The King of Hearts looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

  Which, given that this was the Dreamscape, was probably saying something.

  "Bad news," Maggie repeated. "What kind of bad news?"

  Charles shuffled some papers on his desk. They rearranged themselves when he wasn't looking, but he didn't seem to notice anymore.

  "The Cheshire Cat," he said. "He learned something. During your time in the maze."

  Jay perked up. "The grinning cat? What did he learn?"

  "Your manifestation." Charles's voice was heavy. "The creature you summoned when you first arrived in the Dreamscape. The one with the... mouths."

  The color drained from Jay's face.

  "He told my wife."

  Silence.

  Mark stepped forward. "What do you mean?"

  "The Cat brought one here. A copy, I think. He told her it would make things more... entertaining." Charles ran a hand through his thinning hair. "She loved the idea. Keeps talking about how fun the next execution will be."

  "How bad is she?" Alice asked. She'd appeared beside them at some point.

  "Worse than ever." The King's shoulders slumped. "She's not the woman I married anymore." He paused. "Was she ever? I can't remember. Time does strange things to memory here."

  Mark exchanged a look with Alice.

  "If it comes to it," he said quietly, "I'll intervene."

  "You'd do that?" Charles looked up, something fragile in his expression. "Against her?"

  "If absolutely necessary."

  The King nodded slowly.

  "By the way," Mark said. "The stories that followed us here. The ones trying to get into Wonderland. I dealt with most of them on the way."

  Charles let out a breath. "Thank you. Truly. We have enough problems as it is."

  "Don't mention it." Mark was already turning toward the door. "We should go. The Queen is expecting us, apparently."

  Charles stood abruptly. "Be careful. Please. She's not... she's not herself. She hasn't been for a long time." His voice cracked slightly. "I keep hoping she'll remember who she used to be. But every day, it gets harder to believe."

  Maggie looked at the King—this sad, round-faced man who still loved a woman who'd become a monster. Who spent his days trying to pardon people his wife wanted to kill.

  "We'll try not to hurt her," she said.

  Charles smiled weakly. "I'm not sure that's possible anymore."

  · · ·

  The throne room was red.

  Not just decorated in red—saturated with it. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all painted in shades of crimson that seemed to pulse with their own heartbeat. Heart motifs covered every surface, carved into stone, woven into tapestries, embedded in the very tiles they walked on.

  And at the far end, on a throne made of what looked disturbingly like bones painted red, sat the Queen of Hearts.

  She was short and stout, stuffed into a red gown that strained at the seams. A crown sat crookedly on her head. She looked almost comical—until you saw her eyes. Flat. Cold. The eyes of someone who'd ordered so many executions that death had become boring.

  "So," she said, her voice echoing through the chamber. "These are the humans who think they can challenge me."

  Card soldiers lined the walls—dozens of them, spears at the ready. Maggie counted at least forty.

  "Your Majesty," Alice said, stepping forward with a curtsy that somehow managed to be both respectful and mocking. "May I present—"

  "I know who they are." The Queen waved a dismissive hand. "The girl in the ugly dress and the boy who makes monsters." Her eyes fixed on Jay, and something hungry flickered in them. "I've heard about your talent. Very impressive. Very... useful."

  Jay took a step back, bumping into Maggie.

  "We're here to stop you," Maggie said. "The executions. The tyranny. All of it."

  The Queen blinked. Then she laughed—a sharp, brittle sound that seemed to cut the air.

  "How dramatic. How quaint." She leaned forward on her throne. "Do you know how many people have said those exact words to me? Do you know what happened to them?"

  She gestured to the walls.

  Maggie looked closer. The heart motifs weren't just decorations. Some of them were... organic. Preserved somehow. Mounted like trophies.

  Actual hearts.

  "How do you like my collection?" The Queen smiled, revealing teeth that were slightly too sharp.

  "Charming décor," Maggie said flatly. "Very serial killer chic."

  The Queen's smile flickered. "You have a mouth on you."

  "I've been told."

  "I'll enjoy adding your heart to the wall." The Queen stood. "But first—a demonstration."

  Mark and Alice stood at the edges of the room, watching but not intervening. Observers. This was Maggie and Jay's fight.

  "I'm not scared of you," Maggie said. "Just so we're clear."

  The Queen tilted her head. "No? How interesting." She descended the steps from her throne, her red gown straining against her stout frame. "Most people are terrified by now. Begging. Crying. Offering me anything to spare their pathetic little heads."

  "Sounds boring."

