A Fiery Friendship

  “Glinda! Help!”

  Glinda wielded Illumina, hacking at the branch until it gave way. Ben fell to the ground, just as a stubby limb landed a punch to Locasta’s jaw and sent her reeling into a thicker one, which encircled her ribs and squeezed.

  Again, Glinda swung the sword; with a sharp crack the bough split. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shade sidestep a whipping vine.

  “We have to free Ember!” Locasta shouted. “Now! Before the branches smother him.”

  Gripping the sword handle with both hands, Glinda chopped and sliced at the blockade, but for every bough she destroyed, another one grew to take its place. The Elemental Fairy was suffocating before her eyes.

  “Why can’t he just burn through the wood?” cried Ben, eyeing the smoldering tangle of limbs and shoots that held the Fairy prisoner.

  “He’s trying,” said Glinda. “It’s the Magic of his nemesis he’s fighting, and the effort is exhausting him.”

  “I think you mean extinguishing him,” Locasta said.

  It was true; Ember’s frantic efforts to ignite the fresh wood and thriving greenery had caused him to die down considerably. The once gigantic Fairy made of heat and flame was now little more than the size of a cozy hearth fire. And the branches were closing in more tightly.

  “I need another blade!” Glinda hollered. “One sword is not enough. We need . . .” She spun around and chopped at a branch that was tangling itself in Shade’s hair.

  Chop!

  “We need . . .” Another spin, a swing, and a chop!

  “We need an ax!” Locasta finished. “That’s what we need! An ax!”

  And as she said the word, the ax appeared.

  In the able hands of a boy in blue.

  Glinda was so stunned to see him that for a moment, she stopped fighting. The tip of a twig took the opportunity to snap at her forehead, bringing up a welt; she hissed at the pain and carved through the twig with zeal.

  “Nick Chopper! How did you get here?”

  “I don’t rightly know.”

  “He’s here because I summoned him,” Locasta snapped. “Didn’t you hear me say ‘We need an ax’?”

  As Glinda swirled the sword behind her back to whack an encroaching branch in two, she caught sight of the Witch, who was far too entranced by her hexing to notice the addition of the Munchkin and his ax.

  “What are you waiting for?” said Ben, slamming his boot down on a squirming vine. “You have an ax. Use it!”

  When Nick made no move to swing his blade, Glinda recalled with a wave of dread what he’d told her in the prison wagon. “If he uses it to prune the trees, he’ll chop himself to pieces. Right?”

  Nick shrugged and nodded, helpless.

  Helpless, except for the brilliant sword he held.

  A sword just like Glinda’s; in fact, an exact replica.

  She blinked, confused, until she realized that what she was seeing was the reflected image of Illumina in the gleaming tin of Nick’s arm.

  Just as her mother had been reflected in the surface of the scrying mirror.

  Just as each perfect Symmetree reflected the one that stood across from it in the Grande Allée.

  “Nick, put down your ax,” she directed. “And hold out your hand.”

  Nick did not question, just did as he was told.

  Closing her eyes, Glinda let the memory of her mother’s Magic book flood back to her. Seeing the words inscribed on the pages, feeling the soft leather of its cover, she called upon the power of all that ever was or would be written there, and felt the words of an incantation form on her lips:

  “Blade of brilliance, sword of smarts

  Double the strength of these true hearts

  Forged of vision, spirit of light,

  Be twice yourself for just this fight

  Sword Illumina on my command

  Place your twin in the Woodman’s hand.”

  As Glinda squeezed the jeweled handle, the blade began to glow from deep within itself. Rising out of it—as once, long ago, four Gifts had freed themselves from within the king—came a spectral shape, a glittering ghost of a sword, a trembling sweep of light honed to a lethal edge.

  “The spirit of the sword,” Locasta murmured. “You made it two.”

  “Now you make it his!” Glinda instructed.

  Locasta spread her arms and twirled, just as she had when she’d danced Glinda’s tunic into existence; the sword essence mimicked her motion and went spinning across the lane to settle easily in Nick’s waiting hands.

