Page 99 of Madness Becomes Her

Blood bubbles out of her mouth as she tries to speak, but can’t.

“Mm. I guess we’ll never know.”

The Chatterwocky crawls toward its queen, its eyes soft. Grief will bleed into anger, so I don’t drop my sword as I eye it.

“You can live out your days in Wonderland, happy. Or you can follow your queen. That goes for all of you!” I scream, my voice carrying through the blaze of fires throughout the grove.

Slowly, swords drop, the sound of metal clinking uncoiling my stomach lining for the first time since I heard the queen’s laugh.

My eyes remain on the dragon.

“I will yielddddd,” it hisses, bits of amber spitting out of its mouth.

“If you take up arms in Wonderland, this will be your fate,” I tell it, dropping the tip of the Vorpal Blade toward the dead queen.

“I understandddd,” it answers, bowing its head.

“Bury your dead. All of you! And then spread the word that Wonderland is free!” I shout.

A slow clap becomes a roar of whistles and shouts of “Hooray!”

We lost many on both sides, but it’s over now.

It’s all over.

My heart skips a beat as a guard crouches beside the queen and shuts her lifeless eyes, pressing two coins over them.

“Come, Tiger Lily. It’s time to go home.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

FRABJOUS DAY AND GLASS UNICORNS

The past few days were spent burying friends and family, and then celebrating their lives cut short for the cause. The devoid eyes of the Red Queen were the thing I couldn’t, and still can’t, get out of my head.

I’ve never thought of myself as the type who could kill, and now that I have, it’s as if I can feel the stamp on my soul marking me for hell.

Finlo has been distant, and I don’t know if it’s because I deviated from the plan and killed the queen and allowed the Chatterwocky to live, or if it’s because he doesn’t want to be tied to a killer.

I meander around my room, running my fingers over trinkets from childhood that I’d forgotten.

In all the trauma of killing the queen, every memory I’d forgotten came flooding back to me.

Every night that I spent laughing with Fin and Lewis. Every tea party.

Lifting a tiny glass unicorn, I smile at the memory of Fin giving it to me on my tenth birthday, to which I got angry.

I was ten and couldn’t fathom that he thought I was a child. It was because of my crush on the Hatter.

I’ve always loved Fin on some level. Now, that love has evolved and shifted into something else, but it was always there, waiting to be curated.

“He felt so bad after that birthday,” a voice says, and I startle, nearly dropping the unicorn to the top of the dresser.

Placing it down, I turn to find Lewis leaning inside the doorframe. “You spent the rest of the party in your room, and he listened to you cry outside the door. He was so scared you’d always hate him.”

I smile, tucking my face down as my eyes hit the floor. “I could never hate him. I wanted him to see me asmore.”

“He does now.”