Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
ALICE
My head feels like it's going to crack open. I press my forehead against the cold, rough stone wall, breathing in deeply, trying to make sense of the mess swirling around inside my brain. Everything is jumbled. The hare keeps talking—he’s been talking for what feels like hours—but it’s all just noise.
None of it is clicking. I was a kid the last time I was here—a child, stumbling into Wonderland with no idea what I was doing. I fell into that hole by accident.
“I don’t know how to help,” I mumble. “Last time I...” What?
Did nothing? Got lucky? The words die in my throat because that’s the truth.
I didn’t do anything. The Queen had me on trial for something ridiculous—something I still don’t understand—and her logic was nonsense.
Sentence first, verdict second. That’s what she told me.
“You stood up to her,” a voice says, but it’s not the Hare this time. It’s a new voice, a girl’s voice, coming from the other side of the cell. I lift my head, blinking in the dim light.
Am I the only one stuck in the dark? Literally and figuratively? There’s a clicking sound, like tiny pieces of porcelain tapping together, and then light flickers through another heart-shaped hole in the wall.
I frown. Someone else is in here? I really need to stop thinking my world revolves around what’s happening in my head. Of course, someone else is here. Of course, it’s not just me and the Hare.
“You have magic,” the voice says again.
I push away from the wall, separating myself from the Hare, and angle toward the new voice. I squint at the heart-shaped hole, but all I can make out is an eye. Porcelain smooth, too perfect to be human.
“How many of us are down here?” I ask, because I can’t quite process anything else right now.
The Hare answers first. “As many as the Queen can capture.”
“Maybe twenty,” the girl adds. “There were more of us. We used to talk to each other, but the Queen doesn’t like that. The guards take us away if they catch us.”
I walk over to the hole, bracing my hands on either side as I peer in. “Why are you down here?”
“The same as anyone, silly. For our magic,” she replies.
“The Queen uses it,” the Hare explains. “She takes it from us and uses it for herself. One day, there’ll be nothing left but her.”
I pause, trying to wrap my head around it all.
I might be the one who always had her head in the clouds, but I also prided myself on being logical—thinking things through.
My thoughts aren’t tied to appearances like my sister’s or boxed in by social rules like my mother’s.
No, Dad used to say logic was my power. I need to tap into that now, but it’s hard.
Maybe it’s my gran’s death, or maybe it’s the sheer weight of everything else coming down on me.
“Then why am I down here?” I ask, my frustration bubbling up. “If it’s about magic, then I shouldn’t be here. I don’t have any. I’m just… well, me. Just human. I...”
The girl laughs softly, a warm, gentle sound. “Everyone in Wonderland has magic.”
I frown, confused. “But I’m not from Wonderland. Magic, in my world, is the stuff of fairy tales.”
“We’ve heard about your stories,” she says. “Books that pretend to be made up, but they’re not. They’re trying to tell you what’s possible—what’s real. You just don’t see it.”
I tilt my head, taking in her words. “So, you’re telling me that all those stories... that there’s a school for wizards out there? And a magical land somewhere over the rainbow?”
The Hare’s voice comes through, calm and certain. “Of course there is.”
“Magic isn’t about where you’re from,” the girl adds softly. “It’s about belief.”
I lean back against the wall, thinking this over, my fingers tracing the rough stone behind me.
“If magic were real—if I had magic—then I’d be able to get us out of here, right?
” I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, knees tucked to my chest. My heart feels heavy, and I run my fingers through my hair, trying to make sense of everything.
“But I can’t. I don’t have anything like that. ”
“You don’t use it, but it’s there,” the girl says, her voice still kind. “You don’t feel it because you’ve buried it. What happened to you, Alice?” she asks gently, as if she can sense the ache inside me. “Why did you push away who you are?”
I freeze, goosebumps prickling my arms as her question lingers in the air. What did happen to me? Why did I push all this away?
“It’s inside you, Alice,” the Hare says softly from his side of the wall. “The magic is there. You just have to believe it.”
“This is just… too much,” I murmur, more to myself than to them.
Part of me—some tiny part—wants to believe.
What if this is real? What if I am something more?
But still, I remind myself, this is Wonderland.
Nothing ever makes sense here. "But this isn't real. None of it is. That’s how I got home last time—by realising it wasn’t real. That it all didn't exist."
"No. You went home because you stopped believing. You let the wonder drain out of you, and Wonderland pushed you out," the Hare says.
"It starts with belief," the girl adds, her voice calm yet insistent. "You can't use magic if you don't believe it's there."
I sit quietly, caught in my own thoughts. "I'm real because I was born," I murmur, my confidence wavering. "I'm real because of my parents, because I exist. That doesn’t feel like magic."
The Hare shifts gently in his cell, his tone thoughtful. "And you don’t think life itself is magic? That your very existence, your being here, isn’t woven from the same magic that makes Wonderland what it is?"
For a moment, I don’t respond. I exhale slowly and push myself up, legs shaky but just strong enough to hold me. I turn toward the heart-shaped hole on the other side of my cell, my fingers pressing against the cold stone as I peer through. "If I have magic, then how do I use it?"
The girl standing on the other side steps back from the wall, and that’s when I see her clearly.
She’s not human. She’s a porcelain doll, her face smooth and pale, almost gleaming in the dim light, as if untouched by time or the grime of the dungeon.
Her eyes, large and round, are an unsettling shade of glassy blue, reflecting light with an almost eerie glint.
Delicate, painted-on lashes frame her eyes, frozen in place like they were carefully crafted by a patient hand.
She wears an old-fashioned dress, the once-vibrant blues and golds now faded, but still intricate, with lace trimming the sleeves and hem.
The fabric clings to her stiffly, not flowing as fabric should, giving the impression of something too perfect, too controlled.
Every stitch on the dress is too neat, too precise, as though it was sewn by someone afraid of a single mistake.
Her lips are painted in soft rose, perfectly shaped, but unmoving, frozen in a delicate expression.
She’s fragile and beautiful, but there’s something unsettling about the way she stands there, motionless yet somehow alive.
"You close your eyes Alice. You close them and then reach down inside you."
So, I try. I take a breath, pushing away the swirling thoughts of I can’t believe I’m doing this, and reach for that part of me I’ve buried for over a decade.
The part of me that once believed in the impossible, that used to wonder what if?
I close my eyes and focus on that flicker of hope, on the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there’s something left in me.
I push it toward the cell, toward the walls, toward the gate.
For a second, there’s a faint warmth spreading through my chest. I focus harder, imagining the door swinging open, imagining freedom.
I clench my fists, willing the magic—if it’s there—to do something, to work.
But nothing happens. The cell remains cold, unyielding, the door as solid and locked as ever.
I grit my teeth and concentrate harder, my breath coming out in ragged gasps as I try to force the magic out of me, to push it into the stone, to feel it crack open the door.
But still, nothing. Not even a flicker.
For a moment, I stand there, staring at the door. And then, just for a second—a single, fleeting second—it feels real. The door clicks open with a soft, almost magical sound. My heart leaps in my chest, and I step forward, hope igniting in my veins.
But before I can even process it, a guard appears, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor as he strides toward me.
In one swift motion, he throws something at me.
I flinch as it hits me, and I glance down to see a dress—a ball gown, black as night, laced with orange threads that shimmer like embers in the dim light.
"The Queen is throwing a ball. Get changed," the guard snaps, his voice sharp and hard, lacking any patience or kindness.
He tosses a mask next, and it clatters to the floor by my feet. "It’s a masked ball," he adds, his tone dripping with cold authority, making it clear this isn’t a request. "You have five minutes."