“Fat liar,” Lorina snapped, rocking her swing so fast, Jeb thought he might get seasick.

“I’m wearing iron chains,” Charlie said on the tail end of a yawn. “I haven’t the strength to lie.” Then he dropped back off to sleep.

That seemed to shut Lorina up, at least temporarily.

Jeb took advantage of the silence to think. Morpheus must have told Al about her true lineage by now, about what was expected of her. She must be so shocked . . . so terrified. Jeb ached to hold her, to the point that his chest felt like an anvil sat on it.

That moth freak should’ve told her the truth from the beginning. She would never have chosen to stay. But Morpheus had known that, so he’d tricked her under the pretense that she could cure a curse on her bloodline. Jeb wanted to pluck off Morpheus’s black wings and stuff them down his throat for misleading her, because there was no cure for family, as he knew only too well.

“It was Red who put Alice in a cage.” The lory was off and running again. “Not Charlie.”

“But your husband chose to keep her caged,” Jeb inserted against his better judgment. He plugged his ears for the booming rebuttal, but Lorina only sighed.

“No. Charlie tried to do the right thing by the girl,” she said, considerably softer now. “He planned to send Alice back to the human realm behind Red’s back, but the queen found out and dragged them to a cave in the highest cliffs of Wonderland’s wilds, without any of us knowing. She left Charlie with her victim, so she could enact her master plan, knowing Alice would be tended by a captive who could never escape. Because, of course, dodos can’t fly. She stole my husband from me for years. He was a prisoner, just like the mortal was.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Birdie.”

A flurry of dust-scented wings, jacquard, and satin dropped down and attacked him. “You will show respect and listen!”

Jeb held up his hands in self-defense. “All right. Sheesh. I’ll listen.” It wasn’t like there was anything else he could do. Morpheus had told him that as soon as Alyssa was crowned queen, she could open the portal to the human realm. Whether Jeb believed that or not, he couldn’t do anything other than hope. He had no power here. That knowledge gnawed at his insides with each passing minute.

Settled in front of Jeb atop a mountain of lush fabric, the lory looked through the bars and grumbled to her sleeping husband, “Worthless old fezzerjub. Leave me to do all your defending. Don’t know why I ever married you.”

The dodo snorted and murmured sleepily, “Because marrying the court jester was the only way you could have a spot in the Red Court, O Darling of Dirges.” The snoring resumed.

“See how well that turned out,” she grumped, her rouged, heart-shaped lips pouting beneath the curl of her beak. “Bony little Rabid and his black heart of stone.” She preened the feathers on the back of her neck and tucked a sequined net around them.

Jeb reached over to retrieve the thimbleful of water their captor had left next to the pear slice. It was the size of a large coffee mug in his hands. He handed it off to his cellmate, who took it with her wings and gulped some down.

“Tell me something, Lori. If what you say is true . . .” Reading the defensiveness on her beaked face, he rephrased his question to save his ears. “Since you’ve chosen to share your side of the story, maybe you could tell me what role Morpheus played in Alice’s captivity.”

She patted water droplets from her lips. “He played no role at all. He was very fond of Alice and would’ve done anything to see her safely home. But the same hour he offered her advice as a caterpillar—warning her to avoid Queen Red’s castle at all costs—his metamorphosis came over him. When he emerged, fully transformed, and learned what had become of Alice, he was furious.”

“You’re trying to tell me he actually has a conscience?”

“He did where Alice was concerned.” The lory adjusted the regal robe that kept slipping from her lack of shoulders. “Morpheus used all his resources as a solitary fae and finally found her and my husband hidden away in the caves of the highest cliffs of Wonderland. Alas, it was too late for Alice by that time.” Lorina returned the thimble to Jeb, half full now.

Jeb sat up straighter, causing the cage to rock. “So why does he want to help Queen Red get another queen on the throne, when he should hate her for putting Alice in a cage for all those years?”

“Mayhap he’s angry that Grenadine didn’t try to find Alice herself once the child was captured. But Grenadine lost her memory ribbon and forgot about the child.”

“A good ruler would’ve had more than one ribbon to remind her, would’ve made sure everyone and everything was in its place.”

“My queen is a good ruler!”

Jeb winced at the ear-splitting roar.

The dodo’s snores stopped. “My vociferous wife speaks the truth, lad. Morpheus appears to be holding a grudge for what he perceives as neglect, even if it was simply an oversight.”

Jeb shook his head at all the holes in everyone’s reasoning. “No. There’s more to this than that.”

“You have good instincts, mortal knight.”

Jeb perked up at the tinkling voice. A glowing light floated through the small window in the dungeon’s heavy wooden door. Jeb stood and gripped the birdcage bars, angling his head to get a better look.

Gossamer.

The little sprite fluttered over and whispered something to the magical blue thread fixed around the wire door, letting herself inside the cage. The thread tied itself into a knot again after she’d reattached the latch behind her.

She sparkled like the lit fuse on a Roman candle as she hovered in place, studying Jeb with a sympathetic expression.

Since they were now the same size, she brought to mind a painting Jeb once saw by a Czech artist, Viktor Olivia. He was most famous for his depiction of a fairy who seduced men into getting drunk on absinthe. Gossamer embodied that creature: a woman’s perfect form, dusted green and naked with glistening scales covering her like a string bikini.

He had sensed when he left the mirrored hall that she was on his and Alyssa’s side.

“You came to help,” he said, hopeful.

A copper key, the same color as her eyes and almost the full length of her torso, swung from her neck. Her gaze dropped to her dainty feet, as if she were battling herself. “I would’ve been here sooner, but Morpheus is always watching in the looking glass. Now that he’s with Alyssa, preparing her for her coronation, he will be too busy to keep an eye on the rest of us . . . until the end.”

“The end?” Jeb gripped the bar next to her, intent on her dragonfly gaze. “You have to tell me—everything.”

The sprite glared at Lorina, who’d been inching toward the wire door. “You well know you haven’t the power to leave this cage unless I open it for you.”

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.”