A Fiery Friendship

  In lieu of an answer, Squillicoat turned to Glinda. “Would you please go to the well and bring some fresh water for the kettle?”

  Glinda hurried to obey. When she returned, she handed the dripping bucket directly to Ben, who poured the water into the empty kettle.

  Squillicoat smiled at Shade. “Would you kindly stoke the fire?”

  When Shade reached into the wood basket, the apothecary stopped her with a shake of his head. “No, no, my dear. Not kindling. Peat is preferable, if you please.”

  Looking puzzled, Shade began gathering handfuls of moss from a pail beside the hearth and arranging them in the fireplace.

  “Why peat instead of wood?” Glinda asked.

  “Because ‘peat’ is just another word for ‘turf,’ ” Squillicoat explained. “Peat comes from the world beneath our feet. For this blaze, peat represents Lurl.”

  “Since when does a fire have to represent something?” Locasta challenged.

  “Sometimes, Magic likes a motif,” the apothecary replied cagily.

  “Whatever that means,” muttered Locasta, watching as Ben used a pothook to again hang the kettle on the iron crane in the fireplace.

  Now Squillicoat indicated the tinderbox perched upon the mantelpiece. “Locasta, perhaps you would do us the honor of igniting the flame.”

  “Good choice.” Ben chuckled. “Igniting is definitely her specialty.”

  Locasta grabbed for the tinderbox and made quick work of striking the firesteel across the sharp edge of the flint. Sparks sprang forth like shooting stars, lighting the char cloth; she tossed the glowing scrap onto Shade’s pile of dried moss, and a sweet-scented smoldering began.

  Then Squillicoat took the ancient bellows from where they leaned against the fireplace and offered them to Ben. “Seems it wants a bit of air, son.”

  Ben obliged with a dutiful “Yes, sir” and aimed the bellows toward the peat. As he opened and closed them, they huffed their leathery breath onto the flame, coaxing it toward combustion.

  It wasn’t long before the spout of Maud’s kettle produced a graceful trail of steam, gray-white and weightless, alive with purpose; an entity born of this most ordinary union of moss and fire, water and air.

  As the girl who fetched the water, the boy who worked the bellows, the stranger who stoked the fire, and the girl who lit the flame stared in wonder, a slender wisp of steam wafted out of the fireplace and into the parlor.

  “Even the simplest Magic has power you can scarcely imagine,” Squillicoat observed as the steam billowed. “Four elements combining to tell one extraordinary tale.”

  Glinda wasn’t sure if the four elements Squillicoat had alluded to were the items in the fireplace or the children who’d collected them. But around her, the steam was taking on substance and wrapping itself into a scene.

  A scene that began just where the zoetrope left off . . .

  THE STORY TOLD IN THE STEAM

  Perhaps—

  Perhaps—

  “Perhaps,” says King Oz as he leads his brave Regents onto the terrace, “these four harridans can be reasoned with.”

  If they do not accept his overture of friendship, then he will fight—for the Good King Oz would never instigate a battle, but he would never retreat from one either.

  A young groundskeeper who has been tending potted ivy on the terrace boldly places himself between the king and his sudden enemies. King Oz thanks him for his protection but commands the lad to take shelter in the Reliquary with the others.

  The groundskeeper obeys; of course he obeys. But he will regret for the rest of his life that he could not aid his liege in this moment.

  Oz and his Regents meet the Witches without their hands upon their swords. And that is their grave mistake in judgment.

  Gilli is the first to go—he is tossed so mightily by the Warrior Witch that he tumbles through the air and over the side of the plateau. She bellows her name into the night as she pitches him: “Marada!”

  Sir Wink is attacked by the most nimble of the Witches; she dances him under a spell, then splits him in two with a kick that is both graceful and deadly. She calls herself Daspina and pirouettes madly in recognition of her success.

  The Harvester Witch who defeats Lord Quadle is strewn with flowers—thorny ones, poisonous ones, wilting ones. She force-feeds him her petals and stems until he chokes and succumbs to the toxins. She whispers her name, “Aphidina,” and it carries a foul fragrance, like rotting leaves.

