“You guys . . . I see—”
Hatter let out a cry, which was followed by identical screeches from Dee and Dum.
I whirled about and saw Henri transfixed by something that I couldn’t see, and the pixies gesturing in opposite directions, their eyes wide with fear.
What the hell was going on?
I raced across the clearing, dead-set on grabbing Hatter and getting out of there, and ran smack into an invisible wall. I swayed, and it took a second to reorient myself, but when I did, I noticed that the air in front of me shimmered.
My hands began tracing the line of shimmer, searching for where it started and ended. Wherever that was, it wasn’t within the clearing.
My heart lodged in my throat as I understood what was happening. The forest had divided us into four quadrants. Each of us in a box where we would experience our own private terrors—just like the soldiers who had died here.
In front of Hatter, a man with long, black hair was placing his neck over a box as another fae, a soldier, wielded an axe. A beheading.
Dee and Dum were too hidden by the leaves for me to see what they were experiencing, but from the sounds of their screams, I knew it was terrible.
And then there was the woman behind me—undoubtedly the Red Queen—who was still walking toward me.
“You think you can get away, sister?” the queen asked, yanking my attention away from the others and into my own nightmare.
Sister? I whirled around to find that another person had materialized.
Moon-white hair, so like that from my dreams, glistened back at me. My mother was standing with her back to me, arms extended in self-defense, as her sister, the Red Queen, marched forward menacingly.
“You don’t want to do this, Sela. Think of my girls. They’ll grow up without parents, they’ll despise you,” my mother yelled, her voice a swirl of anger, sadness, and fear.
My fists clenched for but a moment before I hurled my dagger at the Red Queen. I watched furiously as the blade flew right through her without harm. Realization set in, and along with it, the terror that I didn’t know how to handle this situation.
The Red Queen wasn’t real. This was a vision meant to break me down—and I had no idea how to stop it.
“They’ll never know,” the Red Queen barked back. Her long, black hair billowed behind her as if being blown by an otherworldly wind. “Just like the entire court doesn’t know that you have what should have been mine. They don’t know that you stole my future, but now I’m stealing yours.”
“Isabel!”
A gasp escaped me as a male fae appeared at the Red Queen’s back, running toward her with sword in hand.
The Red Queen turned on him, and without hesitation, shot a blast of aether straight at his heart.
The man, my father, crumpled to the ground—dead, I was sure.
A sob wrenched from my mother’s throat. “You loved him! How could you?”
“He never returned my love. He spurned it! Why should I have spared him?”
On the ground, my mother burst into tears. “He didn’t mean to love me. Nor I him, it just—”
“Happened? You should’ve thought that through.”
The Red Queen hurled aether at my mother, and slammed her magic into her again and again and again, never letting up, not for a second.
With each attack, my fingernails dug deeper into my palms, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to act.
My dagger was too far out of reach, but on the ground lay a few rocks. I picked one up, barely noticing that its jagged edge scraped my skin. I hurled it at the Red Queen.
Of course, she didn’t let up in her attacks, but neither did I. I couldn’t.
The next stone I grabbed was particularly jagged. Its edges cut into my skin, drawing blood, but I didn’t care. Hell, I could barely think straight through my fury. I stampeded toward the Red Queen, mercilessly slashing the rock at the vision.
