“Greetings, my loyal and devoted subjects,” the Nome King said. Though he didn’t raise his voice, it carried easily across the huge room. He put the slightest sneer into “loyal,” like he knew most of his subjects were no such thing. They weren’t loyal—they were just terrified of him. “Thank you all for attending my little party.” As if they’d had any other choice, I thought. “Please, treasured peers of the realm, do not bow before your king,” he added. No one moved. No one wanted to be the first to rise.
“Up, up,” the Nome King said impatiently, and at that his guests scrambled to their feet. He looked even more pleased with himself than usual, and that was saying a lot. It wasn’t until he looked over his shoulder that I realized there was a figure standing in the shadows behind him. A figure that, upon his glance, now stepped forward.
I sucked in a breath and took a step back, trying to stay out of sight behind the giant, feathered hat of a woman standing in front of me.
Dorothy. Her skin was pale and flushed from the heat under her elaborate, jeweled mask. She had chosen an appropriate costume: she was dressed as a serpent in a slinky, skintight red dress, encrusted with thousands of tiny red sequins that created the illusion of scales. It was cinched tightly at her tiny waist and then flared out in sinuous curves over her hips and long legs. Her red heels glittered on her feet.
“Dearly beloved,” the Nome King began. “We are gathered here today to . . . oh, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?” The Nome King gave a sly, fey giggle and nervous laughter rippled outward among his confused subjects, none of whom understood what was funny but all of whom were eager to assure him they were in on his private joke. “That part comes later. I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re here. Other than to drink my liquor and eat my food.” He laughed again. “But I have wonderful news for you. As you all surely know, the kingdom of Oz has long been a thorn in our royal side. While Ev withers and its crops fail, Oz prospers. Instead of offering us their assistance, the citizens of Oz live in oblivious selfishness.” Dorothy cleared her throat. The Nome King’s bony hands tightened into fists.
“Today,” he continued, “all of that will change. For today marks the day that Oz and Ev will be united as one. Two kingdoms, once sundered, brought together in peace and prosperity, governed by the most powerful and benevolent ruler either country has ever known.” Next to him, Dorothy stiffened. If I’d caught his misstep, I knew she had, too. One ruler. Not two.
It wasn’t hard to guess what that meant.
“All of you have the honor of witnessing the greatest moment in Ev’s history,” the Nome King continued, not realizing the mistake he’d just made.
He beckoned for Dorothy, who walked daintily up to the Nome King’s throne, where he rose to his feet and clasped her hand in his and raised them both over his head for the crowd.
“My fellow citizens of Ev,” the Nome King intoned, “prepare yourselves for—”
Dorothy cleared her throat again, more significantly this time, and the Nome King stopped, looking at her in puzzlement. If she suspected, like I did, that he was planning on sacrificing her right here, in front of the entire crowd, she didn’t look too worried about it.
Instinctively I looked at her shoes again and felt an answering throb in my boots.
It dawned on me. Of course, I thought. She can use them. That bitch always had something up her sleeve, didn’t she?
Now that I was looking for it, I could see the haze of magic pulsing around her, as if the shoes were even stronger now that they’d been returned to the land they came from. She surveyed the crowd with icy grandeur, one hand perched on the back of the Nome King’s throne. A strange little creature huddled at her feet, costumed as a small shrub.
“My bride is correct to remind me of why we are here,” the Nome King said finally. “Before the ceremony begins, we must celebrate this momentous occasion!” A rictus grin spread across his face. “Let us dance and be merry!” he crowed, clapping his hands.
The woman next to me shifted nervously on her feet. Other guests exchanged brief, uncertain glances.
“I said dance!” the Nome King screamed. “Be merry!”
He must have taken a page from Dorothy’s book. The guests stood, stricken, and then one by one they began to shuffle their feet back and forth. They looked like animated corpses with their weird, sad, silent, shambling dance. Their hands and arms flapped aimlessly. Without music or rhythm to follow, they kicked randomly into the air, or spun around in place, their eyes filled with fear.
In a hidden corner I hadn’t noticed, a ragtag orchestra of Munchkin musicians suddenly struck up a jerky, tuneless waltz. Now everyone was dancing their off-kilter, graceless dance, spasming back and forth like zombies at the world’s saddest disco. The musicians looked just as awful. One of them, I saw, had his ankles chained together. Another was missing an ear; a third had a red-stained bandage wrapped around his chest.
I looked away. I couldn’t help them. I could only do what we’d come here for: finish Dorothy and defeat the Nome King, once and for all.
Dorothy threw her head back with a jubilant grin, keeping time to the beat as if she truly believed everyone was having the time of their lives. I lurched back and forth with everyone around me so as not to draw attention to myself, but unlike the others, whose movements were now growing increasingly frenzied, I was careful to conserve my energy.
Near me, they were already starting to flag. Half starved, exhausted, and terrified, they couldn’t keep up the pace. While the Nome King clapped along to the horrible music and Dorothy cheerfully tapped her foot and shimmied her hips, more than one person around me collapsed to the ground. As soon as they fell, the Diggers descended on them, dragging their inert bodies out of the ballroom.
