The world around them shuddered, moved and warped.
Alice did not move, but the Spire did. The space between them bent, cracked, and unfurled like the pages of a forgotten book, a story buried beneath layers and layers of time.
The Hatter-Miles felt it all at once. A pull, a shift, and then a sudden, terrible weight that pressed down on his soul, like stepping into a place where history had been burned into the ground.
***
The air smelled of ink and roses. Of spilled tea and war drums. The Hatter-Miles was not in the Spire anymore.
He staggered as his boots touched soft, dewy grass. He blinked, his breath unsteady as he took in his surroundings. The sky above was painted in a twilight hue, bleeding shades of violet and deep blue, and in the distance, he could see the towering shape of a castle – her castle – looming over the heart of Wonderland.
His Wonderland.
And he was standing in his own parlor.
