Page 17 of Cheshire’s Smile (The Crimes of Alice #3)

The rude sound that came out of Carban set my teeth on edge. “And why do you care? It’s not like you cared before when they dragged us away. Why now?”

I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to let him know how much I cared.

It would only give him more ammunition against me.

Why did I care for Hatter but not them? Not Cheshire?

If I got into it, then I would end up admitting how much their words hurt me.

And that was something I wasn’t prepared to do.

Instead, I focused on the important parts. The parts that they would need to know. Because, even if I couldn’t have them, then by the Reaper, I would save them.

“The sickness is back.”

I let the words settle in the air between us. Every fae knew what the sickness meant. Every fae but me, that is. Finding out that my part in all this had caused the sickness to spread wasn’t something that I took lightly. It was just another item to add to my list of crimes.

“I see.” Morgana hummed, her gaze lifting to the sky, where wispy spirits whipped around aimlessly. “I had thought there were more spirits as of late.”

“There’s no cure for that,” Coby muttered, almost like he was talking more to himself than us.

“No,” I commented, keeping my eyes forward. “There’s not.”

Without warning, he grabbed my shoulder and jerked me around, his fingers tight on my shoulders. “This is your fault, isn’t it? You couldn’t just screw us over—you had to fuck the whole Underground in the process.”

Morgana moved to intervene.

I shook my head, and she waited.

Some would say I was pathetic for letting Carban manhandle me, simply because I ached for his touch. That there was something fundamentally wrong with me. But, even if he hated me, even if I was the last person he wanted to spend time with, I still wanted to be near him.

And it wasn’t like his anger wasn’t justified. He was right. This was partly my fault. I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t want to. What I had done was to be with them but, in the process, I’d started a domino effect that put the whole fae world in jeopardy.

So I took his manhandling, his anger, and used it to be the woman he thought I was.

“What do I care?” I cocked a brow, forcing a smirk onto my lips. “I got what I wanted, after all. I don’t even live here anymore, so it’s none of my concern.”

Carban’s brows furrowed, a look of disbelief on his face that almost made me want to laugh with how good of an actress I had become. Maybe I was the Great Pretender after all.

“You’re lying.” Carban’s words were hard and broiled with rage. “How are you lying? Or are you not as fae as you claim to be?”

I couldn’t lie. No fae could, not without extreme discomfort. The magic of the Underground wouldn’t let them. And, as much as he wanted to believe I wasn’t one of them, the Underground had made sure I was part of that deal as well. I got everything that came with being fae—the good and the bad.

So the words coming out of my mouth weren’t a lie. Not really. Because they were words I’d been telling myself over and over again since I went searching for Hatter.

None of this was my concern. Hatter was all that mattered. So it was easy to spout the same words back to the fae before me.

Though it pained me, I threw my arms up, knocking his hands from me. “I’m just as much a fae as you. And just like you said, I’m selfish. Nothing else matters but what I want. So yes, the sickness? The Tree of Life dying? It was all my fault. You are all going to die because of what I did.”

I tried to say the words “I don’t care.” but I couldn’t. They weren’t true. I did care. I cared too damn much, and it terrified me. So I did the mature thing that anyone else would have done. I deflected.

Turning to Morgana, I blew out a breath.

“If you can, you should get of the Underground. The sickness has only taken some of the weaker fae so far, but it’s gaining momentum.

I don’t know if it will make it this far.

” I glanced up at the spirits twirling above our heads. “There isn’t much time left.”

“But we can fix it,” Coby interjected, grabbing my arm. His touch wasn’t as hard as his brother’s. He almost touched me like I was breakable and it made my eyes burn. “Can’t we?”

I shook his hand off and sucked in a breath.

“There is no we. There is only you. And there’s nothing to fix.

” I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin.

“Unless the sapling of the Tree of Life comes to age and counters it or a new High King steps forward, everyone and everything in the Underground will die. End of story.” I turned my back on them so that only Morgana could see the pleading in my eyes. “Can we go now?”

I couldn’t handle this anymore. I needed space. I needed away from them. Away from myself.

Morgana’s lips pinched tight, but she nodded.

Without giving the twins a chance to ask more questions, she led us forward.

My arms wrapped around my waist, hugging myself while the twins debated on what could be done about the sickness and how they would get to the Human Realm before it got to them.

“The queen would understand,” Coby countered his brother’s point. “It’s the sickness. She wouldn’t really condemn us to that, would she?”

Carban scoffed. “If you think that ice bitch cares anymore about us than Alice here does, then you are delusional. In fact, the sickness is doing her a favor getting rid of all her unwanted.”

I wanted to jump in there and tell him he wasn’t unwanted. But I didn’t. I kept silent and let their words hammer on my back the whole way to the palace.

Maybe I was a masochist for letting them blame this all on me. Maybe I wanted to be punished for my crimes. Maybe I thought I’d gotten off too easily. Or maybe I was full of it and just needed a large glass of wine to go with this horrible day.

The palace finally came into view, and that sight lifted a large weight off my chest. Then I realized I was going to see Cheshire and Hatter again. That they wouldn’t treat me like the twins were and then there would be questions.

Questions I didn’t want to answer.

Anxiety ate at me the last few yards to the palace bridge. Along the sides of it was a pool of sorts filled with the spirits of the fae, giving the water a glowy kind of blue color.

I wondered what made one’s spirit fall to the pool. Was it because they were so heavy with their sins that they couldn’t float with the others? Or were they being punished? I wondered if, one day, I too would be swimming in there for all of eternity.

“Morgana?” Dorian’s voice pulled my attention from the water. “What are you doing here?”

Dorian was another person I had wronged. In fact, I’d wronged him the most of all.

It was because of my deal with the shadows that I stole the love of his life from him and that he’d been punished, just as I had—cursed by the Seelie Queen. While the curse had been lifted, his punishment continued, at least the way I saw it. He’d lost the love of his life not once, but twice.

How he could handle spending any time with Kat after everything that had happened confounded me. Though maybe he felt the same way that I did with the twins. Any moment of their attention, even if it was bad, was better than nothing at all.

“I found some lost lambs that needed returning home,” Morgana answered in a haughty voice, her stance returned to that slinky panther, as if she too were putting on a show.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one hiding my true feelings.

Dorian’s dark blue eyes skimmed over our group. He’d let his jet-black hair grow out again so it hung down to mid chest. The left side of his face no longer glowed with the mark of his curse, but the swirling glyphs had never gone away either. A permanent reminder of what he had lost.

“I see,” Dorian drew out, brushing his hands down his black button up shirt before tucking his hands into his tight pant pockets. His knee-high black boots squeaked as he shifted his weight from one foot to the next.

It seemed there was some tension between the fae prince and the ex-queen. Interesting.

His gaze shifted over the twins before arching a brow at me.

“My father is expecting you, Alice. Follow me.”