Once they were outside, I heard their screams over the music.
It took everything I had not to run out there. To rescue them. Whatever was happening to them was almost too horrible to contemplate—but I knew that helping them wouldn’t do anyone in the room any good unless Nox, Madison, Lang, and I could first free them from the Nome King’s sick little games forever. So I shut my ears against the terrible cries even as I felt bile building in the pit of my stomach.
At last, the Nome King held up a hand and the music screeched to a halt. The musicians were panting, wild-eyed and shaky from exertion. One of them had collapsed during it all, and his companions were deliberately avoiding looking at the place where he’d stood only moments earlier.
The guests stopped dancing immediately. Once more, silence fell upon the room. From outside, one more tormented scream pierced the quiet and then, abruptly, was cut off.
No one said a word. The Nome King got to his feet.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” he began again. Again, he giggled at a joke that only he could really understand. As he droned on about how much Oz owed Ev, and about how he and Dorothy were going to change everything, I could almost feel his voice slithering through my body like a bug that had crawled in through my ear and was now trying to eat my body from the inside out.
I wanted to retch, but I kept my eyes on the ground, terrified that he would somehow see me and recognize me. Dorothy hovered behind his throne, still smiling vacantly.
All I had to do was stay out of sight. Lang would wait until the actual ceremony to give the signal, I knew. I just had to endure this charade until then.
At last, the Nome King fell silent. He held out his hand to Dorothy, and she stepped forward. “My fellow citizens of Ev,” the Nome King intoned, “I give you your future queen, the Witchslayer, the rightful ruler of Oz.”
Dorothy pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin with pride as she addressed her not-so-adoring audience. Never once had she failed to rise to an occasion. You had to hand it to her—the girl loved attention.
“Greetings, my dear subjects,” she purred. “I’m so excited to meet you all. But first, I have a very important announcement.” She raised her ma
sk. “I want you to know we have one more incredibly special guest with us here today,” she said.
Her already huge smile widened even further than I thought was possible as she continued. “I have to say, I normally loathe party crashers, but I’m just tickled that someone as special as this would show up for little old me. With or without an invitation.”
Dorothy looked down at the crowd.
My pulse quickened. She was looking right at me.
“Hi, Amy,” she said. Her grotesque grin had suddenly transformed into a joyful snarl. “Are you going to kill me now?”
NINETEEN
DOROTHY
Just before the festivities were about to begin, I looked in the mirror in my chambers and smoothed my hair out. I looked perfect, if I do so say myself. And I still couldn’t help checking myself one last time, feeling a little tickle in my stomach as I did it: butterflies.
I know I exude a certain confidence, but I have a little secret: parties always make me just a little bit nervous! The anticipation. What dress I would wear. Who I would dance with. Would anyone die.
By now, you should know that I always have a plan—and my wedding surely wasn’t going to be an exception to that. It was my special day, after all, and there was no way I’d let a few silly little assassination plots ruin it.
I was smart enough to have realized that despite all that I’d done, the Nome King was going to try to kill me.
I almost had to admire his nerve.
And even if he wasn’t going to go quite that far, I was beyond certain that he wasn’t going to let me get my way. The second most important thing you should know about me is that I always get my way. In the end, at least.
No matter what he was up to, I was two steps ahead of him. If there was one thing my beloved fiancé wasn’t counting on, it was Amy Gumm and her little boy toy.
I have to admit, it was almost exciting! No matter what happened, this was going to be the party of the year.
Bupu entered and brought the last piece of my costume—a real-life snake that wound itself around me.
I looked at the Munchkin. “You are a good friend, Bupu.” While I dressed, I told her about my friends, about Scare and Tin and the Lion, and the things that they had wanted when I first met them, and how I had helped them.
“I am not like them,” she said. “I am not smart or courageous or full of heart.”
“Bupu, you helped me when you didn’t have to—that was heart. You helped me when you knew you could have been skinned alive. That’s courage. And you were clever enough to find out that information I needed. If that isn’t brains then I don’t know what is.”
Bupu smiled at me.
Friendship doesn’t have to be selfless—but it works best when your interests line up. Bupu and I had an understanding now. And it was going to save us both.
I twirled around for Bupu to compliment me.
Everything was ready. My costume was ready, my hair was ready, and my will to live was at an all-time, through-the-roof high.
So it was perfect timing when the knock came at my door and the Nome King stepped inside the room.
“Are you ready, my darling?” he asked. I have to say that he looked less than appropriately smitten. His gaze flicked to Bupu, who was perched at my side, looking serious, and nervous.
He gave a scowl. “What is she doing here?” he asked.
“She’s my bridesmaid, beloved. It’s traditional.”
He let it go with a shrug. “As you wish,” he said. He knew perfectly well that Bupu was hardly a threat. She wasn’t meant to be. The real threat was on her way.
At least, I hoped she was.
I felt like a common prisoner as the Nome King escorted me to the ballroom, his guards flanking me on all sides. I ignored the indignity. After today, I’d never have to see these tiresome creatures again.
