The Wizard Returns
Author: Danielle Paige
Date: 2015-03-03 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: kindle; fiction; sf; fantasy
Publisher: HarperCollins
Rights: All rights reserved

CONTENTS

1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Excerpt from Dorothy Must Die
15. Back Ads
16. About the Author
17. Books by Danielle Paige
18. Copyright
19. About the Publisher

Guide

1. Cover
2. Contents
3. Chapter One

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ONE

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses, the Wizard thought, as the rolling green fields of Oz dropped away below his balloon. It had been a decent run: parties in the palace, everyone scampering to and fro at his command, all the banquets. One merged into the other now in his memory: the smeary blur of china platters and singing toast, pastries bursting into flames, wine pouring in waves down the sparkling white tablecloths without leaving a stain and hurling itself into goblets. But in the end none of it had ever been enough. There had been too many late nights in the dark of his vast chambers, staring down the bleak interminable chasm of the future; day after day, never changing, all the sycophants and toadies, the yammering masses, the damn monkeys—he shuddered, and closed his eyes against the memory. Never another monkey. The best thing he’d ever done in his entire tenure in Oz was sell them out to the Wicked Witch.

He closed his eyes. Who was he fooling? He didn’t want to go back to the Other Place. It was a hard step in the wrong direction, going from Wizard of Oz to the tired sidewalk con artist he’d been before he came here. The dusty streets of Omaha, that tired blue sky. The circus he had traveled with—its dispirited, jaundiced elephant; the aging aerialists in their shabby old costumes; the strongman, who could only manage barbells made of tin painted to look like iron. He might have detested Oz, but it had been a vast improvement over his old life. Its people, fools that they were, had thought he was a magician capable of anything. They had rushed to do his bidding. He’d been a king—and now he was nothing.

And he had the girl to thank for it.

That awful girl in her awful checkered dress and her whining, high-pitched voice. He had been quite content to rule the childlike citizenry of Oz until she came along with her little dog and revealed him for what he truly was: only a man like any other, though perhaps a little less kind and a little more clever than most. He’d left her standing in the courtyard of his palace, her mouth a round, astonished O as his balloon rose into the sky. He’d promised her a way home, but he’d never been one to keep his promises.

Now he leaned his head against the ropes of the hot air balloon, rough hemp scratchy against his ear, and looked carelessly out at the horizon. The Emerald City still sparkled on the horizon like a cheap necklace in the distance; far below, a golden plain gave way to a vast red field of poppies. But what caught his gaze were the storm clouds massing in heavy gray drifts. Even at this distance he could see their unnatural—though everything in this disgusting country was unnatural—sheen. Their staticky haze of magic, real magic, sparking across the roiling surface of the storm.

The clouds moved closer at a surreal pace, swelling like ink spreading through water, rolling across the sky until the clear summery blue was swallowed up in darkness. The cool breeze that had carried the balloon at a brisk clip away from the Emerald City picked up, gusts howling past his ears and jerking the balloon wildly until the basket swung madly below it like a yo-yo on a string and he was thrown against the ropes. A menacing rumble of thunder was followed by an earsplitting crack of white-purple lightning so close to the basket that he could feel his hair standing on end. The wind whipped at his clothes. In its fury he thought he could almost make out a taunting chorus of voices—but what words they snarled, or in what language they spoke, he could not have said.

Holding fast to one of the ropes, he struggled grimly to lower the burner, thinking he might try and safely land the balloon. Lightning snapped furiously and the wind swirled around in a terrifying vortex with the balloon at its heart, spinning him faster and faster like a top—but when he looked up from the burner he saw that the clouds that had streaked across the sky were gathered directly overhead. Past their edges, the sky was as clear and calm as it had been only moments earlier. Whatever this storm was, it wasn’t ordinary.

Perhaps this unexpected development was the chance he was hoping for: Oz wasn’t ready to let him go. Someone had sent the storm to keep him here.

Resigned, he settled back into the heaving basket, concentrating firmly on not being sick over its edge, and waited for the inevitable. It was only a matter of time before the balloon went down. With a grim sense of satisfaction, he watched as one particularly spectacular streak of lightning tore through the silk of his balloon, leaving a smoking rent that only widened as the wind pulled at it. With a slow, majestic shudder the balloon held for a moment, caught in an updraft, and then it began to plummet toward the sea of poppies below. As quickly as it had come upon him, the storm blew itself out like a birthday candle: the wind died, the lightning popped and vanished, and the clouds dissipated into faint gray wisps that dawdled off toward the horizon. One last gust cupped the balloon, buffering its fall to earth. “Please,” he said aloud, in the event he was being watched by whatever entity had sent the storm. “Just no more monkeys. It’s all I ask.” He could have sworn the gust snorted.

With a bone-jarring thud, the balloon hit the ground and bounced into the air once—sending poppies flying—before thumping down again. The Wizard was flung from the basket and went head over heels into the poppy field, tumbling through a rich red cloud of petals and at last coming to rest in a drift of seed heads and silvery-green leaves. He lay there for a moment, stunned, and then took stock of all his limbs. Nothing seemed to be broken, or even bruised. Whatever magical force had brought down the balloon had apparently had no intention of harming him. He sat up, and found that the heady smell of the poppies had induced a wonderful languor; his limbs seemed deliciously heavy. The golden sunlight poured over him like butter and his eyelids began to drift closed. He sank back into the poppies as if into the most decadent and luxurious of feather beds.

“I really should have tried this sooner,” he murmured, and then darkness took him.

TWO

“Wake up,” said an insistent voice in his ear. “It’s time.” He had no interest in doing so. He’d been having the most lovely dream, floating in a warm honey-scented bath while colorful balloons sailed by overhead and a beautiful talking lion sang lullabies in a voice that rivaled the great blues singers of his homeland. But the voice would not let him sink back into glorious oblivion. “I mean it,” it said, more firmly this time. “Wake up.”

He opened his eyes and found himself staring into a pair of uncanny emerald ones. Emerald. There was something about the color that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. His own eyes refused to focus properly, and he only wanted to go back to sleep, but the person in front of him was now tugging fiercely at his shoulder. “We have to get you out of here,” Emerald Eyes said. “You’re high as a kite.”

“Balloon,” he mumbled, allowing himself to be dragged along as the young man hoisted one arm over his shoulder and towed him through—where was he? His vision was improving a little; there was more color all around him, red and green, and overhead a lot of blue. A sky, he remembered. The thing overhead was a sky. He protested feebly as he was pulled away from the last of the huge red flowers, and dumped, unceremoniously, onto a grassy hillock. Emerald Eyes smacked him briskly on the cheeks, but when this did nothing to wake him up, heaved a sigh of disgust and let him go. “Nighty night,” he murmured, and drifted off into sleep again.

The next time he woke up, it was early in the morning, and the pleasant fuzziness had faded to a dull buzz. He was in a cornflower-blue field, under a bright blue sky. He sat up and looked around. A patch of fat pink flowers next to him was singing a cheerful high-pitched ditty. Two huge yellow-and-black butterflies fluttered lazily through the air, arguing halfheartedly about who was better-looking. Emerald Eyes was stretched out with his back against a nearby tree, watching him. “Good,” he said. “You’re awake. The poppies should be wearing off now that you’re out of the field. Do you know where you are?” Emerald Eyes cocked his head. “Do you know who you are?”

He considered the questions. There was the dream about the lion—but before that, everything was a hazy blur. He had a vague sense that flowers did not ordinarily sing and butterflies were not meant to talk, but that was it. “Not really,” he admitted.

Emerald Eyes looked at him for a long time. “You’re the Wizard,” he said finally. “Not that you were ever very good at being one. But we can’t call you that on the journey we’re about to take. You really don’t remember, do you?”

Wizard? He didn’t know anything about being a wizard. Something stirred in his memory. A card table—he’d sat at a card table and done sleight-of-hand tricks, and passed a battered top hat. A shabby one-room apartment that smelled of cabbages. His face in the mirror, sallow and pale, with dark circles under the eyes. A young face, but hardened and cynical. A brown suit with fraying cuffs, worn shiny at the elbows, and underneath it a stained white shirt with a collar that had long since lost its crispness. He shook his head violently, and the images dissipated into wisps of smoke. “I played tricks,” he said uncertainly.

Emerald Eyes laughed, and there was something in the sound that was almost bitter. Or cruel. “That you certainly did,” he said. “For the time being, let’s call you . . .” He trailed off, thinking, and then smiled. “Let’s call you Hex,” he said with a grin. “And you can call me Pete, though you used to know me as something else.”

“I did?” the Wizard asked. No. He wasn’t a wizard. This strange boy had just told him as much. Hex. His name was Hex now. He studied Pete closely, and something flickered at the back of his mind. A baby? A monkey? But then the flicker died down, and whatever he’d been about to remember was gone.

“You did,” Pete said, “but that was a long time ago. Do you have any idea how long you’ve been down for the count in that poppy field? Twenty-five years, my friend, give or take a few. You should be an old man by now. But as you know—or used to know anyway—time doesn’t move the same way in Oz that it does in your world. And time definitely doesn’t move the same way in the poppy field.” Pete sighed. “Kind of jealous, actually. A quarter century blissed-out nap sounds pretty good right about now. You wouldn’t believe how much work it took to get out of the palace—the only reason I could get away at all was because Dorothy is so wrapped up in whatever she’s up to with Glinda. Anyway, I’ve been sent to help you get home.”

“Sent? By who?” Hex thought more about what Pete had just said. The name Dorothy had set off a tiny alarm in his brain, though he wasn’t sure why. “Where is home, if it isn’t here?”

“The Other Place,” Pete said impatiently. “You were trying to get there when your balloon crashed. That’s where you’re from, and that’s where you belong. But you can’t cross the boundary between here and there until your memory returns. The fairies are the only people in Oz who can help you, which is why I’m taking you to them. But they won’t help you without getting something in exchange—and they’ll test you to make sure you’re worthy of their assistance.”

“Test?” Hex asked nervously. “What kind of test?”

“The Three-Part Test,” Pete said. “Wisdom, Courage, and Love. It’s part of your journey. I can guide you to the fairy kingdom, but you’ll have to pass the test on your own to prove your selflessness. The fairies won’t help you unless they believe it’s for the good of Oz.”

