The Wicked Will Rise (16 page)

“I guess,” I said. “When am I not?”

Ready or not wasn't the point. I was always ready. But now, this time, and especially after a kiss like that, I was nervous. I had finally been reunited with Nox, and I didn't think I could handle losing him again.

Luckily, the stranger looked friendly as he shambled toward us. Or, if not exactly friendly, then at least like he wouldn't be much of a threat unless you ran into his elbow in a mosh pit.

“Hey,” he shouted, looking utterly unconcerned when he
spotted us. “You guys come here often?”

He was wiry but muscular at the same time, and was wearing a pair of faded black skinny jeans with a loose, tunic-like tank top that revealed his rail-thin physique.

The best way to describe him was
pretty.
He wasn't just cute, or handsome, or sexy, although if you thought about it, he was all of those things, too. Mostly, though, he was just pretty, with sharp, high cheekbones, pale, deep-set eyes, and a halo of perfectly unkempt white-blond ringlets framing a chiseled, angular face. He had pillowy, apple-red lips that made me think of one of Madison Pendleton's prized Madame Alexander dolls. Like the dolls, this guy looked like he belonged in a glass case.

“Well, well, well,” he said when he'd had the chance to really check us out. “I see you've got a princess on your hands.” He bowed toward Ozma. I was a little surprised he knew her, but then again, she
was
the rightful whatever. “Who are you guys? Is this, like, some kind of diplomatic mission?”

“Who wants to know?” Nox asked, eyeing the guy with suspicion.

“Uh . . . I do. That's why I asked, you know?”

“I've been here for weeks,” Nox said. “The whole island's been totally empty. Wanna tell us how you got here?”

If the guy noticed how hostile Nox was being, he didn't much care. “Same as you, I figure,” he said affably. “I got lost. But I'm always lost, pretty much. Actually I kind of like being lost. When you're lost, you don't have to be responsible for anything. I'm Bright, by the way.”

“I'm Amy,” I said.

“Nice to meet you, Amy,” Bright said. He turned to Nox, who looked him over with one eyebrow frozen in a skeptical arch.

The two of them eyed each other carefully, sizing each other up in that way that guys do. I could have told them to just skip it. So they weren't going to get along. Fine. Why waste time making it official?

“Is Bright your real name?” I asked, just trying to move on. Totally dumb question—I was just trying to break the tension.

“I don't
think
so,” Bright said. “But who can remember?” He sighed. “My parents always said I was
bright
as a button. I can't ask them, though. They're dead. Dorothy, you know. Whatever.” He swatted a careless hand at the air. I couldn't tell if he was sad, bored, or just really, really spacey. If he was the kind of guy who got lost on the regular and couldn't remember what his real name was, it was probably the latter.

His eyes lit up as he spotted something on the ground.

“Ah!
Here
it is. Been looking all over for this. Knew it had to be around here somewhere.”

Bright knelt to the ground and plucked up a cigarette case made from some kind of metal that I couldn't identify. In the few seconds it took him to pick it up, flip it open, and pull out a cigarette, the case must have changed colors at least six times in the light.

He shoved it into his pocket and lit up with a heavy silver lighter, inhaling deeply before letting out a thick puff of smoke that I waved away without thinking about it.

I wasn't actually trying to be rude. It was just a habit from the long, ongoing battle I'd had with my mother about smoking in our tiny trailer without bothering to crack a window.

“Oh, relax,” Bright said. “It's not even tobacco—that stuff will kill you, plus it makes you stink. These are good for you.” He took another drag, and this time when he exhaled I noticed that the smoke was vaguely multicolored. It smelled pretty good, too, kind of like the fresh smell of pavement right after a rainstorm.

“What?” he said, registering my curiosity. “You never met anyone who smokes rainbows?”

“Oh, come
on,”
Nox snorted. I couldn't decide whether or not to be pleased that the appearance of this stranger had caused Nox to revert to his old, prickly self.