  With renewed fervor Glinda went after the trees, and Nick followed suit: Glinda chopped through a branch on her side of the lane, and then Nick slashed the corresponding tree on his side of the allée to match it. All angles were precise, all lengths exact. Cropping, slicing, sawing, Glinda wasn’t sure if she felt more like an arborist or a mathematician. But it was working!

  Again and again, the twin swords whistled through the air. Wood chips flew, and limbs shattered. Branch after branch fell upon the gravel until, finally, every tree was in perfect alignment with the one that stood across from it. Their balance renewed, the violence drained from them like warm sap. The Symmetrees were Symmetrees once more. And the attack on the questing party was over.

  But even as the cage of branches fell away, it was plain that the fight had taken much from the Fairy. Glinda saw with alarm that he had been smothered down to the size of a candle flame.

  And Aphidina was slowly coming out of her trance.

  With a wave of her hand, Glinda called the twin sword back to her; like a streak of lightning it returned to Illumina’s core, glowing even more brightly than before, as if it, like Ember, were made of fire.

  “Locasta, can you hold off the Witch?”

  “Way ahead of you!” Locasta replied, snatching a branch from the ground and gesturing for Shade to do the same, indicating a piece from the tree opposite. When she touched the end of the broken limb to Glinda’s sword—hisssssss—it lit like a torch. And because Shade was using a piece of its symmetrical counterpart, the branch in her grasp did the same.

  Both girls ran toward Aphidina, poking the burning branches at her. Leef made a move to assist the Witch, but Ben caught him in a chokehold and pulled him back.

  “What do you think of this Gillikin filth now, huh?” Locasta jibed, jabbing the torch at the Witch.

  Aphidina shrieked, ducking away from the flames.

  Glinda ran to Ember, who was fading to a flicker. With a deep breath, she placed the tip of Illumina into what was left of the Fairy’s flame and repeated the word her mother had said just before Locasta had carried Glinda off into the Woebegone:

  “Unite!”

  Whoooooosssshhhhh. The brilliance of Illumina lent itself to the Fairy, who blazed up into an enormous conflagration. A searing dazzle filled the allée as again he spread his giant wings and charged the Witch, licking toward her like fire on a fuse, his toes leaving a charred trail along the gravel where they brushed against it.

  Shade and Locasta jumped out of his path.

  “Noooo!” Aphidina shouted, as if such a pathetic command might actually extinguish the very fire that gave birth to fire. “Be gone! Snuff thyself, smother.” But the words seemed to melt on her lips, useless against the Fairy’s burning might.

  The air was nearly too hot to breathe as he closed the space between them.

  Closer . . . hotter . . . brighter . . .

  The Witch recoiled from her enemy, weeping tears that boiled on her cheeks. “No!” she croaked. “Noooooo!” Then she heaved one final piteous sob as Ember enfolded her in his blistering wings and incinerated her in his scathing embrace.

  The Witch of the South went silent.

  Aphidina, the Haunting Harvester, was no more.

  Ash.

  That was all that was left of her when Ember opened his wings—a dusting of dull gray ash and the chainmail vest.

  When Glinda met the Fairy’s gaze, his fiery eyes flared in a way that made
her understand he was offering her his thanks.

  “We did it,” Locasta rasped, her expression a mixture of disbelief and shock. “We actually vanquished the Witch.”

  The sword in Glinda’s hand was once again a thing of metal and jewels, not fire and light. Slipping it back into her sash, she gazed up at the fiery being hovering in the air before her.

  “Is the final thought of King Oz still safe?” she asked him.

  In response, Ember raised his flaming hands in front of him and rubbed them together. The friction produced a crackling shower of sparks, which danced and swirled until they had formed the outline of a sphere, a fiery shell. This spun slowly in the air before the Fairy’s face.

  When Ember closed his eyes, Ben asked in a hushed voice, “What’s he doing?”

  “I’m not certain,” Glinda whispered. “But it looks like . . . he’s thinking.”

  Sure enough, another spark—this one shimmering green—appeared within the fire that was the Fairy’s forehead.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Locasta asked.