Test? Other Place? Fairies? What Pete was saying didn’t make any sense at all. And why did Pete care if he stayed here or went to what was supposedly his home? If he thought about it for too long his head hurt. “Why now?” he asked suddenly. “Why didn’t you just leave me to sleep?”

Pete pulled Hex to his feet, ignoring his protests. “It’s time to start walking,” he said. “No one will be looking for you, or expect to see you out here wandering around, but we can’t take any chances.”

“Why does it matter if anyone recognizes me?”

Before Hex even realized what was happening, Pete had taken hold of his face in both hands, staring deep into his eyes with his own uncanny green ones. “Hold still,” Pete said. “This might hurt.” He pushed his palms into Hex’s cheeks with a terrible cracking sound. The sudden flare of pain was overwhelming, and Hex uttered a muffled yell. He could feel the bones of his skull shifting as Pete’s hands—almost unbearably hot now—continued to push at his cheeks and jaw. His skin was burning; his scalp felt as though it might peel away from his skull in flayed pieces, his teeth as though they were crumbling in his jaw. Tears sprang to his eyes, and a flash of contempt crossed Pete’s face before he finally took his hands away. Hex sank to his knees, gasping for breath, and touched his face, afraid of what he’d find there. His skin was cool and ordinary to the touch. The agony lessened to a dull throb.

“I could have just glamoured you,” Pete said, “but this will last longer. I’d show you in a mirror, but I don’t have one—and anyway, you don’t remember what you looked like before. But trust me, no one in Oz is going to recognize you now.” Hex rubbed his jaw, wincing at the remembered pain. “You’ll need new clothes, too,” Pete added, tossing him a pair of pants and a shirt that he’d somehow summoned out of thin air and then pointedly turning his back. After a moment, Hex changed into the new clothes. They fit him perfectly. He carefully folded the clothes he’d been wearing and cleared his throat. Pete turned around again, and Hex handed Pete his old suit. Pete snapped his fingers, and the clothes disappeared.

“Thanks,” he said, and laughed. Pete looked at him in surprise.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

Pete was already walking away from him, striding briskly through the tall, pale blue grass. Hex scrambled after him, his mind burning with questions. Why, after twenty-five years, had Pete woken him up now? Why did it matter if anyone recognized him? Who was Pete, and why did he call Hex a wizard? Who were the fairies, and why was Pete taking him to them? Hex stared at Pete’s back and sighed. It didn’t take a wizard to know his questions weren’t going to be answered anytime soon.

THREE

They walked through the pale blue fields for a long time, stopping briefly to eat some bread and cheese that Pete summoned out of thin air. (“That’s magic,” Pete said. “Not like the flashy tricks you used to do.”) Their shadows lengthened on the grass; by now it was late in the afternoon. Pete occasionally squinted up at the sun as if gauging their direction, but when Hex asked him about it he only laughed. “This is Oz,” he said. “The directions change all the time. I’m following the feel of the Old Magic—that’s what’s telling me where to go.”

“Old Magic?” Pete didn’t answer at first, and Hex thought he was ignoring the question, but after a moment, he shrugged.

“You really don’t remember anything, do you? The Old Magic is the lifeblood of Oz. The power that runs through this place and keeps it alive. It’s like a huge web that connects everything together. The people, the landscape, the animals, the palace—Old Magic flows through everything. Only the most powerful witches in Oz can tap into it. And the fairies, of course, because technically it’s their magic—but I don’t think even they truly understand how it works.”

“The fairies who will be testing me?” Hex asked.

“The fairies are the original citizens of Oz,” Pete replied, apparently content to continue his history lesson. “They were the ones who first crossed the Deadly Desert, long before Oz existed, and used their blood to give Oz its magic and bring life to the desert. They created Oz out of the wasteland. Because of that, the fairies are the rightful rulers of Oz. There have been other guardians of the throne over the years, of course.” Pete shot Hex an inscrutable look. “But none of those rulers are legitimate unless they’ve been authorized by the fairies. Anyway, if anyone can help you get home, it’s the fairies.” He put a strange stress on the word “legitimate,” and Hex wondered what he was getting at. Fairies? Old Magic? It all sounded like a bad penny dreadful. He frowned. Penny dreadful. An image of a cheap, flimsy booklet, its cover printed in lurid colors, a fanged vampire leering over a cringing blonde girl in a low-cut dress. Something he’d once owned? He felt as though he were surrounded by a translucent but impermeable wall—he could almost see through to the other side, where his old self awaited him in his real life, memories intact. But every time he tried to reach out he crashed into a barrier as solid as glass.

He had stopped walking, trying to remember, and Pete was watching him with an unreadable expression that seemed almost sympathetic, in contrast to his previous hostility. “It must be strange,” Pete said. “Not knowing who you are.”

Hex struggled to keep hold of the memory, but it dissolved again into the blurry recesses of his mind. He felt almost queasy, and realized belatedly that the strange sensation was shame. “I wasn’t a very good person, was I?” he asked quietly.

Pete looked surprised. “No,” he said after a moment. “Not really.”

“Maybe it’s better I don’t remember,” Hex said. “Maybe I should just start over.”

Pete’s expression grew hard again. “Do you really think that’s how it works? You forget about all the bad things you did, and they just go away? The people you hurt still remember. They have to—” Abruptly, Pete stopped, as if he’d thought better of what he had been about to say. “Get moving,” he said gruffly. “We have a long way to go.”

The blue field gave way to rolling hills of flowers that moved like waves even though there was no wind, stretching all the way to the horizon on either side. In front of them loomed an immense black forest, with trees so tall that even at a distance Hex had to tilt his head all the way back to see where their inky tips speared the blue sky. As they drew closer, he saw that the trees grew so closely together they almost resembled a wall. The forest had an unmistakable air of menace—and they were unmistakably headed directly for it. “You want us to go in there?” Hex asked, trying to keep his voice casual, and though Pete’s back was to him he could hear the sneer in Pete’s response.

“Don’t like it? Too bad.” After that, Hex resolved not to ask any more questions. His situation was bad enough without giving Pete any more opportunities to make him feel like a fool.

Suddenly, an earsplitting howl echoed across the sea of flowers, and Hex saw half a dozen jagged black shapes bounding toward them through the blossoms at a terrifying speed—wolves, he thought, but like no wolves he had ever seen. They were twice as big, and from their brindled backs sprouted huge, leathery black bat wings that flapped madly as the animals raced toward them. Every so often one of the wolves would give its wings a tremendous pump, propelling itself several feet into the air and hurtling even more quickly toward them. “Wolves! Run,” Pete yelled, and took off for the forest. Hex didn’t need to be told twice. His throat closed up in terror as he ran after Pete. But the wolves were gaining on them; they would never make the forest in time. Pete risked a glance backward and stumbled. Hex, unable to stop his momentum, thumped into him, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Pete cursed aloud, and then the first of the wolves was upon them. Pete threw up his arms. A crackling curtain of purple energy sprang up behind them. The wolf skidded to a halt, but too late: it crashed into Pete’s magical wall and yelped frantically as its fur caught fire. Pete scrambled to his feet, dragging Hex up with him. The other wolves had stopped, eyeing the wall of magic warily, but one of them was already trying to push through, and Hex saw in horror that rather than burning its snout, the wall was beginning to give. “That’s not going to hold them,” Pete gasped. “Come on.”

Hex was pretty sure he had never run so hard in his life—of course, he couldn’t remember, but it didn’t seem likely. Behind him, he heard a triumphant yip, and knew one of the wolves must have broken through Pete’s spell. He put his head down and pumped his legs harder. “Almost there,” Pete said at his side. Dimly, Hex realized that Pete had slowed down to match his pace. And then the wall of trees reared up before them, and Hex nearly crashed into one of the enormous trunks before Pete grabbed his arm and pushed him at a narrow opening between two trees. Up close, the forest was more like a fortress. The huge trees loomed over them, sinister and forbidding, like an army of conjoined soldiers forming a hermetically sealed barricade. Hex struggled to squeeze through the trees. The wolves had reached them; Pete held them off with crackling sparks of magic, but they were so close Hex could smell their awful, meaty breath and see the serrated edges of their huge fangs as they snarled. One leapt through the magical barrier, yowling but undeterred as its fur caught fire, and Hex hurled a rock at the wolf with all his might, hitting it squarely on the nose. It jumped back, growling. “Go!” Pete yelled, giving him one final shove, and with that Hex popped through the wall of trees and tumbled to the ground on the far side. Pete heaved himself through the opening after him, landing on top of him as the trunks snapped together like a door slamming. First one, then several more disappointed howls rose up on the other side of the wall. Hex lay where he had fallen, gasping for breath. They had done it. They were safe.

Something sharp jabbed him in the neck and he looked up. A monkey loomed over him, dressed incongruously in a velvet jacket and neatly tailored velvet pants. A small, red velvet fez with an ostentatious black tassel sat at a rakish angle on its head, and a pair of pince-nez was perched on the end of its nose. The sight was so ridiculous that Hex would have laughed. Except the monkey was holding a very serious-looking spear, and the business end of the spear was shoved up against Hex’s throat. Hex turned his head just enough to look for Pete; maybe he had some idea what was going on. But Pete had vanished as if into thin air, leaving him alone with a crazed overdressed monkey on the verge of impaling him.

“Who the hell,” the monkey said, “are you?”

FOUR

“I’m just a traveler,” Hex whispered, barely able to get the words out past the pressure of the monkey’s spear. It seemed like a bad time to explain that he had no more idea than the monkey did who he was or what he was doing here.

“What, like a tourist?” The monkey snorted. “Are you kidding? Nobody comes here without a reason. What do you think this is, the Riviera? Look around you, human.” If Hex had tried to look around, the monkey’s spear would have decapitated him, but now did not seem the best time to point out this small fact.

“I came with a—” He faltered. A what? Pete was hardly his friend. “A guide,” he wheezed.

“Don’t you think I would have noticed two of you?”

“I don’t know where he is. He was just with me, I swear it. I lost my memories in the poppy fields, and he—”

“Oh, great,” the monkey groaned. “A delusional hallucinating junkie. Just what we need. As if Oz isn’t going to hell in a handbasket already. Do you even know how busy I am right now? I’ve got fourteen reports to finish by the end of the week, and my boss is on a rampage, I have all this data on the rival factions and no one will listen to me when I point out their strategic flaws because they say my methods are too newfangled, as if we’re supposed to just swing around in trees hooting for the rest of our—” The monkey sighed deeply in frustration. “Anyway, what am I supposed to do with you?”

