The Moth in the Mirror (Splintered, #1.5)(8)
Morpheus pressed a finger to Jeb’s mouth. “Ah, ah, ah. Already used that one.”
Jeb jerked his head back, leaving the netherling’s finger hanging in midair.
The jewels at the edges of Morpheus’s tattoos darkened to the color of dried blood in the lantern light. “Now, now. Is that any way to treat your rescuer?” He pouted. “Besides, how can I let Alyssa go if I don’t have her? She was entering the garden of souls, last I heard. But once she’s finished there, she’ll find me. She has a very important role yet to play.”
“Right. Because she’s the heir to the throne.” Jeb listened, incredulous, to his own words echo as if they’d slipped from someone else’s mouth. “I don’t know how, but it’s her.”
“Oh, ho!” Morpheus applauded. “Do you see what I told you, brethren knights?” Glancing over Jeb’s shoulders at the elves, Morpheus patted his chest atop his red necktie, as if overwhelmed with emotion. “Smarter than the average mortal. Too bad he still has all the physical limitations of one.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jeb snarled. “She’s out of your reach.” He tugged against the elves, but there were too many holding him. “She must be inside the cemetery by now, and you can’t force her to do anything. You said it yourself—the Twids won’t let you in.”
“True enough. But she’ll find her way to the castle on her own. The moment she realizes I hold captive the one thing she treasures above all else in the world, she’ll come crawling to me, wings in tow.” Morpheus raised a hand in some sort of signal.
The Elfin Knights released Jeb. He spun on his heel and flung his backpack at them, scattering the group like bowling pins. Throwing out a fist, he cuffed Morpheus’s forehead and unbalanced him. One of the knights scrambled into place to maintain the mirror’s opening. Before Jeb could catapult after him and leap through, blue crackles of lightning snagged his skin and clothes like static electricity. They dragged him around, controlling him like a marionette until he faced Morpheus once more. The lightning was coming from the netherling’s fingertips.
Morpheus moved closer.
Jeb tried to step back, but his muscles shut down—paralyzed.
“Sleep,” Morpheus said simply, and he laid a blue-glowing palm on Jeb’s head. A pulse of light swept through Jeb. He tasted something sweet, like honey and milk, then smelled the scent of lavender. Fingers cinched in the silky weave of Morpheus’s shirt, Jeb struggled to stay awake. But the light was too comforting … too soft … too warm. Against his will, his eyelids grew heavy, and he fell to the ground, sound asleep.
4
Memory Three: Caged
Jeb’s skull throbbed, and blood drizzled from his hairline into his eyes.
He swiped away the stickiness to focus on his surroundings. Morpheus had brought him to the Red Castle after putting the sleeping spell on him. Dumped him inside a birdcage in the dungeon. Jeb wished he hadn’t drunk the shrinking liquid when he woke up, but the bug man had given him an ultimatum.
At first, he’d threatened to kill Al. But Jeb had called that bluff, knowing she was indispensable. Then Morpheus had pulled out another big gun, threatening to send Al’s fragile mom completely over the edge of sanity. That he would do.
Al had fought so hard to save her mother. It would kill her to lose her to madness. So Jeb didn’t hesitate putting the bottle to his lips.
His body swayed, but it wasn’t from the woozy aftereffects of the potion. The platform beneath him was swinging from his attempts to head-butt his way through his prison’s bars—a desperate move that had resulted in nothing more than the gash at his hairline. A piece of Morpheus’s magic—a blue electrical thread—held the wire door of the birdcage immovably shut.
“Well, plenty of good that did, yes?” a nagging female voice intoned. “Morpheus chooses who has the power to coax his magic loose. Obviously, you’re not a chosen one.”
Jeb grimaced at his fellow captive. She was a lory—a parakeetlike netherling normally the size of a human. Since they’d both been shrunk, the only thing that set her apart from the birds in his world were the robes of creamy satin and red jacquard fitted over her wings, body, and bird legs, and her humanoid face slapped onto crimson feathers as if it were a mask. A beak that was more like a rhinoceros’s horn jabbed at him from where a nose should have been, and her lips flapped furiously.
Worst of all, her voice could topple the Tower of Pisa with one syllable. Whenever she spoke, it was as if someone had surgically implanted speakers in Jeb’s ears and locked the volume dials on “deafer than a stone statue.” She was one of the many reasons he’d been trying so hard to get out of this bird prison.
Flickering light from the candles on the wall outside the cage illuminated her scowl and cast the rest of the dungeon into shadow.
“Listen, Lorina,” Jeb said after her voice stopped echoing. “We wouldn’t be in here if it weren’t for your husband.” He pointed to the creature snoring below the cage, who was just as strange-looking as his wife, with the body of a dodo, the head of a man, and hands protruding from the tips of his stubby wings. “He kept Alice Liddell in a cage just like this one all those years ago. It’s his fault my girlfriend has what it takes to dethrone your queen. Did it ever occur to you that this is what you both had coming?”