Liar, liar, wings on fire.

“Ah,” Jen mumbles around the pins. She tugs at the dress to ensure the pleats are secure, spits the pins she didn’t use back into the box, and stands. “Well, I think our limey cowboy is drooling for your bod. Things are going to get real interesting once Jeb gets here. Guys have a way of sniffing stuff like that out.”

This is the perfect segue to tell her about the bathroom episode. The perfect time to cough up yet another lie and cover my tracks again. “I don’t think he likes me like that. He’s just kind of … eccentric.”

Jen picks up her sewing stuff and laughs. “Whatever you say, queen of denial.”

Before I can even answer, either to lie or to finally tell the truth, she’s out the door.

Weighed down by all the secrets I’ve been carrying for almost a year, by all the new ones piling up, I stare at myself in the mirror, hoping to find something other than the dress to like. Because right now, I’m not my favorite person.

Dust motes float around my reflection—tinted a glowing orange by the sun. They drift like pieces of scattered magic. I wanted to be an anti-princess for prom. I nailed it by looking like a netherling—the antithesis of all things fairy tale.

It hits me that maybe this is why Mom doesn’t like the way I dress, because it makes me look like them.

My stomach drops. It’s not Morpheus forcing the elements of my two worlds together. It’s me. It has been all along. And I’m starting to realize it’s not so much a choice as a necessity.

I’m so lost in thought, I barely notice the dust motes coming together, forming a miniature feline-shaped silhouette in midair. Beating wings shake me out of my trance.

In a blink, Chessie hovers beside me, his sharp-toothed smile inquisitive and contagious. I smother a yelp and rush to shut my door, locking it in case Jen gets back before I can convince him to disappear.

Satin and netting rustle around me as I spin to face him. “We can’t let anyone see you,” I whisper. “Let’s find a place to hide. Okay?” I hold out my gloved palm.

He perches there on the lace, a warm bundle of glimmering gray and orange fur, like embers on ashes. His big green eyes watch me as I carry him to my dresser and open a drawer. I settle him atop some soft socks and pat his tiny head. Before I can close the drawer, he launches back into the air—wings a blur. Smile widening, he beckons with his front paw, then wriggles through the glass of my cheval mirror, his tail the last thing I see before he vanishes.

For an instant, the reflection shows his destination: a metal bridge over a dark, misty valley and a quaint village on the other side. Then the glass splinters and crackles, showing only broken images of me.

In spite of my inner alarms, I reach a hand toward an intersection of cracks and jerk back upon contact. Even though I knew to expect the broken glass to feel like sculpted metal and look like an intricate keyhole, it still startles me. It’s been so long since I’ve traveled via mirror.

In the human realm, one mirror can take you anywhere in the world, as long as there’s another mirror big enough to fit through at the destination you’re aiming for.

In Wonderland, they travel by mirror, too, but their rules are different. The glass there can spit you out anywhere in the netherling realm, whether there’s a mirror on the other side or not.

The one rule that is constant is that you can’t take a mirror from one realm to the other. The only way to come into the human realm from Wonderland is via one of the two portals—one located in the Ivory castle, and the other in the Red. And the only way to get to Wonderland from here is the rabbit hole, which is a one-way entrance.

Knowing all that, I shouldn’t be nervous. Wherever Chessie wants me to follow is here in the human realm, at least. Fingers trembling, I take aim with the key at my neck. Jeb’s heart locket dangles just below. Seeing it makes me imagine what he would say in this situation.

Chessie is Morpheus’s right-hand cat. This might be a trick …

I should just take a peek. Stick my head in but keep my feet planted firmly in the here and now.

“Envision where you wish to go,” I say, using what Morpheus taught me. Closing my eyes, I picture the bridge and village I saw before the glass cracked. Then I insert the key into the hole and turn.

When I look again, the glass is liquid. The window of water opens to reveal the metal bridge. Stars shine down on the river beneath it, glistening and welcoming. Wherever this leads, it’s beautiful.

A woman catches my eye in the distance. She walks along a grassy knoll toward the bridge. I choke on a startled breath. Even in the moonlight, I recognize the black and fuchsia tracksuit. She was wearing it this morning when I left for school.

Mom.

Seeing Mom inside the mirror makes my heart flutter as fast as Chessie’s wings.

“How did you get in there?” I ask, knowing she can’t hear or see me. I touch the key at my neck; I could’ve sworn it was the only one we had. Maybe Red lured her in?

I yelp out loud at the thought.

But on second glance, Mom doesn’t look upset or scared. She carries an oversized burlap bag on her shoulder—the one we used to stuff with beach towels, plastic shovels, and buckets for picnics at the lake. That was back when I was little, before she was committed. I loved those picnics …

Her stride is determined as she heads toward the bridge. She’s up to something. Something she wants to be doing. When Chessie’s glowing form appears next to her and perches on the bag’s straps, Mom doesn’t even startle, as if she was expecting him.

It’s too much. I don’t care where they are; I have to get in and see what’s going on.

“Want it with all your heart,” I remind myself. “Then take the plunge.” I lift my boot and shove one leg into the cool air on the other side, stiffening when someone jiggles my bedroom doorknob.

“Al, what’s with the locked door?” Jen says from the other side. “Jeb’s here and it’s getting ugly. He got a call from Taelor at work. He and M are in the driveway …”

No. I can’t do this now. I have to see what Mom’s up to. “I’m busy!”

“Busy?” Jen screeches from the other side of the door. “Are you freaking kidding? Jeb’s going to kill him! You need to get out here, now!”

“Crap,” I mumble. As if triggered by my broken concentration, the portal ripples like water filling up a bucket. If I’m going through, it has to be now, before it closes. I fight with myself, desperate to solve the mystery of my mother but feeling the pull of my life here.