a cottony wisp before her.

She could barely make out his features, but she knew it was him.

“This is amazing, Hatter. You’ve put me to shame.” She laughed.

The amorphous touch of his hands as he grabbed hers made her glance up.

“I love you, Alice.”

Heart warm and soul full of yearning for this man, she wished the frosting on her hands and face to disappear so that she didn’t look like a crazy mess. “So this is your treasure? A world of frosting?” She laughed. “Leave it up to my crazy man to love the frosting the best.”

“Oh, Alice.” He shook his head. “Don’t you see it yet?”

Searching his coal-black gaze, she frowned. “See what?” Turning to stare at the endless mountain of pearlescent white frosting, she shrugged. “I do see it.”

“No.”

Unsure of what was going on, she turned back to him in time to see him shake his head. “Can’t you figure out my treasure yet?”

Licking her lips, she tried to understand it. He’d taken her to a garden of hibiscus flowers that’d turned out to be butterflies, a world full of frosting... Was she missing something?

“Flowers, butterflies, and frosting?” she asked hesitantly.

Laughing, he flicked his wrist and the same door appeared as before.

Brows lowering, she glanced around. “Where is your treasure, Hatter? I’m confused.”

“One more door, Alice. Go through there, and then you shall truly see.”

Grabbing hold of the handle, she watched as his shadow disappeared, and when he’d vanished she walked inside.

Everything was black. The type of black that seemed impossible to penetrate, it was deep and unyielding, complete and utter darkness.

The door slammed shut behind her. The moment it did, a brilliant burst of ruby-red light flashed in gently beating bursts.

A swamp of red and then black, red and then black, over and over. There was a loud humming, whooshing sound that almost reminded her of...

Blinking, she looked up, and that’s when she noticed she wasn’t in a cave like she’d first assumed. The walls around her were firm and gleamed like opaque crystal whenever the red bled through.

“This is a heartbeat,” she whispered, figuring it out.

The moment the words left her lips, a bright white spotlight shone down on her, and in front of her was a long, gilded mirror. It reached up and down to eternity, never ending, going on and on and on.

Tiptoeing close, she stared at her reflection, studying herself in a way she’d not done in some time. She barely recognized her reflection.

It wasn’t that she was all that different. She still looked like the same Alice in many ways—short and willowy with long black hair, a small, heart-shaped face, and sloping brown eyes. It wasn’t even how her skin glowed with a type of vitality she’d not had in life, that it was more golden bronze than the muted yellow she’d been in the hospital room during her final hours of life, or even the wildness of the dress she now wore. It wasn’t in the way she’d styled her hair.

No... The difference came from within. She was a woman loved and cherished... She was a...