“Amy, talk to me,” he said. “Please.”

“Forget it,” I snapped.

Glamora being Glamora, she’d also summoned a Pottery Barn’s worth of beautiful, soft carpets, heavy throw pillows, decorative tapestries, and a big antique-looking wooden table where the witches were conjuring up a meal. I remembered the handkerchief that Lulu had given me—the one that had created Glinda’s version of the same tent. In some ways, the sisters were uncannily alike. Glamora’s special touches even included the same votive candles and arrangements of flowers as Glinda’s. I wondered, not for the first time, how two people so alike could have possibly turned out so different. Were there other ways the sisters were similar? I’d thought foolishly that I’d been safe in Glinda’s tent. Maybe Glamora’s was just as dangerous.

“Amy,” Glamora said gently, “why don’t you come get something to eat?” I ignored the expression on Nox’s face as I turned my back on him and followed her to the table. What did he expect from me? The silk of the tent rustled and I knew he’d slipped outside, which made me even angrier. It was bad enough that he hadn’t told me what was going on. But refusing to face me afterward? That was worse.

Mombi, Gert, and Glamora were already sitting around the table over plates of food. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, but I wasn’t hungry.

“How can you just sit there?” I exploded. “How is Gert still alive? What just happened back there? What are we doing in Kansas, and how do we get back to Oz? This is Kansas, right? Is that why I can’t use magic?” Mombi put down her fork and looked at me.

“You can’t use magic?”

“No,” I said. “Not here. It’s just . . . gone, somehow. But that’s not the point. You owe me answers.”

Gert sighed. “You’re right, it’s probably time.”

“It’s way past time,” I said.

Gert chuckled. “That’s my girl. No beating around the bush, our Amy.”

“I’m not anybody’s girl,” I said. “I’m tired of being jerked around. You obviously know a lot more than I do about what’s going on here.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Gert said. “But I do understand your confusion, and I’m sorry you feel hurt. I know all this has been difficult for you.”

“It would be a lot less difficult for me if you would just tell me what the hell is going on!” I yelled. I’d been through so much, and still hadn’t managed to kill Dorothy. Tears started to fall and I cried. I cried because Nox, possibly my only friend, probably wasn’t such a great friend after all. I cried for poor Polychrome, who’d I’d watched die trying to fight Glinda, and I cried for her dead unicorn. I cried for Star, my mom’s pet rat, who the Lion had swallowed whole in front of me. I cried for all the friends I’d lost already in this stupid, senseless, never-ending yellow brick war. And maybe, just maybe, I cried a little for myself, too. When I was done I lifted my tearstained face to find Gert, Glamora, and Mombi looking at me with eyes full of concern. I’d doubted them all, and for good reason. I was more than tired of doing other people’s dirty work. But maybe they really did care about me.

“You done?” Mombi asked, gruffly but not unkindly. “Because we have work to do, kid.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, embarrassment already beginning to replace my outburst of emotion.

Mombi waved a hand at Gert. “Tell her what she wants to know so we can get on with it,” she said.

Gert looked at me questioningly, and I nodded. “Okay, let’s start with the easy question first. You asked how I’m still alive,” she said. “The truth is, I never died.”

If that was the easy question, I couldn’t wait for the hard ones. “But I saw you,” I said. “I saw you when you died, right in the middle of the first battle I ever fought.” I pushed back the gruesome memory of my first meeting with the Lion and his awful animal army. Like a lot of things that had happened to me in Oz, it was something I never wanted to think about again. “I saw you fight the Lion, and lose. It happened right in front of me.”

“You did see that,” she agreed. “And I did lose, there’s no doubt about that either.” She shuddered briefly and closed her eyes as if in pain. I wasn’t in a mood to be sympathetic to the Order, but it was hard to stay mad at Gert. It was like holding a grudge against your grandmother for accidentally burning your favorite cookies. “But witches are very, very difficult to kill,” she went on, opening her eyes again. “Even in a battle like that one. I’m honestly not entirely sure what happened to me when the Lion defeated me. The best guess I can come up with is that Dorothy’s magic is weakening the boundaries between your world and ours. When the Lion won, everything went dark for me for a long time. It was as though I was wandering through some kind of shadow country.” <