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Incredibly." The Queen stopped a few feet away. "But you—you might actually be entertaining."

  She snapped her fingers.

  The doors at the far end of the throne room burst open. Card soldiers streamed in, forming ranks, but they weren't attacking. They were making room.

  Making room for something else.

  The smell hit Maggie first. Rot and ammonia and something worse—a chemical stench that made her eyes water and her throat close. She'd smelled it before. Back in the plaza, when Jay had first manifested his nightmare.

  "No," Jay whispered.

  The creature lurched through the doorway.

  It was massive—eight feet tall, with a body like a diseased plant. Thick, rubbery flesh covered in pustules and sores. Tentacles that might have been roots or might have been intestines writhed from its midsection. And mouths—dozens of them, covering its surface, each one filled with rows of needle-thin teeth, each one exhaling thin streams of yellowish gas.

  Jay's nightmare. The monster he'd accidentally created when he first arrived in the Dreamscape.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" The Queen circled the creature, keeping a safe distance but admiring it nonetheless. "The Cat brought it to me. I don't know how, and I don't care. All I know is that it's mine now. A new way to execute people." She clapped her hands together with childlike glee. "So much more entertaining than the guillotines!"

  "That thing almost killed me," Jay said, his voice shaking.

  "Yes, well. It won't almost kill you this time." The Queen's smile widened. "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

  She turned away, ascending back toward her throne to watch.

  The creature roared—a wet, gurgling sound that came from every mouth at once. Gas billowed from its body, spreading across the throne room floor like fog.

  Maggie grabbed Jay's arm. "Move!"

  They ran.

  · · ·

  The courtyard outside the throne room was vast and empty—clearly designed for executions, with a raised platform at one end that held four guillotines, their blades gleaming in the strange light of Wonderland.

  The creature followed them out, crashing through the doors with a sound of splintering wood. The card soldiers hung back—even they seemed afraid of the thing and its poison gas.

  Mark and Alice had found a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Watching. Not helping.

  "Locke!" Maggie called.

  The husky was already moving, circling the creature, snapping at its tentacles. He couldn't hurt it—not really—but he could distract it. Keep its attention divided.

  "Jay, can you hit it from here?"

  "I'll try." He raised his staff, the crystal orb glowing. "FIRE BOLT!"

  A beam of flame shot toward the creature and struck its side. The flesh blackened, some of the pustules bursting, but the monster barely flinched. It turned toward Jay, mouths opening wider, gas pouring out in thicker streams.

  "It's too big!" Jay fired another bolt, then another. Each one did damage, but not enough. "My attacks aren't strong enough!"

  Maggie focused. She'd been practicing this. The ranged attack Mark had tried to teach her—projecting force beyond her fist.

  She punched toward the creature.

  A ripple of force shot forward, crossing the distance in an instant. It struck the monster's center mass and actually staggered it back a step.

  "Yes!" Maggie punched again. Another impact. The creature roared in frustration, momentarily forgetting about Jay.

  But then it adapted. It stopped trying to chase them and simply started spewing more gas. The yellow fog spread across the courtyard, expanding, filling every space.

  Maggie's eyes burned. Her lungs screamed for air that wasn't poisoned.

  "We need to stop the gas!" she shouted. "If we can't breathe, we can't fight!"

  She focused. The power she'd discovered against the Jack—declarations. Rules imposed on reality.

  "YOU CANNOT PRODUCE GAS!" she commanded.

  Nothing.

  "STOP RELEASING POISON!"

  The creature kept spewing, the fog growing thicker.

  She tried to frame it as a condition, a contract—but the words wouldn't form. There was nothing to trade, nothing to bind. The gas wasn't an action. It was just what the creature was.

  "I can't stop it!" she called out.

  The creature was moving again. Ignoring Locke now, who was coughing and backing away from the expanding cloud. It had found their scent. It was coming for them.

  Maggie grabbed Jay and ran, pulling him toward the far end of the courtyard. They needed distance. They needed time to think.

  "What do we do?" Jay gasped, his eyes streaming. "I can't summon anything else—I'm almost out of mana!"

  "Think! There has to be something!"

  The creature was closing the gap. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Its tentacles reached toward them, dripping with something that sizzled where it hit the ground.

  And then Jay stopped.

  "Wait," he said. "Wait. Mark's trick."

  "What?"

  "The pocket thing. How he stores weapons and pulls them out." Jay's eyes were wide, feverish. "He said the hardest part is creating something from nothing. But if something already exists—"

  "Jay, we don't have time—"

  "What if I summon something from a story? A copy. A pale imitation."