“You could move that spear,” Hex whispered. The monkey scowled down at him, but it lessened the pressure of the spear a little and gestured roughly for him to sit up.

“Thank you,” Hex said in a normal voice, gingerly rubbing his throat.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” the monkey said curtly. “Dealing with you is way over my pay grade. I think it’s time for your first audience with the queen, human. Get up.”

The monkey kept the spear trained on him as he cautiously got to his feet, surreptitiously looking around for Pete. There was no doubt about it: the mysterious boy had vanished. He was totally on his own—and he had no idea why he was even here or what he was supposed to do next. “Thanks a lot,” he muttered under his breath, but the monkey heard him.

“Are you sassing me?” it snapped. “I’ve always thought humans were stupid, but you seem to be an extra-special case of idiot. Can’t you see I’m a fierce warrior?” The monkey waved its spear threateningly. Hex considered responding to this, and then decided his safety was worth more than his dignity—for now anyway. “Come on. I don’t have all day. If you hold me back I’ll make you finish my statistics reports—and believe me, anyone as dumb as you won’t make it through the first of my equations. Customized them all myself. You wouldn’t be able to make head nor tail of them.” The monkey poked him firmly, and Hex obediently began to walk. On this side of the wooded wall, the forest looked a little more like an ordinary jungle. Heavy green vines dangled from the treetop canopy far overhead. Brightly colored birds flitted past in a whoosh of jasmine-scented air. The ground was covered with thick, broad-leaved plants that gleamed wetly in the dim green light that filtered through the branches. It was a beautiful place, actually, although his first choice of companion would definitely not have been a talking monkey with an itchy trigger finger.

After they had been walking a little while—the monkey’s spear at his back the whole time—they came to an immense rock face. At its base, a monkey-high crack fissured the rock. Hex could see light on the other side. “In you go,” the monkey said. “Better duck. You don’t want to lose your head until Queen Lulu decides it’s time.” It cackled hysterically. Hex, gritting his teeth, stooped low enough to clear the top of the natural doorway. The monkey followed him nimbly. Hex caught sight of the scene around him and stopped short, his jaw dropping in awe.

The monkey village looked like some little kid’s dream. Hundreds of feet up, the huge trees were filled with wooden houses that seemed to grow directly out of the trunks. The houses were connected by an intricate system of hanging walkways that swayed gently in the breeze. And there were monkeys everywhere: monkeys swinging from vines, monkeys leaning out the windows of their little houses, monkeys hurrying along the walkways, monkeys lounging on park-like platforms where bright flowers grew in carefully tended patches. Even from the forest floor Hex could see they were all dressed, like his captor, in well-fitted but incongruous clothes. He made out monkeys in suits, monkeys in dresses, monkeys in uniforms—even one lone monkey in a wedding dress and veil, looking for all the world like a monkey cupcake. His captor did not allow him much time to look around, shoving him roughly forward. “No funny business on the stairs,” the monkey snapped, pushing him to a perilous-looking staircase that wound its way up from the ground, looping dozens of times around the trunk of one of the trees until it reached the dizzying heights of the forest canopy. “You’re my first prisoner, and I’m not going to lose you! Finally, the queen will have to pay attention to me. I’ve captured a human! You’ll probably be executed! Everyone will take me seriously!”

The staircase didn’t even have a railing; each of its steps had been cleverly wedged into the living wood of the tree itself. Hex swallowed past the lump in his throat, wondering if his former self had been as afraid of heights as his present self was. He took a deep breath and started up the stairs.

The climb was a nightmare. As he made his way up the staircase, the insistent breeze tugged at his limbs and threw him off balance. Behind him, the monkey, obviously enjoying his palpable fear, alternated between laughing at him and poking him in the back with the spear, more than once almost causing him to lose his footing. With no railing, he could only cling desperately to the rough bark of the tree as he made his way up.

At last, after what felt like a century, the staircase joined up with one of the hanging walkways. Hex collapsed on the slats, not even caring anymore if the monkey stabbed him in the back. The narrow, dangling walkway, swaying alarmingly under his weight, was hardly the safest place, but after the staircase it seemed as good as solid ground.

“Well, well, well,” the monkey said behind him, a note of grudging admiration in its voice. “You’re made out of sterner stuff than you look. I didn’t think you’d make it. We always end up having to carry humans the last part of the way. Trial by fire, they say. Pain in the ass, I tell you, and if you ask me it’s an outdated system, but nobody asks me anything around here. I have so many ideas about streamlining efficiency and data management—you should see the spreadsheet I designed last week—but they don’t even care. ‘Not the monkey way,’ they tell me. As if we should be stuck living in this backward—”

Hex interrupted the monkey’s beleaguered monologue. “The stairs are a trial? You mean the monkeys don’t use them?”

The monkey shot him an amused glance. “Are you kidding? We use the elevator. Look, I’m sure the queen is going to execute you—probably even with torture. Since you won’t live to see tonight, we might as well introduce ourselves. I’m Iris.” Hex gaped stupidly at the monkey.

“Iris? But that’s a girl’s name.”

The monkey gave him another look, this time one of disdain. “Because I am a girl, you moron. You think only men can crunch numbers and be honored members of the queen’s guard?” Iris brandished the spear at him.

“No!” Hex yelped hastily. “No. Of course not. Forgive me.” Apparently mollified, Iris looked at him expectantly. “Oh, right,” he said. “I’m Hex. Sorry.” Iris offered him a paw and he shook it gravely.

“Pleased to meet you, Hex,” she said. “And now it’s time for me to escort you to your doom.”

FIVE

To reach the monkey queen’s palace, Hex had to climb yet another flight of stairs. This one, however, wasn’t half as bad as the first; there was even a handrail. His fear of heights had settled into a kind of numb dread in his belly. Soon enough he’d be swinging around on vines like the monkeys themselves, he thought drily. Iris’s attitude had improved considerably since their formal introduction. She was whistling cheerfully behind him, and, though he had no doubt she’d be delighted to stick him again if he made any attempt to flee, she had laid off poking him with the spear.

The queen’s palace was a hut, a little larger and grander than the others Hex had seen but otherwise unremarkable. It sat in the center of a broad platform of planks that had been built above the treetops. From the platform, Hex could see for miles in every direction. There was the wall of trees, and just beyond it the heaving sea of flowers where the wolves had attacked; there was the blue plain he had crossed with Pete, and in the distance he could see the crimson splatter of the poppy field. He thought wistfully of how wonderful it would be to be back there again, nodding off under a huge red flower without a care in the world, but there wasn’t much point in longing for something that clearly wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He wondered again what had happened to Pete. Had he been captured by the monkeys, too? But Iris’s disbelief had seemed genuine when she’d found him just after the wolf attack, and surely he would have seen if someone else had abducted Pete after they’d escaped from the wolves. No, Pete had abandoned him. Did this have something to do with the mysterious test he was supposed to take? Either way, he was on his own, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Iris cleared her throat loudly, and Hex realized he’d been staring off into space like an idiot. “Sorry,” he mumbled, slouching toward the door at Iris’s prompting. The hut was windowless, its smooth round walls interrupted only by a single door—monkey height, like everything else in the village.

“Go on,” Iris said impatiently, and he stooped and entered.

The inside of the hut belied its humble exterior. Its smooth, round walls were painted an eye-searing yellow; here and there, the yellow was augmented by even brighter murals depicting the queen floating regally over her subjects, outfitted for battle, and surrounded by bunches of bananas that looked—well, as though they had been finger painted by a monkey. An elaborate chandelier hung from the low ceiling, looking rather out of place. It had no doubt once been very fine, but was now bedecked with dried banana peels in various stages of decay.

Queen Lulu herself was lounging against a raft of brightly colored pillows with a surprising amount of dignity for a ridiculously dressed monkey. She wore a vibrant, ruffled pink dress, leopard-print stockings, and rhinestone-studded sandals, and her eyes were hidden behind enormous sunglasses. In one hand she held a jeweled scepter; in the other, a half-eaten banana, which she was busily gnawing. She swallowed the last bites as Hex approached the throne and chucked the peel up at the chandelier, where it added to the collection.

He had never met a royal monkey before, but it seemed prudent to err on the side of caution. He executed a sweeping bow, so low his forehead nearly brushed his shins, and the queen grunted with approval through a mouthful of banana. “This one has manners, at least,” she said. Her voice was rough and heavily accented—and strangely familiar. Staring at her, he thought he’d surely seen her before—and then a flash of memory leapt to the surface of his mind. A stooped, haggard old woman in a black hat—he was giving her a shapeless old felt hat that he knew was terribly important despite its appearance. “This seals our bargain,” the old woman hissed. “Giving me control of the monkeys? You’re even crueler than I am, human, and that’s saying something. They must raise you differently in the Other Place.” And then the memory was gone as quickly as it had come, but looking at the queen, he was flooded with a sudden sense of sick, terrible shame. The hat had had some kind of power over the monkeys, and it had been his. Why had he given it away? What had his past self done?

The queen was looking at him quizzically, and it was evident that whatever he had done, she had no memory of it—or, more likely, she didn’t recognize him thanks to Pete’s transformation spell. He patted his cheeks cautiously. The soreness was gone, but their shape was still unfamiliar. The queen was still staring at him, and he realized he was behaving like a lunatic.

“Er, Your Royal, um, Highness,” he stammered. “May your, uh, bananas be plentiful and the branches that hold your houses aloft remain strong.”

The queen raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’re an odd duck, but you’re charming enough,” she said. “Where’d you find this one, Iris?”

“I caught him trying to invade!” Iris piped up excitedly. “At the Wolf Gate! I think he might be a barbarian! He tried to tell me some nonsense story about a guide, but he’s clearly a spy.”

“A barbarian or a spy?” Queen Lulu asked drily, bemused by Iris’s enthusiasm. “How perfectly terrifying.”

“He could be both!”

“I’m neither!” Hex protested. “I’m only trying to—” What was he even trying to do? Without Pete, he was at a loss.

“I think we should execute him!” Iris was bouncing up and down on her heels in excitement. “For treachery! I mean treason!”

