“Everyone is indispensable, Ben! Everyone matters!”
“That’s true. But under the present circumstances, you happen to be the most indispensable among us.”
Glinda fiddled with Illumina’s hilt and said nothing.
“They came of their own accord,” he reminded her. “You didn’t force anyone to take up a weapon and charge into danger. This is their fight too. And war, I am sorry to tell you, is a mad contrivance made more complicated by loyalties, hierarchies, and responsibilities.” He paused, a bemused look on his face. “My father has expressed that belief many times, but I never understood what it meant until now.”
Outside, a voice rose above the tumult—Locasta barking desperate orders—and Glinda thought she sensed a faltering of the battle’s energy, as though some dramatic shift had just occurred in the short period during which she’d turned her back to the chaos. It sounded as if Thruff’s monkeys were fighting with renewed energy and zeal.
Slumping to the floor, she dropped her head in her hands.
Ben slid the strap of his knapsack off his shoulder, sat down beside her, and began to rifle through the bag.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, peeking between her fingers.
“Anything that might take your mind off—” He was interrupted by a loud crash as something—or someone—collided with the north wall of the toolshed. “Off that,” he muttered, still digging. “It occurred to me back in the library when we read about the Entrusteds that there may be something in the Makewright’s journal that can help us find the Elemental Fairies.” He gave her a look. “Perhaps even Mythra.”
Glinda looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“I know Miss Gage believes she’s dead. But your mother did tell you to find her. So I’m willing to allow that it’s possible she might still be out there somewhere. Alive.”
“Do you really think so?” Glinda was afraid to even hope.
“I’m a boy from New York in a land called Oz, who just saw a sky filled with flying monkeys! I’m willing to believe anything is possible.”
Glinda considered this as the sounds of the battle clattered on. “But does it even matter, Ben? Fairies or no Fairies, Mythra or no Mythra, we’re done for.”
“Don’t say that! We don’t know what’s going to happen out there—”
He was interrupted by a hail of musket fire clattering down upon the roof; the Winged Monkeys let loose another spine-chilling cheer.
“Oh, I think we do,” Glinda countered glumly. “I think we know exactly what’s going to happen. We’re going to lose. Unless I let them take me to save the others!” She leaped to her feet and started for the door, but Ben caught the back of her tunic and tugged her back.
“You can’t!”
“But they’re losing!” she wailed. “To those hoppy toads and yakityaks and Winged Monkey beasts! And once they’ve beaten our army, they’ll come looking for me!”
“Then we have to get you out of here.” With a look that did not invite argument, Ben offered her the knapsack. “Perhaps there’s something in the Maker’s journal that might help.”
As Glinda took the bag, Magic, both new and ancient, tingled through her like a soft breeze in the leaves of the ruby maple; she wished with all her might that her mother were there to help her use it. In her mind’s eye she saw a deck of beautifully etched cards depicting eight Ozian heroes, heard the faint strains of a precious lullaby, and savored the warmth of freshly baked popovers.
But another raucous chorus of monkey yowling jarred Glinda from her thoughts. Their shouts sounded dishearteningly celebratory. Blocking out the clamor, she reached into the knapsack and rummaged through the contents for the little leather book. But her hand brushed against something smooth and round instead.
The seashell.
Slipping it out of the bag, she again admired its gentle geometry.
“A nautilus,” Ben remarked. “Where did this come from?”
“I found it when I went walking by the lake. I thought it was odd to find a seashell in a lake, but—”
“The Sea Fairies! What did we learn about them? Something about bestowing trinkets.”
“Yes!” Glinda’s eyes lit. “Trinkets that can become . . . portals. But how can we know where a Sea Fairy portal might take us?”
Outside, the battle was reaching a feverish crescendo. The lowing of oxen was growing louder, the droning of insects more frantic, and above this noise came the frenzied chitter-chatter of those wild Winged Monkeys.
“Does it matter?” Ben’s voice was dark. “Those monkeys are winning. Anywhere has got to be better than where they are.”
