“I felt something strange,” Hex said quietly. “Back there, when I was trying to save Iris. I think it might have been something I’ve never felt before at all. Not even before, when I knew who I was.”

Pete was silent for a long time. “Selflessness,” he said finally. “That feeling’s called selflessness.”

Selflessness. Hex turned the word over in his mind. He’d cared about Iris’s well-being more than he’d cared about his own—maybe it was only for a few minutes, but it had opened something up inside him that felt different and new. He couldn’t undo the person he had been before, whoever that was, and whatever he’d done to make Pete feel such contempt for him. But he didn’t have to be tethered to that idea of himself either. The Wizard. The words still meant nothing, though they’d obviously meant something to Iris.

“When I was the Wizard,” he said. “You said I didn’t have real magic, just a bunch of flashy tricks. But when I fought the Lion . . .” He trailed off, not sure how to ask.

“That was magic,” Pete said. “The Old Magic of Oz. When you saved Iris, you tapped into it for the first time.”

“Can I do it again?” he asked. Pete sighed. “I know, I know,” Hex said hastily. “There’s so much you can’t tell me. Of course. But what I did back there—that was new?”

“Oz is changing fast,” Pete said. “And we’re all changing with it. Everything is going to be different now for all of us.” He looked at the dancing flames. “Get some rest,” he said. There was something new in his voice, something different. If Hex didn’t know better, he would have said it was respect. “You still have one more test to pass. And this one’s going to be the worst of them all.”

TEN

Hex expected Pete to leave him again in the morning, but to his surprise, Pete made the three of them a tasty breakfast of porridge and scrambled eggs—where he’d gotten the eggs, Hex didn’t ask—and showed no signs of departing after he had magicked away the breakfast dishes. The rest seemed to have done wonders for both he and Iris; Pete’s terrible pallor of the night before was gone, and though he moved stiffly, he had clearly regained most of his strength. Iris had a noticeable limp and difficulty moving one arm, but she babbled at them a mile a minute. The Lion had damaged her body, but he’d certainly done no permanent harm to her spirits.

Pete was mostly silent, and Hex couldn’t help but wonder what his sullen mood meant. Iris chattered on at them both about a new formula she had developed to track banana consumption by age, happily oblivious, and Hex was grateful for her cheer. She hadn’t forgiven him exactly for what he had done in Lulu’s palace, but since he had saved her life, she seemed somewhat appeased, and she’d apparently forgotten all about her plan to murder Hex in his sleep. (He seriously doubted she had ever been capable of such an act, anyway, as much as she wanted them to believe she was a ferocious warrior.) She’d given them a detailed rundown of the current political situation among the Wingless Ones: with Quentin’s treachery exposed, Lulu had been able to restore order among the rebel factions. The chancellor had been storing away most of the supplies he’d stolen, and Lulu was busy redistributing them among the poorest of the monkeys. Anyone else would have managed to report this news in a few sentences, but Iris was only too happy to go off on long digressions about statistical analysis, equations for determining equitable distribution of goods, and cost-benefit analyses. While Queen Lulu still credited the mysterious sorcerer with exposing the chancellor’s wrongdoing, Iris said, shooting Hex a menacing look, Iris herself had been promoted out of the guards to a management position as soon as he’d left, and couldn’t be happier about it.

“Now that everything’s settled with the Lion,” she said finally, “I should be getting back to the Wingless Ones. Lulu’s a great ruler, of course, but she doesn’t have a head for numbers. I’m badly needed back at the palace.” She puffed her chest importantly, and then winced.

“You shouldn’t travel alone,” Pete said. “You’re still hurt, and vulnerable.”

“I can take care of myself!” Iris said, immediately furious.

“The Lion may return at any time,” Pete said, and she deflated.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, and her bravado fell away. “I thought I was going to die back there,” she said softly.

“The Lion is far less likely to attack again if the three of us are together,” Pete said. “Especially now that he knows Hex is a match for him. And I think we got rid of the wolves for now. We’ll escort you back to the Sea of Blossoms. You should be safe enough the rest of the way to the queendom.”

Hex looked at Pete in surprise, but didn’t ask any questions. Was this part of his third test? And why was Pete sticking around? But Pete was as infuriatingly inscrutable as ever as they rolled up their blankets and prepared to leave. Pete suggested they fashion crutches for Iris, but she scoffed at the idea. Her indignation was so comical that even Pete cracked a smile.

At some point while they rested, the other path—the coward’s path, Hex thought—had disappeared, leaving them only one way out of the clearing. The trees were just as ominous, the weird perpetual twilight just as creepy, but Iris’s happy chatter lightened Hex’s mood, and it seemed as though they had only been walking for a few hours when the thorny underbrush thinned out and the trees began to grow farther and farther apart. Soon, real sunlight filtered down through the forest canopy, and at last they emerged, blinking, into a sunny meadow dotted here and there with huge, lush fruit trees that grew in tidy rows. A broad blue stream ran through the meadow, burbling merrily. The whole place was such a welcome contrast to the forest that Hex felt his heart lift immediately.