“They're rolled from the finest dried rainbow husks Rainbow Falls has to offer,” Bright said. “Hard to get these days, now that there's not much trade with the mainland. But I hear Dorothy has a case or fifty stashed away for special occasions. They're all I smoke. Luckily I have a steady supply. Get 'em straight from the source.”

A light bulb went off over my head.

“Wait,” I asked, putting all of the pieces together. “Rainbow Falls? You don't know someone named Polychrome, do you?”

Bright's lips curled into a crooked, rakish smile.

“Know her? Yeah, I think we might have met once or twice,” he said. “Cool girl. Crazy as anyone you'll ever meet, but there are worse things than crazy, right?”

“We're looking for her,” I said. “Do you know where we can find her?”

“Ahh.” Bright tapped his chin. “I might be able to help you out. Is there a reward?”

Nox was already seething. “Yeah, the reward is that we save the kingdom from an evil tyrant and
you
get to keep on smoking your rainbow cigarettes without a care in the world.”

“Well,
that's
tempting,” Bright said. “What else have you got?”

I figured maybe it was time to step in and lighten the mood.

“How 'bout a French One textbook? It's worth forty bucks.” I was half joking, but if this dude thought he was getting my necklace or even my Argyle sock, he was dreaming. Which might not have been so far-fetched for a guy who smokes rainbows.

“Sorry,” Bright said. “I already speak French
. Peut-être vous pouvez m'apprendre à embrasser en français à la place?
”

My old French teacher Madame Pusalino would have been extremely disappointed in how quickly I'd forgotten my conversational skills. It took me a good minute to translate what he'd said, and when I figured it out, all I could do was snap my head back and shoot him my most withering look.

“What'd he say?” Nox asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Möchtet ihr deutscher Schokoladenkuchen?”
Ozma offered.

All three of us turned and stared at her. She smiled and shrugged.

“Look,” I finally said. “Forget all this. Tell us how to find Polychrome.”

Without mentioning it, I called forth a small spell. Something
subtle. My fist began to burn with orange, smoldering flame.

“Jeez!” Bright said, taking the hint. “Don't get all hot under the collar. I'm just messing around. Although I have to admit, it's not every day that I meet a girl as beautiful as you who can do
magic
.”

Nox made a move to step between us. “How about you back off?” he snapped, looking ready to actually punch the guy.

“Whoa there,
mon frère
,” Bright said, now raising his palms in a show of completely insincere apology. “I'm a lover, not a fighter. Anyway, I didn't know the lady had a protector on call. As a gentleman, I stand down.”

“And as a
gentlewoman,
I can protect myself,” I said, glaring at Nox. Then to Bright: “If you think I'm pretty now, you should see me when I'm splattered with blood and entrails. I'm a ruthless killer, you know.”

Out of nowhere, Ozma interjected. “Bring us to her,” she said, slamming her scepter into the ground. All three of us turned to stare at her, momentarily united in amazement, and I realized that, with her scepter, she suddenly looked more regal than before. I wondered if finding it had somehow made her stronger.

“Well!” Bright said. “I didn't know it was a royal command! The way I heard it, you weren't doing much commanding at all these days, Your Highness. But I'm nothing if not a faithful subject. I'll try to be of service if I can.”

“Yeah,” Nox said, apparently still not ready to admit that Bright was harmless. “How about you do that.”

“Whoa, chill, pal. The door to the falls will be around here somewhere—when I'm in the mood to go home, it's never too far away. Everyone else has a bitch of a time finding it. Meanwhile, half the time I feel like it's following
me
. When I'm not lost, that is. Go figure.”

He began to shamble toward the trees, I guess expecting us to tag along.

“What an asshole,” Nox said under his breath. I elbowed him in the ribs as a friendly reminder to let it go. I didn't disagree, but for now, we needed this guy.

After moving quickly through the palm trees, we found ourselves standing on a cobblestone street at the edge of the city. From the beach, we'd only been able to see a silhouetted skyline against the blue sky, but now that we were
in
it, it was stranger and larger than I had expected. It was like something out of a fairy tale—which I know is a weird thing to say when you're already in a fairy tale, but that was Oz for you.

