Yellow Brick War (14 page)

As I watched helplessly, Glinda's form dissolved into pink light, flowing upward into Glamora's arms. Glamora's body rose slowly into the air, revolving in a pink cloud of power. Her mouth was open in a silent scream, her eyes staring outward sightlessly. “Glamora!” I cried, lunging forward. And then a final flash of pink light exploded outward, knocking me backward with a huge boom.

“Are you okay?” Nox was at my side, helping me to my feet. I nodded, too winded to speak. Only one witch lay crumpled on the ground. The other one was gone.

We started at the inert body curled up on the bloody dirt. I kept my knife at the ready as we tiptoed toward it. Nox gave the body a shove with his foot, and the woman flopped over on her back.

At first, I didn't know
who
I was looking at. Her eyes were closed, but the rise and fall of her chest told us she was still alive.
Her skin was flawless porcelain, with neither Glamora's gaping scar nor Glinda's ugly new wound. Her golden hair tumbled around her, as clean as if she'd just washed it. And she was completely, totally naked.

There was something tragic about seeing her like that. Someone like Glamora, for whom manners were everything.

“Give me your shirt,” I ordered Nox.

“My what?”

“Your
shirt
, idiot.” I tugged at the garment in question. Slowly, comprehension dawned and he tugged it over his head, his muscles rippling. He cleared his throat and I realized my mouth was hanging open.

Blushing, I grabbed his shirt and threw it over Glamora. If it
was
Glamora.

“We have to figure out what just happened,” Nox said. “If that's Glinda . . .”

“I saw Glinda disappear,” I said. “At least, I think that's what I saw. It was like they just fused into a single person somehow.”

“I'll stand guard over her in case she wakes up,” he said. “Why don't you make sure everyone else is safe.”

“Already a step ahead of you,” Mombi said, coming up behind us with Gert close on her heels. Melindra was behind them. I didn't see Annabel, or most of the other fighters who'd come to the castle with them.

“Annabel?” I asked, and Melindra shook her head, her face full of sorrow. Next to me, Nox caught his breath.

“Annabel and I have known each other since . . .” He trailed
off, his voice catching, and bowed his head. I could hear Lulu barking orders somewhere nearby.

“I am so sorry, Nox,” I said. There was an extra layer of guilt there because I had never liked her. And now she was gone.

“We've had heavy casualties,” Mombi said grimly. “Lost a lot of the monkeys and most of our fighters. But the battle's over now. Most of Glinda's soldiers ran for the hills when Glamora took her out, but the monkeys are rounding up the remaining few.”

“What about Dorothy's army?” I asked. Mombi scoffed.

“The survivors are helping the monkeys,” Gert said quietly. “They were enslaved by Dorothy's magic, but they aren't evil. Her magic isn't strong enough anymore to control them from a distance. Most of them are just farmers and peasants the Woodman kidnapped and imprisoned before he died.” Her voice was full of sorrow.
So much suffering
, I thought. And none of it was necessary.

“No time for tears in a war,” Mombi said gruffly, “We'll have to face Dorothy again, but we've got more pressing problems to deal with for the time being.” She hunched over the inert witch lying in front of us, holding out her hands to Nox and Gert. “Join the circle,” she snapped, and Nox and Gert obeyed, kneeling beside her. The three of them closed their eyes, holding their linked hands over the witch's sleeping body. A soft, golden glow formed a cloud over the three cloaked figures. Mombi murmured a long string of syllables, and the golden cloud seemed to respond to her voice, gently probing the sleeping figure's body
and face. At last, Mombi let out a long sigh and released Nox's and Gert's hands, opening her eyes. There was a strange expression on her face that I didn't know how to read.

“It's her,” she said. “It's Glamora. She did it. She won.” Slowly, the cloud sank into the sleeping witch's chest, until she began to glow with the same yellow light.

“Rejoin us, sister,” Gert said. “Rejoin the Order. Rise with the Wicked.” The sleeping witch opened her eyes.

“Welcome back, Glamora,” Mombi said. “You defeated Glinda.”

After everything that had happened, I'd kind of forgotten about Pete and Ozma. We found them playing a game of checkers that Ozma had improvised out of pebbles and bits of armor in the Tin Woodman's throne room, still in their chains. Nox leapt forward, and for a second I thought he was going to hit Pete in the face. Not that I'd have stopped him—although technically, I was the one who should have been punching Pete. He'd clocked me in the face before he'd summoned Glinda and gotten Polychrome killed.

“Checkers?” Nox growled. “Are you serious? People
died
out there.”

“I thought it was a good idea to keep her quiet and hidden,” Pete said miserably, glancing at Ozma. We all stood in silence looking at each other while Ozma burbled happily, moving around her rocks and bits of metal. Pete looked haggard and anxious. His green eyes blazed in his thin face and his dark hair
was even shaggier. But Ozma looked perfectly serene. As Oz's magic had returned, she'd had more and more flashes of clarity, and in the past there were moments where I had almost been able to reach through to her. I remembered the vision of her that Polychrome had revealed, serene and regal and powerful. But that Ozma was still lost somewhere and we had no idea how to bring her back.

