Wilbur spoke to Emma the entire ride to the castle. He had a thousand rules and regulations he set to keep her safe in the estate that could quickly become her prison. She grew more and more nervous as they walked through the castle gates.

The soldiers were awfully curious, she thought, as they passed by so many of them. They were flat, and designed like playing cards. It was quite the curious thing to witness.

They continued through to a door with a man with the head of a lizard stood. He was even stranger than the playing card soldiers.

Unlike Wilbur or March, who only had the long rabbit ears and rather strange skin tones, this man was literally a lizard walking on his two legs, wearing a pair of trousers and a waist coat.

"Bill," Wilbur said to the lizard man, "Take this the horse back to the stable for me."

"Yes master." The lizard man bowed.

"We were never here," Wilbur continued, dismounting the horse. "I never entered the building with this young woman."

"Yes master." The Lizard man repeated taking the reins of the horse, as Wilbur helped Emma down.

"Thank you." Wilbur nodded, taking Emma by the hand, leading her inside.

They entered the building through a small, dark kitchen, then to a long narrow hallway with no windows. They didn't pass anyone along the way, nor did she see any doors along the walls.

Suddenly Wilbur stopped, searching the pockets of his coat quickly, finding a large key ring, with what looked like it had around thirty keys on it. He turned to the wall next to him, nearly jamming the key through the wallpaper.

Slowly the wallpaper dissipated, forming a doorway into another room.

Wilbur pushed her into the room, following behind her. He pulled the key through the other end. The wall paper covered the doorway again. He sighed, leaning against the wall.

"You'll be very safe here. No soldier nor royal would ever search for you here."

"Where are we exactly...?"

"The servant quaters of the castle." He pushed himself off the wall, standing in front of her. He pulled her hood down. "I always hate to admit that Hector is talented, but he is so gifted when it comes to dressing a young lady."

Emma tilted her head to the side. "Why do you dislike Hector?"

He put his hands on her shoulders. "He's a rude, biased person. That's all."

"He doesn't like rabbits, does he?"

"He doesn't like anyone."

She begged to differ, but didn't say anything about that. "Why does he work with March then?"

"He owes a lot to my cousin." Wilbur shrugged.

Emma nodded, looking around the room. It was simple, a bed and a dresser, but I was dark and musty, the only light emitted was from a small window above the bed.

"I'll take you home with me as soon as everything clears up." Wilbur smiled, patting her shoulders.

Emma nodded, sweeping her hair behind her ear.

"No one will bother you here, but I can't let you leave. I'm going to have to lock the door when I leave..."

"And what am I going to do while I'm here?"

"I'll keep you company as much as I can, but, I... I don't know..."

Emma groaned. This dream wasn't keeping her very interested. Slowly the progression of this dream was coming to a hault. Maybe she would wake up soon.

"Alice, please, don't do this to me..." he cupped her chin in his hand. She watched his eyes slowly dilate, his breathing becoming slightly ridged. "Alice..."

She stared at him, unsure of what was happening. It clicked after a few seconds.

"Wilbur..."she took a step back. "Wilbur, listen to me..."

"Alice..." he said again, stepping back toward her.

The amount of times Wilbur's name had been bashed on his sexual tendencies was more than Emma wished to hear, and now the fear of what could possibly happen in this room that no one would find her in.

She continued to step back until she found herself against the back-board of the bed.

Wilbur wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing her against him. He looked down at her, blinking a few times. Emma froze, unsure of how to approach this.

She was confused as to how to react to any romantic advance on her.

"You have such beautiful eyes, Alice." He whispered, "And such beautiful lips..."

"I rather like her hair too."

Wilbur pulled away from her, pulled his sword from it hilt, and aiming it towards the foreign voice.

At was was the doorway stood the cat,in the male form it had taken the night before, the twisted smile on it's face.

"Cheshire." Wilbur said curtly, replacing his sword to his side.

"Rabbit." The cat nodded.

"Why are you here?"

"I've taken the role of messenger, as a matter of fact."

"For who?"

"The Caterpillar."

Yet another character to add to the list of delusions Emma created while she slept without taking her pills. Eventually she would have far too many characters to keep track of.

"For me?" Wilbur sounded rather bewildered.

"For Alice."

"How does she know she's here?" The bewilderment changed to worry in an instant.

"The Caterpillar knows all, rabbit."

"And her message?"

"Alice must prepare for a dark force that is looming over her. There's a storm coming, and she will cause the end of it, whether it be with her triumph, or her failure."

That was rather cryptic and cynical, Emma thought, looking back and forth between the cat and Wilbur.

"She has no right to be making such accusations." Wilbur said firmly.

"But the caterpillar is always right, rabbit."

"I don't care. Leave, Cheshire, I have business to attend to."

The cat slowly began to disappear, but before it did, it simply said "Remember what I said, though, Alice. They're not what they seem." Then it was gone.

Wilbur turned back to Emma, his eyes no longer dilated. "Do not get involved with the Cheshire Cat, Alice, it's quite a lot of trouble."

"R-right..." Emma stumbled over her words. Everything was getting so confusing, she didn't know how she felt about any of this anymore.

"The caterpillar on the other hand..." Wilbur sighed, leaning on wall behind him. "The caterpillar is another story. I will have to take you to her as soon as possible. I would prefer a bit of clarification on the point she made earlier with sending the cat here. In the meantime I can grab you something to read while you're here. Or you could catch up on your sleep, you kept dozing off on the way here..."

Emma nodded. She was still pretty tired. Sleep would be rather nice.

"By the way..." Wilbur trailed off a bit before he began to speak again. "Hector and March didn't... come onto you, did they?"

The man was quite the hypocrite, wasn't he? One moment he's being taken over by instinct and the next he's going on about other people and their advances.

"No..." Emma lied.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, crossing his arms. "March wasn't really my concern, but Hector... Hector is quite the... mesmerizer when it comes to women. Quite the lady's man. I wouldn't want him... breaking your heart."

Yet another tidbit she needed to keep in mind. Wilbur had sex on the mind and Hector had multiple ladies.

"Right..." Emma said quietly.

"I've got a meeting soon, and I should probably head over there. The library isn't too far away. I'll grab you a few things, and then I'll be off. At dark I'll be back and we'll see the caterpillar." Wilbur nodded, and without skipping a beat, left the room, locking the door behind him.

Emma found herself confused and alone in a musty room, unsure of why she was still asleep, and how she could create such a world in her head.