Splintered (Splintered, #1)(65)
“Then he fits in well with you, seeing as you’re both liars.” I hate the accusation in my voice but can’t seem to contain it. I break our handhold, noticing the bag on the table—the one containing the jabberlock box. “Why’s this still here?”
Frowning, Jeb steps up next to me as I unwrap the box. “Probably the safest place. You shouldn’t mess with it.”
“I want another look at the inscription.” I’d like another look at the queen, too. What is it about her that holds Morpheus so enthralled?
Jeb covers the lid with his palm. “You know, you can’t just call someone a liar and let it drop. Maybe I wasn’t honest about London. But you lied, too.”
The moth spirits skim by in my peripheral vision, as if riding my racing pulse. “Not about my feelings. You waited until we came down here to own up to your so-called crush on me. Back in the real world, where it counts, you chose Taelor.”
He forces me to face him, pushing the hatbox to the back of the table. “Where’s this coming from? Has that cockroach been swimming inside your brain again?”
“No. But Gossamer was in yours when you were knocked out. And she saw you dreaming of another girl. When you kissed me … it was just to convince me to give this up and go home so you could get back to Tae.”
“What?” His fingers feel hot and tight even through my sleeves. “The dream I had was of Jen and Mom. I’m worried about them.”
“Right,” I say, wanting to be convinced but not quite there.
He jerks away and strides to the other end of the hall, silent and stoic.
My arms chill with the absence of his touch. The pain is crushing, but I’m glad I said something. I would’ve had that doubt forever, thinking I was stealing kisses meant for another girl. I drag the pewter hatbox toward me again, concentrating on the lid’s inscription to keep the hot tears behind my eyes from flooding out. If I focus and unfocus through the blur, the letters move, forming legible text. I trail it with my fingertip and whisper the words:
“Behold the box of jabberlock’s, the fairest rests inside. But free the dame and ease her pain to slip into her tide. An ocean red from bonds of love, and paint the roses’ hearts thereof, applied with wisps of finest strand and guided by an artist’s hand. One trade of souls will shut the door, and blood shall seal it, evermore.”
“It is the key to freeing the queen if you’re not the one who imprisoned her.” Gossamer’s chiming voice pulls me out of my meditation. “Individualized to the box’s inhabitant.” She lights on my shoulder so I can see her up close—a woman’s perfect form, dusted green and naked but for the strategic placement of glistening scales. Her hands rest on her hips. “An ocean red from bonds of love.” Her dragonfly eyes glitter. “The roses must be painted with the blood of someone willing to trade places with her for the noblest of reasons. Love initiates the transfer.”
The famous Lewis Carroll scene passes through my mind—the card guards painting the roses red in the garden to keep from being beheaded. How ironic, that in this Wonderland, someone could lose their head forever by painting the roses upon this box.
“So Morpheus wasn’t completely honest,” I say. “There’s another way to free her and open the portal. It’s not just up to the person who put her there.” Jeb is standing behind my reflection, his expression smug. I can almost hear the “I told you so” emanating through his eyes.
“It isn’t such an easy decision,” Gossamer scolds, then lifts off my shoulder, wings buzzing. “Once the trade is made, no one can ever free the replacement soul. The blood makes the seal permanent, eternally. One trade of souls will shut the door, and blood shall seal it, evermore.”
“So, what you’re saying”—Jeb steps up—“is that it has to be an unselfish love. Which Morpheus is incapable of giving. He lacks that kind of courage.”
Gossamer flaps her wings in midair, arms crossed over her chest. “My master has a great capacity for courage. He saved my life once.” She glances at the hall’s entrance and back again. “No one knows what he or she is capable of until things are at their darkest. That is why the key to opening the box is the essence of the heart. Therein lies the world’s most potent power.” Her cryptic words hang in the air.
She ducks beneath the table and drags out my dad’s army knife, leaving it by Jeb’s foot. He tucks the weapon into his pocket. I want to ask what the sprite means about a heart’s essence, about the dark. I want to ask how Morpheus and the solitary netherlings are faring downstairs. But my tongue is tied up in the jabberlock poem and Jeb’s reaction to my questions.
Gossamer has us face one of the mirrors, and she touches the glass with a fingertip. The moth spirits vanish from the in-between plane, flying into other mirrors along the walls.
Palm splayed over the reflective surface, the sprite initiates that same splintering effect I saw in the cheval glass in my bedroom. A long table filled with pastries and teacups appears in the mirror, sitting under a tree in front of a country cottage that’s shaped like a rabbit’s head—complete with chimneys for ears and a fur-thatched roof. It looks as if the sun has overpowered the moon this time, because daylight shimmers on the surroundings. With a key almost the size of her forearm, Gossamer unlocks the portal, smoothing the glass.