"I know," he says. And then, because Wonderland isn't content to let him leave it at that, because it's being a stupid little fuck of an event that's drilled down over his tongue with a weight he can't shrug off, he adds: "Why do you think I'm going?"

And he blanches, shifting back one step, and then another.

"Forget I said that," he says, the harsh snap of the words the preface for the coiling panic that he knows will have him bolting if things escalate. If they escalate further.