Alice came to a dead end.

The door that gave access to the cargo wagon was her last escape, but it wouldn't budge.

"Alice."

A treacherous tear burn its way down her cheek. Alice scratched it away with undisguised anger, promising herself she wouldn't shed one more.

"Go away." She looked at the door instead of James, as if her eyes had been weaved to it with an invisible thread.

"If you would just listen to me."

"But I just did, didn't I? And look where it left us." Alice would rather earth to swallow her than letting James see how much she struggled to keep herself together. "Once was enough. We have nothing more to say to each other."

"Then tell me what should I do. If there's a way I can make it up to you-"

"What about my mother? Can you make it up to her?" A fierceness like Alice hadn't felt ever since the death of her father ignited every bone in her body. "All the stress your lies caused her..."

James stepped back, unsure if it was fear or the pain Alice's words inflicted what drove him away from her.

"Can you repay the toll it took on her health?" Alice dug her nails into her palms until they turned white. "Can you, James?"

"I-"

"Can you?"

"She knows everything."

Alice blinked in disbelief, wincing no less than she had done when the Jabberwocky had managed to claw and burn her skin during their fated encounter.

She managed to keep calm when she considered the ridiculousness of the statement.

Helen Kingsleigh was a kind and gentle woman, but her good heart wouldn't mellow her pride if the offense was too insulting to forgive with a mere apology.

That was the sort of person her mother was, and Alice knew it better than no one.

The fact that James was trying to fool her with such a pathetic lie was as laughable as insolent.

"Liar."

"No! I told her everything, I swear. I told her right after I quit working for the Ascot and went to her to let me join your company."

Why did he have to insist with that charade? It only made Alice's resentment grow fiercer.

Her mother couldn't possibly have known what James had done. She wouldn't have forgiven him so easily.

What reason would she have had to do so?

Their new company could have fared well without a lawyer for a year or more, and the crew had been in no urgent need of new recruits, since all of the original members of the Wonder had followed their captain to her new ship.

Alice had always thought James' recruitment was her mother's first step in getting even with the Ascot.

That way, not only she would break free from their oppression with her head held high, but she also would snatch from them one of their most valuable assets: their lawyer.

Even then, Helen wouldn't have overlooked James' fault just for the sake of retribution.

It would have taken a superior motive.

But her mother hadn't had one. Alice knew that, and the thought soothed her.

Why then, was her heart thumping and her mouth dry?

"I didn't hide anything from her. Even after knowing what I had done, she forgave me." James' voice could barely keep the pace of his rushed words. "I didn't deserve it, I know that well, just as I know that I can't undo the harm I caused her... the harm that I caused all your family. I'm sorry, Alice."

Alice felt off balance.

She believed him. For a dreadful second, she believed him in the same manner she had done before.

But to trust him was a mistake.

James knew her well, and was using this knowledge to lure Alice into granting him forgiveness.

How sad for him that Alice was not a callow girl that would fall into his trap so easily.

Her years as a captain and as a merchant had taught her of the dangers of unmeasured naivety.

"My mother may have forgiven you, but that doesn't mean I have to." Alice said without emotion. "Or that I will."

She heard how James took breath to speak, but he said nothing.

She wondered if it was because he didn't want to, or because he couldn't.

"Alice." James finally said, his voice broken and void. "Is there really nothing I can do?"

"Leave." Alice answered, her anger appeased but far from gone. "You told me you would understand if I decided not to speak to you again. Please, keep your word and leave."

She expected to hear more of his arguments, more of his futile attempts to convince her.

James betrayed her expectations, and he could simply breathe a sunken laugh.

"I did say that." He said, unashamed that Alice could hear the tears she stubbornly refused to see. "It's just one of the many things I wish I could go back and undo. But I guess I'm wishing upon the impossible, am I not?"

Quietly and slowly, he left. The only sounds he made were the echo of his steps and the rustling of the wagon's door when he shut it closed behind him.

Once he was gone, the pain that Alice had kept guarded broke when it came together with the shame of having been fooled for so long and so well.

The stab inflicted to her pride was no less damaging than the acknowledgement of having lost her friend for good. She would still interact with him, but only as her employer and acquaintance.

The rest of James was gone.

Alice cried in silence, incapable to keep the promise she had made to herself.

It happened against her will.

She cried not only because of James, but also because of her mother.

All the memories of the times Helen had made everything in her power for James and Alice to be together rushed to Alice's mind as unwelcome as her tears.

Inviting him to dine and have tea time with them almost every day, suggesting Alice to train James in the sailor's ways when any other member of the crew could have done so, Helen's unusual soft treating of James, allowing him to go together with Alice to Peking in her place…

Alice thought it all had been her mother's way for her to open up to James. A hard feat to accomplish, considering James' past relationship with the Ascot and Alice's temperament.

Yet, Alice had done so.

But now, she knew her mother's plans went beyond forming a loyal friendship between her daughter and the ex-lawyer.

Alice discovered how gullible she still was, and how little her mother had truly changed.

