But she’d given me the shoes. And maybe her reasons hadn’t been entirely—or remotely—aboveboard, but possession is nine-tenths of the law. I knew the shoes couldn’t come off my feet—which meant that if the Nome King wanted them, he had to have me, too. Inadvertently, Glinda had given me my first bargaining chip. I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted them for, but I knew exactly how powerful they were.

If I could figure out how to get my magic back before he could get the shoes, I’d be in an even better position to bargain with him. And maybe, just maybe, I could turn this situation to both our advantages—assuming the Nome King behaved like enough of a gentleman to convince me of the value of generosity. Otherwise, the only advantage I’d be taking into consideration would be my own. Fair is fair, after all.

It might take some figuring out, but if Glinda’s shoes were powerful enough to take me from Kansas back to Oz, they had to be adequate when it came to zipping me across the Deadly Desert and back where I belonged.

I’d been ruminating in the bathwater for long enough. Aunt Em always used to say that action is the best course of action. Okay, she never actually said that, but she would’ve definitely agreed with me that keeping myself alive was first priority. I was officially in survival-of-the-fittest mode. Whatever it took, I was going to get out of the Nome King’s clutches.

But a tiny voice nagged at the back of my mind. I’d never met anyone like him. Not in Oz. Not in Kansas. I’d never met anyone who made me feel so . . .

Challenged. Alive. On my toes.

And it was a feeling I liked.

Maybe even a feeling I could love.

“Bring me a towel, Bupu!” I declared. “Mistress is putting her dress on now.” I sloshed out of the tub and dried myself off.

Time to pick out the least awful of the Nome King’s dresses. Looking good was the best armor a girl could put on.

EIGHT

I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “Dorothy’s alive? But we dropped a whole palace on her. There’s no way she could have survived that. We barely got out ourselves.”

Lang shrugged. “She didn’t have to survive it. The Nome King was waiting all along for the right opportunity. He tunneled under the Deadly Desert into the Emerald Palace years ago. He knew exactly when the palace began to fall, and he got her out of there before you’d even cleared the castle walls. She’s been in Ev for days.”

I didn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. I hadn’t meant to let Dorothy live. I just hadn’t been able to kill her myself. I thought of Lulu’s face after the Emerald Palace fell, when I’d told her I hadn’t been able to bring myself to kill Dorothy. The way Lulu looked at me as though I’d personally betrayed her.

And, in a way, I had. Killing Dorothy was why I’d been brought to Oz in the first place. It was the first, most important—and, ultimately, the only—task I’d been given. It was why I’d trained so hard, learned magic, learned how to fight.

I’d thought it was compassion that had made me leave Dorothy when the palace fell.

But if Dorothy was still alive, it was more like failure.

Except that some part of me had known there was a chance Dorothy might survive. Which mean that some part of me believed I didn’t have to kill her to save Oz. What if that was what Lurline had meant when she’d told me to find another way?

Was I a failure—or was I still Oz’s only hope?

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought I was the only one who could kill Dorothy. Isn’t that why you brought me to Oz in the first place?” I asked Nox.

Lang snorted. “You’re not that special,” she said. “Dorothy might be from the Other Place, but she’s still human. And you don’t seem to have gotten the job done, so maybe it’s time for someone else to take over.”

I bristled. Just because I knew I’d failed didn’t mean I was up for this crazy witch telling me where to go. But before I could snap back at her, Nox interrupted hastily.

“What’s the Nome King up to?” Nox asked.

Lang shot him a murderous look, as if she was offended he’d even opened his mouth. There was some seriously bad blood there.

And then it hit me. It was so obvious, I don’t know why it took me so long. Langwidere had been in the Order—or, at least, she knew Nox and Mombi. Had the Road of Yellow Brick dumped us in Ev for the world’s most awkward reunion with Nox’s ex?

“I don’t know yet,” she said coolly. “But it’s not your problem. I don’t know why the road brought you here either, but I have no use for you. You can rest here for a day or two, but after that, go on your way.”

“We don’t know what our way is, Lanadel,” Nox said in frustration.

“That’s not my name anymore,” she snapped.

“Uh, it seems kind of obvious?” Madison interrupted. “Everybody wants to kill this Dorothy chick, right? So . . .”

“So let us help you,” I finished, seeing exactly where she was headed. “Like I said, that’s why the Order came to me in the first place. There’s no reason for you to fight Dorothy alone.”

This time both Nox and Lang looked at me in surprise.

“Dorothy is everybody’s problem,” I pointed out. “And we’ve been fighting her for a long time without, frankly, a whole lot of success. What makes you think you can take her on your own?”

Lang frowned. “Exactly,” she said. “You weren’t strong enough. So why would I want your help?”

Now was definitely not the time to mention that I could have killed Dorothy but hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. That being Wicked was one thing, but it wasn’t the same as being good. That no matter what Dorothy had done in the past, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to murder her when she was defenseless.

I remembered what it had felt like to stand over Dorothy in the cave underneath the Emerald Palace. She’d been vulnerable and weak; I’d been strong and powerful. I’d had the perfect opportunity to end it then and there. She’d murdered hundreds of people, including plenty of people I cared about. She’d almost destroyed Oz with her insane quest for power. And I still couldn’t bring myself to do it.

And the truth was, I wasn’t sure I could do it now. Because if I did, that would make me just like her. And if I killed her, would it really end there? And what if Oz’s magic warped me so much that I became just as evil in her place?

Nox had told me once that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I turned into a monster. But a lot had happened between us since then. If I did start to become a monster like Dorothy, corrupted by the magic of Oz, what if he couldn’t bring himself to do it? What if, deep down, the only difference between me and Dorothy was that Oz’s magic had twisted her into something unrecognizable?

But I knew Dorothy had to be stopped, whether that meant killing her or finding another way to defeat her. And I also knew there was no way Lang, whoever she was, could do it on her own. She needed us, whether she liked it or not. And I was going to find a way to convince her.

Whatever it took.

I looked up. Lang was staring at me as if she could read my mind. Suddenly I really hoped she didn’t have Gert’s power to listen in on people’s thoughts.