His black wings rise behind him, smoke and shadows. His slow-burning smile widens. “What? You expect me to marry you in these old rags?” He rolls his eyes. “Well, I suppose. If My Queen commands it.”

I bark a laugh.

His white teeth shine, his jewels flashing between amusement and adoration, and I know he sees the same thing in the gems blinking along my wings.

“No more looking back,” he says, his gaze settling on the backpack behind me, next to my old clothes.

The sad pang triggered by his statement softens as I concentrate solely on his face. “I have many treasured human memories. Even without keepsakes, they’ll be with me for eternity.”

Morpheus nods. “Your mortal knight was an honorable man . . . he wanted what is best for you. He would want you to be happy.”

I suppress the burn behind my eyes. “Yes, he said I should move forward. You know as well as I, that memories are often the key to that.”

Morpheus purses his lips, restraint and wildness battling for control of his features. “So, does that mean you’re ready then? To move forward?”

“What do my wings say?” I ask, fluttering them softly so he can decipher the jewel tones.

He grins. “They say you want to race me across the clouded skies of Wonderland, and that you think I’ll let you win.”

A tingling thrill skitters from my feet to my wing tips. “On the contrary,” I correct. “They say we’re both going to win this time.” Balanced on my tiptoes, I throw my arms around his neck and give him the mind-numbing kiss I promised, deepening it when he groans in pleasure. His tongue dances with mine, flavored with dense, sweet black licorice and storm-swept forests—all things exotic, lush, and untamed.

He lifts me into his arms, pressing our bodies together and spinning us around until my dress’s long train trips us. We crash against the purple-striped wall, laughing like children.

My face pulses hot with vitality. “Morpheus.”

“Yes, my blushing blossom,” he whispers, breath ragged along my neck as he helps me untangle my right wing from a red velvet curtain and satiny gold cords of rope.

I’m the one trembling now, imagining being tangled up with him in satin sheets and velvety blankets. “Let’s not put the wedding off for another second. The Red Court needs a king, and I want to sleep in his bed tonight. You’ve waited long enough for your queen, for your dream-child.”

He makes a sound, somewhere between a relieved moan and a blissful sigh, then lowers himself to his knees, using his hands and mouth to appraise the way the dress clings to my curves on the way down. The rosebuds vanish and reappear with his touch.

“Something tells me”—his voice rumbles low against my abdomen as he clutches my hips—“you will both be so very, very worth the wait.”

It’s the first time he’s ever been so intimate with his explorations. I weave my fingers through his silken hair and nuzzle his head, struggling to contain the emotions and sensations rocking through me. Somewhere, locked inside my young body, is an old woman’s wisdom and worldliness. So why do I suddenly feel so inexperienced and exposed?

His hands find their way to the hem of my dress at my feet, and he raises the enchanted fabric just enough to expose my left ankle in the candlelight. He traces where my netherling birthmark is bared, no longer covered by a tattoo. “I must admit, I’m going to miss your tribute to me. But small price to pay, to have everything back as it was the moment I first confessed my love for you.”

I frown, determined to tease him. “I told you, the tattoo wasn’t a moth. It was wings.”

Morpheus slants his head, smirking. “Look at my words from every angle, luv. Consider what they mean, beneath the surface.”

It takes his prompting for me to stop and think . . . for things to fully register—the depth of the change in my body. Everything back as it was when he first confessed his love. Beneath the surface.

My tattoo is gone. Which means I’m sixteen through and through, exactly like the moment I was first crowned in the Red castle. Before I got wings inked across my ankle to hide my netherling birthmark . . . before I became a mother and grandmother. Before I even became a bride.

Against every impossibility, I’m innocent and untouched once more.

I inhale loudly, shocked by the revelation.

Morpheus looks up at me with smug satisfaction.

“You knew all along,” I say, caressing his face. “You knew it would end like this.”

“Of course I did. Isn’t magic a splendid thing?”

I answer him with a shy smile, but there’s something behind it that wasn’t there sixty-four years ago—something coy and expectant.

“Mmmm,” Morpheus murmurs. “Now there’s a smile with scads of potential. Let’s get this forever started, shall we?” He drops my hem back into place, guides me to my knees beside him, and from his pocket drags out a bottle labeled: Drink Me.

We toast to new beginnings and, between greedy kisses, take turns sipping until we’ve shrunk enough to step through the tiny door and into the outskirts of Wonderland.

PREPARATION

“I’m not supposed to feel this much, Alyssa. ’Tis impossible for my kind.” Wearing a tortured frown, Morpheus holds my hand to his smooth chest where his nightshirt hangs half-open, exposing the waist of his black satin sleeping pants. His heartbeat races and his voice grinds, no longer silken and sweet like the one he uses in my lullabies, but wretched and bewildered. It scrapes through my ears and plucks at my heart.

I want him to be happy, and I know he is, in the deepest part of himself. This anguished tone means something else entirely: surrender, and the easiest victory he’s granted me in the nine months since we’ve been king and queen, not to mention all the years he occupied my dreams before that.

To think, this is all it took to win without a fight. I almost smile, but can’t get my mouth or jaw to release their clenched muscles.

I squint through my lashes in the candlelight given off by floating, self-sustained wicks that never burn down, studying him where he sits on the edge of our bed—the bed that once belonged to him alone. He arranged to have it brought here from his manor, along with his moth and hat collection, the moment we were married and he moved into the Red castle.

I’m on my side, naked beneath the covers, knees pulled tight to my swollen abdomen in a futile attempt to ease the electric pulses radiating along the muscles there. The waterfall canopy holds its trickling stasis wide enough for me to see around the outline of my king’s body and his blue hair, still messy from sleep. Other than when he moves to trigger them, the curtains refuse to open any farther than a few inches from him, as if allowing us this sanctuary out of respect for the monumental event that’s under way.

On the other side of our canopy, the royal bedroom is a flurry of activity.

Morpheus’s harem of sprites buzzes about: some coaxing pieces of blue, fluffy, cotton candy clouds through the door to line the cradle, and others herding wasp-size flying elephants with antennae on their heads and pollen sacs on their legs toward a cluster of luminescent flowers.

The flowers were sent by Grenadine. She’s found she’s happiest tending the gardens. Something about the scent of the plants helps her remember how to care for each one; they’re the sensorial equivalent of the whispering bows she wears on her toes and fingers.