In a dazed euphoria, David winds his way out of the maze and relays all the death he’s seen. The knights converse among one another, then turn to his father.

“This is unprecedented: your second son to have the sight,” the white-bearded knight says. “He sees the weak points in the barrier between the nether-realm and the human world even more clearly than his brother. You know what this means, Gregor.”

David’s father nods. He looks both sad and proud as he pats David’s head. David isn’t sure what to feel. But one thing he does know: He’s no longer considered a child. He’s a warrior, and will be trained as one.

His father packs his bags, they kiss his sobbing mother and sisters one last time, and then it’s off to live with his uncles and cousins in Oxford, England, at Humphrey’s Inn. David’s searing grief over saying good-bye to his family and old life is stanched only when his older brother, Bernie, comes to greet them at the door.

The scene shakes and shivers as we pass through several months of lessons: studying AnyElsewhere, the looking-glass world where Wonderland’s exiles are banished. He learns it’s connected to Wonderland by the tulgey wood and to the human realm by infinity mirrors, and that a dome of iron surrounds the prison, warping any incarcerated netherlings into grotesque creatures should they try to use their magic while inside.

During his training, David buries himself in studies of the mutated creatures to earn the honor to be a part of the special faction of knights who guards the two gateways—the one from the human realm and the one into Wonderland. But the violent and gruesome subject matter saturates his nightmares and dreams with vivid and bizarre imagery. Still, he advances, taking self-defense classes and redefining his language—learning how to wield the mind as armor when riddles are the weapon.

The shifting scenes of David’s life pause at Hubert’s restaurant as his feet skate through ash in the fighting pit while diners watch him learn to fence from above. I feel Thomas’s . . . David’s . . . heart rate climb, feel his eagerness to make his father proud, his competitiveness toward his brother and cousins, and a self-conscious awareness as all eyes fix on him—the youngest and newest candidate. But in time he learns to block everything out but the game. He becomes confident, graceful, and adept, betters all of his opponents—including his own father—and by his ninth birthday, he’s ready for his first sojourn to AnyElsewhere, to experience the secrets inside firsthand. Most of the boys are taken in at age thirteen, but he merits an earlier initiation, for not only has he learned to defend himself, but he also has the daring, wisdom, and acumen of someone five years his senior.

A vivid rainbow smears the screen as the memory tilts and turns on David’s ride within an ashy white wind tunnel shaped like a tornado. The funnels provide safe transportation across the prison world for the knights, since they’re the only ones with the magical medallions that control the winds. Gusts rip through David’s hair and clothes as he’s carried along with his uncle William to the Wonderland gate, where David will be taught the secrets of his guardian status. Triggered by the medallion at his uncle’s neck, the funnel opens up and spits them out, one by one, far above the gate kept locked against the tulgey wood and Wonderland. A giant slide of ash rises up to catch and guide them to the platform, keeping them a safe distance from the glowing vortex of nothingness that separates the gateway from the world’s terrain, and holds the prisoners at bay.

David watches it all through illuminated, leather-framed goggles. Being his first time within the domed world, he was determined to miss nothing, even the ride over. His father gave in and let him wear the goggles he and his brother used to keep dust out of their eyes and light the way when they were riding motorbikes at night along dirt trails on the hills of Oxford.

Because of his unhindered vision, he sees—as his uncle is dropped from the funnel behind him—that the chain holding the medallion at the old man’s neck breaks and the necklace starts to fall. David reaches up to catch it. Once they’re safely beside the gate, he returns the necklace to his uncle. The old man pats him on the back as he tucks it into his chain mail.

“One day, you’ll be a bearer of a medallion. I’d stake my life on it.” His uncle chortles. David beams at the praise.

Uncle William has always been his favorite . . . He smells like the cinnamon candies Mom used to put in pretty dishes at Christmas, he can outmaneuver anyone in a game of chess, and he always has a jolly good joke to tell. He was the one who took David under his wing when his father had to return to the goat farm. And now he’s insisted on being David’s guide to all the mysteries of this strange, magical world their family has guarded for centuries.

David moves closer to the solid iron gate, so Uncle William can share the secret to unlocking the way into Wonderland. Embedded within the lower third of the three-story barrier, a hexagonal box appears with five puzzles arranged in a nesting doll structure. David watches as Uncle William solves three, triggering the gate’s hinges to open wider at each turn, and revealing glimpses of the dark tunnel behind the gate—a tulgey’s throat. A stench seeps in—rotting, moldering wood. Only two puzzles away from fully opening the gate, Uncle William pales and hunches against the iron for support. Then he clutches his chest and collapses to his knees.

Gasping, David drops beside him. “Uncle, what’s wrong?” He means to shout the words, but he swallowed too much black mist in the nothingness on the way to the entrance earlier. His vocal cords aren’t fully awake, so it comes out a mumble. “Should I call the wind back?” His whisper is indecipherable, even to his own ears.

It doesn’t matter. His uncle is beyond answering him. David is too small to drag Uncle William’s stocky body to the landing spot. And if he were to take a wind tunnel alone for help, his uncle would be left vulnerable in front of the partly opened gate. David doesn’t know how to use the puzzle box to shut the door. He drags out a mechanical messenger pigeon from the old man’s bag. It’s only to be used in emergencies, and should be sent with a recorded message, but—with his voice asleep—all he can do is send it on its own and hope one of their relatives sees it and figures out something’s wrong.

He flips the switch to light its eyes and activate its wings, and sends it into the sky. But he worries that time is waning. Already, his uncle’s skin is a translucent blue, like the color of ice over a pond.

David’s heartbeat pounds in his chest.

There’s one other thing he can do.

Eyes burning behind his goggles, David stares at the partly opened gate. Although the Looking-glass Knighthood has scads of information on AnyElsewhere and its occupants, not many studies have been done of Wonderland. Other than the Alice books, they know very little of the beings there. Though rumors abound of fae creatures with healing powers beyond anything comprehensible to humans.

David may not know how to solve the last two puzzles, but the opening—too slight for a grown man to breach—is already the perfect size for his small frame to fit through.

He hesitates. There are other stories, too, about the fairy-kind. That some are tricky and deadly. But how could they possibly be any worse than the monsters on this side of the gate? And he’s been taught how to best those. Surely his knowledge can get him in and out of Wonderland unscathed.