Splintered (Splintered, #1)(46)

“If our time together ever meant anything to you, you won’t hurt him.” Hot tears pour down my cheeks.

Morpheus reaches out to catch a teardrop on his fingertip. He holds it up in the pale glow that radiates from the few remaining sprites above us. A curious frown curves his lips. “You cry for him yet bled for me. One must wonder which is more powerful. More binding. I suppose we shall one day know.”

My throat dries. “What are you talking about? Bled for you?”

He rubs my tear into his skin as if it were lotion. “All in good time. As to your toy soldier, spare no grief for him. He’s getting scads of attention. And once he’s oblivious in his ecstasy, he’ll forget where he is and who he came with. Though I imagine I’ll have to send him to some other part of Wonderland to keep him out of my hair.”

Terror grips me. Bad enough those pint-size nymphets are going to seduce Jeb, but if they make him forget who he is, he’ll be lost here forever. Jeb’s here because of me. He doesn’t deserve an ending like this. “Please, just send him back to our world.”

Morpheus shrugs. “Not possible. We’re having a bit of trouble with transportation here in the nether-realm.”

“That can’t be true.”

He steps closer. “Can’t it?”

I take two steps away. “You visited me at home, at work. Watched me. Almost choked Alison with the wind …”

He throws his head back and laughs, raising his arms as if he’s some grand performer. “Imagine that. Me, controlling the wind and weather. Why, I must be a god.”

I glare at him. “I know what I saw.”

He straightens his sleeve cuffs. “I used reflections to visit you. The gazing globe at the asylum, store mirrors … the mirrors in your home. Through them, I projected an illusion, but I couldn’t fully materialize because the portals are obstructed. Your mind was my stage. No one else could see or hear or feel me. Only you. And you did feel me, didn’t you, luv?”

Thinking of the way his phantom breath tickled my neck as he hummed—hot and teasing—leaves me rattled to the bone. I lift my chin, a lame attempt to hide his effect on me. “There was magic … with my mom’s braid. It moved, locked my fingers around her throat. That was you.”

He buffs his fingernails on his lapel. “It was magic, I’ll admit. Misguided magic. And not mine.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re not yet ready for me to answer that.”

Tired of his manipulations, I shove him off balance and sprint for the opening in the trees where the sprites disappeared, nearly tripping over my heels in my desperation to find Jeb. There’s a harsh flapping overhead; then Morpheus drops into my path. I skid to a stop.

He crouches with wings spread parallel to the ground and stares up at me intently, like a giant bird of prey—dark and dangerous. I’m familiar with this side of him … his temperamental black moods. There will be no reasoning with him unless I can get the upper hand.

He stands and catches my shoulders before I can bolt again.

“Enough games,” he says. “It’s time you fulfill your destiny. I did not spend the first third of your life training you in vain. Alice has left ripples in our world that only you can smooth. I’ve waited over seventy-five years for this day to come … made too many sacrifices to watch it all fall to rot. You fix what she broke, and it will open the way for you to break the curse and get back home. Until then, I make the rules.”

Alice has left ripples in our world that only you can smooth. The zombie flowers said something like that, too. That only a descendant of Alice could fix this. And the octobenus insisted that the Wise One—Morpheus—was desperate for my help. Desperate.

He’s the one who prompted me to keep the sponge, the one who’s been teaching me about Wonderland for years. Why? He must have some kind of personal stake in this.

“You need me.” I raise my voice, taking a chance on my assumption. “It’s not that my ancestors couldn’t figure out the way here. They didn’t want to come. It has to be by choice. You can’t force them; otherwise, you would’ve abducted one and already fixed this mess. I’m the first who’s ever been willing to come this far, and I don’t have to do anything you ask. So what if I’m stuck here? I’ve always been an outcast. I’ve already learned to live with it. Alison … she’ll survive, like she always has.”

Morpheus doesn’t have to know the truth: that Alison’s quality of life teeters on my success. I’m seeing this bluff through to the end.

“This is your one chance.” I rest my hands on my waist. “Screw with me, and you could end up waiting another seventy-five years.”

A strange expression drifts over my childhood companion’s face. If not for the mask, I might get a better read, but it seems like there might be a glint of pride.

His fingers grow light on my shoulders. “What are your demands?”

“Jeb and I will be reunited, today. You’ll call off your sprites and leave his memories intact. He’ll be treated as your equal, not your pawn. And I want clarity … how you can claim to be Alison’s friend, if you and I grew up together; how you knew my ancestors if you’re my age. And what your stake in this is.”

He releases me from his grasp. “That’s all you ask?”