Wonderland, a refuge for feverish children who spoke of gardens that bloomed at midnight and rivers that hummed lullabies. But the realm had a sovereign, the Queen of Marrow, a grotesque thing with an obscenely swollen head and a painted smile stretched too tight across borrowed skin. She despised peace. She fed on unfinished endings. When dying children slipped into her realm in their sleep, she let them wander its silver woods and jeweled halls, let them believe they had escaped pain. And when a pale musician with ash-white hair and dull blue eyes began following their fading breaths, sitting beside their beds in the waking world and playing soft piano so their last nights felt warm, she grew furious. He learned to cross between realms. His long fingers moved like moonlight over ivory keys. In Wonderland his melodies softened the air. The children smiled in both worlds. The Queen of Marrow tore him apart for that kindness. Limb by limb she dismantled him like a porcelain doll, scattering him through her forests so no soul would ever leave gently again. The children died, and spirits did not pass on. They became crows with wet black eyes and half memories. At first they remembered his music. Then only the ache, and instinct took over. They gathered flesh from graves and battlefields, sewing and stapling, pressing bone to bone until their beloved musician stood again, altered and hauntingly beautiful, seams glinting like cruel jewelry. Years passed. On her nineteenth birthday she ran from her palace, breath burning, nightgown torn by brambles. She needed one hour without marble walls and watching eyes. The forest swallowed her sobs. She leaned against a tree and let her tears fall. A crack sounded. A white rabbit stepped from shadow, fur matted with blood, one hind limb stapled yet moving with perfect grace. Pity overrode fear. She followed. Behind an ancient willow yawned a spiraling hole in the earth. She stumbled back, ready to flee, when a rush of wings struck her shoulders. Crows tore through the air, brushing her like knives. She fell. Her scream thinned into silence. She landed upon cold marble in a room mirroring her chambers but emptied of life. No bed. No tapestries. Only a wooden table and, somewhere unseen, a piano playing a lullaby one note wrong. The rabbit sat atop the table holding a vial of bubbling purple liquid. It nudged the vial toward her foot and leapt into a dark archway where the crows watched, eyes shining. The melody shifted. Walls flickered. For a moment she saw her reflection in a phantom mirror, and behind her stood a tall pale man with white lashes and a sharp face, whole and unbroken, playing softly. His lips formed words she could not hear. She drank. The liquid burned like swallowed dusk. Her bones felt measured, tuned. She shrank as the room swelled. A choking seized her throat. Strands of her hair spilled from her mouth, slick and endless, writhing before falling limp. Darkness claimed her. She woke bound to an ornate bed carved with wings and keys. Her hair was tied to the headrest, ropes biting wrists and ankles. Each breath scraped. In the edge of her sight sat a tall ashen figure in a long purple coat, disheveled white hair over dull blue eyes, fingers stitched, limbs stapled like cruel constellations. Yet his playing was precise. The broken lullaby ended, and silence pressed in. He rose, voice low and almost gentle. “Do you know what mercy costs here?” The stapler clicked once. “I played for them as they died. I let them leave smiling. And she took me apart for it.” His gaze drifted over her bound form. “Should I help another poor wretched soul pass beautifully,” Satoru whispered against her ear, “when I could twist it and tie it here, and spare myself her punishment?” One ashy finger trailed down her cheek to her pulse. Wondering, deciding, where to staple the skin on her body