Glinda knew he was right. Holding the shell in her upturned palm, she waited for it to do what the Fairy’s story had promised. But no sparkle of Magic burst forth, no wave of enchantment swept in to carry them out of the shed and away from danger. Frowning, Glinda turned the shell over so that the graduated spiral was now facing up . . . and she listened.
“Do you hear that?” she asked, cocking her head. “It sounds like water trickling. Or lapping.” She lifted the nautilus to her ear; the trickling sound was coming from deep within the tiniest compartment of the delicate swirl.
But a sudden violent pounding on the shed door scared her so badly that the shell fell from her hand, landing spiral side up in the dirt.
“Monkeys?” she croaked.
“Hurry!” Ben advised as the pounding came again, threatening to bang the door from its hinges.
In Glinda’s ear, the whisper of the water turned to words:
“If you should desire to open a door
You need only to be unconditionally sure
That who you must find, is who you will see
And where you are headed is where you must be.”
Now the shell began to spin, pressing itself into the dirt floor. It moved slowly at first, then picked up speed, whirling into a widening gyre, growing larger and deeper with every turn. The graduated sections took on dimension, dropping away in succession until the shell had become a graceful spiral staircase unfurling downward into something clear and pale and blue.
Water.
A fathomless pool. Or perhaps a piece of the sea.
The pounding on the door raged again; the workbench rattled and bucked.
“Go!” Ben urged, nudging Glinda toward the stairs. “I’m right behind you.”
Gripping Illumina’s handle, she placed her foot on the top step, then the next one, making her way carefully down the luminous staircase. Ben followed her, awed by the grandeur of the Magic. Lower and lower they went until they were up to their knees in the crystalline pool, which seemed to be made as much of light as it was of water.
High above them in the toolshed, a determined shoulder collided with the door, and Glinda knew it would be crashing open soon enough.
Taking a hungry breath to fill her lungs, she motioned for Ben to do the same.
Then she grabbed his arm and together they dove into the depths.
10
CONNECTION MAGIC
Somewhere, a portal had opened.
The jolt of realization brought Tilda to a standstill, her dusty slippers scuffing to a halt on the bricks of the winding yellow road.
A new door, or perhaps a very old one, had just availed itself to give passage. She felt the Magic surround her but understood that the experience was a borrowed one; she was seeing with another’s eyes, feeling with another’s touch, knowing with an awareness that was not her own. It was not a Magical pathway or even a skill, but a precious bond between one Magician and another.
And oh, how she had missed it!
But the sensation would be fleeting, she knew. So she stopped walking, closed her eyes, and let the Magic fill her.
Water. Deep, lulling, clear Filled with purpose. A necessary departure to ensure a fateful meeting.
When she swayed on her feet, Nick Chopper reached out a hand to steady her. “Tilda, are you ill?”
&nbs
p; On the contrary, the Sorceress Gavaria had not felt this hopeful in ages. Not since before King Oz had been vanquished and with him had gone so much that mattered. Many times she’d considered going in search of the Mysterious Priestess herself, but in the end, she had resisted, knowing that the world was not ready, nor steady enough to warrant such a prodigious risk. Now Tilda herself had urged Glinda to attempt what she herself had never dared.
A tender ache of pride filled her chest. How right that Glinda would be the one to discover what had so long seemed undiscoverable.
“Mistress Gavaria?”
“I’m perfectly well, Nick. In fact, I’m amazed. Amazed and happy.” And perhaps the tiniest bit terrified, she added silently as the Magic of Connection whispered away. Anything can happen now.
But Nick didn’t budge. He was looking downward with a puzzled expression on his face, to where the hem of Tilda’s long skirt met the yellow bricks of the road. “The bottom of your dress . . . it’s soaking wet.”
Tilda let out a musical peal of laughter that rang over the azure-and-turquoise hillside of Munchkin Country. “Well, would you look at that!” she exclaimed. “It’s positively drenched!” Gathering up the lower half of her skirt, she began to wring it out, laughing all the while as she squeezed the water from the fabric.
