“You ungrateful little traitor,” he said, his voice dripping with hate. “I made you what you are. How dare you betray me?”

“You didn’t make me into anything,” Lang snarled through teeth gritted against the pain. She closed her eyes, screaming something I couldn’t catch. As I watched in horror, her whole hand began to smoke. I realized, too late, what she was doing.

“Don’t do it!” I screamed as her hand caught fire. The Nome King reached for her, but it was too late. The flesh of her hand blackened, sizzled, and peeled away, revealing charred bone and bloody gristle. The Nome King’s bracelet slid off her mangled wrist and fell to the ground.

“I’m free,” she said, panting. Her eyes were wild. The pain had to be unbearable. But Lang’s determination wouldn’t quit. “You can’t hurt me anymore,” she yelled. “No one can hurt me anymore.” There was no mistaking the triumph in her voice now. She sounded exultant.

I wondered what she could have been in a different world. A world that didn’t demand this kind of sacrifice. A world that didn’t punish people for resisting tyranny. A world that didn’t hurt you every chance it got.

It was too late for Lang. And now I would never know either.

The Nome King summoned another, enormous cloud of magic that hovered in the air above him, crackly with mystic fury.

He’s going to kill her, I thought desperately. This close, there was no way he could miss.

But maybe I could still help her defend herself.

“Let me combine my magic with yours!” I screamed.

She just ignored me. The rippling nimbus over the Nome King’s head glowed red-hot as the magic gathered into a single spear of jittery red light. He sent it hurtling toward her at the very second she lunged forward.

She was reaching for the knife at his belt. Her fingers closed around the handle as the bolt slammed into her body. She screamed—the most awful scream of pain I’d ever heard, and she crumpled against him.

He grabbed the front of her costume and held her aloft. I watched helplessly. “You think you can use my own weapon against me?” The Nome King cackled triumphantly, laughing at her limp form.

Lang’s head lolled to the side and she looked at me. She was smiling. “Take care of Nox,” she said to me. And then Langwidere buried the Nome King’s knife in his chest to the hilt. Somehow she had managed to pull it from its sheath with her good hand. The metal flared with dark magic and burned into her palm, but she didn’t let go.

A tremendous boom echoed through the cavern, knocking me to the ground with its force. Everything in the ballroom froze: the Diggers attacking the guests, the guests fleeing the Diggers, the very air itself seemed to hold its breath. The Nome King’s mouth dropped open in a round O of surprise. He brought one hand to his chest, looking down at the hilt protruding from it in shock.

“My own knife,” he whispered. “You little traitor.”

And then he toppled slowly backward and hit the ground with a thud.

I crawled forward to where Langwidere had collapsed on the dais.

Nox leapt onto the platform, with Madison close behind him He crouched over Lang’s body, her breathing fast and shallow.

“How did you know that would work?” I asked her.

“I didn’t.” She grimaced; I realized she was trying to smile. “Glad it did.”

“We have to get help,” Nox said to Lang. “You’re hurt. We have to get you back to the boat.”

Lang’s eyes were glazing over with pain.

“I’m not hurt,” she whispered. “I’m dying.”

“Don’t say that,” Nox said desperately.

She coughed weakly. “You never could handle the truth.” Her eyes rolled toward me. “You’re a good fighter, Amy. Now go find that bitch Dorothy and write my name with her blood.”

I grabbed her hand. “I swear I will.”

She smiled up at me, her eyelids closing. “And tell Melindra,” she gasped, fighting for breath. “Tell her I said . . .”

But she never finished the sentence. As I watched, the rise and fall of her chest slowed. And then it stopped.

“She’s gone,” Nox whispered. His eyes were brimming over with tears. I wiped away my own.

And then I looked around.

Dorothy and her little servant were gone.

We were alone.

TWENTY-ONE

“Grief later,” I said, pulling Nox to his feet before he had time to let it all sink in. “We have to stop Dorothy and end this once and for all.”

We raced down the narrow passage behind the Nome King’s throne. I hoped that Madison was somewhere behind us, but now I could only worry about Dorothy.

We’d only been on the platform for moments; she couldn’t have gotten too far. When I listened hard, I could even hear the echo of her footsteps, somewhere in the distance. We followed the twisting, turning hallway down innumerable branches and forks, and I had an odd certainty—for reasons I didn’t totally understand—that we were gaining on her.

I was struck with déjà vu from the very first time I’d tried to kill her, when I’d chased her through the halls of the Emerald Palace, before the Tin Woodman came to her rescue. They say history repeats itself. I just hoped the ending was better this time.

Then the passage dead-ended at last in a large chamber, its walls covered floor to ceiling in bookshelves. Dorothy and her strange little servant—still dressed as a bush—were backed up against a shelf piled high with volumes bound in what looked an awful lot like human skin.

She’d taken a wrong turn, I realized. Now she was trapped.

There were three of us. There was one of her.

She realized her mistake at the same moment I did.

“Dammit,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I should have made a map.” She looked at my feet with a hateful expression. “I see you still have my shoes,” she said.

“They’re nobody’s shoes,” I said cautiously. My magic was still weak, but so was hers. If her defenses were down, plain old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat might do the trick where magic couldn’t. “If anything, they belong to Lurline.”

Lurline, I thought. If there was ever a good time to make a surprise appearance, now would be it. Lurline, I thought at my shoes. Tell me what I need to do. Please.

“Lurline,” Dorothy said, rolling her eyes. “Whatever. Glinda gave them to me. No take-backs.”

“And now you have a new pair,” I pointed out. “So you don’t need these.” That was all it took to set her off: Dorothy threw herself at me like a little kid who’d been told Christmas had been canceled, spitting and screeching, and we fell to the floor. She raked her nails down my face, leaving long, bloody tracks, while her servant battered at my calves with a book. Nox was trying to pull Dorothy off me; Madison hit her over the head with an inkwell. But Dorothy was like a force of nature, unstoppable in her rage.

“Why won’t you just . . . leave . . . me . . . alone!” she screamed, banging my head into the floor with every word until I saw stars. I elbowed her hard in the jaw and she gasped in pain but didn’t relax her grip.

“Lurline, tell me what to do!” I yelled.