We talk and tease and bargain with the main dish. Maniacal laughter echoes in the marble halls, sweet to my ears.
There’s movement at the banquet hall’s entrance. A child with my eyes tumbles in—all wings and blue hair and giggling innocence. Holding his hand is Morpheus, wearing a ruby crown.
The Red King. My king.

The bubble bursts and takes the vision with it, leaving nothing but the sound of my gasp and wisps of gray smoke behind.
“You see,” Ivory says, “once Morpheus knew that one day you would belong to him and he to you, that you would share a child, he was no longer willing to die to save Wonderland. But he’s insecure about your feelings for him. He feared you would refuse to help. So he made a new plan, however flawed it was.

A.G. Howard