“Glamora!” I cried. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. She was winning—and it’s not like I wanted to help Glinda. I just wanted Glamora to go back to being the witch I knew—fierce but elegant, beautiful and kind, not this bloody inhuman banshee who was taking so much pleasure in her sister’s suffering. But as Glamora looked up at me in surprise, Glinda slapped her across the face. Startled, Glamora let go of her sister’s neck and Glinda struggled to get out from under her. Glamora punched her so hard that Glinda’s head snapped back and she lay there, completely stunned. And then Glamora sank her fingers to the knuckle in Glinda’s eye sockets.

Pink light blazed outward from Glinda’s face. Glamora threw her head back, her face fixed in an awful smile. I fell to my knees as Glamora screamed triumphantly—and then her scream changed to something else as the pink light flowed up her arms and chest and reached her face. Her jeweled features twisted.

“Glamora!” I shouted again, scrabbling toward her on my hands and knees.

She was flesh and blood again now, and the face she turned toward me was somehow hers and Glinda’s at the same time, the scar on Glamora’s cheek transforming into a scar on Glinda’s forehead and then switching back again, first Glinda and then Glamora looking out at me from those haunted blue eyes.

TWENTY-FIVE

As I watched helplessly, Glinda’s form dissolved into pink light, flowing upward into Glamora’s arms. Glamora’s body rose slowly into the air, revolving in a pink cloud of power. Her mouth was open in a silent scream, her eyes staring outward sightlessly. “Glamora!” I cried, lunging forward. And then a final flash of pink light exploded outward, knocking me backward with a huge boom.

“Are you okay?” Nox was at my side, helping me to my feet. I nodded, too winded to speak. Only one witch lay crumpled on the ground. The other one was gone.

We started at the inert body curled up on the bloody dirt. I kept my knife at the ready as we tiptoed toward it. Nox gave the body a shove with his foot, and the woman flopped over on her back.

At first, I didn’t know who I was looking at. Her eyes were closed, but the rise and fall of her chest told us she was still alive. Her skin was flawless porcelain, with neither Glamora’s gaping scar nor Glinda’s ugly new wound. Her golden hair tumbled around her, as clean as if she’d just washed it. And she was completely, totally naked.

There was something tragic about seeing her like that. Someone like Glamora, for whom manners were everything.

“Give me your shirt,” I ordered Nox.

“My what?”

“Your shirt, idiot.” I tugged at the garment in question. Slowly, comprehension dawned and he tugged it over his head, his muscles rippling. He cleared his throat and I realized my mouth was hanging open.

Blushing, I grabbed his shirt and threw it over Glamora. If it was Glamora.

“We have to figure out what just happened,” Nox said. “If that’s Glinda . . .”

“I saw Glinda disappear,” I said. “At least, I think that’s what I saw. It was like they just fused into a single person somehow.”

“I’ll stand guard over her in case she wakes up,” he said. “Why don’t you make sure everyone else is safe.”

“Already a step ahead of you,” Mombi said, coming up behind us with Gert close on her heels. Melindra was behind them. I didn’t see Annabel, or most of the other fighters who’d come to the castle with them.

“Annabel?” I asked, and Melindra shook her head, her face full of sorrow. Next to me, Nox caught his breath.

“Annabel and I have known each other since . . .” He trailed off, his voice catching, and bowed his head. I could hear Lulu barking orders somewhere nearby.

“I am so sorry, Nox,” I said. There was an extra layer of guilt there because I had never liked her. And now she was gone.

“We’ve had heavy casualties,” Mombi said grimly. “Lost a lot of the monkeys and most of our fighters. But the battle’s over now. Most of Glinda’s soldiers ran for the hills when Glamora took her out, but the monkeys are rounding up the remaining few.”

“What about Dorothy’s army?” I asked. Mombi scoffed.

“The survivors are helping the monkeys,” Gert said quietly. “They were enslaved by Dorothy’s magic, but they aren’t evil. Her magic isn’t strong enough anymore to control them from a distance. Most of them are just farmers and peasants the Woodman kidnapped and imprisoned before he died.” Her voice was full of sorrow. So much suffering, I thought. And none of it was necessary. <