Bupu was inept, certainly; stupid, without a doubt; but she was the first person I’d met since—well, since Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, may they rest in peace—who seemed to have only my own best interests at heart. There had been Scare and the Lion, of course, but it had often seemed to me like they had secret agendas of their own. And poor, devoted Tin—but he was so blinded by his (understandable) love for me that he often failed to respect my wishes. And of course, once upon a time, I’d had Toto. Toto had been everything I wanted in a friend: sweet, cuddly, endlessly loyal.
Toto, however, was a dog.
And even Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, my own flesh and blood, had never believed me about Oz until they’d actually come here. And they’d quickly proved how unwilling they were to support me once I’d actually arrived. But here was this gentle, humble creature, seemingly with no agenda of her own.
Bupu watched nervously as I sank in stages into the water. Slowly, thanks to a combination of her ointment and the hot water, the pain subsided to a low, dull throb, and I leaned back against the tub’s stone rim and thought about what I was going to do next.
Why had the Nome King rescued me? What was I doing in his palace? Why on earth did he want to marry me? It couldn’t only be for love. There was something he wanted. Something I had. Something more than my amazing beauty and legendary charm.
And then it hit me. Of course. The shoes.
They might be his, but he couldn’t use them.
No one could use them but me.
In that moment I sent a silent thank-you to that treacherous, awful witch Glinda. She’d pretended to be my best friend and then she’d betrayed me. She was basically dead to me for all intents and purposes.
But she’d given me the shoes. And maybe her reasons hadn’t been entirely—or remotely—aboveboard, but possession is nine-tenths of the law. I knew the shoes couldn’t come off my feet—which meant that if the Nome King wanted them, he had to have me, too. Inadvertently, Glinda had given me my first bargaining chip. I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted them for, but I knew exactly how powerful they were.
If I could figure out how to get my magic back before he could get the shoes, I’d be in an even better position to bargain with him. And maybe, just maybe, I could turn this situation to both our advantages—assuming the Nome King behaved like enough of a gentleman to convince me of the value of generosity. Otherwise, the only advantage I’d be taking into consideration would be my own. Fair is fair, after all.
It might take some figuring out, but if Glinda’s shoes were powerful enough to take me from Kansas back to Oz, they had to be adequate when it came to zipping me across the Deadly Desert and back where I belonged.
I’d been ruminating in the bathwater for long enough. Aunt Em always used to say that action is the best course of action. Okay, she never actually said that, but she would’ve definitely agreed with me that keeping myself alive was first priority. I was officially in survival-of-the-fittest mode. Whatever it took, I was going to get out of the Nome King’s clutches.
But a tiny voice nagged at the back of my mind. I’d never met anyone like him. Not in Oz. Not in Kansas. I’d never met anyone who made me feel so . . .
Challenged. Alive. On my toes.
And it was a feeling I liked.
Maybe even a feeling I could love.
“Bring me a towel, Bupu!” I declared. “Mistress is putting her dress on now.” I sloshed out of the tub and dried myself off.
Time to pick out the least awful of the Nome King’s dresses. Looking good was the best armor a girl could put on.
EIGHT
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “Dorothy’s alive? But we dropped a whole palace on her. There’s no way she could have survived that. We barely got out ourselves.”
Lang shrugged. “She didn’t have to survive it. The Nome King was waiting all along for the right opportunity. He tunneled under the Deadly Desert into the Emerald Palace years ago. He knew exactly when the palace began to fall, and he got her out of there before you’d even cleared the castle walls. She’s been in Ev for days.”
I didn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. I hadn’t meant to let Dorothy live. I just hadn’t been able to kill her myself. I thought of Lulu’s face after the Emerald Palace fell, when I’d told her I hadn’t been able to bring myself to kill Dorothy. The way Lulu looked at me as though I’d personally betrayed her.
And, in a way, I had. Killing Dorothy was why I’d been brought to Oz in the first place. It was the first, most important—and, ultimately, the only—task I’d been given. It was why I’d trained so hard, learned magic, learned how to fight.
