Snarling, I sever the tongue with one clean cut. The bandersnatch yelps and I regret having to hurt him.

My stomach flips as I fall, but Morpheus catches me, just as promised.

“Well done,” he says like he has so many times throughout my life. He cradles me close.

I tighten my arms around the nape of his neck, my head snuggled under his chin, reluctant to let him go. He squeezes me against his warm chest, as if he shares my hesitation. Then he sets me down. Without explanation, he flies up to the cap where the bandersnatch is bellowing. Soon, the creature grows quiet.

I stare at the beast’s severed tongue. It flops on the ground beside me as if alive, hissing—strange sounds like whispers—as it slithers ever closer. I back up a few steps.

Morpheus returns from atop the mushroom, picks up the vorpal sword I dropped, and wipes blood and sparkling magic from the blade before slipping it into his jacket pocket.

“What did you do with the bandersnatch?” I ask.

“I put him back to sleep for the journey to your castle. When he wakes, he’ll be healing and ill-tempered, so we will need to have him confined.”

“Healing? How? The bandersnatch’s hide is indestructible, not its tongues.”

“True. However, they’re regenerative if they’re cut with the vorpal sword. It will grow back. And the severed tongue”—he glances down at the bloody detached piece, which has found its way to the tip of my boot—“becomes an extension of the beast’s spirit.”

The oozing, slimy appendage pats my toe, making sucking sounds, like a plant searching for a place to root. The whispers it emits become louder, but still impossible to decipher. I shudder and prepare to kick it away.

“No. Pick it up,” Morpheus insists.

I shudder again.

“Since when have you been squeamish, my fair assassin of bugs, flowers, and mutated prisoners?” Morpheus teases.

“Since I saw the damage those tongues can do. When they carried you away to what I thought was your death.” Remembering how horrible it was to watch him be swallowed alive stings my chest and my eyes.

Morpheus smiles gently, obviously pleased I’m still affected by his sacrifice over a year ago. “You want I should have faith in you. Then show me the same courtesy. That tongue retains the most integral part of the bandersnatch. Each of these creatures has something unique to them alone. Something that soothes them. They’re born with it. Take off your gloves and hold the tongue in your hand—flesh to flesh. Let it impart the wisdom. Thus, you’ll know the word which will tame it, in its own language. It’s a form of Deathspeak, but because you spared the beast’s life and took only its tongue, it doesn’t bind you to the bandersnatch’s command. Instead, it binds the beast to yours.”

Pressing my lips together, I do as he says. The moment my bare skin touches the squishy, warm tongue, the whispers rush through me, lighting my skin for an instant, then fading. The tongue withers to a black, dried thing, and I toss it down.

The word spins inside me . . . in a language I’ve never heard. Yet I know exactly how to articulate it.

I start to speak it aloud but Morpheus touches a finger to my lips. “Never tell anyone the word. You’ll only pass it down to another Red Queen, should one succeed you some day. Not even your king can know it.”

He crouches to pick up my gloves. I seek the courage to ask him if that king will be him. If he’s going to wait for me. But I have no right to expect him to make such a sacrifice, so I bite my lip instead.

“We need to go,” he says. “We’ll drop the bandersnatch at the Red castle. You should set things to rights there before spending the night at my manor. Starting tomorrow, when you visit in your dreamscapes, I’ll show you how to train the beastly pup to obey your secret word. As he grows, he will learn to respond to your call.”

Morpheus binds the bandersnatch in a net of blue magic and levitates it down from the mushroom, then drags it behind us as we head back to the carriage.

“One last thing, Alyssa.” The words drift from over his shoulder. “I brought you to Alice’s haunts because Jebediah didn’t share them with you. They belong to me and you alone. Part of our history, part of how we came together. And they will be here waiting, when you return to live reality here in Wonderland. When. I’m taking you at your word. Be the one soul who doesn’t let me down. That is all I ask. For now.”

JUBILATION

The memories worked like a charm. There aren’t any clocks in the royal bedroom. It doesn’t matter, since time is irrelevant in Wonderland. But it feels like it’s been hours since the baby was born.

The moment I heard his melodious cry and held his tiny, warm body, all of the pain, all of the fears, all of the sadness I’d been battling melted away. And Morpheus wasted no time ushering our helpful but noisy entourage out the door so we could be alone, just the three of us.

After I nursed the baby, I showed my king how to swaddle him in a blanket and hold him. At first, Morpheus held his arms rigid like a shelf, as if he feared our child was breakable. To see someone as powerful and confident as Morpheus leveled to helplessness by a wriggling bundle of wings, arms, and legs was both endearing and poignant. But with a little gentle coaching, he was soon nuzzling and cooing to his son like a pro. Once the baby had relaxed in Morpheus’s arms, he started to leave him in the cradle, but changed his mind and laid the prince gently next to me in the bed, settling himself on the other side with our son safely penned between us.

Talking to our prince in sweet and honeyed tones, Morpheus drizzled strands of blue light from his fingertips and called upon the moths in some opened terrariums across the room. The moment the bugs fluttered around us, Morpheus connected them to his magic. Guided by their enchanted harnesses, the moths flew in a circle, like a baby mobile.

Morpheus’s expression became dreamy, his face and the baby’s both glowing from the magical mobile lights. Our prince watched, his bright blue eyes dancing and his teensy wings trying to flutter inside the blanket that swaddled him. One day, he would have his father’s jeweled markings around his lower lashes and along his cheeks. For now, the intricate tracery of lines appeared more faded—like veins beneath the skin. He did have one patch of color on his left wrist, though, where his netherling birthmark coiled, visible and prominent.

“Do you see that?” Morpheus asked me, catching the baby’s tiny hand in one of his as our prince tried to reach for a moth with his own blue magic while cooing contentedly. “His pinky . . . it’s the size of my thumbnail.” Morpheus focused on me—those unfathomable eyes filled with enough love and wonder to breach the depths of my being. “And he has your nose. Look, see how it’s crinkled? He’s frustrated because I won’t let him catch the moth. You do that when I’m challenging you.”

I laughed. “No I don’t!”

Morpheus grinned. “You’ve done it ever since we were children together. You’re doing it now.”

I wriggled my nose. He was right, as per usual. I sighed, but as much as I wanted the puff of air to sound irritable, it came out as a purr of pure contentment.

“How is it possible?” my king asked. “That he’s so little, yet so profoundly, perfectly formed?”

“Because he’s a part of you,” I responded without even thinking.