I had already changed, I knew. I was nothing like the girl in the trailer park, nothing like the girl who had arrived here in Oz. But was the transformation complete? I had a feeling that it wasn’t. When I killed Dorothy tonight, I would be someone different afterward. But who?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t picture it. Maybe I didn’t want to.

That day, as I went about my chores under the careful eye of Sindra, I watched in curiosity as the palace began to fill up with strange visitors. I saw Cayke the Cookie Cook—flanked by bodyguards—her diamond-studded dishpan laden with an assortment of baked goods, a gift for Dorothy. Polychrome, the Daughter of the Rainbow, floated down the hallway and then passed through a wall as if she were a ghost, leaving a misty, multicolored trail behind her. There was a giant frog in a three-piece suit and a top hat; a small, round hairy guy who looked kind of like a really angry troll.

At first I thought that was the baked-bean-loving Shaggy Man, until Sindra muttered something under her breath. “Wow,” she said. “The Nome King is getting fat.”

I wondered how many of these people actually liked Dorothy, and how many of them were here because they didn’t have any choice? Which ones were Order operatives? When everything went down tonight, would the giant frog guy have my back? Would I have to avoid getting clocked by a diamond-studded baking sheet? I wished Nox had given me some idea who our allies might be.

Were all of Dorothy’s guests as evil as she was, as corrupted as the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Tin Woodman? Or were they all just here to keep her happy, knowing that ignoring an official invite from Her Royal Highness was basically asking for a palace-mandated Attitude Adjustment?

It didn’t matter, I decided. I already knew my enemy. That was enough.

In the late afternoon, Sindra gathered a handful of us in the maids’ mess hall.

“All right, everyone,” she beamed, clapping her hands excitedly. “I’ve selected you lucky ones to be the waitstaff at the gala this evening. That means you get the rest of the day off to rest, wash up, and get it together! It’s the biggest night of your careers so don’t screw it up.”

It was the last night of my maid career, thank goodness. As the other maids tittered excitedly on their way back to our chambers, I broke off, ducking down a hallway before I even realized where I was going.

The solarium. I needed to do one thing before all this happened. Just in case it was the end.

I passed a half dozen Munchkins in bright-colored formal wear on the way, along with a pair of palace guards, but I kept my eyes straight ahead like I was seriously intent on getting some cleaning done, and no one stopped me.

The solarium was clear, so I shut the door behind me and approached the magic painting.

“Magic picture,” I said, quiet but firm, “show me my mom.”

It took the painting a moment, like it was having trouble tracking my mom down—what else is new?—but after a stressful few seconds where I worried she might be dead, the painting started to rearrange itself. The seascape gradually shifted to a giant room, possibly an auditorium or maybe a gym. Fluorescent lighting, folding chairs, and a crowd of people, none of whom I recognized.

This didn’t look like any of my mom’s usual haunts, and at first I wondered if the picture had somehow gotten confused and tuned into the wrong signal. Until the image panned to a table with a coffee urn and bags and bags of Bugles. That was when I knew my mom couldn’t be too far away.

There she was, elbow deep into a bag, but somehow managing to look classed up—at least compared to the last time I saw her. Her hair was smoothed into a sleek ponytail, her makeup tastefully applied. She was smiling as she spoke to a woman holding a Styrofoam cup.

“I just wish Amy could be here to see this.” In her palm, she held out a coin with the number six on it. Styrofoam Cup gave her a hug and a pat on her back.

“Six months sober,” she said. “I just wish it hadn’t taken losing everything I care about to get it.”

No matter how tough you think you are, there are certain things that just get to you, and they’re usually the little things. The ones you don’t expect.

I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. It was only one, but still. I couldn’t believe that Mom had changed so much.

It hurt my feelings a little, that she had done it all without my help, but it made me proud, too. Proud of her. Suddenly I missed her very badly.

Yet at the same time I didn’t want to go home. I wasn’t finished here. Just like my mom had changed, so had I. That place where she was—Kansas—didn’t feel like home anymore.

Mom had found purpose without me. And I had surprised myself by finding a purpose here.

I remembered what my mom had said about Madison Pendleton, about how bullies always got what was coming to them.

Tonight, I planned to prove her right.

Sindra was inappropriately excited considering just yesterday her predecessor’s arm had gotten hacked off.

“Isn’t Dorothy generous?” she asked as we all lined up in the back of the ballroom, waiting for the party to begin. “These new uniforms are just lovely. And so comfortable, too!”

I smiled and nodded. It was true that the smooth green satin of the dress we’d been instructed to wear for the party felt good against my skin, but I thought comfortable was a little extreme. For one thing, it was too short, and I kept having to stop to yank down the skirt to be sure my underwear wasn’t showing.

Since I’d last seen it this morning, the ballroom had been lavishly tricked out and transformed to the point where it was unrecognizable. A hundred ruby-red disco balls glittered against the dark, domed ceiling, but unlike the disco balls I knew from back home, these weren’t suspended by anything. They floated on their own, pulsing in time to the music and dipping and hovering and twirling like shiny beating hearts.