Chapter 50
Chapter Fifty
HOOK
I raise a brow at her. "Don’t be ridiculous.
How am I reading a map wrong?" I snatch it back and practically wave it at her, thrusting it in her direction. "It’s a bloody map. It isn’t exactly hard to read.
You’re here, you want to go here, and oh look," I say, jabbing my finger at the image.
"You follow the paths until you get there. Boom, done, map read."
She’s staring at me, her tongue playing inside her cheek as she leans on one hip. "Or," she says, going to grab it back, but I swipe it right out of her reach. She lunges again, then raises a brow, and holds her hand out. I give her the map.
"You remember that you, my friend, are in Wonderland, and here, you read maps in a different way." And then she puts the map back to her face, wrapping it around her face and nodding. "There. Now I can read it."
"That is not how you read a map. You can’t even see a bloody thing with it wrapped round your head. Did you take a knock to the head by chance?"
She doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she offers me the map. "Try it yourself, Mr I-Know-Everything."
I bow. "Thank you."
She scowls at me. "Don’t be smart. Take the bloody map and put it over your face."
I stare at her, then the map, and then back at her. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Just do it. You think I’m doing it wrong. Try it my way."
I let out a breath. "You’ve lost it, you know that?
And where the hell are we? Is this even the way to wherever it is we’re supposed to go?
" I realise how stupid that sounds because, yes, I have been following the map that Merrik’s daughter drew for us, and yes, I have been reading it my way—the right way—but I’m not even sure which way we’ve gone and which way Madam-I-Don’t-Know-What-The-Hell has decided to take us.
"Just put it over your face. We don’t have the time to argue about it."
I grit my teeth, biting back a snarl. "Fine." With a growl of irritation, I lift the map and press it to my face.
And then... everything shifts.
The lines blur and twist, reshaping themselves into layers that ripple and glow, as though the map is actually alive.
"What in the hell?" I lower the map, expecting to see—I don’t even know what—something. Alice is staring at me. Sophia just has a smug look about her. But I’m buggered if I’m going to say she’s right.
"Is this some Wonderland trick? Am I inhaling some kind of drug and hallucinating?"
"What do you see?" Alice asks.
I hesitate, the image of her—radiant, powerful—seared into my mind. It’s not something I’m about to unpack, not here, not now, especially not with her staring at me like that.
“Nothing useful,” I say at last, yanking the map back over my face.
Because I see her. Alice.
Not the Alice who’s been irritating me for days, all sharp words and stubborn defiance.
No, this is someone else entirely. This Alice—she’s something else.
Radiant. Commanding. She stands tall, her presence filling the space like it was made for her.
Like she belongs to this world in a way I never could to mine, no matter how long I’ve been there.
Wonderland bends to her, the way Neverland never bends to me.
Her hair shimmers faintly, catching the fractured light of this twisted world, but it’s not just her appearance. It’s the way the air shifts around her, charged with something electric. The glow of Wonderland’s magic bends toward her, as if it’s drawn to her. Alive in a way I can’t explain.
Her eyes burn with something raw, untamed—a kind of magic that doesn’t come from spells or potions.
It’s innate, as though it lives in her veins.
It thrums with the same chaotic rhythm as this world itself, dangerous yet intoxicating.
I want to reach out, to feel that energy, to let it take hold of me if only to understand what it means.
She’s not just Alice. She’s something more.
I don’t have the words for it, but I feel it in my very bones.
Sophia notices my reaction, of course. How could she not?
She nods, but there’s no arrogance in it, no smug smirk.
Just understanding, like she’s been waiting for me to see it all along.
But I can’t take my eyes off Alice. The magic pouring off her is enough to leave me breathless, even as it leaves her completely unaware.
“What?” she asks, her frown deepening. “Why are you staring at me like that? Have I grown another head?”
I can’t answer. The image of her—that Alice—lingers in my mind, burned there like a brand.
Sophia steps in front of me, breaking the moment. Her expression is maddeningly calm. “You see the way now, don’t you?” she asks, her tone soft but insistent.
I finally manage to look at her, though it takes effort. My voice is low, tight. “What the hell is this? What did you make me see?”
Sophia doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t waver. “The truth,” she says simply. So sure of herself. So damn calm.