The queen reclined even further and waved a paw. Another monkey—this one dressed in a black velvet suit with a dapper red ascot—sauntered out of the shadows, bringing her a fresh banana, which she peeled languidly. He shot Iris an unmistakably evil look, which Iris returned haughtily. “Iris, calm yourself,” the queen said. “We haven’t executed a human in—well, we haven’t executed anyone ever.”

“Think how fun it would be!” Iris squealed in glee. “May I be the executioner, Your Majesty?”

“Be silent, you little fool,” snapped the monkey in black. Iris drew back, an expression of genuine hurt flashing across her face.

“Quentin, there’s no need to be cruel to the young and enthusiastic,” the queen said. “But I am rather curious as to how a lone traveler managed to cross the Sea of Blossoms and penetrate the Wolf Gate with no weapons.” She pushed up her sunglasses, revealing intelligent brown eyes, and studied him carefully. “And no supplies.”

Hex was somewhat curious himself as to how he’d managed all those things, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. For all her monkey sass, the queen was obviously no dummy, and he had a feeling she’d know right away if he lied. Plus, he had no idea what he should even lie about. “I lost my memory in the poppy fields,” he said. “I’d been there for a long time—a really long time. I was rescued by a boy who told me he could help me find out who I was. He guided me here, but disappeared just after the wolves attacked. Then Iris found me and—well, here I am.”

The queen was staring at him incredulously. “Do you actually expect me to believe that?”

“A spy!” Iris shouted in excitement. “A traitor! Death to enemies of the queendom!”

“I know how it sounds,” Hex admitted. “But you have to believe me. I swear—”

He was interrupted by a tremendous clamor from the forest floor below. He wondered in terror if the wolves had broken through the wall. But these sounds were unquestionably monkeyish—shrieks, cackles, and almost-human-but-not-quite howls. There was a tremendous explosion and a cloud of foul-smelling smoke drifted past the queen’s hut. She leapt to her feet. “Those cursed rebels and their wretched demands! Iris,” she snapped, “take our prisoner to one of the guest huts at the edge of the forest. He’ll be safe enough there until we’ve quashed this little squabble and I can decide what to do with him.”

“But—” Iris protested.

“Now, Iris,” the queen said. “I have work to do!”

Grumbling, Iris grabbed Hex by the shoulder—none too gently—and shoved him out the door and down the stairs. The queen bounded after them, seized a vine hanging from a nearby tree, and swung off toward the sounds of battle. Her departure was punctuated by another explosion, this one even more impressive than the first.

SIX

Still grumbling, Iris led Hex away from the chaos over a wobbly series of interconnected walkways. The sun had set, and the monkeys’ city was lit by hundreds of glowing yellow balls that floated in the air. “Sunfruit,” Iris said, in answer to his unasked question. “You can eat it if no one remembers to bring you dinner, but then you won’t have a light.”

Hex soon lost any sense of direction. If he wanted to find his way out of here again, he wouldn’t be able to do it without the monkeys’ help. Finally, Iris stopped at a low hut, more roughly built than others they’d passed but still as neatly constructed as a ship. He followed her inside to a little room lit by another, smaller sunfruit. The room was sparsely furnished with just a hammock and a single table and chair, but everything was tidy and clean. Iris rang a little bell shaped like a banana, and in a few moments another monkey dressed in a butler’s outfit brought in a tray of . . . bananas. Hex almost groaned out loud. At the very corner of the tray was a small, steaming bowl. “Oatmeal for you, sir,” the butler said politely as Iris helped herself to several bunches of banana.

“Oatmeal?” Hex wondered aloud as the butler bowed and left them. “For dinner?”

“Humans love oatmeal,” Iris said authoritatively.

Hex decided not to argue. “What’s going on out there?” he asked, sinking down onto the hammock to eat his oatmeal—which was burnt. Iris hovered awkwardly for a moment, still chewing, and then frowned and settled into the chair.

“The monkeys are split,” she said heavily, swallowing the last of her banana. “Before Dorothy”—there was that name again—“came back to Oz, all the monkeys had wings.” She flapped her arms, as if to demonstrate. “We flew all over Oz as we pleased when Ozma ruled. But then Dorothy took over and Ozma went—well, wherever she is. Our wings have always been vulnerable to magic—we’ve been enslaved by one ruler after another, including that cursed Wizard.”

Wizard? Hex thought. Was that me? Was that what I remembered in the queen’s palace? He shifted uncomfortably, but Iris didn’t notice. “This time,” she continued, “some of us decided losing our wings was worth our freedom. You’re in the Queendom of the Wingless Ones—the last free monkeys in Oz.” Iris puffed her chest proudly, and then her expression sank again. “But some of the monkeys don’t want to be free anymore. They think it’s better to side with Dorothy”—Iris spat the name out as if it were a curse—“and that Dorothy’s creepy sidekick the Scarecrow can make us new wings. They say Dorothy is on our side and wouldn’t make us her slaves again—as if! Even back when she first came to Oz all she did was make us fly her around like we were some kind of taxi service. But now that she’s returned, she’s downright evil.” Iris sighed. “The rebels have been causing all kinds of trouble in the queendom—sabotage, arson, waylaying supplies. Some of the poorest monkeys are going hungry. I know that human-loving—no offense—traitor Quentin is behind the rebels, and I can prove it, too—I’ve been tracking the queen’s accounts with a data management system I developed, and by comparing royal expenditures I can prove that Quentin is siphoning food and supplies from all our imports,” she said excitedly. “Only he’s the chancellor, and I’m just a lowly guard. I can’t say anything against him the queen will believe.”

“Not even with all your data?” Hex asked.

She sighed again. “No one else understands double-entry accounting. Unless you know what the data means, it’s all just a bunch of meaningless numbers. And—well, the queen is very wise, of course, but she doesn’t think my work is serious,” Iris said quietly. “No one does. They all think I’m just young and—and silly. I’m the only one of the monkeys who’s even interested in numbers, and I can’t make them see how important data management is.”

But you are young and silly, Hex thought. I wouldn’t take you seriously either, if I were the queen. Iris seemed to have a good heart, but she couldn’t possibly think her endless spreadsheets would have any impact on the queen’s decisions. She wasn’t even a particularly effective guard. Was he meant to stop Quentin? If so, how? “I don’t have any other proof,” Iris was saying, “and Quentin knows that I can’t do anything to stop him because no one will listen to me.” Her brown eyes filled with tears. “The monkeys are going to destroy themselves, and I can’t do a thing to stop it,” she sobbed. She was so distraught that Hex forgot a few moments ago she had been clamoring for his execution. He patted her awkwardly on the back, and she wept heavily into his shoulder.

“I just c-c-care so m-m-uch!” she wailed, her runny nose dripping onto his shirt. “I want the monkeys to b-b-be happy! The only way to end the unrest is to prove he’s at the heart of it. And I c-c-can’t do anything!”

“There, there,” Hex murmured, continuing to pat her gently as she erupted into damp, hiccupping sobs. “Why don’t we go to the queen in the morning, and you can convince her you’re right? I’m sure you can figure something out. You’re very clever.” But his mind was racing. Pete had said he was being tested—was that why he’d been brought here? And if it was, what was he supposed to do? Convince the monkeys to side with Dorothy? It was hard to take the monkeys seriously, but that Quentin had still seemed like a nasty piece of work. Iris snuffled and blew her nose on her sleeve.

“I should be Lulu’s adviser, not Quentin!” Iris hiccupped furiously. “He’s a traitor and a f-f-fraud! Do you really think I can convince the queen?” Her lower lip quavered and she looked dangerously close to bursting into tears again. Hex hastily handed her a banana.

“Of course,” he said firmly, though he had no idea. “You’ve already convinced me—and I’m a total stranger.” This made no sense at all, but seemed to reassure Iris.

“You’re right,” she said more confidently. “First thing in the morning. I’ll tell her! I’ll—”

Suddenly, another loud explosion went off in the distance. Hex and Iris hurried outside, peering over the balcony of the guest hut. Below them, a small, seething group of monkeys battled each other furiously on the forest floor, their fight lit by more sunfruit. Monkeys in velvet suits that matched Iris’s—presumably the queen’s guard—carried prisoners, tightly wrapped in banana leaves, away from the battlefield, while more suited monkeys whacked the upstarts with bananas. “It all started with peaceful protests, but now we’re on the verge of all-out civil war,” Iris said, her eyes filling with tears again. “And it’s all Quentin’s fault! If he wasn’t spreading lies, they’d realize siding with Dorothy means death—or worse.” She sighed heavily. “It’s been a long day, and I can’t do anything until the morning. You might as well get some rest.”

Iris sat at the table again, apparently taking her guard duty seriously enough to watch over Hex as he slept. He tried to get comfortable on the swaying hammock, at last falling into a fitful sleep. A strange, sonorous noise woke him later in the night, and he sat up in confusion. Iris had fallen asleep on the table, her shoulders hunched in defeat, and the room echoed with her snores. Hex sighed and lay back in the hammock again, waiting for dawn.

SEVEN

The next morning, after a breakfast of (to Hex’s dismay) more oatmeal, Iris marched him briskly back to Lulu’s hut. Her velvet suit was rumpled, but otherwise she was back to being the cocky, confident monkey who had marched him up the endless stairs.

Iris burst through the palace door, shouting, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” Queen Lulu, startled, turned from where she had been giving terse instructions to a small group of nervous-looking monkeys dressed in battered armor and carrying monkey-sized swords. Behind the queen, Quentin leaned against the wall, his dark eyes glittering as he watched the scene. He looks like a monkey who just found himself a banana tree, Hex thought. Iris stopped short. “Your Majesty,” she whispered, “what are you doing? Monkeys have never used weapons on monkeys before now.”

“We’re past that point,” Queen Lulu said tiredly. “Iris, I have to put a stop to this before our people destroy each other.”