“I'm sorry,” Pete said. “I can't ask you to forgive me for what I did. But maybe you can understand. Polychrome was going to kill me. I didn't have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Nox said. He was right. But somehow, I felt my anger dissipating as I saw the guilt and pain on Pete's face. He'd always been a mystery, but he'd helped me so many times in Oz. Was what he'd done really so much worse than anything I'd have done in his place to stay alive?

“Leave him alone,” I said. Nox glanced at me, startled.

“Checkmate!” Ozma said happily, sweeping the checkers pieces off the board.

“Checkmate is in chess, Ozma,” Pete said gently, stooping to pick up the pieces. He seemed almost brotherly, with a protective note in his voice.

“Can you tell what she's thinking?” I asked. Pete shook his head.

“The connection is completely broken. I don't think she has any idea who I am.”

Nox tugged on my arm and leaned into me. “Why are you so
willing to let him off the hook?” Nox asked in a low voice. “He betrayed us.”

“Glinda's defeated, so he can't betray us to her again,” I pointed out. “And somehow my spell separated Ozma and Pete permanently. If we don't have a reason to kill him, he doesn't have a reason to turn against us.”

“You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here,” Pete said, standing up as Ozma cheerfully set up the checkers board again. “Look, Amy's right. I shouldn't have summoned Glinda, but it was the only thing I could think of at the time that could have kept me alive. I had no idea she would kill Polychrome or destroy Rainbow Falls.”

“You could have done a hundred different things,” Nox said coldly. “Instead you got people killed. People like Annabel. Polychrome
would
still be alive.”

I sighed. “Nox, I don't trust Pete, but I don't think he can harm us anymore. Even if he could contact Dorothy, he doesn't have any reason to.”

“Kindness can be a weakness, too,” Nox said, not taking his eyes off Pete.

“That's not what you've been telling me,” I said. “All along, you said it was the thing that made me different.” I couldn't say why I wanted to spare Pete. Nox was right: so far, kindness had done nothing but get me nearly killed in Oz. But if Oz's magic was changing me into some kind of monster, maybe my willingness to forgive Pete was proof that it hadn't swallowed me up entirely.

Relief flooded Pete's face. “You mean you'll just let me go?”

“Not so fast,” I told him. “I might be willing to keep Nox from killing you, but that doesn't mean I want you around. You've been basically nothing but trouble since the day I showed up in Oz.”

“I saved you when you were in Dorothy's prison!” he protested.

“That was a
long
time ago,” I said. “Anyway, you didn't save me—Mombi did.”

At the sound of Mombi's name, Pete grimaced. I knew there was no love lost between him and the witch who'd enchanted him in the first place. Mombi probably had motives of her own when it came to Pete, and I didn't want to deal with them. My life was complicated enough as it is. “I want you to leave,” I said. “Like, now. For good. I don't ever want to see you again. Is that clear?”

Pete looked at me for a long time, his dark eyes thoughtful. Once upon a time, I'd felt something for him. But that was long gone. Now he was just trouble.

“It's clear,” he said finally.

“Good,” I said. I turned to Nox. “I can help you set them free. The shoes will protect me.” I sounded a lot more confident than I felt.

Nox looked like he wanted to protest, but he only nodded. He closed his eyes, raising his hands and resting them on Pete and Ozma's chains for a second time. Whatever I'd told Nox, I didn't trust the shoes completely yet. I'd leave the bulk of the magic
up to him. But I knew he wasn't strong enough to free Pete and Ozma alone.

Nox grunted with the effort of sustaining the spell. I put my hands over his, concentrating hard on my magic boots.
Help me,
I asked them.
Help me help Nox.
I could feel them respond, the magic within them humming to life. And I could feel Oz's magic, too—the dark, dangerous pull of more power than I could handle, urging me to just let go, reminding me of how good it felt to be consumed by magic, transformed into an unstoppable monster. I concentrated instead on the shoes, willing the darkness to stay back. I could feel its disappointment as if it was a living thing.

Nox gave a final gasp, and Pete and Ozma's chains shattered into harmless pink fragments. I slumped backward in relief.
That was close
, I thought. Maybe too close. Were the shoes on my side? Or was the feeling of safety they gave me some trick of the Nome King's?

Nox saw my face. “Are you okay? What happened? And you said something before about the shoes somehow letting you be able to kill Dorothy?”

“I'm fine,” I said. “I was right. The shoes can protect me from the effects of Oz's magic. I don't want to push my luck, but I can use magic if it's necessary. And yeah—whatever was binding me to Dorothy before—the shoes have undone.” Nox shook his head, but he didn't reply. I knew he thought I was wrong, that magic was too much of a risk. I knew, too, that there was a strong possibility he was right.

“Get out of here,” he said to Pete. “And if I see you again . . .” He trailed off, but the threat was clear.

“Do you want to teleport me away, or should I use the door?” There was no mistaking the note of sarcasm in Pete's voice—or the hurt.

“The door is fine,” I said. Pete's eyes met mine, his expression unreadable and his mouth set. I wondered if I'd just made us a new enemy.