  The creature was ten feet away.

  "Do it!" Maggie shoved him behind her, raising her fists. She'd buy him time. However long he needed.

  Jay closed his eyes, staff clutched to his chest.

  "SUMMON: DOPPEL!"

  Something materialized beside him.

  It was small—barely two feet tall. A blob of grey-pink flesh with no discernible features, like clay that hadn't been shaped yet. It quivered, looking around with eyes that appeared and disappeared on its surface.

  "That's it?" Maggie ducked under a tentacle swipe. "That's your plan?"

  "Give it a second!" Jay pointed at the balcony where Mark stood watching. "DOPPEL! COPY HIM!"

  The blob shifted. Flesh rippled, stretched, reformed. Features emerged—a face, arms, legs. A coat. Glasses. The proportions weren't quite right, the eyes lacking depth. But when the figure reached into its pocket and pulled out a spear of black metal—

  Maggie could have kissed Jay.

  "ATTACK THE MONSTER!" Jay commanded.

  The fake Mark moved. Not as fast as the real one—slower, clumsier—but it knew the techniques. It threw the spear with mechanical precision, and the weapon buried itself in the creature's center mass.

  The monster screamed. Actually screamed, a sound of genuine pain rather than rage. The spear had done something the fire bolts and force punches hadn't—it had hit something vital.

  The creature thrashed, tentacles flailing, mouths snapping. It ripped the spear free, black ichor pouring from the wound.

  The fake Mark pulled another spear from its pocket. Threw it. This one struck lower, pinning a cluster of tentacles to the ground.

  "Now!" Maggie charged forward.

  She threw a ranged punch at the wound. The impact made the creature stagger. Another punch. Another. Each one drove deeper, widening the gap the first spear had opened.

  The creature lunged for the fake Mark, catching it with three tentacles at once. The copy crumpled, dissolving into grey sludge.

  Maggie was already moving.

  She ducked under a flailing tentacle and drove forward.

  A tentacle caught her across the ribs, sending her skidding back. She tasted blood. The creature turned toward her, mouths snapping, gas pouring from every orifice.

  It was still standing. Still fighting. Even wounded, it refused to die.

  Maggie pushed herself up. Her ribs screamed. She ignored them.

  Jay was on his knees, staff dark, completely drained. The Doppel had taken everything he had left.

  This was on her now.

  She focused. Everything she had. Every bit of force she could muster.

  The creature charged.

  Maggie threw her fist forward—not at the creature's body, but at that one weak point. The wound. The opening.

  The impact tore through rotting flesh.

  The creature swayed. Mouths opened in a silent scream. And then—slowly, almost gracefully—it collapsed, collapsing into chunks of plant matter that faded before they hit the ground.

  Silence.

  Maggie stood in the middle of the courtyard, breathing hard. Jay was on his knees, staff clutched in trembling hands, completely spent.

  Locke limped over to them, fur singed but tail wagging weakly.

  "We did it," Jay wheezed. "We actually did it."

  From the balcony, Mark's voice drifted down.

  "Good thinking, Jay."

  Jay's face split into a grin so wide it looked painful. "Shishou finally acknowledges my genius!"

  "Don't push it."

  But Mark was almost smiling.

  The moment was broken by slow, deliberate applause.

  The Queen of Hearts stood at the entrance to the courtyard, clapping with exaggerated enthusiasm. Card soldiers flanked her, but she held up a hand to keep them back.

  "Impressive," she said. "Truly impressive. You destroyed my pet." Her expression didn't match her words—cold fury simmered behind her eyes. "I suppose I'll have to deal with you myself."

  She raised her hand.

  And then the sky cracked open.

  Not a portal—not like Lucifer's crimson tear. This was something else. A fracture in the very fabric of Wonderland, spreading across the red-tinted sky like a wound. Through the gap, something massive moved.

  Wings. Scales. Eyes that burned with ancient hunger.

  The creature that emerged was a dragon, but twisted—body elongated and serpentine, jaws bristling with teeth like swords, claws curved into hooks of black bone. From its throat came a sound that wasn't a roar. It was words. Incomprehensible words. A language that predated language, syllables scraping against the inside of Maggie's skull like broken glass.

  "What the hell is that?" Jay scrambled to his feet, clutching his empty staff like a talisman.

  Mark's voice came from behind them. He'd moved from the balcony to the courtyard floor without Maggie noticing.

  "The Jabberwocky. One of the stories that didn't give up," he said quietly. "It must have followed us into Wonderland after all."