  Glinda nodded, for it could be nothing other. King Oz’s final thought. One of the Gifts that were to be bestowed upon a grieving kingdom by its rightful ruler long ago.

  The spark emerged from the Fairy’s forehead and entered the spinning sphere, filling it with its emerald light and changing it to a glistening orb.

  “Astounding,” said Ben.

  Ember took the orb gently into his hands and gazed at it with both affection and pride, for this treasure had been his to guard and protect for almost as long as there had been history.

  When he leaned down and offered the orb to Glinda, her eyes went wide. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” she protested, shaking her head. “It’s far too precious, and much too important.”

  Ember smiled and offered the orb again.

  “Oh, go ahead,” Locasta urged with a grin. “Take it.”

  “I agree,” said Ben with a wink of encouragement. Even Shade nodded.

  Glinda cupped her hands to accept the glowing sphere that was King Oz’s last thought. It felt vibrant against her skin, alive and tingling, as if it were being thought anew, right there in her presence.

  She closed her eyes and saw an image of the good king, lying defeated on the stony ground. Around him, the Wicked Witches celebrated their victory, selfishly helping themselves to his silver armor, unaware that his essence had left his body in the form of four sparkling Gifts, one of which now glowed in Glinda’s grasp.

  The image vanished from her mind and was instantly replaced by a thought—a thought not born of her own senses, but resonant with the wisdom of a fallen king:

  That moment in which all is lost is the same moment in which begins the battle to regain it.

  When Glinda opened her eyes, her hands were empty, but the beryl stone in the pommel of the sword had gone from red to bright, glimmering green.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to Ember, “for sharing the king’s last thought. I will never forget it.”

  The Elemental Fairy inclined his head and vanished in a blaze of fiery light.

  As the heat in the allée burned off to warmth, Ben sighed heavily. “Something tells me that after being in Oz, life in New York is going to be awfully dull by comparison.”

  Glinda laughed, and the joyful sound echoed down the path. Her heart felt indescribably light as she smiled around at her friends. “Let’s go find my mother,” she said.

  “Yes, let’s,” said Locasta, stomping to where Leef still lay sprawled on the gravel. “Tell us where the Grand Adept is being held,” she commanded, her purple eyes boring into his knotty ones as she clutched the Symmetree limb.

  Leef was silent.

  “You’d better talk, Dashingwood,” Locasta warned, twirling the branch she’d used as a torch. “With this stick, I only have to hit you once . . . but you’ll feel it twice.”

  Again, Leef said nothing.

  “It’s a big place,” said Ben, glancing through the trees toward the castle. “It could take hours for us to find her.”

  To Glinda’s surprise, the Daisy girl came forward, stepping over the scattering of Aphidina’s ashes.

  “The Sorceress, your mother, is being held in the root dungeons of the palace. I can show you.” As Daisy spoke these words, the ridge of thorns that ran the length of her back fell away, leaving only her lovely smooth stem.

  “I would be most appreciative,” said Glinda.

  “Come, then,” the flower urged. “We must hurry or else—”

  There was a terrible creaking sound. Glinda turned to see that the castle had begun to sway and shudder. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, sink.

  “Now what?” groaned Locasta.

  “This castle was the greatest symbol of Aphidina’s power,” said Daisy. “Now that her power has been destroyed, the castle can no longer stand.”

  Indeed, as they watched from the allée, the Lurlian ground seemed to be sucking the castle back into the depths from which it had grown.

  “I have to get inside,” said Glinda. “You three, cross the moat and wait on the far side.”

  “If you think,” Locasta began, planting her hands on her hips, “that we came all this way to let you—” Another crashing sound from the castle cut her off.

  “Just go!” Glinda commanded. “Get off the grounds, now. The whole garden may get pulled under.” She took two steps to follow Daisy, then spun back. “And take Leef with you.”

  “What?!” Locasta’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Not a chance!”

  “He used to be my friend. And we can’t call ourselves Good, then just leave him here to die!” Glinda shook her head. “That’s what Wicked would do.”

  “She’s right,” said Ben. “We have to at least try to save him.”

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s going to be necessary,” said Nick grimly. “Look.”

