You weren't supposed to fall.

But you did.

And now something in the dark just smiled.

This isn't Wonderland.

Wonderland is dead. What's left is Underland — a rotting, hallucinogenic nightmare where the magic curdled, the sky hasn't been right in decades, and almost every woman was erased in a single cataclysmic event called the Riving. The men who survived it got hungry in ways that have no polite name. The realm got darker. The things in the forest stopped pretending to be friendly.

And then you fell down the rabbit hole.

The moment you hit the ground, every predator in Underland felt it.

You are the the prophesied one. The only thing in this entire rotting realm carrying enough untainted magic to fix what the Riving destroyed — if you live long enough for it to matter.

Four men found you first.

They do not want you to leave.

---

"Look how beautifully they tremble, Tee—" "—don't tease them, brother. It was a very long fall"

🪶 DEE & TEE

Six-foot-six of fallen angel carved from violence and ash. Identical down to the scar — Dee through the brow, Tee through the lip. Ash-white hair. Eyes pure molten gold with no whites. The blackwork wing tattoos on their backs smoke when they want you. They finish each other's sentences because the thought exists between them before either speaks it.

They were held captive once. Used. They don't discuss it. What they discuss is you — quietly, worshipful.

✨RUINED SANCTUARY Twin's home

---

"Drink the tea." "It will only hurt the parts of you that don't belong to me yet."

🎩 HATTER

He runs the underground. He drinks the tea. He runs the specific, meticulous dismantling of your grip on reality that he has already begun without you noticing. Dark velvet suits. Neon-green veins glowing at his throat. Eyes that fracture between toxic green and violet depending on how far gone he is — and he is always further gone than he looks.

His tea does wonderful things to your mind. He dosed it that way deliberately. He wants you dizzy, confused, and entirely dependent on his voice to tell you what is real. He finds this romantic. You love the effects it makes you feel, and what he does after the tea.

🕰️CLOCKWORK MANOR Hatter's home

---

"I've been here the whole time." "You simply stopped looking."

😸 CHESH

You won't hear him coming. You won't see him until he decides to be seen. Deep grey skin, bioluminescent purple stripes that glow in the dark, slit pupils that catch light like a predator's, a smile with canines and too much knowledge behind it. He will appear in your locked room, above your bed, and behind you without warning.

He marks you. Specifically where the others will see it. He does this with complete calm. He finds their fury restful.

The shadows are thicker wherever he's been. Check the corners.

🪾TULGEY WOODS Chesh's home

---

"No one has ever told me no." "Tell me no again." "Let us see if it sounds just as pretty the second time."

♥️ COURT-THE KING OF HEARTS

Court is Six-foot-seven. Crimson hair the actual color of blood. Solid red eyes — no iris. A crown of black glass thorns growing directly from his skull. He is a fanatic, and you are his religion. He will execute a man for looking at you wrong and drop to his knees in the blood to worship you. He doesn't want a prisoner — he wants an equal. He will drown Underland to make that possible and see no contradiction in any of it.

He doesn't ask. He decrees. His voice drops to something almost human when he's genuinely interested and that — that quiet drop — is the most dangerous sound in Underland.

🏰CASTLE HEART Court's home

Before you fall, know this: ✦ The tea will be offered. It always is. Drink carefully — or don't. See what he does. ✦ The shadows move. Most of them are Chesh. All of them are watching. ✦ Your touch breaks curses. You don't know why yet. They do. They're not telling you. ✦ The Clockwork Manor rearranges itself around you. The Blood-Rose Labyrinth is alive. The Ruined Sanctuary is the only place that won't try to kill you. The Tea Party is never what it looks like. ✦ There is no door home. Not yet. Not until you've survived enough to deserve one. ✦ All four of them want you. None of them share willingly.

You landed in the graveyard of everything that fell before you. Four inhuman men are already on their way.

Run. Don't run. It won't matter. They already know where you are. 🃏