Skyscrapers stood cheek by jowl with dilapidated shacks that in turn pushed up against huge, strange houses with cupolas built on top of porticos built on top of steeply gabled roofs. A strip of dusty, abandoned shops advertised strange things like baby teeth by the pound and a two-for-one deal on lost marbles. Everything was crowded so close together that it looked like the whole town was about to collapse in on itself. And the twisty, narrow cobblestone street snarled its way through it all.

The sun was setting again, and was just beginning to dip
behind the skyline, and, other than me, Nox, Ozma, and Bright, there wasn't a person in sight.

Nox looked at me, and saw me taking it all in. “I told you it was incredible,” he said. “The whole time I was lost, I was hoping I'd get to show it to you.”

It was the corniest thing I could ever imagine him saying. It was sweet, but it was unexpected.

He noticed my surprise, and looked a little embarrassed, but before he could say anything else, Bright interrupted our moment.

“Everyone loves the Beach of Misplaced Objects, obviously,” Bright said. “But the beach is for tourists. The city here—this is the real deal. This is where the
really
lost shit ends up.”

“Like us,” I mumbled. After everything, the fact that we had made our way here felt fitting. Even though we were looking for the door out, there was something about the place that felt like a final destination.

“You said it, not me,” Bright said. He leaned against a burned-out streetlamp, lit another cigarette, and regarded the streets, multicolored smoke wafting out into the dusk. “Let's try”—he let his index finger drift lazily through the air until it landed on a random point—“this way.”

“Why that way?” Nox asked. “What's that way?”

“Dunno,” Bright said. “Why not?”

He was already moving, headed toward the strip of storefronts facing the beach. He peered into a store that appeared, from the window display, to only stock old, broken doll parts, then shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “Not in there.”

“How long does it usually take you?” I asked. “To find the door?”

“Depends. One thing about always being lost is you get a lot of practice when it comes to finding your way home. But you never know. Sometimes it takes five minutes. Sometimes a week. Look, my track record is way better than most people's. You guys could look for the door for the rest of your lives and never quite get there. You're lucky you found me.”

I was still stuck on the numbers. “A
week
?” I asked. “I don't know if we really have that long.”

“Well, let's hope it doesn't take a week, then. I'm telling you, it's unpredictable. One time it took me something like a year to get back to the citadel. Polly was righteously pissed. I was like, dude, maybe try not making your damn glass castle so hard to find.”

“A
year
?” I asked incredulously.

Ozma, who had been silent since her earlier outburst, looked around and waved her newfound scepter. Suddenly I noticed an alleyway where there hadn't been one before, wedged between the doll shop and the place that sold the baby teeth. Maybe the suggestion spell Mombi had put in her ear was still at work.

Bright noticed the alley at the same time I did. “Well, what do you know?” he said. He cocked an eyebrow at Ozma. “I guess having a queen along for the ride has its uses.”

He turned sideways and squeezed himself through the gap between the buildings, which was so narrow I wasn't even sure he would fit. But he did, and when I squeezed in after him, it
turned out that it wasn't even as tight as it had appeared. When I looked over my shoulder, Nox was right behind me, with Ozma trailing behind us, her scepter slung over her shoulder.

“Do you really think we can trust this guy?” Nox whispered.

“What choice do we really have?” I responded.

We wove our way through the back alleys of the Lost City. Now and again, Bright would look inside a trash can or rap his fist a few times against a wall, checking for something I couldn't figure out.

I thought it was a little strange that Bright hadn't really asked us who we were, or why we were looking for Polychrome. Was it possible that he knew more about us than he was letting on? After all, he had recognized Ozma right off the bat.

Before I could worry about this any more, he stopped at the entrance to a nondescript office building. He looked up, examining the windows, and jiggled the knob.

“This one, I think,” he said. The door swung open.

The inside of the building was the complete opposite of the city outside. It was the kind of place you'd find in any crappy office park in Kansas, complete with an unmanned reception desk and a sad little ficus in the corner. It was clean, lit by flickering fluorescent lights, and smelled like air freshener.