  The most beautiful of the four by far goes after the archduke with naught but a spell, a spoken charm that first makes him weak, and then makes him gone. It is that easy; beauty has its advantages. “I am Ava, the Tyrant.” She speaks this with her eyes.

  Over the sacrifice of his Regents Valiant, the king is distraught. Enraged. And now the Witches begin to stalk him, coming together in a confluence of evil, pressing closer until it is impossible to discern where one begins and another ends. They have blurred into one Wicked thing. They are darkness times four.

  Oz suffers a kick from the dancer, a look from the beauty, a thorny prick from the flowered one, and a good solid punch to his noble jaw from the Warrior Witch.

  Weakening under their attack, King Oz drops to one knee; the Witches are quick and greedy. Even as they divest him of his fine silver armor, they are fighting with one another, haggling over these priceless pieces of silver, each claiming the prize she wants. Violently they help themselves to his gauntlets, his boots, his masked helmet, and his heavy, glinting chainmail as if they are entitled to them.

  In the end, it is the mere force of their loathing that does him in. For no one—not even a king, not even Oz—could endure such profound hatred. He does not bleed, nor break, he simply draws one final breath, and cries one final tear. He stomps his foot and thinks one last thought—though only he knows what that thought contains. When his second knee hits the flagstones, there is an explosion of light. The Witches duck and stumble back from the force of it, still clutching their spoils as the king’s corporeal self shatters into a thousand glowing beams.

  What’s left is his shadow, still kneeling in the place where he fell—a transparent remainder hovering between here and the void. The Witches ignore it and continue to admire their stolen treasure.

  They do not see the four tiny orbs forming inside the shadow, spinning and glimmering. One in the center of his forehead, another in his left eye, a third in his chest, and the last beneath the sole of his right foot. These are the echoes of his final moments in the world—the thought, the tear, the breath, and the firmness of his footsteps upon the ground—turned to swirls of light.

  These are the Gifts of Oz.

  And they are what the Witches were sent here to collect. But the thieves are still too caught up in their victory to notice these precious pearls of light, even as the shadow that encloses them begins to fade.

  The king is gone, and the absence of him is felt by the sky, and the soil and the rivers and every single spark that exists in Oz, the home he no longer inhabits.

  His departure is too much for even the castle to bear; and so it begins the violent process of self-destruction.

  In the Reliquary, grief all but freezes the revelers where they stand. Even with the castle walls tumbling, the parapets crumbling, the lead tiles slipping down the pitched slope of the rooftop like rectangular tears, the party guests cannot bring themselves to move. Slivers of stone and fragments of glass from the demolished palace become embedded in the Reliquary floor, turning themselves into letters and words—an epitaph in stony verse.

  Only one knight thinks to act; he does so in the scantest nick of time.

  And this is a good and clever knight indeed. He shouts to the Elemental Fairies: “Hide!”

  Hide—

  Hide—

  As the scene faded, Glinda kept her eyes trained on the place where the king had been; the glowing light of his Gifts continued to gleam, but the gray-white steam from the kettle was turning from a light vapory mis
t to a heavy dark cloud, bruising over first to midnight blue, then black.

  “Uh-oh,” said Locasta.

  “We have to go!” said Ben. “Now!”

  Like the frightened guests in the Reliquary, Glinda remained motionless, staring into the smoke. Instinctively she thrust her hand into the blackness, reaching first for the circle of light where the king’s forehead had been, then the one near his heart. Both times her hand closed around nothing but darkness.

  She felt someone gripping her arm and pulling hard: Locasta.

  But from deep within the blackness something else had taken hold of her other arm. This grip was tighter, colder—a Wicked touch to be certain, and it held firm, even as Locasta tugged against it.

  “The Gifts!” Glinda choked as the smoke filled her mouth and lungs. “I have to save them.”

