Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alice
Ari jerked my arm, and I stumbled, my legs barely holding me. He dragged me toward the doors, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking back.
Darius had kissed Alanna. Not a polite kiss. Not a performance.
He was devouring her.
His mouth moved against hers with a hunger I thought had been reserved for me. Her fingers dragged through his thick black hair—hair I had touched just hours ago. Hair I thought was mine to touch.
Something inside me shattered.
The doors closed, cutting off the sight, but it was already burned into my mind. Branded there forever.
Betrayal.
Rejection.
Again.
I used her to get Queen Alanna’s attention.
His words echoed in my skull, each one a knife twisting deeper.
But even as they cut me, something didn’t fit. Darius hated Alanna. He’d told me so himself. He’d spent years running from her, fighting against her.
This wasn’t betrayal.
This was madness.
He’d finally snapped. The Mad Hatter had truly lost his mind.
A lonely, desperate witch so starved for love she’d believe anything.
Madness. Utter madness. Those weren’t Darius’ words. They couldn’t be. The man who held me, kissed me, claimed me as his—that man would never say such things.
Unless he no longer remembered.
My chest cracked open. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
He’d forgotten… Everything—the kisses, the whispered promises, the way he’d held me like I was precious—all of it was gone. Erased. Swallowed by whatever darkness Alanna had unleashed in his mind.
Now I was nothing but a stranger to him. A forgotten memory discarded by a broken mind. I thought I’d finally found where I belonged. I thought someone had finally chosen me.
I was wrong.
I was always wrong.
Hatter had lost himself to madness. And in losing himself, he’d lost me too.
Ari dragged me down the hall. “You’re better off without him. There’s a reason he’s called the Mad Hatter.”
I refused to answer him. Or maybe I was in shock. My mind couldn’t process what had just happened.
Because Darius thought he was in love with an evil queen. He truly believed it. I’d seen it in his eyes—that desperate, hungry devotion.
But how? How had she turned him? Made him lose his memory completely? Even if she had wiped his mind, how could he love a woman who tortured children? Who beat his friends bloody? Who kept his allies chained in a dungeon?
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.
I tripped over the hem of my dress, the fabric ripping. I didn’t care. What did a dress matter when everything else had been torn apart?
How could he forget me and remember her?
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.
Unless Alanna had done something to him. Dark magic. A spell. Something that twisted his mind beyond recognition.
He'd cracked. The torture, the dungeon—it had finally broken him.
And Alanna was the one holding the strings.
Ari yanked me upright, his grip bruising.
“I know he humiliated you,” he said, his voice low enough only I could hear. “But you need to focus. We need to get the fuck out of here.”
His words meant nothing to me.
All Ari cared about was himself. His freedom. His escape.
He didn’t care that my heart had just been ripped from my chest. That the man I loved had lost his mind completely. Dismissed me as desperate trash without even recognizing who I was.
This was a hundred times worse than the rejection I’d felt in the coven. Back then, I’d lost people who had never truly accepted me.
But Darius? I’d given him everything. My trust. My heart. My body.
And madness had stolen him from me.
Ari led me back down the stairs—down to the dungeon.
My room.
Flint and Steel were asleep in their cell, their massive bodies slumped against the cold stone. Bunny and her children huddled together in the other cell, the little ones curled against their mother like frightened animals.
Working in the mines must have zapped all their strength.
Good. I was glad they were asleep. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes—the reminder that I’d bound myself to Ari for nothing. That I’d trusted Darius and been made a fool.
Nor did I want them to see the heartbreak in mine.
Ari locked the manacles back around my wrists. The cold metal bit into my skin, but I barely felt it. I was numb. Hollow.
“I suggest you get over this pity party you’re having.” His voice was ice. “Get your shit together.”
I stared at the floor. What did it matter anymore?
He grabbed the back of my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to look at him. His red eyes glowed in the dim torchlight.
“I’m going to find a way to break those binding bracelets and set your magic free.” His breath was hot against my face. “And when I do, I expect you to use your power to get us out. All of us.”
He released my hair abruptly. My head fell forward.
“You don’t want to disappoint me, bitch.”
He left, his footsteps echoing up the stairs. The door slammed behind him.
And then—only then—did I let myself break.
The pain I’d been holding in erupted without warning. Quiet, pent-up sobs wracked my body, each one tearing through me like shattered glass.
