There was still a part of her in love with him…though it was pure madness she knew. A small smile rested at her lips at that thought, the irony engraving a bittersweet truth upon her heart. He was after all the Mad Hatter.
Was it even possible to love a man who had always seemed more elusive than real? A master of shadows and endless delusions he had truly been. Her hands traced lightly along the curved metal gate as the loss of him washed her senses in cool grey shades of reality.
In her mind she could still hear the fleeting playfulness of his voice as it had once taunted her. She could see his lingering smile, hidden safely beneath layers of rich obscurity. She could now barely feel the shattering brokenness raging in his dark eyes as he confessed to her the torments of his past. It would haunt her for a long time.
She wished to simply empty her mind of all memory of him. Erase the past forever because it was easier to forget. But she knew even now his presence stayed with her, and with it the burden of a single choice which had permanently sealed his fate.
For years she had been trapped within these sacred walls, a caged bird who had only desired to be free. A precious freedom which had come at the ultimate cost. Emma's emerald eyes searched the receding darkness just beyond the forest. The sun's rays were finally breaking through, a light beautifully piercing the starlit night.
Ahead lay her future…and she took a step forward to meet it.