  The unseen grasp on her arm gave an incredible heave. Locasta’s hold faltered and Glinda staggered backward, falling into the churning smoke. Blinking it out of her watering eyes, she searched for the four Magical spheres of light, but they had faded from view. All that remained were two red blotches, like sores festering deep within the dark cloud; optic boils glaring down at her as if they would burn her alive with their hatred.

  Now the invisible grip moved to her throat, squeezing until she could barely breathe—it was the same stranglehold she’d suffered on the night her mother had summoned a vision from the moon. Understanding wrenched through her: the red orbs were the eyes of the fifth Witch, glaring at her through the black cloud.

  Two strong hands clamped around her ankles. With one mighty tug, Locasta dragged her out of the smoke and yanked her to her feet. “Let’s go!” said Locasta.

  “The Gifts,” Glinda choked.

  “You can’t save them from here. They aren’t now, they’re then.”

  “But—”

  Locasta shoved her toward the door.

  Stumbling across the cottage, Glinda saw Squillicoat bent over the fire, uttering a spell:

  “Heal now without a potion,

  Banish Wicked with devotion

  Tincture of Goodness, Mixture of Might

  Lead us to wisdom, set us to right

  Fend off the darkness, bring us the light!”

  Glinda felt the final word of the charm settle over the cottage like a spoken balm, dispelling the smoke and eradicating the burns that were the eyes of the fifth Witch.

  As Glinda and Locasta staggered down the walk to the gate where Ben and Shade waited, Glinda glanced over her shoulder and saw Master Squillicoat, watching them from behind the crackled glass. With a nod and a smile, he formed a four-fingered X and placed it over his heart—the Foursworn salute.

  This, she understood, was not merely a gesture of encouragement; this was farewell.

  Returning the apothecary’s salute, Glinda watched as Maud’s front door began to fade away; the thatch of the roof rustled once in a soft breeze and was gone. The rosieglories and razzleberries shrank gracefully on their vines, while the fence posts and pickets paled to white shadows until the whole cottage had vanished in a tender twinkling, like a dream or a peal of laughter, disappearing to a place filled with good things that used to be.

  Glinda felt it go, like a wish one abandons for being too wonderful to come true. But this was not the time for wishes; this was a time for action.

  With a deep breath, she took a step and the Road of Red Cobble rose up to accept it.

  “To the Queryor,” she said.

  Her friends fell in line beside her, and they were off.

  27

  SHADE

  They walked a long way without saying a word. Finally Glinda turned to Shade.

  “Are you going to tell us anything about yourself? Other than your name, I mean.”

  “What do you want to know?” Shade’s voice was one octave above silence; her silky hair fell over her eyes like a curtain, and her cloak swirled like a storm cloud, but she did not shrink from the inquiry.

  “How about what you were doing at Maud’s cottage, for starters,” said Locasta. “Blingle said she found you skulking around there this morning.”

  “She didn’t find me, exactly. No one ever does. I allowed myself to be found. I wanted to get inside that cottage, and capture seemed the most efficient way to do that.”

  Like my mother, allowing Bog to take her to the fifth Witch in Aphidina’s castle, Glinda thought. A captive by design.

  “I knew you were headed there,” Shade went on. “I wanted to make sure it was safe. Turns out it wasn’t.”

  “How did you know we were going to Maud’s?” asked Ben.

  “Yesterday, at sunrise, I happened to be in a corridor of Aphidina’s castle.”

  “You happened to be in Aphidina’s castle?” Glinda echoed in disbelief. She might not have understood until just recently that the Witch’s benevolence was an illusion, but she did know that no one ever just “happened to be” in the palace without permission.

  Shade shrugged. “I happen to be a lot of places,” she explained in her skittish way. “That morning I happened to be there. And I overheard the Witch say that she was going to arrest the Grand Adept.”

  Glinda’s mouth dropped open. “You were the one who told Miss Gage about Bog?”

  Shade nodded. “After the mud monster took you in the wagon, I lost you, but I caught your trail again just after the blizzard. Then I followed you to the Maker’s lodge and listened outside the window. I heard you talking about visiting the old Seamstress who lived on the outskirts, so I went on ahead.”