I’d thought it was compassion that had made me leave Dorothy when the palace fell.
But if Dorothy was still alive, it was more like failure.
Except that some part of me had known there was a chance Dorothy might survive. Which mean that some part of me believed I didn’t have to kill her to save Oz. What if that was what Lurline had meant when she’d told me to find another way?
Was I a failure—or was I still Oz’s only hope?
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought I was the only one who could kill Dorothy. Isn’t that why you brought me to Oz in the first place?” I asked Nox.
Lang snorted. “You’re not that special,” she said. “Dorothy might be from the Other Place, but she’s still human. And you don’t seem to have gotten the job done, so maybe it’s time for someone else to take over.”
I bristled. Just because I knew I’d failed didn’t mean I was up for this crazy witch telling me where to go. But before I could snap back at her, Nox interrupted hastily.
“What’s the Nome King up to?” Nox asked.
Lang shot him a murderous look, as if she was offended he’d even opened his mouth. There was some seriously bad blood there.
And then it hit me. It was so obvious, I don’t know why it took me so long. Langwidere had been in the Order—or, at least, she knew Nox and Mombi. Had the Road of Yellow Brick dumped us in Ev for the world’s most awkward reunion with Nox’s ex?
“I don’t know yet,” she said coolly. “But it’s not your problem. I don’t know why the road brought you here either, but I have no use for you. You can rest here for a day or two, but after that, go on your way.”
“We don’t know what our way is, Lanadel,” Nox said in frustration.
“That’s not my name anymore,” she snapped.
“Uh, it seems kind of obvious?” Madison interrupted. “Everybody wants to kill this Dorothy chick, right? So . . .”
“So let us help you,” I finished, seeing exactly where she was headed. “Like I said, that’s why the Order came to me in the first place. There’s no reason for you to fight Dorothy alone.”
This time both Nox and Lang looked at me in surprise.
“Dorothy is everybody’s problem,” I pointed out. “And we’ve been fighting her for a long time without, frankly, a whole lot of success. What makes you think you can take her on your own?”
Lang frowned. “Exactly,” she said. “You weren’t strong enough. So why would I want your help?”
Now was definitely not the time to mention that I could have killed Dorothy but hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. That being Wicked was one thing, but it wasn’t the same as being good. That no matter what Dorothy had done in the past, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to murder her when she was defenseless.
I remembered what it had felt like to stand over Dorothy in the cave underneath the Emerald Palace. She’d been vulnerable and weak; I’d been strong and powerful. I’d had the perfect opportunity to end it then and there. She’d murdered hundreds of people, including plenty of people I cared about. She’d almost destroyed Oz with her insane quest for power. And I still couldn’t bring myself to do it.
And the truth was, I wasn’t sure I could do it now. Because if I did, that would make me just like her. And if I killed her, would it really end there? And what if Oz’s magic
warped me so much that I became just as evil in her place?
Nox had told me once that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I turned into a monster. But a lot had happened between us since then. If I did start to become a monster like Dorothy, corrupted by the magic of Oz, what if he couldn’t bring himself to do it? What if, deep down, the only difference between me and Dorothy was that Oz’s magic had twisted her into something unrecognizable?
But I knew Dorothy had to be stopped, whether that meant killing her or finding another way to defeat her. And I also knew there was no way Lang, whoever she was, could do it on her own. She needed us, whether she liked it or not. And I was going to find a way to convince her.
Whatever it took.
I looked up. Lang was staring at me as if she could read my mind. Suddenly I really hoped she didn’t have Gert’s power to listen in on people’s thoughts.
“Guys?” Madison piped up. “I’m pretty hungry over here? Can we lay off the conference and eat something?”
“Of course. Forgive me, I’ve been a terrible hostess,” Lang said, not sounding very sorry at all.
