Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
ALICE
"You tricked me?" I say, the words sticking in my throat.
Tricked me. I want to say more—shout more—but I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to say to that. My mind’s spinning, my head’s in full what-the-hell mode, and everything inside me is rattling loose.
I want to scream, to throw something, to be angry at someone—at something.
But instead, I step back from the small gap in the wall, trying to give myself a second, just one second to breathe, to think, to not let this place swallow me whole. I press my hands to my face, take a shaky breath and try to ignore the cold and damp I’m stuck in because of someone else’s agenda.
"Why?" I whisper. It’s not really a question I need answered. I’m not even sure he can answer it.
On the other side of the wall, there is movement again. A shuffle, a sigh, and then the dim light from his cell flickers through the small heart-shaped hole in the stone. Of course, it’s heart-shaped. Why wouldn’t it be?
“We didn’t have a choice,” he says, his voice low, soft.
It’s sad, and I don’t like the way it sounds—how it feels to hear that sadness—but I also don’t like being tricked or manipulated.
I had enough of that back in London, enough of that from my mother.
That's why I left and tried to start a new life.
One without anyone pulling at my strings.
"You could have just asked me," I say, louder this time. "You could have come and asked."
There’s a long pause, the kind that stretches until you're not sure if the person is even still there. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.
“We didn’t think you’d come.”
I let out a bitter laugh, the kind that feels wrong. "So instead of asking me, you thought the best plan was to trick me? To drag me here with some fake invitation from the Queen? How did that work out? Because now I’m in here with you."
I swear I feel him flinch, even if I can’t see him. And I know that isn’t possible, and maybe it’s my own projection.
His silence is louder than any words could ever be.
I don’t mean to make him feel bad. It isn’t my intention.
Hare, Absolem, they mean the world to me, and it shocks me to think of that, because all my life, since I was last here, I’ve pushed them away, not thought about them.
But really, I think I pushed away what I felt.
I pushed away what my mother told me wasn’t real, and I so desperately needed it to be.
“I would have come,” I say, the words slipping out before I realise it. I don’t know where they came from either, but they’re there now, raw and real.
For years, Wonderland has been in the back of my mind. It was the most wonderful adventure. And it felt real to me. It felt like home. It had been the one place in the world where I felt like I belonged, even with all its madness, all its chaos. I would’ve come, I think.
The Hare doesn’t respond right away, but I can feel him on the other side of the wall, hear the faint rustle of movement. It’s almost like he knows what I’m feeling—like he’s waiting for me to make sense of it for myself.
“I would’ve come,” I repeat, a little more forceful this time. "You didn’t have to trick me."
There’s a soft sigh and then his voice filters through the gap. "We didn’t know how else to reach you. Wonderland is falling apart. She’s taken everything from us. Everything."
I close my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cool stone.
"Who?" I almost know, of course. It’s always her. The Queen. She gives my mother a run for her money on the narcissism scale.
"The Queen," he says. "She’s mad. Madder than before. Power hungry. Greedy. She..."
His sadness pulls at me, it’s thick and heavy in his words, and I move from the wall and go back to the hole to peer through. He’s leaning against the wall, crouching.
"What happened?"
He turns his head a little to look at me. "She got greedy. She’s been stealing magic from other worlds. She drained Wonderland almost dry, to the point it is dying, and the same with other worlds too. She can’t get enough, and we can’t stop her. We thought..."
"Other worlds?" Even as I say the words, I want to tut at my own naivety. There was Wonderland, of course there are other places, other portals just like that one. But it feels so odd, so strange to me. In my world, we’re taught magic doesn’t exist. It’s the thing of fairy tales and stories we just want to dive into.
It’s the hope and wish that on your eleventh birthday, you get an invite, and when it never comes, it’s just the final confirmation, almost like Santa, and the Easter Bunny and all the other whimsical things parents use to control their children. None of it is real.
But it is...
Maybe?
I want to believe it. I want to step out of that zone in my head that says this is all some strange, grief-induced dream. I want to understand.
