A sliver of pain slides through the frost encasing my courage and cuts it with precision. There’s no question what has to be done.

“I’ll do it.” Though my voice sounds like little more than a squeak, it stamps out Morpheus and Jeb’s yelling match.

They both turn to me, deathly quiet.

I lift my shoulders so my wings spread tall. “I’ll do anything to save Wonderland”—to save everyone I love—“because I’m responsible. I was weak. I won’t be again.”

Joining hands to paws, Chessie and Nikki take to the air in celebratory spins.

“Alyssa . . .” Morpheus’s demeanor is pure reverence. “I always knew you had the heart of a queen.”

Jeb grips Morpheus’s T-shirt, gritting his teeth. “If you love her the way you claim, you’d let that witch possess you.”

Morpheus glares at him. “We’re not of the same bloodline. And even if I could, only Alyssa has ever managed to overpower Red. It is fated that she carries her out and defeats her once and for all.”

“Jeb, please. I’ve made my decision.” My throat hurts, even though I’m almost whispering. I’m so tired. “Dad needs some clothes, and a place to lie down.”

Jeb releases Morpheus and heads toward the hall. His expression is contained fury as he lifts Dad onto his shoulder. “I assume you’re coming this time,” he grumbles, then starts down the long corridor once more.

Trembling at the threshold, I cast a glance toward Morpheus. “She nearly tore my insides out once. Her mark is still there. I feel it.” I don’t tell him the rest: that it’s as if the strands of my heart are splitting, that I’m convinced it’s a magical effect from her possession, and each day it seems to rupture a little further. “I’m not sure I have the strength to rip her out again. Not without killing her and me both.”

His expression shifts to something so close to worry, it freezes my breath. He looks down at the diary. “You have a weapon now. Her memories give you an advantage she’ll never expect. That will weaken her.”

“We don’t even know that it will work,” I whisper.

“It will,” he says. “It must.” The concern echoing in the fathomless depths of his eyes belies the confidence of the words. For the first time ever, he shares my doubts.

We stay like that for countless seconds, staring at each other.

When he reaches out to comfort me, I step backward into the hall. Without another word, I fall into line behind Jeb, unable to shake the dread that has wrapped itself around my neck in the form of a diary: a child’s toy that will either save my life, or bring it crashing to an end.

Once we arrive at the lighthouse, Jeb carries Dad to the tower. He dresses him and calls me up. I cover Dad’s sleeping form with blankets then sit on the edge of the mattress beside him, taking off my boots.

I’ve only been in the looking-glass world a little over a day, yet it feels like weeks. I can’t keep up with the passage of time here. And tonight promises to be the worst stretch of all as we wait to see if we’ll get Dad’s cure, or have to face the Queen of Hearts’s deadly caucus race.

I stroke Dad’s head, expecting Jeb to try to discourage me from going along with Morpheus’s plan. Instead, he watches me silently as the moonlight and the lighthouse’s beam take turns illuminating the walls.

“I checked his leg and the venom hasn’t spread,” Jeb finally says, his deep voice velvet-sweet like it was in the human realm, before Red’s magic infiltrated him. How ironic, that my heart isn’t the only one she’s tainted. It makes me hate her even more.

“He’s going to be okay,” Jeb continues. “He’s the strongest man I’ve ever known.”

The glimpse of the boy from my past is so vivid, I fall into old habits and spill my soul. “I had a vision about Mom, that she’s alive and safe. I think she’s sending messages through my dreams.”

Jeb leans against the wall, not even questioning me. He’s seen and worked enough magic at this point to believe in the unbelievable.

“What am I going to tell her if . . . ?” My voice trails off.

“No, Al. He’ll get through this because he’s the one dreaming now.”

I nod. “I hope he’s dreaming about being safe. About the things that make him happy.”

“He’s probably fishing,” Jeb adds from beside the porthole. “Just like he used to take us.” He forces a short laugh, more sorrowful than happy. “Remember that time you dumped out a whole box of bait?”

I almost smile. It was the summer before eighth grade. Dad bought crickets at the bait shop. “They were screaming for help.”

There’s a thumping sound, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Jeb’s knuckles against the stone wall. “That’s when I first started falling for you.”

I glance at him over my shoulder. With his tousled hair gilded in silvery starlight, he’s as lovely as any mystical sight I’ve ever seen. “You never told me that.”

He turns his back to look outside. “You were so worried about those bugs. The same girl who stuck pins in them every day for her art. Yet you couldn’t shove a hook through them to catch a fish.”

“Because they were already dead when I used them for mosaics. I didn’t have to hear their suffering.”

“I didn’t know that. All I knew was there was so much more to you under the surface. So I started sketching you—trying to make it come through, to read between the lines.”

He always drew me as a fairy, as if he really was deciphering my secrets. I’m heartsick that he’s lost the ability to paint me while he’s been here, that it almost broke him to try.

“And your dad,” Jeb continues. “He didn’t get mad that you turned the bugs loose. He just pulled out the aluminum lures, and that’s what we used from then on. I never knew a father could be like that. Forgiving. Kind. He’s the best guy I know. Pretty sure he saved my life a time or two.”

I sniffle and swipe my nose with the back of my hand, then tuck the blanket under Dad’s chin, studying his serene face. “He was supposed to be a knight.” My vocal cords constrict. “Instead, when Mom was committed, he had to be both parents. I used to think he was boring because of that. But that made him the biggest hero of all.” To keep from crying, I bury my face in Dad’s shoulder, taking comfort in the rush of his breath at my temple. His skin smells of the paint that earlier coated his body.