Back to the day in the Ascot manor, Helen had expressed her relief of Alice not marrying Hamish.

She never expressed her latent fear of Alice never marrying at all.

And then James, the repentant man whom Lord Ascot had trusted and who she had come to appreciate, had come to her like a prodigal son in need.

It was too good of an opportunity to let it go to waste, her mother should have thought.

Alice punched the door, peeling the skin off her knuckles.

She was in the other side of the world, but some things never changed.

That was a truth that not time or space could alter.

But if they couldn't, then Alice would.

She would prove everyone how much.

Grasping tightly to this thought, Alice rubbed her cheeks dry.

Nothing was ever accomplished with tears.

It was time she remembered it for good.

Soon, it all went to back to its previous calmness.

The passengers who had witnessed the argument were deep asleep again, and those who were never disturbed by it remained lost in their dreams.

Alice passed unnoticed by them all. She had no desire to return to her seat, but once her anger died down, exhaustion took its place with double intensity. It came together with a headache that made Alice's ears ring.

She thought of delaying her unavoidable reencounter with James, but quickly she decided not to let their falling out have influence over her actions. All she needed to do was to ignore him the same way she ignored her shadow or a nameless stranger in the street.

As hard as it would be at first, she wouldn't change her mind.

The wagon was filled with the gentle murmur of the snoring passengers and lighted dimly with the moonlight. Alice had to use her hands and memory to find her way back to her seat, trying not to trip over the numerous luggage lying on the floor.

She reached her destination with a reluctant heart, but she didn't find James.

Relief overcame her, though a voice in the back of her mind reminded Alice she was merely delaying the meeting.

It mattered little.

Morning would come soon, and so would James.

Until then, Alice would get the rest she deserved.

Hopefully, she thought as she rested her back against the seat and closed her eyes, she would have a dreamless sleep. One numb and unexciting, but recovering.

One where the disappointment of wandering in the Palace of Dreams without finding him wouldn't spoil the healing effect of her rest.

Her mind began to drift away from the world into the sea of dreams. Soon she would be exploring those magical waters, free from the lies and burdens thrust upon her by people she thought she could trust.

Soon…

"Alice."

"Tarrant?"

"Alice."

She opened her eyes.

The voice came from the world outside her dreams.

She bobbed her head and looked around.

James' name almost escaped from her lips, but to pronounce it would be a waste of her breath.

If it was really him, then he would show himself at one moment or another.

"Alice."

Her name came from behind her, from the same drunken man who hadn't opened his eyes ever since the train departed.

His eyes, unlike his mouth, were still closed.

"Alice."

The whisper came now in the form of a female voice.

Alice turned around again, agitated and ready to demand an explanation.

Two glittering green eyes stole Alice's attention with the subtlety a thief sneaks his hand into a pocket without being noticed. In the ominous darkness, they shun like emeralds against the sunlight.

"Dinah."

Alice was happy to see that her affection for the kitten remained unchanged. With great concern and with the sudden need to hold the kitten in her arms, Alice silently made her way towards Dinah, taking great caution in not waking the woman whose shoulder the cat had mistaken for a bed.

"It's alright, just come here." Said Alice as she tried to seize Dinah, but it escaped her grasp gracefully, leaving only a faint trace of its silky pelt on Alice's finger tips.

Its paws landed soundlessly on the floor, with a common feline elegance that reminded Alice of Chessur.

Dinah slowly looked at her before dashing towards the wagon's door.

Alice went after her without hesitating, though she knew the kitten had nowhere to run. She had closed the door, and if it was already difficult for a human to open it, a cat would have no chance against it.

"Alice." Muttered a young boy with his head resting on his mother's arm.

Alice froze on spot. Her bewilderment grew when she heard her name chanted once more.

The sleeping chorus was formed by the people whom Dinah had passed next by.

With her heart racing, Alice could only look at Dinah again, and the kitten stared back.

A blue fluoresce danced inside its eyes like trapped smoke. Alice had felt that hypnotic sensation before, in Mirana's castle.

It was the same mesmerizing aura of…

"Alice!" Shouted in dreams an aged man, the nearest person to Dinah. In the same loud voice, he said something in his native language.

His scream was muffled by the simultaneous slam of the wagon's door.

Dinah escaped through it, causing the same effect on the passengers of the other wagon along her way.

Alice followed its lead impulsively, without having any reason to do so other than the intuitive feeling that she had to, as if the words the old woman had said had been carved deep inside her mind.

Translated, they had a simple but unmistakable meaning:

Come to me.

Alice followed Dinah through all the wagons she had been before, immersed in a state where her body and mind were still hers to control, but with both having one single objective to fulfill.

Come to me.

When the calling came to an end and Alice snapped out of the enchanted trance, she was standing in front of her family's grandfather's clock.

On top of it, Dinah looked at her with fear, meowing desperately for help as if it had climbed a tree too tall.

Alice ignored her kitten's cry for help, as she was too confused and unsettled about what had happened to know where she was, even less what to do. The headache had transformed into a beating migraine.