Lulu and Iris stared at each other as if they were frozen in time, while Quentin sneered. Hex’s thoughts raced. Quentin wanted the monkeys to side with Dorothy, and everybody hated Dorothy—including Pete. Defeating Quentin’s plot had to be his test. Iris was too naive and foolish to convince the queen—clearly, that was why he had been sent here. Pete had said he wasn’t a real wizard, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pretend to be one. He swiftly palmed one of the floating sunfruits and hurled it at the ceiling so quickly the monkeys only saw the bright shower of light that fell around him as the fruit splattered. “ENOUGH!” he boomed, and the monkeys stopped short and gaped at him. “I have come to you to demonstrate my powers and end the conflict that tears apart your nation!” Even his speech had changed, he thought, awed at himself. His back was straighter, his arms upraised as if he were sweeping an invisible cape behind him. His voice filled the little room. He pointed at Quentin. “You cannot hide from the might of my powers, ape!” he shouted. “I see all! I know the trick you have played upon your people and the deceit you have sown! The heart of this conflict lies at your feet, foul thief!” He turned to Queen Lulu, who was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. “Ask him what has been happening to your supplies, mighty queen! Ask him where he has hidden what he has stolen from you! Ask him why he is working in concert with”—oh bother, he thought, what was her name again?—“er, Dorothy’s minions!”

Lulu pushed up her sunglasses, seeming a little less impressed. “These are serious accusations against one of my most trusted advisers,” she said. “Do you have any proof?”

“He doesn’t,” Iris said, practically jumping up and down in her eagerness. “But I—”

Hex interrupted her. “I have seen the traitor at work!” he boomed in the most authoritative voice he could muster. “Last night, while you slept”—he hesitated for the barest moment, and then hit on the perfect lie—“I sent my astral body through the Queendom of the Wingless Ones, and saw the traitor Quentin meeting with the rebels!” This story seemed suddenly preposterous, even as he said it, but the trick with the sunfruit had apparently impressed the queen more than he’d realized. She raised one eyebrow, seeming almost convinced.

“That’s nonsense!” Iris exclaimed. “But he’s right, and I can—”

But the queen cut her off, turning to Quentin, who was edging toward the door. “Is this true?” she asked, her voice low and angry. “Have you betrayed my trust?”

“I can explain, Your Majesty,” the chancellor said smoothly. “It’s all a misunderstanding.” He shot Hex a nervous glance. “The sorcerer is exaggerating—I was merely storing away some of our supplies for safekeeping—” Hex’s accusation had been a shot in the dark, but it had hit home he saw. Quentin had snuck out of the palace to meet with the rebels, and his slick demeanor faltered as the queen gave him a withering stare.

“You’re lying,” she snarled. “I can see it in your eyes, you thief! Under my very nose, you’ve torn apart our people! For this, you’ll rot underground, never to swing from a vine in this city again—but first, you’ll give back what you’ve stolen and end this strife!”

She gestured at her monkey soldiers, and they seized Quentin and dragged him outside. She turned to Hex. “I don’t know what gift of fate brought you here, sorcerer,” she said, “but I owe you my queendom.”

“But I—” Iris began. Lulu ignored her and waved one hand imperiously. A soldier hastily brought her a banana. “Humans have never sat at the side of monkeys in all the history of our people,” Lulu said, chewing thoughtfully, “but these are new times for all of us. If you choose to remain among us, you may have Quentin’s old job. Which is a real honor, I’ll have you know.”

Of course, it was Iris who’d actually exposed the traitor. He could tell Lulu, but Iris was just a young hothead with no sense for politics. She wasn’t suited for Quentin’s position; really, he was doing her a favor, saving her from future embarrassment when she couldn’t handle the responsibility. And if defeating Quentin had been his test, surely this was his reward. He could always award Iris an extra banana allowance once he was officially made chancellor—he wasn’t heartless. Hex bowed politely. “Your Majesty, I’m honored. I’ll certainly consider your offer.” She nodded and tossed the banana peel over her shoulder; a guard hurried forward to catch it. “Now,” she said, “I must attend to my people.” With that, she swept out the door, a scatter of rhinestones sparkling in her wake and the guard trailing behind her.

Next to Hex, Iris was almost speechless with fury. “You—you human!” she gasped. “You’re no sorcerer! You’re just a stupid cheat who stole the credit for my work, and now Lulu thinks you’re the one who exposed the rebellion!”

“Iris, there was nothing I could do,” he lied in his most conciliatory tone. “The queen saw what she wanted to see. I would never have undermined you on purpose. Besides, you never said you wanted Quentin’s job—just that you wanted him defeated. Really, I’ve only helped you get what you want.”

“You don’t even have the decency to tell me the truth,” Iris said furiously. “You humans are all alike. You’ll sell out anyone if you think it’ll get you ahead.” She gestured toward the door. “If you’re so all powerful, you can find your own damn way to the guest chambers.” She stalked out the door, but not before he caught a glimpse of her face and realized she was crying.

Hex watched her small back recede down the walkway, her shoulders shaking. Why couldn’t she see how reasonable he was being? He was cleverer than Iris—didn’t he deserve the queen’s praise? A strange, unfamiliar sensation tugged at his heart—was it guilt? If he had done the right thing, why didn’t he feel better about it?

“Nice one, Hex,” said a sardonic voice behind him in the formerly empty room. He whirled in surprise. Pete lounged against a wall, one leg crossed over the other, chewing on a blade of grass and eyeing him with distaste. “I guess you can take away the memories, but you can’t take away the man. Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt Iris,” Hex said. “I didn’t think—”

“You never thought about anything except yourself,” Pete said bitterly. “I thought the whole amnesia thing might give you a chance to start over, be a better man. Use wisdom and judgment for once, instead of deceit. Looks like I thought wrong, huh?”

“No!” Hex cried. He remembered the terrible flood of shame he’d felt the moment he’d first seen Queen Lulu. “I did something else to the monkeys, didn’t I? Something worse?”

Pete snorted. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said coldly. “You betrayed them, Hex. You gave power over them to the Wicked Witch of the West. You knew she would enslave them, and you didn’t care.”

“Why would I do that?” Hex whispered.

Pete shrugged. “You tell me, Hex. Convenient you forgot about that part, huh?”

“What else did I do that I don’t remember?” Hex asked, his heart sinking. “What kind of person was I?”

“I already told you,” Pete said. “A crappy one.” He stared at Hex for a long time, his expression unreadable. For the second time, Hex wondered if maybe it wasn’t better to leave his memories behind forever. “That was the test of your Wisdom, Wizard,” Pete said. “You didn’t do very well.”

“How was that a test?” Hex protested.

“If you cared about Oz instead of yourself, you’d have used your wits to help Iris restore peace to the monkeys—not sell Iris out and make yourself look like the hero. Wisdom should be used for the good of all, not just one. It didn’t occur to you to work together with Iris to find a way to defeat Quentin? To tell the queen that Iris was the one who deserved the credit?”

“But she’s just a monkey!” Hex sputtered. “How was I supposed to know that was the test?”

“Here’s a hint for the next stage,” Pete snapped. “In the future, try thinking about someone other than yourself.” Pete grabbed Hex by the wrist, and the air around them began to glow with the now-familiar purple crackle of Pete’s magic.

“But now I’ll never get to be chancellor,” Hex said sadly, and then the hut around them vanished in a shimmer of purple light.

EIGHT

Hex felt as though he was being pulled through the air in a thousand different directions. He opened his mouth to shout in terror and a surge of purple magic poured down his throat. His entire body glowed with the same purple light. Was Pete so fed up with him that he had finally decided to just kill him? But before Hex could worry that he was experiencing his last moments on earth—or wherever he was—the purple light faded and he fell to the ground as if dropped there by a giant, none-too-careful hand.

“Sorry,” Pete said from somewhere behind him, although he didn’t sound sorry at all. “Teleportation can be a little rough if you’re not used to it. Or if, in your case, you don’t remember that you’re used to it.”

Hex ignored him, determined not to let Pete get the best of him—again. Instead, he stood up and looked around. They were in another forest, but this one looked significantly different from the monkeys’ jungle home. Where that forest had seemed tropical, this one was cool and still. No brightly colored birds flitted from branch to branch. No sparkling waterfalls cascaded down soft, grassy hillocks between trees. This place was severe, almost stark; the air was much cooler, and as a sharp breeze brushed past the back of Hex’s neck, he shivered. There was something about the dim, silent wood that was downright disturbing. He felt as though invisible eyes were peering at him from the shadows between the trees, assessing him as a potential lunch option.

Pete seemed unperturbed by the forest’s haunted feel. He was dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he’d pulled Hex from the poppy field, though he’d added a coat to stave off the forest’s chill.

“What the hell happened to you?” Hex asked, fury battling out fear in his chest and ultimately winning.

“What do you mean?” Pete asked breezily.

“After the wolves—you just left me there! I was practically attacked by those dreadful monkeys, and nearly taken prisoner—it was only my ability to think on my feet that kept me safe!”

Pete stared at him. “You’re already changing the story to suit yourself,” he said coolly. “Amazing. ‘Think on your feet’? Is that what you call what you did back there?”

Hex faltered. “Well, I—I mean, it’s true the little monkey was the one who helped me expose the chancellor as a charlatan and restore peace to the queendom, but I’m the one who was able to get through to the queen when no one else could. Doesn’t that count for something?” He resolutely avoided thinking about the hurt on Iris’s face when he’d claimed sole credit for exposing Quentin. He didn’t have time to worry about that now—he had to find out what the next test would be, and fast, before Pete disappeared again. “You yourself basically said I was a con man,” he added. “Maybe I’m just remembering who I am. You’re the one who won’t tell me anything except that I’m from somewhere that isn’t here and that it’s my job to help you save a place I don’t remember anything about. Why should I even want to do anything you ask of me?”

Pete sighed, and his harsh expression softened. “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do. But Oz has always had a complicated relationship with the Other Place. It took someone from there—Dorothy—to set Oz’s decline in motion. And we think it will take someone else from there to repair what she’s done to our country. Right now, you’re our only hope—assuming you remember who you are in time to stop her. And I know you don’t remember, but I promise, Oz is worth saving.”

“Our?” Hex asked.

Pete looked at him for a long time, mixed emotions playing on his usually impassive face. Finally, as if making a decision, he nodded. “I’m . . . helping the fairies, let’s just say. We’re fighting to make Oz the place it once was, before you—” He cut himself off. “Before everything changed.”

“Before I what?” Hex asked. “Why can’t you just tell me?”

Pete shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You have to remember—truly remember—who you are.”

Hex looked at the ground, where tiny golden flowers with smiling faces beamed up at him. One of them appeared to be humming some kind of catchy jingle under its breath. “Did I—did I care about Oz?” he asked hesitantly. “Can you at least tell me that much?”

