Ollie replied with a toothy grin that would’ve put even the most habitual PermaSmile users to shame.

“Amy the Outlander! But how . . . ?”

Ollie sprung off me and I rose to my feet. Before I was even all the way up, the monkey’s strong, furry arms were wrapped tight around my waist—so tight I could barely breathe.

“I’m sorry I ran off on you,” he panted. “It wasn’t my best moment.”

“It’s okay, Ollie.” I patted him on the head and he slowly released me, stepping back and looking me up and down. “Where have you been?” I asked. “How did you get away?”

“I made it to the Dark Jungle,” he said. “There’s a group of Wingless Ones there, and they’ve started a small resistance among the animals.”

“Like the Order,” I said, musing out loud.

He shook his furry head. “No,” he said sharply. “Not like the Order.”

“What’s wrong with the Order?” I asked in surprise.

“They can’t be trusted. What’s the difference between a wicked witch and an evil princess? Are you working with them?”

“There’re a lot of differences,” I said defensively. He looked at me suspiciously. “They trained me. They taught me magic. I can fight now. I’m going to change things. We could join forces and—”

“Never,” he cut me off firmly. “We recognize what the Order is doing. But we have been enslaved too many times. We have known witches and wizards, and we will not be bound to anyone.”

Bound. I was bound, too—Mombi had used that very word to describe it. But that wasn’t why I was here. I was no one’s slave, and I was acting of my own free will.

Wasn’t I?

I let the question go for now.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “Are you looking for your parents?”

“My parents would turn me over to Dorothy the second they saw me.”

“Then why?” I waved at our surroundings, thinking of their sadistic owner. “You know you’re nuts breaking in here, right?”

“I don’t have a choice,” Ollie replied. “It’s my sister. Maude. She’s here somewhere. The Scarecrow has her.”

“Is your sister . . . ?”

He answered my question before it was out of my mouth. “She’s a traitor, too—one of the ones who kept their wings. But she’s still my sister. I can’t let him have her. I can’t let him . . .” His eyes glistened as his voice trailed off.

I knelt down to Ollie’s level and grabbed his hands in mine. I squeezed them tight. “What does he want from her?” I asked urgently.

“I don’t know,” Ollie replied. “The Wingless Ones have our spies in the palace, but all they were able to tell us is that she was taken. That the Scarecrow has plans for her.”

“What kind of plans?” I asked, thinking of the big experiment the Scarecrow was hard at work on.

Ollie looked down at his little red patent-leather slippers. They matched mine, right down to the square, gold buckles.

“Maude was always special,” he said slowly. “A genius. The smartest monkey our kind had ever seen. Maybe smarter than the Scarecrow himself. It’s possible . . .”

“He wants her brains,” I said.

Ollie nodded, shaking loose from my hands and clenching his fists. “She tried to convince me to stay—to keep my wings and become Dorothy’s slave. She thought that compromising was our best chance for survival. For the first time in our lives, I was right and she was wrong. Those who have sacrificed always have the most to lose,” he said.

Frustrated, Ollie pounded his fists against the floor, stirring up loose pieces of straw. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him everything was going to be okay. But how could I? For all I knew, Maude could already be dead, her liquefied brains jammed into one of the Scarecrow’s needles.

Then something else occurred to me. Those who have sacrificed always have the most to lose.

“Ollie,” I began carefully. “What does that mean? That thing you just said.”

He looked at me blankly. “That is the motto of the Wingless Ones,” he said. “To remind us how much we have sacrificed for others, and how much we have lost because of it. It reminds us that compromise is death—that we must remain free.”

I let the words roll over in my head. Where had I heard them before?

Then I knew: the Wizard had used that exact phrase. It hadn’t made any sense at the time—I’d had no idea what he was talking about. He had hinted that something terrible was going on in the lab. He had used the motto of the Wingless Ones. He had been trying to tell me something. But why? Whatever his reason, it definitely wasn’t a coincidence.

Ollie paced across the Scarecrow’s floor, gazing into the distance. “The last time I saw Maude, Dorothy had just handed down my punishment. She allowed the Winged Ones to confront me before I was taken to the field, to be strung up. Maude spit in my face and told me that she hoped my punishment would improve my thinking.”

He winced as he told the story. I knew the feeling. Every unkind thing my mom had ever said to me was etched in my memory, too.

“Ollie—”

“My point is, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that she abandoned me. She’s my sister. I won’t abandon her. I need to find her. I don’t care what the risk is.”