Nick could only blink in confusion, his gaze going from Tilda’s sparkling eyes to the shimmering puddle forming on the yellow road. Then he smiled, turning his attention back to the pretty stone dwelling, set a ways back from the yellow brick road.
“Now then, young Chopper,” said Tilda, shaking water from her fingertips. “What was it you were about to tell me, before the Connection Magic had its say?”
Nick pointed to the house. “This is where I last saw my Nimmie Amee. This is the domicile of her employer, the selfish old woman who bribed the Witch of the East to put a hex on my ax.”
“Then it seems the yellow road is ready for you to make your discovery,” said Tilda, lifting his pointed blue hat and smoothing his tousled hair.
“I find I am suddenly nervous,” Nick confessed.
“That is to be expected.”
“What if she does not welcome me back?”
“That would be a very poor decision on her part,” Tilda replied. “But whatever the outcome, you must follow your heart.” She gave him a nudge in the direction of the house. “Be as brave as you can and as sweet as you are,” she whispered. “And I will be here waiting in the shade of that tree when you return, eager to hear Miss Amee’s answer.”
“And then we shall be once again on our way,” said Nick with a nod. Huffing a puff of breath onto his tin arm, he polished the joint with the sleeve of his shirt until it gleamed. A moment later he was clanking up the walk, his ax swinging cheerfully as he went.
Following his heart.
* * *
Neither Nick nor Tilda saw the other Munchkin lad, approaching the stone house from the opposite direction, carrying a nosegay tied with blue ribbons.
But the Munchkin lad saw them and knew instantly why Nick Chopper was there. The lad (who made his living playing the hurdy-gurdy in a Munchkin musical act known as the Five Little Fiddlers) became deeply troubled, for in Nick Chopper’s absence, he had fallen in love with Nimmie Amee too. And though the lad did not recognize the red-haired woman in the soggy crimson skirt who seemed so delighted to be witnessing Nick’s grand romantic gesture, he surmised from the color of her clothes that she was a Quadling, and therefore, a trespasser on the Witch’s sovereign land.
Tossing the nosegay bitterly to the ground, the lad decided he was not about to lose Nimmie Amee to some shiny boy with a useless ax—a fugitive, no less!
He knew that Ava Munch would pay handsomely for news of Chopper’s return. And surely there would be a reward for the Quadling as well.
Pausing only long enough to grind his blue-heeled boot into the discarded flowers, the hurdy-gurdy player crept away unnoticed to send word to the Royal Tyrant Ava Munch of what he had seen.
11
UNDERTOW
The water was delightfully warm and welcoming—a sensation very unlike the one Glinda had experienced in the icy lake the day she’d outsmarted Aphidina’s Lurcher.
As she and Ben shimmied through patches of cool blue shadow and glided between streamers of incandescence that seemed to come from nowhere, Glinda felt her long hair floating all around her face, swelling and waving in slow time with the current. She imagined she looked like a wonderful, copper-colored sea plant.
It was a moment before she realized Ben was not beside her, and only when she turned to see him thumping his fist anxiously against his chest did she notice that her own lungs were beginning to ache. They’d stayed under much too long.
Ben pointed upward—Let’s go—and shot toward the surface, propelling himself with a powerful fluttering of his legs. Glinda followed, but as the moments passed, a new panic tightened around her heart:
Where is the staircase?
Surely they should have reached the bottom step by now. Had it vanished? Curled back into its shell-size origins? Perhaps it hadn’t been a gift from the Sea Fairies at all but some horrid, Wicked trap!
Glinda struggled to keep pace with the flurry of bubbles that showered down in Ben’s wake, but even as she kicked harder, the distance between them widened. She realized this was because he was unencumbered by the weight of a sword.
Illumina was slowing her ascent.
The sting in her lungs increased to a terrible burning; her strokes grew weaker, her climb clumsier as she battled the heavy embrace of the pool. Above her, she could just make out the soles of Ben’s boots disappearing from view. Swim, she told herself, but she was barely treading water now; Illumina had become like an anchor at her waist.