My legs gave out. I hung from the chains, tears streaming down my face, and let the grief consume me.
Darius was mad.
Alanna had won.
I had lost. Again.
All my worst fears came rolling back, drowning me in their truth.
Unlovable.
Rejected.
Alone.
I’d spent my whole life fighting against those words. Trying to prove them wrong. Believing that someday, somewhere, someone would finally choose me.
And for one beautiful, impossible moment, I’d thought Darius had.
I was an idiot.
The dungeon door creaked open.
Then shut.
Footsteps thumped down the stairs. Slow. Deliberate.
Alanna coming to gloat? Darius to humiliate me again?
Right now, I didn’t care. Let them come. Let them see me broken and sobbing. What did it matter anymore?
The footsteps stopped.
I took a shuddering breath and lifted my head, waiting for whoever it was to appear.
Nothing.
No one emerged from the shadows.
I looked wildly around the dungeon, my eyes straining in the dim torchlight. The cells. The corners. The darkness pooling between the stones.
Nothing moved.
But I’d heard those footsteps. I knew I’d heard them.
“Hello?” My voice cracked. Pathetic. Weak.
Silence answered.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Something was here. Something I couldn’t see.
My heart pounded so hard I thought it would wake Flint and Steel. Wake Bunny and her children.
Was Ari back, playing games? Or was this something worse?
I held my breath, listening.
And then—so soft I almost missed it—I heard breathing. Close. Too close.
Right beside me.
I pulled on my chains, but I was powerless. My arms were stretched high over my head.
Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
Vulnerable. Again.
A pair of golden eyes floated next to me, then Chester materialized out of the darkness. His grin was softer than usual. Almost sad.
“Alice. The girl with the power to stop time.”
I sagged against the chains. “Chester, what are you doing?”
“Tell me, Alice. When a man stands in the fire, does he burn for himself or for another?”
Weariness and sadness erased all the anger I had. I was tired. Bone-deep tired. The kind of exhaustion that seeps into your soul.
Most people in my position would have wanted to go home. Back to safety. Back to the familiar.
But I didn’t have a home. Never really had. Earth wasn’t home. The coven had made that clear. And now the Elder Dimension—the one place I’d started to feel like I belonged—had shattered around me too.
I was a girl without a home. Without a family. Without the man I thought had loved me.
“I don’t understand, Chester.” Everything inside me had gone cold. Numb. “I saw him kiss her. I heard what he said. He’s totally mad.”
Chester vanished, then reappeared on my other side. “What looks like madness but tastes like sacrifice? What sounds like rejection but feels like protection?”
I shook my head, exhaustion and grief dragging at me. “Speak plainly, Chester. I’m not in the mood for riddles.”
His golden eyes softened—something I’d never seen before.
“Hatter didn’t choose the queen, girl.” His voice dropped, uncharacteristically gentle. “He chose you. Every cruel word. That kiss. All of it to keep you breathing.”
I clutched my chains tighter. “Chester, what are you saying?”
My mind raced back to the court. The kiss. The proposal. The way Darius had knelt before Alanna like she was everything he wanted. It had looked so real. Felt so real. But Chester was telling me... what? That it was all a lie?
“Curious thing, shadows.” His voice floated around me. “They hide so much. Hear so much. See what others wish to keep secret.”
He flashed in front of me—first his smile, then his golden eyes, then his body fully materialized.
“What would you give to save someone you love?” He tilted his head. “Your pride? Your heart? Your very self?” His grin widened. “Hatter faced a curious choice. A queen’s hand in marriage... or a witch lost forever in dreams she can never escape.”
His smile faded—something I’d never seen before.
“He chose. But not for himself. Never for himself.” Chester circled me slowly. “The question is, Alice... which nightmare do you think he feared more? Kissing a queen he despises? Or watching you scream inside your own mind for eternity?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Magic objects.” Chester’s voice curled around me like smoke. “Darkness. Nightmares with no waking. A mother burning over and over and over.” His golden eyes met mine. “The queen gave him no choices. So he made the only one he could.”
“The queen was going to curse me?”
“Forever.” Chester went still. No flickering. No disappearing. Just those golden eyes, heavy with sorrow. “So he took your place instead. Cursed forever. Bonded. Enslaved. Broken.”
The words sank into me like stones.
Darius hadn’t gone mad.
He’d sacrificed himself for me.