  Leef’s face had gone completely wooden, and his legs—now curved into spiny roots—were planting themselves deep into the soil.

  Glinda felt a choke of sadness that might have turned to a sob if the castle hadn’t shuddered again, causing the allée to rumble beneath her boots. “All of you, go! Now!” she directed.

  This time Locasta didn’t argue.

  Ben lifted the wounded Feathertop into his arms as Nick retrieved his ax and Shade scooped up the Silver Chainmail.

  And Locasta Norr of Gillikin pulled Glinda in for a powerful hug. “Be careful in there, Glinda the Good. Ours may be a fiery friendship, but something tells me it’s meant to last.”

  Count by two, with hearts so true . . . , thought Glinda, returning the squeeze.

  Then Locasta whirled on her heel and sped after the others through the cabbage-leaf gates, which trembled and swung wildly as the wall of Lurchers, too, began to sink.

  Daisy grabbed Glinda’s hand and tugged. “Hurry!” she said.

  And Glinda did.

  They were halfway through Aphidina’s throne room when the floor cracked and yawned into a wide, sucking gap. Glinda jumped back from the edge just in time and watched with a racing heart as huge chunks of the audience chamber were pulled into it. The Magic of Lurlia seemed determined to reclaim the castle, swallowing it in hungry mouthfuls, as if the world regretted giving it to Aphidina in the first place.

  Skirting the sinkhole, Glinda and Daisy ran down a dewy green corridor and through the Hall of Hollyhocks.

  “How much farther?”

  “The entrance to the dungeon passage is at the far side of the palace,” Daisy said. “But it is treacherous and dark in the depths. We won’t be able to see without a torch.”

  “I have something much better than a torch,” said Glinda, raising her sword.

  She followed Daisy through room after room of the sinking castle until they came to a winding stairway that led downward, branching off in several different directions.

  “The castle’s roots,” Daisy explained as she picked her way along the twisted mass. Glinda was rig
ht behind her, holding up the sword; this time, it was not the blade but the handle that pulsed with just enough light to guide them.

  Around and above them, the ground continued to shake, loosening the dirt so that it fell away in clods, or showered down like thick red rain. Glinda spit it from her mouth and blinked it out of her eyes as she descended along the jagged pathway. The roots fought bitterly to hold on to the soil, but the suction was formidable.

  “There!” called Daisy, pointing with one of her leaves to a gigantic brown cocklebur, lodged in the dirt. It was oval in shape and covered in hooked spines. “Aphidina put them in there.”

  “Them?” Glinda feared the flower girl had brought her to the wrong place. “I’m only looking for my mother.”

  But since there was no time to debate, Glinda ran for the burr. “Mother!” she shouted above the swooshing din of the sliding dirt. “If you can hear me, stand back. I’m going to cut you out of there.”

  She gripped the sword tighter and raised it high above her head.

  Just then the root on which she balanced jerked beneath her, throwing her sideways. As she swayed dangerously, the world heaved again, dislodging another surging torrent of dirt.

  Glinda felt her heels sliding off the edge of the root.

  With dazzling speed, Daisy jumped forward, catching Glinda and pushing her back onto the root, out of the angry path of the underground landslide. Glinda’s boots found purchase and she steadied herself, but Daisy had misjudged the force of her leap and tumbled over the edge of the root.

  One of her leaves caught hold of a narrow shoot. She clung to it.

  “Daisy! Hold on! I’m coming.” Slowly Glinda picked her way along the shuddering root toward the brave little blossom dangling above the abyss. She reached for the flower girl, but again the castle shifted overhead, dislodging a fresh stream of dirt.

  “Don’t let go!” Glinda cried, watching in horror as the shoot in Daisy’s leafy grasp began to tear away from the root.

  “It’s all right,” said Daisy, her sweet voice filled with conviction even as her grasp faltered. “I was sown from Wicked Magic, but a daisy’s spirit is perennial. I will spring up again, and this time I will grow Good. Look for me, Glinda, when next the shoots awaken. Thanks to you, it will be a gentler Quadling then. Now you must go back and save your mother! For Oz.”