As soon as the words left her mouth, a massive, shiny black beetle the size of a cow scuttled into the room from a doorway I hadn’t noticed, bearing an assortment of chairs, trays, and dishes improbably balanced on its immense back. But that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was that its neck and body sprouted dozens of heads of different sizes and shapes. Some of them were almost human, others distinctly insectoid. The humanlike heads wore various expressions; some were smiling, revealing more than one row of teeth, and others were weeping or snarling with rage. Hundreds of beady black beetle eyes glittered at us from its insect heads. Its humanlike mouths moved as though they were speaking, but no sound came out as their jaws worked noiselessly. It was definitely up there with the Wheelers in the category of super-gross, super-creepy creatures that I never, ever wanted to see again, let alone stand next to while it set up the table and laid out the dishes with its long, segmented black legs and spikily jointed talons.
Madison looked slightly faint.
“I don’t think it will hurt us,” I said softly, although I wasn’t sure if I was trying to reassure Madison or myself.
“I’m terrified of bugs,” she whispered. “Like, irrational paranoia, get-the-sweats terrified.”
“All this time and I never knew,” I said with a grin I couldn’t help. “A well-placed cockroach at school could have changed everything.”
“Greta is not a cockroach,” Lang snapped, silencing us both immediately. “And she can hear you. Several of her bites are quite poisonous, so I’d watch my mouth around her if I were you.”
“Sorry,” Madison said hastily, but she still flinched as the beetle set a chair down in front of her.
If a many-headed beetle is capable of bowing sarcastically, Greta was definitely doing it. She set down chairs for the rest of us and delivered the dishes to the table in front of the princess, who uncovered them and shoved them toward us.
“Eat,” she said unceremoniously. “And sit.”
We sat. I wasn’t too excited about the eating part. Whatever Lang was serving us looked a lot like mushrooms. Lots and lots of mushrooms. At least there was water.
“It’s more than most people get here in a week,” Lang said shortly, watching me stare at the unappetizing brown mess.
“Of course,” I said quickly, helping myself to a spoonful. “I’m sure they’re delicious.”
They weren’t, not even a little bit, but at least they were filling. The three of us chewed in polite silence.
“Now that we’re all tight and stuff, can I ask about the heads?” Madison asked, swallowing a glutinous mouthful of mushrooms. Lang raised an eyebrow. “You know, the whole heads-on-sticks thing outside? And your decor? It’s a little unsettling, to be honest. Like way more Vlad the Impaler than Martha Stewart Living.”
“I don’t know your Vlad or Martha,” Lang said, her tone polite. “These are witches of the Other Place, presumably? But the heads are decorative, yes.”
“That stuff out there—those people—are decorative?”
“Those heads aren’t real,” Nox said. “They’re a glamour. An illusion. All of this”—he gestured at the palace, the mirrors, her nondescript clothes—“is an illusion. A mask. Right?”
“That’s the point,” Lang said with a shrug. “I know what people say about me. That I wear my murdered subjects’ faces stitched together over my own. That I swap identities the way other women change clothes. I don’t mind the rumors; I’m the one who started most of them. It pays to be unrecognizable. To have no one know for sure what I look like. I could be anywhere, or anyone.”
“So that stuff Nox was saying about you skinning people alive or whatever—that’s not actually true?” Madison asked.
Lang smiled. “I learned plenty about torture in the Order,” she said in a pleasant voice that belied her words. “Nox can tell you all about that. But actually hurting innocent people isn’t my style. The rumors let me move around Ev as I please. They keep the palace safe from trespassers, along with the Wheelers. Even the Nome King doesn’t know how much of it’s true and how much is just embellishment. Skinning people alive is certainly his style.”
That shut Madison up pretty quickly.
“And you and the Nome King . . .” Nox trailed off. I could guess at what he was about to say. How could she work for that monster? Especially if she’d been in the Order?
Lang glanced involuntarily at her silver bracelet. And now that I looked more closely, I could see that the pale skin of her wrist was circled with a web of silvery scars.