Squinting up through the wavering light, she saw Ben peering down from the safety of the bank, his face obscured by the wriggling ripples his exit had left on the pool’s surface—that glistening filament separating her from her own breath. If only she could get there. But her strength was dwindling under the drag of the sword.
She knew what she had to do.
Jerking the sword from her sash, she allowed herself one last look at the graceful blade, the braided metal of the handle, and the colorful gemstones, winking in the pale glow of the pool. It was the most beautiful and most important thing she had ever owned.
But to save herself, she would have to let it go.
Drop it, she told herself.
Drop it . . . or die.
The pain in her muscles raged, eclipsed only by the agony in her heart as she uncurled her fingers from the sword’s grip.
If only it weren’t so heavy, she thought. If only it were . . . light.
And then, suddenly, it was.
Light, lighter than light; weightless and glowing in her hand. This time, it was not just the blade that had given over to luminescence; it was the whole of Illumina—guard, grip, pommel. Where the stone-and-metal hilt had been, there was now the ethereal suggestion of a handle in Glinda’s grasp. Shedding its own mass, the sword had reimagined itself into a watery glow.
Relieved of its weight, she rose quickly, higher and higher until she broke the surface, gulping for air. Ben reached out and pulled her to the edge, where she clung, exhausted, resting her head on her arms, her legs still dangling in the pool.
For a long moment, the only sound was the lapping of the water and the rhythm of her grateful breathing.
Then, Ben’s voice: “Are you all right?”
“I think so.” The words came out muffled against her wet sleeve.
“Good,” Ben replied. “Because you’ve got to see this.”
Glinda swiped a dripping lock of hair out of her eyes and glanced around the toolshed.
But it wasn’t the toolshed.
As she gaped in amazement, Ben crouched down to whisper warily in her ear.
“Glinda,” he murmured, “I have a feeling we aren’t in Quadling anymore.”
&
nbsp; * * *
They had dived out of one place and emerged into another.
No point in wondering how; the only explanation was and would ever be Magic.
Where, on the other hand, was a perfectly terrifying question, and the answer, Glinda was certain, had already been shown to her. When her mother had first given her the linen map, it had revealed a labyrinth of tunnels beneath Oz, another whole landscape, hiding in the Lurlian depths. Now the lagoon had deposited them into that great, yawning cavern where it was dark, and dank and dismal but for the shimmering reflection of the water playing upon its walls. A series of craggy archways rimmed the perimeter of the cave, opening into long, winding tunnels.
She did not like this underlayer of Oz at all. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Excellent idea,” said Ben. “Except that there’s no sign of the shell staircase.” His voice tumbled over itself in a nervous echo to roll down the shadowy passages and fade away in the dark. “How are we going to get back to the academy?”
“There has to be a way,” said Glinda, lifting herself to her elbows. “I think if we just—ummppfff!” She was suddenly underwater again, descending fast!
But not of her own volition.
Something had grabbed her, something slippery and quick. Two strong, scaly hands had wrapped around her ankles and were dragging her downward, faster than her mind could think, into the blue-green, watery-gray gloom. The warmth was above; down here there was just the bone-biting chill of dark water that had never known light.
“Glinda, come back!” Ben screamed, his voice following her into the depths, growing thicker, fainter, until all she could hear was the swhiiiiisshh of the water speeding past her ears.
She willed her roiling stomach to make peace with the velocity as her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she saw through the whip of the water the thing that had stolen her.
Her first impression was of muscles—broad Fairy shoulders, arms as solid as the rock walls of the cave from which she’d just been snatched. Her captor’s face had a sickly gray complexion and peculiar features: eyes that did not blink, and a nose that was not so much a nose as an oddly-placed pair of gills—two flap-like slashes where his nostrils should have been. It had no mouth and no chin; instead, the lower part of its face trailed off into a mass of slender, writhing tentacles. Its body tapered into a long fin covered in red and black scales. This fin split off into yet more undulating tentacles—the source of his speed. On his head he wore a curved shell, bristling with spikes.