The tea spills in a slow, deliberate arc, a dark amber waterfall that never seems to reach the table. Alice watches it fall, mesmerized, her chin barely clearing the rim of her own cup. The Hatter hums a tuneless melody, his fingers drumming against the porcelain. 'More?' he asks, though the cup is still full. Alice opens her mouth to answer, but her voice comes out thin, reedy. She looks down at her hands—no, her paws. They are the size of teaspoons, the nails curved and pink. The spoon she was holding is now a ladle. 'You're shrinking,' says the Cheshire Cat, his voice curling from the steam above her cup. His grin hangs there, a crescent moon without a sky. 'I thought you'd noticed.' Alice tries to stand, but the chair looms above her like a tower. The table is a vast plateau, the teacups mountains of china. 'I don't understand,' she whispers. 'You never do,' says the Cat, and his grin widens until it is all she can see. 'That's why you're here.' The Hatter leans in close, his breath smelling of old tea and something sweeter. 'Time is a loop, my dear. You can't get out by shrinking. You have to grow.' He taps her on the head with a spoon. It sounds like a bell. Alice feels herself shrinking still—the table rising, the steam thickening, the grin looming—and she clenches her tiny fists. She will not disappear. She will not dissolve into a teacup. 'How?' she says. The Cat's grin flickers. 'Eat the cake. Drink the tea. Or don't. It hardly matters.' And then the steam clears, and she is alone at the table, a child in a world of giants, the Hatter's empty chair rocking slowly back and forth.