The Hare nods. “Avalon, Narnia, Neverland, Frostfell, Thornvale. All of them.” He reels off more names. Places I know, some I don’t.
The names make my heart slip. They’re real? I pull away from the wall. And the Hare’s voice comes through, barely audible.
“She’s draining them dry, consuming everything she can find, but it’s never enough. She’s never satisfied.”
My mind flashes back to the Wonderland I remember—the vibrant colours, the whimsy, the madness that somehow made sense. And now, this dark, twisted, decaying world.
“Is that why Wonderland looks like it does?” I press my palms into my eyes, trying to make sense of everything, and more importantly, trying to push away the rising tide of emotions.
I take a deep breath, trying to pull it all the way into my lungs, steadying myself.
“Do you know why she is stealing all their magic?”
“She wants to be the only one. The only ruler. The only source of magic.”
I swallow hard.
“She’s been after power since the beginning, and she had it, but then you came along and defeated her…
” He pauses, as if struggling to find his words.
“You showed her she had a weakness. You made her vulnerable. She vowed never to be beaten again.” He clears his throat and stands stronger now.
“When you beat her the last time, you were supposed to ... You were supposed to stay.”
“I was just a child.”
“It doesn’t matter. Wonderland doesn’t know that.
Her magic started to die, it started to fade, and she couldn’t have that.
She figured out a way to keep it, but it means taking it from all the other places.
” His voice grows heavier with each word.
“She took everything from Wonderland first—its magic, its life. And when that wasn’t enough, she started taking from other worlds.
But it’s not working. The magic never stays, and now. .. now Wonderland is paying the price.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“I thought it was all a dream. I didn’t know—I thought it was just my imagination.
That’s what my mother told me. I…” It sounds pathetic, stupid.
Standing here now, with him, it sounds stupid.
It feels idiotic. “You want me to defeat her again?”
The Hare says nothing for a moment, but I dare to look at him. There’s something there, something he isn’t saying.
“We hope you can. There’s nothing left. If you can’t…” He shakes his head, his voice thick with uncertainty. “We’re not sure how long Wonderland has left.”
“I don’t know how to defeat her.” My words tumble out in a rush. “Last time, it was all a stroke of luck. Just silly games she played, and I happened to win. I’m not sure—”
He cuts me off. “You still have the magic in you. Just because you don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just like this place.
You thought we weren’t real, a dream? But we are.
We’re here.” He stands taller now, coming close to the hole in the wall, only the bricks between us as he stares at me.
His eyes meet mine, and I can feel the sincerity in them.
“I used to see you as a hare when I was a child. In my head, you were the Hare and we had tea, and in your pocket…”
The figure standing before me isn’t the March Hare I remember. Gone are the floppy ears and twitching whiskers that used to poke out from beneath his oversized hat. Instead, he looks... human. But not quite. There’s something off, something that still whispers of the hare I knew from childhood.
He’s tall, taller than I expected, with lean limbs that move with a fluid, almost unnatural grace.
His skin is pale, like the soft underbelly of a rabbit, with a faint shimmer to it, as though dusted with moonlight.
His hair is a wild mess of dark, thick curls, streaked with silvery strands that catch the dim light.
But it’s his ears that draw my attention—their subtle points, not quite human, not quite animal.
Like the echo of his former self clings to him, reminding me of the creature I once shared tea with.
His eyes are large and dark, almond-shaped, and they glint with a knowing intelligence, the kind that only comes from living through madness.
There’s a sharpness to his features, almost fae-like, as if he’s walked out of one of those magical realms I’ve only read about in books.
His clothes are patchwork, still mismatched like before, but now they hang on him with a strange elegance, as if he’s both part of the earth and something entirely otherworldly.
As he moves, I catch sight of something twitching beneath his coat—a flicker of motion that reminds me of a tail.
My heart skips a beat, but I tell myself it’s just my imagination.
Still, there’s a wildness about him, an energy that can’t quite be tamed.
His hands are long and slender, his fingers ending in sharp nails that look as though they’ve dug through too many forgotten things.
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a little sleeping mouse.
“We’ve always been here, Alice. We’ve been waiting for you to come back.”