As we got closer I had to keep from beaming. Because my plan was working: Amy was out there somewhere. I could feel the power of her shoes burning in the distance, just as I could feel the power of my own coursing through my body.
That feeling only got stronger as I approached, and I knew that, wherever Amy was, she was close, and getting closer. We were both headed toward the same place.
It was almost ironic. She thought that she was going to kill me. She had no idea at all that she was playing right into my hands. Someone was going to die tonight, but it wasn’t going to be me.
I was happy to let her and the Nome King have their little murder ball. While they were busy ripping each other to shreds, I was going to apply a fresh coat of lipstick and get myself back to Oz. Maybe I could even manage to snatch my other shoes back while I was at it. What a coup that would be! It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
I wondered what Glinda’s face would look like when I saw her again. When she realized I was still alive, and that with both pairs of shoes under my control, there was nothing in the world that she could do to stop me.
I’d killed a few witches in my day. I was so looking forward to doing it again. This time, I’d really be able to enjoy it.
I had come a long way, after all. That first Wicked witch—the Wicked Witch of the East—had been an accident. I couldn’t help the fact that the tornado had dropped my house on her before I’d even officially set foot in Oz.
The second time, at least, I’d known exactly what I was doing, even if I hadn’t been quite ready to bask in the glory of it all. It was the first time I’d ever killed anyone in my life. I’d been surprised then by how easy it was.
I wouldn’t realize it until later, but it was that moment that had changed me forever. Killing the Wicked Witch of the West had unlocked the secret potential that had always lived inside me—the potential to be great. After that, it had just taken a little bit of living—not to mention a second trip to Oz—to realize exactly what that potential meant.
It meant that I was special. It meant that I was a queen.
I had the decisiveness and power it took to govern a country. To be truly great. Because what had all those hours in my history class back in Kansas taught me, if not that the most effective rulers are also the most ruthless ones? I was proud to be like them in that way, and grateful to the witches for sacrificing themselves (the poor things!) so that I could become the girl—no, the woman—who I was truly meant to be.
The Nome King and I were approaching the ballroom now. I wondered what my guests were doing. This was going to be the grandest event they’d ever witness in their miserable, mildewy little lives.
“You promised me an entrance, my darling,” I said, turning to him.
“Indeed I did,” he replied, with a smirk that was almost romantic.
My beau, I noticed just then, was wearing a wicked-looking silver blade strapped to his belt. Rubies studded its hilt. I felt the unmistakable throb of magic pulsing down the length of the knife and I understood immediately: this was how he was going to try to kill me. It was how he was planning to unleash the blood that would allow the shoes to return to him.
Let him try, I thought. Soon, at long last, I’d be going home—back to Oz, where I belonged. Back to the throne that was rightfully mine.
Home. For just a second, I faltered as that word echoed uncomfortably in the back of my head. It made me shiver, reminding me of something that I couldn’t put my finger on. Something someone had said to me once.
A sliver of doubt festered in me where there had only been certainty before. I pushed it aside. The Nome King was just trying to get into my head.
Of course Oz was home.
Now the Nome King led me down a twisting hallway I hadn’t noticed before, away from the main entrance to his ballroom.
“Nothing makes an entrance grander than a secret doorway,” he said with a smile, pointing to a cleft in the rock wall. Hmmm, I thought, filing this away. For all I knew, it was too late for this information to be of any use, but I’d save it just in case. I shimmied through it. The cleft ended in a heavy red curtain. I p
eeked around it and saw a raised dais, and beyond it, the ballroom.
The place was packed. Absolutely packed. For a moment, I felt a wild glee. These people were all here for me! They’d dressed up in costumes, just as I’d told them to. The ruby light played over hundreds of faces.
But despite the massive crowd, the servants and Diggers and attendants and cooks and guests and hangers-on, the entire cavern was silent. Deathly silent. As if all of them were terrified to draw the Nome King’s attention. They knew from experience that whenever he called for a crowd, something awful was bound to happen. They were all wondering which one of them it was going to be.
I felt Amy before I saw her. Her boots were calling to me, and I knew exactly where she was, pressed close to the stage, surrounded by bodies.
Silly girl. She thought her ridiculous getup was enough to disguise her. In those boots, I’d have known her even if she’d been wrapped in a fully body cast. They were calling to me so loudly that it almost made me wince.
Everything was working even better than I’d planned.
The Nome King gestured to the Diggers, and another group of them carried forward an enormous, glittering red throne. He settled himself into it with a yawn.
“Where’s my throne?” I asked.
He smiled. “I thought we could share, my love. For now why don’t you enter the room behind me?”
Bupu sniffled quietly at my feet. I reached down and patted her head comfortingly through the branches of her costume.
Well, like Aunt Em always used to say, make lemonade when the sun shines. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and adjusted my mask.
It was showtime.
The Diggers carried the Nome King onto the dais. Bupu and I followed him like lackeys, but I just smiled, knowing that I’d have plenty of time later to make him regret the insult if I felt like it.
I sighed, and he glanced over at me, I suppose expecting to see the glum face of a prisoner. Instead, I threw him a radiant smile. He smiled back, but there was something uncertain about it this time.