The Moth in the Mirror Read Free Page B

low on this guy’s priority list. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a drama queen?” Jeb growled.
    Morpheus leaned in low to glance at the messy room. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a deplorable houseguest?”
    His captor’s grand entrance was partly responsible for the clutter, but Jeb bit his tongue, unwilling to risk his chance to see Al.
    Morpheus eased back. “Alyssa awaits you in the mirrored hall. And, by all means, wash up and shave. You are to be introduced to our dinner guests as an Elfin Knight, so you need to look the part. Gossamer shall give you tips on proper behavior.” Morpheus dropped in some clothes and boots. They hit the floor with a clump. “Here is the uniform.” He paused and gestured to the chains. “Too bad you haven’t any wings or netherling magic. You will have to climb your way out. And I can assure you, it won’t be an easy trek.”
    Jeb’s muscles tensed as Morpheus vanished from view; he knew the warning referred to so much more than his exit from this room.

~ 3 ~
Memory Two: Carnage
    Jeb wiped sweat from his brow. Morpheus had been right about the climb out of his gilded prison being difficult. But that was nothing to the trek through Wonderland he and Alyssa had taken since then. The entire day had been one crazy challenge after another, with danger and death around every turn. And now he’d lost Al. They’d become separated just before accomplishing the final test. She was facing the Twid sisters’ cemetery alone, and he was stuck here in the bottom of a chasm.
    Night had fallen the instant he’d hit the ground—such a fast transition, it was as if someone had flipped a light switch.
    The kinks in his muscles tightened. He hated the thought of Al being alone in this wacked-out world after dark. Then again, she’d proved herself strong enough to face almost anything. It had been she who’d ended up saving
him
, in more ways than one …
    He thought of how she’d looked—hovering overhead, glistening and wild, fluttering with the grace of a dragonfly. Seeing her sprout wings had been both terrifying and miraculous at once. He couldn’t breathe while watching the transformation.
    If he were honest, he still hadn’t recovered his breath from when she had lowered him into the abyss and he’d shouted “
You’re my lifeline!”
before she shot up higher into the sky. He shouldn’t have put so much pressure on her to save him. He had to do what he could to get out of here himself—meet her halfway. Otherwise, she’d never forgive herself if something went wrong.
    A jubjub bird’s carcass had broken his fall. He wiped sticky goo from between his fingers onto his pants, turning up his nose at the rank remains of the army that had been chasing them and tumbled into the chasm. He pushed himself to stand in the pitch-dark gloom. His boots made sucking sounds as he walked. He’d never been squeamish; any aversion to blood and gore had been beaten out of him—a gradual desensitization reinforced each time he’d look in the mirror to find his cheeks and eyes swollen up, fat and bloody like raw steak.
    But without a speck of light to go by, the carnage at his feet felt more alive than dead. His imagination pulled out files on everything from zombie movies to demons and hauntings. Nausea burned his stomach. He took solace that only the wind whistled through the chasm. He couldn’t hear any ghostly chains or undead moans.
    Besides, time was the actual foe here, more dangerous than anything he could imagine. Al still had to complete the final task in the cemetery. And then they had to find each other again.
    He forced himself blindly forward until his palm skimmed the chasm’s wall. Before he’d dropped all the way down, he’d caught a glimpse of Al’s backpack snagged on a rock outcropping about a yard north. If he could find it, he’d have a flashlight. Hands scraping the crusty surface of the stone, he lifted his feet over obstacles, patting his toes across corpses to