Huffing, the lory fluttered up to the trapeze again.

Gossamer led Jeb to the pear slice, and they both sat down. The fruity scent overpowered the stench of the dungeon and calmed him enough to hear her out.

Gossamer curled her hands over Jeb’s where they rested on his clamped knees. “I’ve already betrayed my master enough by being here, and his wrath will be great. All I can say is that, within the hour, Alyssa will be forever indentured—tethered to Wonderland for all eternity. Morpheus has planned all along to send you back, mortal knight … but without her.”

A vein in Jeb’s temple began to writhe like a snake on a hot plate. He leapt up and banged his head on the bars again, trying to shake loose the taunting blue thread, unable to control the helpless fury boiling through him. More blood dripped along his temple. “You have to get me out! I’ve got to stop this!”

“Yes, yes! Us, too!” the dodo and his wife piped up. “We must help Queen Grenadine keep her crown!”

“Of course,” Gossamer said, grasping Jeb’s hand to drag him back next to her. “You will all be given the chance to fight for your loyalties.”

“But I can’t fight like this.” Jeb kicked a pear seed the size of his foot. “Did you bring an amplifying pastry?”

“No. It is not the strength of your body that will save Alyssa, but the strength of your artist’s heart. Though I can assure you, you won’t be leaving this place in your present form.”

The lory dropped down from her perch and scowled at the sprite. “Now, you listen here, little mimsy silverfish. This boy has no part to play. He’s secondary at best. I am the queen’s handmaid, and Charlie is the court jester. We should be your priority. We’re honored members of the royal court, the only ones who can put a stop to this travesty!”

Accelerating her wings to a misty blur, Gossamer floated and placed her hands on her hips. “For your part, Lorina, you can unlock your husband’s chains, as I need to speak to the mortal alone and have little tolerance for iron.” She opened the cage’s door and handed off the key.

The lory went fluttering out in a flurry of flamboyance and ill temperament.

“Come, come, Sweetness of Savagery,” Charlie encouraged his wife as she fluttered all around him, bouncing up and down, unable to maintain altitude. “Hurry, would you? The iron is stinging. Oh, really! It’s not so very hard … do try again!”

Lorina’s face fired even redder. “You try using a key the same size as your head with a wing tip, flufflesnot! Some of us weren’t blessed with fingers, you know.”

While the couple was preoccupied, Gossamer sat next to Jeb again.

“You said my artist’s heart can save Alyssa,” he whispered. “In the room at Morpheus’s mansion, too … you said I have power within my artist’s heart—a light that can pierce any darkness. My girlfriend is about to be dead to me and her family. It doesn’t get any darker than that.” Frustrated tears singed the corners of his eyes.

“Would you die for her, mortal knight?”

Jeb’s spine stiffened. In the past, each time he’d protected Alyssa, he’d just jumped in without a thought. Would he die for her?

When his dad was killed in an accident, it was Alyssa who saved him. He couldn’t believe he’d ever considered living in London without her. He needed her, every day. Her understanding smile, the way she made his scars feel like medals of valor under her touch, and her incredible eyes. Even though she’d seen just as much disappointment in her life as he had, there was a light inside her that never dimmed. And not only did it make her beautiful on the outside, but that same light allowed her to bring life to the incredible mosaics she made.

It was that light—both inner and outer—that had driven him to sketch and paint her over and over again.

He looked at Gossamer, hardly able to contain his emotions now that they’d been given an outlet. “She’s my best friend.” My muse, my brush, my artistry, my heart. All of it’s dead without her. “I love her.” Scrubbing his face, he smeared the moisture that had crept from his eyes along his cheeks. “Yes, I would die for her. Is that what I have to do?”

The sprite stared back, unblinking. “Are you willing to go beyond death? To be lost to everyone, even yourself, in a place where memories wash away on a tide as dark as ink? For in order to free Alyssa, you will have to take the Ivory Queen’s place in the jabberlock box where she’s trapped.”

Jeb pictured the dark water in the box he’d seen in the mirrored hall at Morpheus’s mansion—the ghostly head inside—and his heartbeat stumbled. Self-preservation kicked in, his mind racing to find another way. But in the deepest part of him, he knew there was no alternative, and time was running out for Al. His only regret was that he wouldn’t get to tell her how he felt just once with his own voice before it was locked away forever. “I’ll do it.”

“And so you shall.” Gossamer stood and held out her arms. Weak and numb, Jeb stepped into her embrace. She clung tightly and flew him out of the cage, landing them on the floor. “The mortal has agreed to be your kingdom’s hero.” She fired the words at Lorina. “See that you honor his bravery.”

Lorina had managed to unlock her husband. She sat upon his shoulder, fanning herself with a wing. Wide-eyed, she nodded in silence—the most heartfelt accolade she could’ve offered. The dodo knelt beside Jeb, a huge feathery presence. “We are forever in your debt, lad. What can we do to help?”

Gossamer pointed to a far corner of the dungeon, where a burlap blanket covered a cot, draping down to the floor. “Bring me what’s beneath that bed.”

Jeb watched, numbed by a mixture of disbelief and dread as the dodo carried over the jabberlock box.

Lorina gaped. “Morpheus had Ivory hidden down here?”

Gossamer nodded. “Upon Rabid’s suggestion. He said this was the one place in the castle that no one would search for her.”

After asking Charlie to open the lid and arrange a stone for them to stand on so they could see within, Gossamer dismissed the strange couple to a far corner of the dungeon for privacy.

Jeb stroked the white velvet roses flocked along the outside of the box, mesmerized by Ivory’s beautiful face as it bobbed to the surface. Her haunted, crystallized gaze slid from him to the sprite and back again—cautiously curious. He shuddered at the thought of taking her place.