Ensnared (Splintered, #3)(15)

My chin quivers. I should be in awe just imagining him as a knight, but there’s sadness in his voice. I lean in to hug him. He wraps his arms around me, careful to avoid smashing my wings.

He regrets missing out on the life he was meant for. Just like Mom missed out on hers.

My birth, my entire existence, has been at the expense of their noble and royal callings. Not to mention, a black stain on the once beautifully bizarre landscapes of Wonderland that are now withering because of me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wishing I could blot out all of my wrongs with an apology. But it’s not possible.

I think of the tiny diary in the ballet bag. Red’s regrets were so acute, she cast them aside, abandoning the memories that made them. But there’s no “forgetting potion” I can take. And even if there were, I wouldn’t. Nothing can be erased if I’m going to put things right for everyone. And I will, no matter what it costs me in the end.





“Don’t be sorry.” Dad’s breath warms the top of my head. “I do wish I’d known my relatives. But I wouldn’t change anything else. If I had been a White knight, I would never have met your mom. We wouldn’t have had you. And, for the record, I wouldn’t trade my two girls for anything in any world.” He presses a kiss against my hair.

I snuggle close, struggling to make my voice work. “Thanks, Dad,” I whisper, comforted by the waxy-crayon scent of his shirt. Even if he’s able to accept the turn his past took, I can’t accept the one our present has.

“Okay.” His voice deepens to sternness and he eases us apart. “Let me have a look at you.” His brow crinkles as he runs his thumb across the top of my scalp. “That healing trick really worked. You were bleeding so much, I thought you’d at least have a concussion.”

He must’ve been so scared watching me dive into the storm and hit the tree. “How did you know I could be healed?”

“I didn’t. I wanted to get you to a hospital. But we were both too small and the mushrooms were gone.” A muscle in his jaw feathers. “I asked the butterflies to bring us here. I hoped they would understand, and that someone at the inn would know what to do.”

It had to have been terrifying to feel so helpless, to go against the grain of logic and surrender to faith in the senseless. Dad’s got more guts than Mom and I ever gave him credit for.

I squeeze his wrists. “You did great.”

“That little cat-bird fellow did great.” Dad opens my palms and traces the scars there. “That’s what your mom was trying to do when you were little and she hurt your hands. That’s why she kept saying she could fix you. She wanted to heal you. And I pushed her away.” His watery eyes meet mine. “I’m sorry, Allie.”

“You didn’t know. We never told you.”

He frowns and presses his forehead against mine. “Well, you can make it up to me. First off, I don’t ever want to see you throw yourself into the sky again.”

I smile at him through my tears. “C’mon. I have wings.”

He leans back. “Yeah, and they’re beautiful. But they weren’t working all that great.” He looks over my shoulder at the gauzy flaps casting shadows on the couch. “Although they appear to be stronger than they were.”

I flutter them. There’s no pain. Even the right one feels powerful. Chessie’s melding must’ve healed more than my skull.

I’ll be able to fly now, just in time to go to AnyElsewhere.

Dad must see my thoughts on my face, because he cups my chin again. “You’re not indestructible, even if you have abilities other girls don’t. No more unnecessary chances. Okay?”

I nod to pacify him. He doesn’t understand how necessary taking chances is to fix things. Even worse, he doesn’t understand that I’m starting to crave the risks.

“What else?” I ask to change the subject.

He drops his hand to his knee. “Huh?”

“You said ‘first off.’ That means something else is coming.”

The worry wrinkles reappear on his forehead. “Right. It’s time for you to tell me the truth. All of it.”

My stomach winds up like a fist. “That’s a lot of years to cover. Where should I start?”

“Baby steps. Your mom’s history. How Jeb’s involved. Does he know what you are? And that winged creature who carried me out of Wonderland’s portal—what part does he play?”

“Wow, Dad. Baby steps?”

“Yep.”

“Baby brontosaurus, maybe,” I tease.

His answering smile encourages me, and I tell him everything. From the moment I first heard a bee and a flower argue in the nurse’s office during fifth grade, to my Alice in Wonderland dream that night, to last summer when Jeb and I went through the rabbit hole and I was crowned the Red Queen after finding out who Mom and I are descended from.

Even when Dad’s face pales, I go on. Because he has to know about Mom’s part, how she once wanted to be queen herself but gave it all up for him. And how Jeb was brainwashed, forgetting our time in Wonderland, but once he remembered, he fought for me and the humans at prom. And that’s why he’s in the looking-glass world now.

“Oh, no. Not there.” Dad’s expression fills with dread. “I was so hard on him . . . when he said he hid you after that incident at your school. He was innocent. He was just protecting your secrets.”