  “Amazing,” said Ben.

  Even Locasta looked impressed. “So you’re a spy.”

  Shade did not deny it. “I have a knack for going unnoticed. I am a Listener, and Listeners know things. Not everyone has a talent for paying attention, so those of us who do are useful to those who don’t. There are many Ozians who are willing to trade food and shelter for cold hard facts.” She gave another shrug. “Food and shelter I lack. Facts I have in abundance.”

  “Resourceful,” Glinda observed.

  “Sneaky,” said Locasta, though it didn’t sound like an insult.

  “It’s a long way to Maud’s from the Maker’s cabin,” said Glinda. “How did you—”

  Before she finished her question, Shade flipped back her cape and pointed to the red stones pressing up from the ruddy soil. “It comes for me when I need it. I don’t know why, but it does.”

  It was then that Glinda remembered the counting song. Count by four, at peace once more. There was always meant to be a fourth traveler on their journey. And the road’s acceptance of Shade meant that she could be trusted.

  “Why is it you are so proficient at spying?” Locasta asked. “You don’t dabble in dark Magic, do you?”

  “What I do requires no Magic,” Shade replied, “just a lifetime of abandonment and neglect.”

  This was said in such a matter-of-fact manner that it made Glinda’s heart hurt.

  “You can’t see what you don’t care about,” Shade continued. “When everyone stops looking at you, it’s easier for you to look at them.”

  “So your talent for going undetected is the result of the world’s general disregard for your existence,” said Locasta, her tone unexpectedly sympathetic.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Well, it’s an impressive skill, however you got it,” Ben noted.

  “Yes,” Glinda agreed. “Almost like being invisible.”

  “Invisibility involves extremely potent Magic,” Locasta pointed out. “Don’t tell me you’ve mastered invisibility.”

  Shade shook her head. “No, I haven’t. But then, I’ve never tried.”

  “Why not?” asked Feathertop.

  “Invisibility is dangerous,” Locasta explained, “even for experts. Once you disappear, there’s always the risk that you won’t be able to reappear. I wouldn’t try it for all the gemstones in the Nome Kingdom.”

  “I might,” Shade confessed. “Someday. I like t
o learn things.”

  “So do I,” said Glinda, beaming. “And Ben, too.”

  Shade flicked a curious glance at Locasta.

  “Oh, she already knows everything,” Glinda teased, and to her surprise, Locasta laughed along with the rest of them.

  With Feathertop soaring just overhead, the four companions continued on. The way was clear, and the pace was quick; it seemed to Glinda that the road was as eager to bring them to the Centerlands as they were to get there.

  To the Queryor, who would tell them the secret of how to free the Fairy from the stone.

  Or so Glinda did desperately hope.

  At last they reached the tattering of red underbrush that marked the outer edge of Quadling Country at the Centerlands border. Rustling through the dense tangle of brushwood, they stepped out on the other side into a green pasture, a vast grassland that rolled off toward the distant greenish haze of the horizon.

  As the red cobbles carried them across the sprawling meadow of the Centerlands, Glinda saw more shades of green than she’d ever dreamed existed. She’d never experienced such lushness before, not even in the South, where Aphidina prided herself on growing things. Locasta, who was used to purple, seemed as dazzled by the emerald tones as Glinda was.

  The road carried them across the grassy expanse to a staircase of stone that led to a terraced garden.

  The Queryor’s Lair.

  “It’s just like I remember it,” Shade whispered.

  “You’ve been here before?” asked Ben.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you faced the Queryor?” asked Glinda.

  Shade nodded.

  “You could have mentioned that sooner,” said Locasta. But before she could press the dark-eyed girl for more information, a pounding noise filled the air. It was a slow, measured beat, almost musical, as if someone were banging an enormous drum.

  Buh-boom . . . boom . . . boom. Buh-boom . . . boom . . . boom.

  “What’s with the percussion section?” Locasta said. “Is there also a marching band you forgot to tell us about?”