Pete turned and hugged Ozma close. Her eyes opened wide, and for a second I saw a spark of clarity. “Checkmate,” she murmured, burrowing into his shoulder. Pete closed his eyes, stroking her long dark hair, before pushing her away gently. “Take care of her,” Pete said to us. He half raised one hand as if to wave, and then shrugged helplessly and dropped it. Before he turned away I saw that his eyes were filling with tears.

“Good-bye, Pete,” I said quietly. I watched his back recede across the long, dusty hall.

“I hope we're not going to regret this,” Nox said quietly.

“So do I.”

“Checkers?” Ozma asked, pointing to the board.

That night, a mournful group of the Wicked filled the Tin Woodman's palace. Four beat-up, exhausted witches, a handful of battered soldiers, a half-tin girl, an unusually quiet army of monkeys, and me.

I looked out over my friends and companions as Nox and Mombi conjured up a simple meal of bread, cheese, and water. Battle-hardened and weary, we were all filthy, bloody, and bruised. I wasn't even sure if we had won. And Dorothy was still alive somewhere, waiting to strike again. It was too much to think about. I remembered Annabel's smile, her long red hair, and squeezed my eyes against the tears I could feel coming. I wondered if I'd ever see the day where I could leave the war behind. Somehow, the brief moment in Kansas where I'd been able to pretend I was just a normal girl again made everything else worse.

All the witches were subdued. Nox had disappeared soon
after we'd finished eating, and I let him go. Glamora was barely coherent after her battle with Glinda, and sat out the celebration, huddled in a corner of the Tin Woodman's old throne room wrapped in a blanket and nursing a mug of foul-smelling tea that Lulu insisted was restorative (I hoped it wasn't made out of the same stuff as the monkeys' artisanal napalm). The most seriously injured monkeys rested with her.

I was worried about Glamora. She seemed more than just tired—she seemed like a zombie. I thought of the monster I had turned into, and I wondered if the spell Glamora had cast to transform herself had made her lose some piece of her humanity.

“She'll be fine,” Gert said, interrupting my thoughts. She was seated next to me at the banquet hall's long table, and she'd been quiet for most of dinner. “She just needs to rest. Glinda was one of the most powerful witches in Oz. It's impossible to fight someone that strong without coming out of the battle a little worse for wear.”

As if she could read my mind, too, Mombi waddled over to us. “There's no time to rest,” she said. “We have to plan our next move.” Gert nodded, and went to get Glamora and Melindra.

I looked around the hall, where monkeys curled up into sleepy balls. Lulu was already snoring loudly at the table. But there was no rest for the Wicked, I thought ruefully. I followed Gert, Mombi, and Glamora upstairs.

This time we found a small chamber with a few unbroken chairs instead of hanging out in the Tin Woodman's bedroom, which made me grateful. Sure, he was dead, and he hadn't lived
in this palace since before I'd come to Oz, but it was hard not to see that creepy cabinet where he slept without thinking of all the horrible things he'd done to people I cared about. Starting with Indigo, my very first few hours in Oz, the Munchkin who the Tin Woodman had tortured to death in front of me after we'd helped the wingless monkey Ollie escape. People who helped me out tended to get hurt in Dorothy's Oz, I thought suddenly. By now, the list was long. Indigo. Ollie. Polychrome and Heathcliff. Jellia. Even Pete, although it was harder to feel sorry for him.

Mombi wasn't going to give me any time for moping. She closed her eyes and snapped her fingers as soon as the rest of us sat down, and after a minute Nox shuffled into the room. Being connected to the Quadrant had a lot of drawbacks. Pure power on the one hand, being summoned like a dog when you wanted time alone on the other.

“Let's get down to business,” Mombi said gruffly. “The landscape has shifted a little, to say the least. That tends to happen a lot around here, doesn't it?”

“Dorothy's power is eating her alive,” Gert answered. “And Glinda is the one who was helping her. But from what Amy discovered in Kansas, it seems more and more possible that the Nome King has been moving against us all along. It's entirely possible that he brought Amy to Oz once he realized that Dorothy would be swallowed up by its magic. And now that Glinda's dead—”

“
Is
Glinda dead?” Nox interrupted, staring at Glamora. “How do we know for sure?”

“The spell I performed on the battlefield would have found any traces of Glinda if she still remained in Glamora,” Mombi said.

Glamora smiled gently. “It's me, Nox, I promise. But the final battle with my sister has given me important information that will factor into our plans. I was able to see inside her mind in those last moments, and I know why Dorothy and Glinda's paths diverged.” She looked at me. “But I'm not the only one with a connection to our enemies, am I, Amy? You have Dorothy's shoes. You can tap into their power to see what Dorothy's planning next.”

“No!” Nox said immediately, jumping to his feet. “It's not safe. We've covered this already. I don't care what Amy says about the shoes protecting her—she can't use magic in Oz.”

“I'm right here,” I said sharply. “I can speak for myself. I also have news—I can kill Dorothy. The shoes seem to have broken whatever link we had.”

Glamora smiled again, her blue eyes glittering. “Why don't I start by telling you what I saw in Glinda's mind,” she said.