The Moth in the Mirror (Splintered, #1.5)(3)
“Yes, this one is indeed a challenge,” Gossamer agreed in a voice that tinkled like chimes. After sending the other two sprites to pick up the contents of the latest basket, she offered Jeb a silk robe.
He turned his back and shrugged the covering on, taking in his surroundings.
Morpheus had put him in an opulent prison. The room was round with black marble floors that reflected orange candlelight. He was already intimately acquainted with the focal point: a swinging, circular mattress attached to the center of the domed ceiling with gold chains. Furs and pillows cushioned the bed, perfumed with rose petals.
For all its comforts, this room was missing one very important aspect. An exit. There was no door, window, or any other opening in sight.
Convex walls—painted dark lavender—had grapevines stretching around their circumference, winding in and out of the plaster and entwining lit candelabras. Fruit blossomed on the vines. At random intervals the grapes would spontaneously burst and drizzle their juice into stone basins set all along the walls to catch it. From there, rich purple liquid drained into fountains—a constant supply of sweet-smelling fairy wine.
He vaguely remembered tasting the wine when he’d first arrived. Suspicious of it, he’d tried to resist, but he had been so thirsty. No telling what kind of magic was inside the liquid.
He groaned and rubbed his face. How long had he been drunk and bewitched? He’d made himself useless to Alyssa, just like his old man would’ve done.
“Where is she?” he asked, ignoring the self-playing harp behind him, which picked up volume, trying to muffle his voice. “Tell me what Morpheus is doing to her.”
Minuscule, glittering, and confident, Gossamer settled on a satin pillow. She patted the mattress next to her and crossed her green ankles. “Perhaps you don’t realize what we sprites are capable of. We’ve had centuries of practice. We can show you rapture the likes of which you’ve only dreamed about.”
Jeb regarded her, head to toe, then tightened the satin belt at his waist. “Sorry. I don’t dream in green.”
He found Alyssa’s backpack under the bed and dragged it out. He’d noticed something in there earlier when he’d been digging through it: a wrought iron bangle bracelet she’d probably tucked inside at school and forgotten about. He’d done his share of research on fairies when he first started painting them, and he knew they didn’t like iron—if the lore was true.
He slammed the backpack onto the mattress. The fur blankets billowed like a huge wave and knocked Gossamer from her pillow. Kick-starting her wings, she landed lightly on Jeb’s shoulder.
“If it is Alyssa who inspires your passions, we can fulfill that fantasy.” Gossamer clapped her hands. The others left their cleaning posts and hovered in a circle around Jeb. A sick spasm knotted his gut as every sprite took on the likeness of Alyssa—miniature replicas complete with platinum hair and sexy skate-glam outfits. They released their pheromone seeds again, blinding him with Alyssa’s nectar-sweet scent.
Swinging a pillow, he shattered the illusion and scattered the seeds. The sprites screeched and hid in the vines on the walls, their glowing bodies like strands of white twinkle lights.
Gossamer fluttered overhead, scowling. “Enough! Report to our master that the mortal is loyal to the girl. We cannot seduce him to return to his world without her.”
Jeb cursed as the sprites wriggled through pea-sized holes in the wall where the grape vines wove in and out. If only he, too, could fit through those tiny exits. He gave a passing thought to using the shrinking drink in the backpack that he and Alyssa had found when they first arrived in Wonderland, but that would render him as small as his current captors, and he’d be powerless against Morpheus. Helplessness boiled in his gut, as deep as what he used to feel as a kid, hiding in a closet until his dad’s rampages passed.
He clenched his teeth. There had to be a doorway hidden somewhere behind the vines. They’d brought him in here; there had to be a way out.
He took a running leap toward the closest wall and ripped some vines free, slinging them everywhere. Gossamer’s tiny screech of surprise didn’t faze him.
Grapes burst in his hands, releasing their sticky, potent scent. The ropy plants cut into his fingers like wires. He embraced the pain. This was something he could control—unlike the torment of his old man’s glowing cigarettes boring into his skin, or the fists pounding his face and gut. The scent of nicotine, the taste of blood. Imagined or not, they fed the savage in his soul.
He plunged into a red tunnel of rage and trashed the room. When he at last came back to himself and leaned against the bed, he was shocked at the havoc he’d wrought.
Out of breath and sweating, he nursed the bleeding cuts at the bends of his fingers and searched the debris for Gossamer. Had he hurt her? If so, maybe he really was his father’s son.
Jeb clenched his hands, disgusted with himself. “Gossamer?” He flinched at the sound of his voice, gruff and raw with emotion.
A flicker of wings stirred on one of the chains suspending the bed from the ceiling. He exhaled, relieved to see the sprite. Though it seemed stupid to care, since he was about to try using Alyssa’s iron bracelet against her.
Gossamer settled on the floor next to the torn vines and the baskets he’d overturned yet again. Her shoulders were slumped in defeat. She probably didn’t know where to start counting all the spilled contents.