After a few minutes of recovering, Alice was able to sort her thoughts out.

She looked behind her, and saw the door of the cargo wagon was open.

She was inside.

If someone saw her, no doubt they would accuse her of robbery, or at the very least, of breaking all of the train's rules of safety.

She had to get out of there.

Once outside, she would think about what had happened, and she would try to make some sense out of it if she could.

Though maybe, she thought, there had not been no sense in it at all.

A high-pitched meow brought her completely back to her senses, and this time, Alice attended immediately to Dinah's call.

The kitten had a terrified expression in its eyes now free of the intruding blue. They were wide open, with the pupils dilated to the point where black had engulfed most of the green. Alice needn't see to know Dinah was trembling.

Gently, Alice reached her hands as closely as she could towards the cat, but she couldn't reach it. The clock was too high.

"Dinah." Said Alice, trying to catch the cat's attention with a quick movement of her fingers. "It's okay, come here."

Dinah cowered back and hissed, clawing erratically, too panicked to recognize its master's voice.

"Come on." Whispered Alice, standing on her toes and stretching her arms as far as she could. "I'll catch you. Don't worry, it'll all be alright-"

The grandfather clock marked the hour thrice, the pendulum swinging more chaotically than usual.

Then it happened.

The wagon's door was slammed shut, and before Alice could react, the train's whistle cried in a note so high that she swore it could be heard all the way back to London.

One second later, the train began to move again, at a speed unexpected and unnatural for such machine, despite how advance its engines could be. It was as if it could cut through air and the rails below it would disintegrate.

The violent change of speed pushed Alice forward to the clock. She crashed against it, hitting her forehead with the crystal that guarded the frenzied pendulum.

Around her, piles of carefully accommodated boxes fell apart like an avalanche, mixing in the air and floor with rolls of silks of endless colors. Ceramic objects and glass figures were the first victims to succumb to the surrounding chaos, and the shattered remants danced aimlessly in the wagon like a cyclone.

Alice held on tightly to the grandfather clock, which heaviness transformed it into the only pillar that didn't yield to the train's maddened ride. Alice opened her eyes, but decided to keep them guarded behind her forearm after a lost shard of glass cut her above the eyebrow.

Her attempts to reach the door, though multiple and brave, were all in vain. The force of that speed couldn't be matched by sheer strong will.

Dinah. The swift memory of her kitten pierced Alice's heart, but there was nothing she could do.

She, together with the rest of the passengers, were now prisoners of the frenzied train, and that wouldn't change until it decided to-

Stop. Out of nowhere, as randomly as it had started to move, the train stopped. Metal clanked, and the sound of its destruction was the last thing Alice heard before she was propelled to the left like a cannonball flying across a battlefield.

Her arm received most of the impact, and it left a burning sensation all the way down from her shoulder to her fingertips. The incoming pain was dulled by the need to survive, which reached its high point when Alice felt how gravity dragged her down again.

She managed to grab the edge of a broken window, saving herself from the pit of sharp broken objects that had gathered in the wagon's lower end.

Along with them, there was also the grandfather clock, damaged beyond repair and with the fractured pendulum's door open.

Alice' hands, numb and calloused from holding the clock with so much strength, would let go at any second.

The realization came to her mind naturally.

I'm hanging.

The whole wagon was hanging down, away from the rails that kept it connected to the safe ground.

Then, like a hushing whisper, she heard the flow of water coming from afar and below.

A river.

At its monstrous speed, the train had already reached the bridge that marked halfway through towards Pekin.

Once crossed, the train would take one hour or less to reach the station. But now, there was the chance that the train would never arrive at all, not if it fell down to the river wagon by wagon.

And the wagon that would fall first would be hers.

No.

Alice wouldn't accept that fate. She still had much to do, too many people depending on her.

She had not the time or the right to go just yet.

She moved her free arm towards the door, hoping desperately to reach it.

One way or the other, she was determined to escape. She had survived pirate attacks, storms, the Jabberwocky, Time's end, everyone's expectations of her, Tarrant's absence, her father's loss and so much more.

No.

She would get through it. She had survived the impossible before, and she would survive it once more.

"Alice!" Shouted a male voice from above.

"James?"

Her own voice was muffled by the thunderous sound of the wagon's buffer breaking. Her whole world began to fall down along with her and the wagon.

Her hand let go of the window's edge without an effort, as if Alice's body had accepted the fate her mind still refused to embrace.

She was falling to her imminent demise.

Alice understood it, and realized that just like there had been nothing she could have done to save Dinah before, there was nothing she could do to save herself now.

She fell and fell.

She closed her eyes before she crashed against the grandfather clock again, expecting to feel the definite blow to her body that would be followed by the suffocating waters.

Instead, she felt nothing. The world around her became pitch black.

Alice.

She was still falling.

Or maybe, she had already met her end, and she would continue to fall down for all eternity, as if she was trapped in an everlasting loop.

Come to me.

An endless rabbit hole.

Come back.