“You cared about yourself,” Pete said. “As for Oz—only you can know that, once your memory has returned.”

“Did it seem like I cared about Oz, when you knew me—before?”

“I’ve already told you all I can,” Pete said curtly, and the stony-faced, inscrutable boy was back again. “You can ask me all the questions you want, but that’s not going to get you any real answers. Those you have to find on your own.”

“You’re leaving me again, aren’t you?” Hex said.

Pete smiled, though the grin didn’t quite reach his brilliant emerald eyes. “You catch on quick.”

“I still don’t even know what I’m being tested for.”

“The future of Oz,” Pete said. “No pressure. Like I said, so far, your score is pretty low.”

Hex thought of what he’d done to poor Iris and winced. If he’d known that his time with the monkeys had been a trial of some kind, would he have done anything differently? Iris’s hurt, heartbroken face flashed before him again, and he closed his eyes against the memory. “What happens if I fail?” Hex asked.

Pete shrugged. “We’ll throw you back in the poppy field, I guess. If you fail you’re of no use to anyone, let alone Oz. We don’t need cowards and cheats on our side. Dorothy has plenty of those if you want to throw your lot in with her.”

That name again. Dorothy. It rang the faintest of bells in his subconscious. Blue-and-white checks . . . something silver and glittering. Shoes, he thought suddenly. There had been shoes.

“I liked the poppy field,” Hex admitted. “That doesn’t seem much like punishment.”

“In that case,” Pete said calmly, “I guess we should just kill you.” It was impossible to tell if he was joking.

“Are you a fairy?” Hex asked quickly, hoping to change the subject. But Pete looked troubled.

“I’ve already told you more than I should,” he said. “The fairies sent me, and that’s all you need to know.”

“But how will I know when I’m being tested?”

Pete smiled like a cat with a cornered mouse. “Oh, believe me,” he said. “You’ll know.”

“How will I know where to go?” Hex asked, but Pete had already vanished in another flash of purple electricity.

Hex looked down at his battered shoes—the only thing, he realized, that he had that was left over from his life before, whatever that life had been. Just beyond his toes, he noticed for the first time a sandy path that led off into the dark woods. He was sure—well, almost sure—that the path hadn’t been there a moment ago. He looked up again; all around him, brambles and bracken had closed in. Their thick, waxy leaves waved eerily even though there was no wind, and huge, glossy black thorns sprouted from the branches, oozing a viscous slime that looked distinctly poisonous.

He had no other option but to follow the path through the thick underbrush. The only way out, it seemed, was forward.

NINE

Hex followed the path through the trees for what could have been hours or days. In the dark, endless forest, he lost all sense of direction and even the time of day. Anytime he so much as thought of stepping off the sandy path or heading in a different direction, the leaves around him rustled menacingly, and the branches clacked their thorns together as if to say, “Don’t even bother.”

Finally, when he felt as though he couldn’t possibly walk any farther, he stumbled into a broad clearing whose ground was covered with the same dry, sandy earth as the path. He sank gratefully to the ground. Pete hadn’t said anything about not stopping for the night—if it was even night. Nothing about the dim woods had changed in any way to indicate whether it was daytime or nighttime, or whether the sun was proceeding across the sky at all. The sinister, diffuse light seemed almost to come from the trees themselves.

Hex was also beginning to wonder what exactly he was supposed to eat or drink, when he spotted a brown knapsack at the far side of the clearing that he could have sworn wasn’t there a second ago. Too hungry and thirsty to be cautious, he got to his feet to investigate. Inside the pack was a rough woolen blanket. Underneath it, there were a few pouches containing some stale bread and hard cheese. He realized the last actual meal he’d eaten had been his oatmeal breakfast with Iris, however long ago that had been, and his stomach grumbled loudly. He had a feeling that if there was anything alive in the woods around him, it would be a lot more likely to make a dinner out of him than to bring him a menu. He washed down the bread and cheeses with water from a bottle he found in the pack. The water, at least, was sweet-tasting and clear, and after another long drink he felt refreshed and clearheaded.

Below the water bottle, he found the clothes he’d been wearing when Pete pulled him out of the poppy field. He took them out and carefully unfolded them, fingering the soft material as though it could tell him who he was: a jacket, vest, spats, a pair of pants, a dapper collared shirt, and a top hat. But as much as he racked his brains, nothing came. If Pete was right, he hadn’t yet passed the test that would unlock his past and show him how to help Oz—assuming he wanted to. But what if he uncovered his memories and discovered he couldn’t stand this country of talking monkeys and flying wolves? What if Pete was right, and his true self was a terrible, selfish person? Wouldn’t it be better to stay as he was, in this state of oblivion? The cheerless forest did nothing to distract him from these depressing thoughts.

His body was aching, and he was ready for a rest. He unrolled the blanket, stretched out on the ground, and was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the earth. But his dreams were awful: the monkeys battled each other savagely with their miniature swords, hacking at one another until the ground ran red with their blood, screaming in rage and pain—and then he jerked awake and realized the screams were real, and they were coming from somewhere ahead of him in the forest. His heart pounded in his chest. The screams were alarmingly near, and somehow familiar. Someone was in desperate trouble.

“Pete!” Hex shouted. “Help! Pete!” His voice barely carried past the clearing, and there was no response. The screams wavered for a second, and then continued even more awfully. He saw that there were now two paths leading out of the clearing—one toward the source of the noise, and the other away. He groaned aloud. Was this a test, or a trap? Either way, not very subtle.

Abruptly, the screams cut off with an awful gurgling sound. He stood poised in the clearing, listening intently. Perhaps it was too late. Whatever was happening out there, it was over. There was nothing he could do. Far better to protect his own skin; after all, he could hardly recover his memories if he was dead. And then, through the trees, he heard a faint, pleading—and familiar—wail. “Somebody please help me!” The voice sobbed. There was no mistaking it for anyone but Iris.

He stood a second longer, wavering with indecision. He was a bad person. Pete had told him as much. And bad people put themselves first—and came out ahead. No one could possibly fault him for wanting to protect himself. It wasn’t his problem. He thought of the pain and reproach in Iris’s face as he’d betrayed her in front of the queen, and sighed. So far, he’d done nothing but prove Pete right: that he was nothing more than a con man and a coward.

But the feeling of persistent shame kept nagging at him, and he suddenly found himself wanting to do better. Even if it meant putting himself in danger. Even if he was risking his life for a cranky, spear-happy monkey with a persecution complex. He might not go down in the annals of history for trying to rescue Iris from whatever terrible thing was happening to her, but a more noble quest had yet to present itself. Maybe he had been a terrible person in the past, but being a terrible person in the present wasn’t turning out to be very much fun. He took a deep breath, wishing Pete had thought to pack him a weapon of some kind, and took off running on the path that led to Iris.

He didn’t have to go far before he found her. She was in another clearing like the one he’d left, so covered in blood she was almost unrecognizable. She cowered in a heap at the far edge of the clearing; opposite her, a huge, awful lion, spattered with her blood, lounged against a tree picking his teeth with one giant claw. The lion’s mane was filthy and matted, and his huge muscles bulged grotesquely. Iris was sobbing, which at least meant she was still alive. The lion looked up as Hex entered the clearing. He grinned savagely, exposing his terrible, jagged fangs.

“Two for the price of one,” he growled. “It’s my lucky day: dinner buffet special.”

“Leave her alone!” Hex said faintly, and the lion laughed.

“I don’t think so, little man,” he said, sneering. “I’m hungry. And when the Lion is hungry, the Lion gets his meal . . . or else.” The Lion? Something about the horrible animal sparked at Hex’s memory as fear flooded through him. The Lion’s voice had a terrible power; across the clearing, Iris whimpered, even though the Lion hadn’t been speaking to her. Hex’s chest flooded with a sick, nameless dread. It was as if the Lion was fear itself, formed into the body of a terrible, powerful creature. “That’s right,” the Lion sneered, gloating. “Now you understand why I rule the forests of Oz. No one can withstand their fear of me. And now, little man, I’ll feed on your terror—and then I’ll feed on you.”

The Lion rose to his feet, lashing his long, sinuous tail like a whip as he advanced toward Hex. His tail. Something about his tail. And then a whole memory came back to Hex, sudden as a tidal wave: a different Lion, a real one, cowering before him, begging for the gift of courage. “Only you can help me,” it cried, its golden fur gleaming in the warm Oz sun. “Please, Wizard! If only I had the courage of a real lion, I could stop being ashamed of myself—I could be free.” So Hex had been a wizard, then—but what kind? Had he somehow created this awful monster out of an ordinary beast? Would he have done something like that? Once, long ago, the Lion had wanted to be braver—but this perversion wasn’t just a creature filled with ordinary courage. Pete had said Oz was changing, its very magic twisted. Was the Lion a part of that? Was this transformation somehow Hex’s fault—or was he a victim of it, too?

He’d deliberated too long, and the Lion had crossed the clearing and was standing in front of him, leering at him. Up close, the Lion’s breath smelled like a slaughterhouse crossed with a sewer.

“Don’t they teach you to brush your teeth in this crazy country?” Hex said, and suddenly he found that his fear had fallen away from him. He remembered: not everything, and not enough, but he knew this terrifying creature had once been something else. Something desperate and even more cowardly than he was. Something ordinary and cowering and meek. And without fear, the Lion had no power over him.

The Lion halted in mid-pounce, rearing back so quickly that he almost fell over backward. “You fool,” he snarled, a menacing growl so deep it almost seemed to come from the very earth itself. “Do you really think you can challenge me and win?”

Hex wasn’t swayed. “Be strong,” he called to Iris. “I’ll be there to help you as soon as I can.”

“Oh-ho!” the Lion chortled, leaping away from Hex and toward Iris. “Have I found your weakness, human? It’s all well and good for you to think I can’t hurt you, but your monkey friend here is a different story.” The Lion stood over Iris, one enormous paw upraised, as though he meant to disembowel her.

“Leave her alone,” Hex hissed, and the Lion laughed, bringing his paw down with all his might—and stopping just short of a killing blow, cuffing Iris roughly on the side of the head.

