The Wizard was having lunch with the Tin Woodman. Even their voices carried crystal clear through the magic of the painting. It was like watching one of those high-def TVs my mom always talked about putting on layaway. It made me nervous, knowing Dorothy had access to this kind of power. I wondered what the limits of her spying were.

I also wondered if I might be able to use this magic painting myself instead of relying on old-fashioned sneaking around.

“Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?” the Wizard asked casually, leaning back in his chair and buttering his scone.

The Tin Woodman looked up from oiling his joints with a scandalized expression. “I couldn’t possibly. I—”

In the solarium, Dorothy turned to Glinda and I yanked my head back behind the door frame. “He’s trying to turn him against me,” she hissed. “Listen to him.”

Glinda shook her head. “That’s not what it sounds like to me. It seems to me that they’re discussing a matter closer to our mutual friend’s stuffed heart.”

“No!” Dorothy groaned. “Not this again.”

I tentatively leaned in to see Glinda shrug, put a red-clawed finger to her red-painted lips, and point at the painting, where the Wizard was patting the Tin Woodman’s shoulder sympathetically. He tried to swat it away with one of his knife-tipped hands, but the Wizard jerked back just in time to avoid getting sliced.

“It’s useless,” the Tin Woodman said. “Everything I do, I do for her. And still, she will never love me the way I love her.”

I almost gave myself away by laughing out loud, but swallowed it just in time. The Tin Woodman was hopelessly in love with Dorothy!

Really, it wasn’t funny. It was sick. Well, okay, maybe it was a little funny.

Then I remembered what I knew about the Tin Woodman. He’d lost a love and accidentally chopped off his limbs with an enchanted ax. But what if the ax hadn’t been enchanted at all? What if the Tin Woodman was just a guy who was known for taking things too far in the name of love?

“Why not start small?” the Wizard was advising. “Ask her for one dance at the next ball. That couldn’t hurt, could it? And maybe it will lead to something else.”

The Tin Woodman’s forehead crumpled like aluminum foil, then smoothed itself out again as he considered the idea.

“Perhaps.”

“Ugh! It would literally hurt! He has knives for fingers,” Dorothy complained. She clapped her hands again and the painting changed to a motionless, pastel image of a sunny seascape. “Enough! Encouraging the Tin Woodman’s pathetic crush is treason. I could have the Wizard’s head for that.”

Glinda waved off the suggestion. “Oh, hush,” she said. “You can’t blame him for that. We’ve all found ourselves having those conversations with your metal admirer. He never changes the subject; it’s impossible not to encourage him. Anyway, we shouldn’t be rash. Remember when you disposed of the Wogglebug and then, a few months later, you wanted another?”

“I remember,” Dorothy grumbled begrudgingly.

“There were no more Wogglebugs. And there is only one Wizard.”

Dorothy conceded with a nod and a pout, but I wasn’t so sure. It looked like she might still prefer a world with no Wizard at all.

Glinda stood up. “Well, my dear . . .”

Glinda looked ready to leave, so that was my cue. I slipped away from the door and padded quietly down the hall. I wasn’t so bad at this spy stuff and I didn’t even have a magic painting. Now, I just needed to figure out what to do with everything I’d just learned.

In the banquet hall, scrubbing endlessly at the shiny marble floors, I had plenty of time to consider my next move.

I had so many questions. Why wasn’t the Wizard back in the real world where he belonged? Why didn’t Dorothy trust him? And what made him and his magic so dangerous that they couldn’t risk dealing with him?

But I wasn’t just thinking about what they’d talked about. I was also thinking about that picture, wondering exactly how far it could see. Nox had warned me about using magic, but I wouldn’t be casting anything, since the painting was already enchanted. It was probably safe, right?

I rushed through the rest of my cleaning. It wouldn’t be up to Jellia’s standards, but I didn’t care. I needed to do something. I’d been gathering information for three days and still didn’t have a concrete plan to get closer to Dorothy. I could keep playing maid and, in the meantime, let Dorothy go on murdering her enemies and disfiguring her allies, all the while wasting my days cleaning until I slipped up and got beheaded for the crime of Soap Scum. Or, I could take a risk, speed things up, and use her magic painting.

Yeah. Worth it.

I tiptoed back to the solarium. This time, it was empty.

I looked both ways down the corridor to make sure no one was coming, and crept into the room, approaching the picture. It had changed again. Now it was a painting of a quaint little cottage, like something you’d see in a dentist’s office.

I wasn’t sure it would work. The picture was probably just a normal painting without Dorothy’s magic to make it do its thing. Even so, I looked around nervously one more time, and then faced it.

“Magic picture,” I whispered, trying to mimic Dorothy’s sharp command, only quietly. “Show me—”

“Ahem.”

I’d been caught. Without thinking, without even turning around, and definitely without considering Nox’s warning about magic, I cast an invisibility spell. My cover was blown. Escape was now the only thing on my mind.