This all came as news to me. No one had told me the plan yet. “So I’m going to be going, like, undercover or something?” I asked, my mouth still half full of pastry. Glamora looked at me disapprovingly and didn’t answer my question.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Now, pour me a cup of tea.”

We spent the next few hours reviewing manners—certainly something I had zero experience with back home. How to walk, how to speak. How to serve. She taught me how to curtsy and even how to look at Dorothy.

While the lesson with Gert had been full of conversation, almost like hanging out with a friend, Glamora was all business, barely even pausing on one topic before she’d moved on to the next. By the time it was over, my head was swimming with what felt like useless information.

And there was going to be a lot more where that came from. As I was leaving, she handed me a stack of books—architecture, art, etiquette, and a couple of novels.

“Everyone in Oz under the age of two hundred has read these. We’ll discuss them all next time.” She sat back down at her vanity and turned away from me, toward the mirror. Her hairbrush picked itself up and began brushing her hair.

What was I going to do, challenge Dorothy to trivia? Bore her to death?

“All of these?” I asked incredulously. It would take me at least a month to read half of what she’d given me.

“You’ll manage,” Glamora said. “And one more thing. I don’t think you like me very much. And I know you don’t trust me. That’s a good thing. You shouldn’t trust me. But you shouldn’t trust anyone else here either. Every smile, every kind word—every cookie—it’s all done with one goal. And that’s a dead princess.”

“I know that,” I said defiantly. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that in Dorothy’s world, words like Good and Wicked are meaningless,” Glamora replied. As she ran her brush through her hair, it began to deepen in color, from fiery red to a deep, rich auburn. She smiled sweetly as she spoke, like she was trying to do me a favor.

I knew what she was doing. She was trying to shake my faith in Gert. But why?

“What is wrong with that woman?” I asked Nox as he escorted me to dinner on the night of my first lesson with Glamora. He took the books she’d given me and they dematerialized into thin air—I presumed back to my room where I could study them later.

He looked at me wryly. “You got yourself beat up and you’re learning how to do magic—but you’re mad about reading a couple of books?” He laughed. “Glamora should be the easiest part of your day.” But the corner of his mouth was turned up just barely in a way that suggested he knew exactly how difficult Glinda’s twin could be.

“There’s just something about her,” I said. “Something that creeps me out.”

“She’s Glinda’s twin,” he replied. “What do you expect? Imagine having your other half turn on you, and knowing that one day you’ll have to face her in battle.”

I stopped in the hallway. Nox turned to look at me, his face aglow from the tracks of fire that lit our way from above. There was the barest hint of impatience beneath his cool surface. I picked at it like a scab.

“Gert asked me who I was, but the truth is I don’t know who any of you are. Not really. And I don’t even know one detail of this big plan that supposedly hinges on me.”

“You don’t have to know every turn of the road in order to walk down it.”

“It would help to know the destination.”

“You do—we’re taking down Dorothy.”

“You know what I mean. Can’t you drop the good soldier crap for a second and just be a person?”

He paused for a second, as if seriously considering the question. Finally, he said, “Only Mombi and Gert know the whole plan. The rest of us only know pieces. That way if someone gets caught, all isn’t lost.”

“But what if—?” The sound of Glamora clinking a glass prevented me from asking more questions.

“Some stories aren’t mine to tell,” Nox said curtly. Then, as if feeling bad, he added, “Welcome to your first official dinner with the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.” And with that, he led me into the dining room.

The dining room was formal like Glamora. But spooky, too. The table was a round piece of slate suspended in air in the center of the cave. The walls were a warm chocolate brown with real live honeysuckle flowers growing all over. The table was set with black china. Another upside-down tree was suspended over the table.

Mombi, Gert, and Glamora were already seated.

Nox nodded toward a chair and then took the one next to it. I sat down nervously.

I hadn’t had a sit-down dinner with my mom since I was twelve. Our trailer only had a foldout table that Mom had covered with tabloids and unpaid bills.

Gert mumbled a few words under her breath, and our glasses filled with red liquid. I guessed if we were old enough to fight, we were old enough to drink wine.

The plate in front of me was again piled with green goo. At least I had a reason to appreciate Glamora now. Her tea parties might be the only appetizing food I’d be getting from here on out.

“Well . . . how did our girl do?” Mombi asked, looking at me.

“She had absolutely no manners,” said Glamora crisply, all too eager to answer first. “Whatever they were teaching her on that tin farm, they should be ashamed.”