“No,” the Lion said, “I don’t think I will. But the longer she suffers, the more I get to enjoy watching you squirm. I don’t know who you are, but I don’t like you.” He nipped lightly at Iris’s arm, tearing away a piece of flesh. Iris howled in pain and fear.

Hex suddenly found that he was furious. Furious with Pete, for telling him nothing and leaving him here to battle this awful creature; furious with Iris, for getting herself into such an awful predicament and—worse—making him care about her; and above all else, furious with this disgusting, brutal lion, sneering and tormenting someone so small and helpless. Anger flooded through Hex’s body, and with it something else—a force that seemed to come from the very earth itself. Something strange and powerful rushed through his body, but instead of feeling swept away he realized he was in total control. “ENOUGH,” Hex said, and he could see his voice traveling across the clearing in a roiling wave of dark energy that surged toward the Lion and knocked him to his knees. The Lion roared in anger, springing to his feet again, but Hex held up one hand and pushed against the wall of power, and the Lion flew away from Iris and crashed into a tree.

“I made you what you are, animal,” Hex said, and his voice was as strong and fierce as a thunderstorm. “To me, you are still nothing but a coward. Begone from this place.” He raised his hand again and the Lion rose into the air; with a flick of his fingers, he summoned more power and sent the Lion cartwheeling through space, head over tail, before slamming him into the ground again. The Lion moaned feebly, his own eyes wide with fear. “Now you know how it feels,” Hex said. “Think twice, before you inflict pain on the innocent. And get out of here, before I regret sparing you.” The Lion grabbed his greasy, lashing tail, staring at it in bewilderment, before he shot Hex a look of pure hatred and bounded away through the trees. All the power rushed out of Hex in a flood and he stumbled, almost falling to his knees. Iris was struggling to prop herself up on her elbows. “No!” he said, scrambling over to her. “You must rest. You’re badly wounded.” Up close, he saw just how much blood she had lost, and his heart sank. Her uniform was so soaked he couldn’t even tell its original color. Her eyes were glazed, and her breathing was fast and shallow.

“That was a dirty trick you pulled back there in the palace,” she wheezed, staring up at him. “But I think you just saved my life. Does that mean I have to thank you?”

“No,” he told her. He stripped off his jacket and shirt, tore the shirt into strips, and did his best to bandage the worst of Iris’s wounds. If it had been magic that he had somehow summoned back there battling the Lion, it was gone now. But without it, he didn’t know if he could save the plucky little monkey he’d risked his life for.

“That hurts,” she said crossly as he tied off a bandage too tightly.

“Complain to the Lion,” he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. There was no mistaking it: Iris was close to death. And, he realized, he desperately wanted to save her. The feeling was so alien he didn’t know what to make of it. Another fit of coughing wracked her broken body, and he hushed her gently, cradling her in his arms. She closed her eyes. “Too bad you went to all that trouble,” she coughed. “I was following you, you know. To stab you in the back.”

“Iris, hush,” he said. “Save your strength. You wouldn’t really have stabbed me anyway.”

“Probably not,” she conceded, and then her head rolled back and she lost consciousness. Hex lowered her to the ground, frantically feeling for a pulse. There it was, at the side of her throat—faint, and growing fainter. “Iris,” he pleaded. “It’s my fault you’re even here. Please don’t die.” He felt an unfamiliar wetness coursing down his cheeks. Was he bleeding? But his hands came away wet with something clear.

“Tears,” a voice said behind him, and he whirled around. Pete was looking over his shoulder, staring at Iris with an expression of intense concern.

“Tears? You leave me like this—leave her like this—and that’s all you can say?”

“You’re crying,” Pete said curtly. “Now get out of my way if you want her to live.”

Hex moved aside, and Pete knelt over Iris’s body, holding his hands just above her chest. As they hovered over her, they began to glow. This time, Hex could see tendrils of magic rising out of the earth, forming a web that wrapped Iris’s body over and over again until she was an Iris-shaped purple light. Pete’s face was tense with concentration, his eyes closed, his lips moving silently as the magic intensified. His arms began to tremble and his forehead grew slick with a sheen of sweat, and Hex worried that he might faint. Finally, with a gasp, Pete slumped backward and opened his eyes. Iris was still out, but her breathing had evened, and the worst of her wounds had stopped bleeding.

“She’ll be all right,” Pete whispered. “But the Lion did more than just harm her body. His power is to feed on others’ fear—on their very essence. She has to rest for a while, and so do I.”

Hex covered Iris with the blanket from his pack; mysteriously, two more had appeared beneath it, along with a loaf of bread that looked decidedly fresher than what he’d eaten earlier. He spread out the blankets while Pete did his best to start a fire. It took him several tries, but finally he coaxed a feeble magical blaze out of the air.

“Will the Lion come back?” Hex asked, tearing the loaf of bread in half. He handed the bigger half to Pete, who took it without commenting on Hex’s sudden generosity.

“Not tonight,” Pete said. “We’re safe for a little while at least.” He settled back onto his blanket, chewing on his hunk of bread, and after a moment Hex did the same. While Iris snored softly, Pete and Hex stared into the fire, neither of them ready for sleep.

“You knew,” Hex said, and Pete started.

“Knew what?”

“You knew the Lion had Iris. You knew he would kill her, if I didn’t stop him somehow.” Pete was silent. “She’d be dead,” Hex repeated. “If I hadn’t found a way to save her—if I hadn’t been brave enough to face down the Lion–you would have left her there to die.”

“She didn’t die,” Pete said.

“But she would have.”

“None of us know what would have been,” Pete said quietly. “We only know what is.”

“How is leaving her there to die any different than what I did in the palace?” Hex asked angrily. “We’re not so different, you and me. You tell me I only think of myself, and maybe that’s true—maybe it’s always been true. But you were willing to sacrifice Iris for some stupid test, to see if I’m eligible for some quest you want me for—”

“Saving Oz is not ‘some quest,’” Pete said. “And the circumstances of the test choose themselves. I didn’t know Iris would be in danger.”

“If you had known the test would put her in danger, would you have consented to it?”

Pete raised one hand in a helpless gesture. With a loud snort, Iris turned over and settled herself again. “I don’t choose the magic,” Pete said. “The magic chooses us. Oz chooses us. We can only do what it asks of us, and do our best to keep it safe. Sometimes that involves sacrifice, yes.”

“But not your sacrifice,” Hex said.

“I’ve sacrificed more than you will ever know,” Pete said sharply. “You don’t know the first thing about sacrifice, Wizard.”

Hex was silent, watching the flames flicker silently from blue to pink to green and back to blue again. Though they burned for hours, they didn’t seem to require fuel. Just one more thing in this crazy country that didn’t make any sense.

“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.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Pete said. Hex nodded, and Iris sighed in pleasure.

“I should get out of the queendom more often,” she said happily. “There’s nothing like a good vacation to make you appreciate home, right?” Hex almost laughed out loud. Iris was the only person—well, monkey—he could imagine who would describe being attacked by a monstrous Lion while plotting a murder as a “vacation.” He wondered again about his own home. Had he wanted to go back? Or had he been happy here?

“We should keep moving,” Pete said. “The Lion isn’t stopped by pretty scenery. Neither are the Tin Woodman’s soldiers.”

“Soldiers?” Hex asked in surprise.

Pete nodded. “Not everyone in Oz can access the kind of magic you did in the clearing. The Lion is doubtless on his way to warn Dorothy and Glinda, if he hasn’t already. And once they learn that someone with that kind of power is just wandering around Oz—well, it won’t be long before they’re hot on our trail.”

“Dorothy,” Iris said, and spat on the ground. Hex was shocked.

“Who is this Dorothy?” he asked.

“She used to be the best thing that had happened to Oz,” Iris said, “but then she turned out to be the worst.” Hex waited for Pete to cut her off, but to his surprise, Pete let her continue, her voice growing even more passionate as they walked. “For a long time, a terrible usurper ruled Oz,” she explained. “He came from the Other Place in a beautiful balloon that floated in the sky. This was a long time ago, of course—the citizens of Oz were much more trusting then. He deceived everyone in Oz and made them believe he was a good and kind Wizard, when he was nothing of the sort! He didn’t even have magic—just a bunch of fancy tricks. He made the people of Oz build him the Emerald City, and then he shut himself up in the palace so no one would realize he was a fraud. He stole the throne from the fairies, the rightful rulers. We tried to stop him, but he was too powerful.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Pete said drily. “The citizens of Oz have never done much to stop anything from happening.”

“The monkeys did!” Iris said hotly. “We saw through him from the very first! We knew he was trouble! We called him the Traitor! We never bowed down to him!”

“You didn’t try to stop him until it was too late,” Pete said. “Until he sold you into slavery. And all of this happened before you were even born, Iris.”

“Are you going to let me finish or not?” Iris snapped, and Hex was surprised to see tears in her eyes. Pete relented, waving at her to go ahead. “That was when Dorothy first showed up,” Iris continued. “She came from the Other Place.”

If Dorothy was from the Other Place, and he was from the Other Place—did that mean they were related somehow? Had he known her? Something stirred at the back of his mind. He was so close, he thought, to putting it all together. So close to remembering who he was. But understanding was still on the far side of that shimmering wall—close enough to touch, but separated from him by a barrier he couldn’t yet cross.

“Dorothy defeated the Traitor, and sent him back to the Other Place, and no one has heard from him since. Good riddance, if you ask me. She went back, too, and Ozma took the throne”—Iris gave a respectful little curtsy, as if this Ozma could somehow see her—“and everything was as it should be. But then Dorothy came back. Nobody knows how or why she got here, but this time everything was different. She was different. It was as if something—or someone—had brought her back to destroy Oz. At first, no one realized anything was wrong. She stayed in the palace with Ozma, and they had all sorts of banquets, and everyone who was anyone was invited—I didn’t want to go, of course,” Iris said quickly, “even if I’d had an invitation, I would have turned it down, I don’t care a thing about parties.” The wistful look in her eye belied her words. “But then Ozma changed somehow, and suddenly it was Dorothy this, Dorothy that. The Tin Woodman’s armies marching around and laying waste to villages. It’s like Oz has been wounded; the whole land is bleeding magic, and unless someone puts a stop to Dorothy, we’re all doomed.”