“It’s unbreakable,” she said, following my look. “The Nome King takes service contracts very seriously. I’ve tried to get it off with magic. Metal hammer, enchanted knives, half a dozen spells. He just laughed at me.” She pulled the fabric of her robe away from her neck briefly and I saw more scars knotted across her back, thick and painful-looking. “Or sent me to the Diggers to be whipped,” she added matter-of-factly. “After a while, it got easier to make him happy. I’ve had a lot of practice lying.”
“But the Order sent you here to spy. How did you become his prisoner?” Nox said. “What happened?”
Anger flashed through her green eyes.
“The Order?” she spat. “What did the Order ever do for me, Nox? The Order couldn’t even take out Dorothy. I don’t work for anyone. I do what the Nome King asks in order to stay alive long enough to find a way to take him down. Him and Dorothy both.”
“It seems to be working out for you,” Nox said, indicating the lavish palace with a nod of his head. I wanted to kick him. It was obvious that whatever work she was doing for the Nome King, she hated him. If he’d captured her when the Order sent her here and turned her into his slave, no wonder she hated the Order so much. Nox seemed dead set on antagonizing this girl and I didn’t understand why. That, or he was just oblivious to the fact that everything he said to her was exactly the wrong thing.
Which, knowing Nox, was just as likely. Fighting, he was good at. Tact, not so much.
“The Nome King didn’t buy me this place. I earned it. The few wealthy people in Ev pay a lot of money to gamble in my clubs.”
I thought I’d misheard her. “Your clubs? Like . . . nightclubs?”
She shrugged. “No matter how poor people get, they have to drink. And gambling makes them feel like they have a chance to make their lives better. It’s a public service of sorts, but it also puts me close to the action. There’s not a lot to do in Ev. Everyone who’s anyone comes through my clubs, and I pay attention to what comes out of their mouths. That’s the work I do for the Nome King. The work I do for myself . . .” She let that trail off, leaving us to digest her words.
“You cheat people and steal information from them for a really evil guy who’s magically keeping you a permanent prisoner?” I countered.
“It’s an exchange. I give them a place to forget their troubles for
a while. Ev is a dangerous, violent place, but inside the walls of my clubs, my patrons are safe. I guarantee it. That’s a huge piece of why they do so well. And no one’s dumb enough to talk real politics within my walls—they know who I work for. I get just enough information to feed the Nome King useful tidbits to keep him satisfied. The rest of my intel I keep for myself.”
“So you’re a mobster,” Madison said. She sounded impressed.
Lang shrugged. “I prefer the word entrepreneur. I saw an opening and filled it. And in a way, my clubs bring people together. Rich and poor alike mingle at the roulette wheels and card tables. I have a dress code, but I don’t turn anyone away—unless they misbehave. That used to happen at first. Now that my reputation has spread, people don’t misbehave so much anymore.”
Most prisoners did not run Vegas-like empires. “So the Nome King just lets you . . . have all this?”
“The Nome King likes to think of himself as generous. And gambling provides a healthy distraction for the masses, which benefits him.”
“Distraction from what? Do you know why the Nome King rescued Dorothy and brought her to Ev?” Nox asked.
Lang shook her head, her clean, glossy hair rippling around her shoulders in a way that made my fingers itch for magic. I could’ve at least touched up my filthy and ragged dress, smoothed my hair to something resembling cleanliness. A little lip gloss—wait, who was I? Madison? Nox had seen me covered in blood, dirt, and worse. He’d seen me turn into a literal monster, and he was still around. I was tough, awesome, competent, and good at fighting. It wasn’t like she was flirting with my semi-maybe-non-boyfriend. If anything, her attitude toward him suggested she despised him.
But then I thought of that line from Romeo and Juliet that our sophomore year English teacher had drummed into our heads: My only love sprung from my only hate. You had to feel strongly enough about someone in the first place to hate them. Was this what jealousy felt like? Sort of being sick to your stomach all the time? I’d never had a reason to be jealous before.