Page 33 of Maddie

Maddie yanked him to her by his shirt sleeve. “Don’t get near any of the birds in Wonderland—they peck out anyone’s eyes who draw too near.”

“Bloody hell.” Noah sucked in a sharp breath. “You just told me the wildlife here was different than back home.”

She shrugged. “Well, do crows try to peck out your eyes in London?”

He rolled his gaze toward the sky, a smile tugging at his lips.

Leaves crunched beneath their feet, and the trunks of the trees appeared as if they’d been braided.

“Thirsty?” Maddie asked, her throat growing drier with each passing moment.

“Very,” Noah said.

“Better to eat before we get to Ivory anyway.” She fished out a canteen of water, then two pouches of powdered blood and handed him one. “At least Ever’s territory is more calming. I miss it.”

“Why don’t you still live there instead?”

“Because once Ever went into hiding, Imogen forced me and Mouse to live at the cottage in the woods. And then, eventually, Mouse was taken.”

“What a bitch.” Noah cocked his head. “How long has Ever been in hiding?”

“Almost four years.” Maddie shrugged and peeled open her blood pouch. She moistened her fingers and pushed them inside before bringing them to her mouth. The powder was chalky, the flavor weak, but it would do. Sometimes it was hard to swallow, so she took a swig of her water before tipping the pouch’s contents onto her tongue to make a thicker, tastier liquid.

As she finished, her throat was no longer dry, her appetite satiated. Up ahead, white and silver trees poked through the slits of Scarlet’s foliage.

“What is that?” Noah asked as they inched closer, taking a swig of water.

The white and silver of the tree trunks were splashed in something bright red...Blood.

Chapter Fourteen

Noah

Blood splattered the silver trees. Long streaks of crimson with speckles all around, and large droplets oozed toward the white grass beneath their feet. The trails followed the lines of the bark, slipping between the cracks and making a strangely beautiful design. But it wasa lotof blood. More than Noah felt comfortable passing off as some wild beast securing dinner. Unless that dinner was human-sized.

“Is it always like this?” Noah asked before his imagination could run away from him. She’d claimed Ivory was relaxing, but they apparently had different definitions of that word. Under different circumstances, she could’ve been telling the truth though. Some of the trunks were white with silver leaves, others silver with white leaves, and a light, fresh scent lingered beneath the metallic scent of blood.

“No.” Maddie ran her index finger along one of the stained trunks, then inspected her red fingertip. She licked the crimson from her digit and Noah’s stomach churned. “It’s fresh human blood.”

Noah’s brows rose. If it was fresh, then whatever did this could still be lurking around, yet she didn’t seem overly concerned. Another vampire wouldn’t be a threat to them unless they worked for Imogen and Rav, but he’d rather not waste time talking to anyone. “What could’ve done this?”

“Well…” Maddie’s gaze slid from the trees to the ground and back up as she tapped her lips, thinking. “It could’ve been vampires, of course, or some beasties. Or the Jabberwocky.”

“The what now?” The Jabberwockysoundedlike a beastie, as she put it, but if she was making a distinction, it had to be something else.

“The Jabberwocky.” She slid between trees, careful not to rub against the trunks, and steered them straight for the white dirt road ahead. “It’s a horrid beastie as big as a dragon with long talons and barbed quills sticking out from its fur. Its face is dragon-like with scales and hundreds of teeth, but don’t you fret! The Jabberwocky rarely comes into Ivory and Scarlet. It usually stays just past Red, but once Ever left, the creature became a little more daring. This blood most likely came about from a vampire’s doing though.”

Rarely was not never, but Noah chose to go with Maddie’s theory. Another vampire wasn’t a threat to them in the same way as some vicious beast the size of a fucking dragon. They wouldn’t be hunted down for food. For other reasons, perhaps, but being a vampire removed him from at least one menu. Crazed murderers roamed all over the mortal world though, so if humans could pick off other humans, arseholes in Wonderland could do the same. The best thing to do was get the fuck out of there.

“How much farther is the swamp?” he asked.

Maddie wrinkled her nose as she thought. “If we walk all day and sleep at the next safe house, we can get there by morning.”

“We can get there tonight if we don’t rest then?”

“Tut, tut. We need our wits about us.”

“Fine,” Noah conceded. Time was ticking for Alice, but a few hours to rest could make the difference between success and failure. Facing werewolves with a fresh mind had to be for the best. “While we walk, let’s go over the plan for when we get there.”

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