Iris’s tone had grown more and more somber as she spoke, and even the weather echoed her mood: a huge thunderstorm was piling up in the distance, moving toward them rapidly, and the temperature was dropping. They were almost across the meadow; at the horizon, Hex could make out something bright and undulating that must have been the Sea of Blossoms. They were close then. Pete looked up at the sky. There was something unnatural about how quickly the storm was moving. Something almost—magical. “You wanted to know what the third test was,” Pete said, looking at him. “It’s coming for you now.”

Hex stared up at the sky. The thunderclouds, directly overhead now, swirled and coalesced, taking the shape of giant men who battled each other fiercely. As each blow landed, thunder cracked and boomed and jagged spears of lightning shot down toward the earth. Iris shrieked as a white-purple streak of lightning struck the ground just a few feet from where they stood. Hex recognized nothing about the meadow, and yet everything about this scene was familiar: the heaving purple clouds, the thunder, the color and sound of the lightning—he was in a basket, a basket floating in the air, while all around him a thunderstorm just like this one raged; he was fleeing something, or going somewhere. He was leaving Oz. It was so close—he grasped desperately for the tangled threads of memory, but they slipped away again, just out of reach. An earsplitting rumble of thunder followed another terrific crack of lightning that struck the earth in front of them so fiercely it split the ground open. Purple and gray smoke poured from the fissure, forming itself into a stairway that led down into the darkness.

As quickly as it had come upon them, the thunderstorm dissipated into a few scattered clouds that veiled the bright sun and cast long shadows across the now-chilly meadow. Hex shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Iris gaped at the staircase, her expression so comical that Hex would have laughed if he himself had not been filled with fear at the sight of it.

“This is as far as we go,” Pete said calmly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “I’ll see Iris safely to the edge of the Sea of Blossoms, and then I must return to the palace. I’ve already been away far too long. Dorothy will be suspicious.”

“What about me?” Hex said, his voice more plaintive than he would have liked.

“I wouldn’t go down there if you paid me,” Iris said vehemently.

“You’re not the one who has to,” Pete said to her. He pointed to Hex’s pack. “Change into the clothes you brought with you before you go,” he said. “You won’t need anything else.”

Hex swallowed. “What if I refuse?”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “If you refuse? Do you really want to wander around forever like the village idiot, never knowing who you are and where you came from?”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I’m happy this way.”

Pete shrugged. “In that case, you’re no help to us. I’ll take away your protection—and your disguise. There are a lot of people in Oz who won’t be too happy to see you as you are—and you won’t even know why, or who to protect yourself from.”

“You’d leave me to die?”

“We do what’s necessary for the greater good of Oz,” Pete said dismissively. “Nothing comes without sacrifice.”

Iris was looking back and forth between the two of them, her eyes wide. “I think you should probably do what he says,” she said to Hex. “He sounds kind of serious.” She limped forward and stuck out a paw. After a minute, Hex realized she meant for him to shake it, and obliged. “You started out kind of a rat,” she said. “But then you made up for it. You’re not so bad, human. Thanks for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, bemused. “Good luck with your—”

“Double-entry accounting is not a matter of luck,” she said. “It is an operation of skill.” She limped off toward the Sea of Blossoms, not looking back to see if Pete was following.

“Good luck,” Pete said. “Iris is right, you know. You are doing a pretty good job lately, for a human.” His tone had the same begrudging respect he’d had back in the clearing, after Hex had fought the Lion to save Iris.

“Can’t you at least warn me what the last test will be?” Hex asked.

Pete laughed. “You should know better by now than to even ask. But when it comes time for you to make a choice, remember: you’re the Wizard. Once you ruled Oz, and now Oz is a part of you. Think about that, before you accept any gifts that are offered you.”

With that cryptic remark, Pete turned to follow Iris. “Good-bye!” Hex called after him, but he didn’t turn around or acknowledge Hex’s farewell. “And thanks for nothing,” Hex muttered under his breath. He dug his old suit out of the pack Pete had left him, feeling a little silly, and changed behind a tree—as if there was anyone around for miles who could see him. He adjusted his top hat on his head and straightened his jacket. The clothes might make the man, but they didn’t tell him anything new about who he was. With that, he laid the pack tidily under the nearest tree, took a deep breath, and started down the stairs.

ELEVEN

Although the lightning had opened up the earth just moments ago, the staircase into the earth seemed ancient. The steps were as worn as if generations of feet had passed over them. Torches burned along the walls at intervals just regular enough to light the way, but their flame was cold and blue, not the cheery orange of real fire, or even the flickering multihued warmth of Pete’s magical campfire. The air was chilly, and Hex pulled his jacket close.

The staircase ended at last at a long, dim corridor that stretched before him into more darkness. He looked around him for some kind of light, but the torches were firmly fastened to the walls. Did he have the magic to make a lantern? Even as he thought it, the air around him sparked and crackled, crystalizing into a kerosene lantern with a metal handle and a cheerful golden flame. He plucked it out of midair: it was solid and unmistakably real. What else could he conjure up? A five-course dinner? A trip home? A fur coat to stave off the chill? But no matter how he concentrated, nothing else happened. Magic, apparently, was fickle. No surprise there. He held the lantern aloft, advancing cautiously down the corridor. After a few minutes, the hallway abruptly ended in a rough wall. He stared in disbelief at the wall. He rapped it with his knuckles: solid stone. Was he supposed to cast a spell? Say a magic word? He racked his brains for any kind of clue Pete had given him, anything that would indicate what he was supposed to do next, but came up with nothing. He was at a literal dead end.

Well, he thought, no one could say he hadn’t tried. He’d done his best to meet the test, and nothing had happened. There was no reason for him to stick around in this big, empty hall. Pete would have to understand. Maybe Pete wouldn’t even know—he could find a nice village somewhere, settle down. Perhaps he’d try being a farmer, or a grocer. What did people do for work in Oz? Maybe he didn’t even need to work, if he was such a powerful magician. He could get a nice set of robes and a wand, maybe teach himself to fly. He could visit Iris and the monkeys, impress them with his powers. Perhaps Queen Lulu would award him some kind of honorary decree. He’d be esteemed above all other humans, loved—and maybe feared, just a little—by all.

Buoyed by this cheerful thought, he turned around to leave. As he took the first step, there was a powerful whoosh and hundreds of torches flared to life all around him, nearly blinding him. He threw one arm over his eyes and yelped in surprise.

“At last,” said a cool, dry, sardonic voice behind him. “We have the immeasurable honor, brethren, of meeting the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

Hex turned around very, very slowly, blinking until his eyes adjusted to the light’s dazzle. The rough stone hallway was gone: he was standing in an immense, palatial room lit by huge crystal chandeliers; the light was not so extraordinarily bright after all, but had just seemed so in contrast to the dim hallway. The room was luxuriously appointed; the walls were draped in black velvet, and the floor was covered with rich, tapestried carpets piled three or four deep. And it was full of people. They stared at him curiously from where they reclined against carelessly stacked overstuffed velvet pillows or slouched in ornately carved armchairs that rested next to enameled tables bearing platters of glossy, dark fruits he didn’t recognize. They were all alarmingly beautiful, but eerily identical, with bone-pale skin and hair a shade whiter. They were dressed alike in black clothes that blended into the walls so that their cruel, fox-like faces seemed to float, disembodied, in the darkness. The nearest of them shifted in his chair and there was something inhuman about the way he moved, almost as if he was double-jointed. At the center of the room there was a flat black pool, perfectly round and still, whose waters reflected nothing but instead seemed to absorb the light like a black hole.

There was no mistaking the speaker, who lounged regally in a throne-like chair that was bigger and more elaborate than all the other furniture in the room. Carved out of some dense, shiny black stone, it was studded with blood-colored rubies that gleamed dully in the soft light of the chandeliers. Its occupant was even paler than the other people in the room, with long, sleek white hair that spilled down his shoulders and over the rich black robes he wore. One long, leather-clad leg was slung over the throne’s armrest, and he kicked idly with one booted foot against its side. A long black cigarette burned between the first and second knuckles of his fingers; he flicked ash disdainfully on the carpet before taking a long, decadent drag. His expression was one of utter, all-consuming boredom, but his black eyes glittered dangerously.

Hex coughed, trying not to stare around him. “You seem to know who I am,” he said cautiously, “but I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

The man threw his head back and laughed. “It speaks, brethren!” he chortled, and all around him the other people in the room tittered. Hex flushed an embarrassed red. “Oh come now, Wizard, don’t be so easily flustered,” the man said, still laughing. “There was a time when all of us here were under your estimable thumb, was there not? We were simply terrified of your incredible powers.” At this, everyone around him only laughed harder. Hex scowled and balled his hands into fists, determined not to let these strange people get the best of him.

“Ah, my dear Wizard, I apologize,” the man said, still chuckling. “Come forward, and let me greet you properly. Welcome to the Kingdom of the Fairies.”

As he skirted the pool, Hex saw that the fairy’s black cloak was actually a pair of tightly folded wings—and, his glance darting around the room, he saw that the other occupants of the room all sported wings as well. Some of the fairies yawned and stretched as he passed, unfurling their wings—black, but lacy and delicate as a butterfly’s—and waving them gently. Others stared at him openly, craning their heads to get a better look at him. At last he was standing before the throne, unsure of whether or not he should kneel.

“Do not humble yourself before me, Wizard,” the fairy said. It sounded a lot like the fairy was making fun of him. “We are practically—well, I wouldn’t say equals, but my people are the rightful rulers of Oz, and you, once upon a time, usurped the throne—so we have a certain degree of experience in common, do we not?” The mockery in his voice was now unmistakable. Hex felt stupid and small. Pete had said he hadn’t been much of a wizard, but he’d just been dragged through all kinds of trials, and the last thing he needed was some stupid creep in a weird getup making him feel small.

“You know I don’t remember anything,” he said angrily. “I’m here because Pete said you could help me if I passed your stupid test. Is that true, or should I just leave?”

The fairy laughed, and this time his laughter seemed genuine rather than malicious. Hex almost rolled his eyes in frustration. What was the deal with these people? Were they just toying with him? Did they even mean to help him at all? He’d had no reason to trust Pete to begin with, and now he was beginning to wonder if Pete had had some ulterior motive all along.

“I can give you back your memories, Wizard,” the fairy said. “But a choice lies in front of you; a crossroads of a kind. You must choose your path before we can give you back what you have lost.”

“A choice?” So this is it, Hex thought. This is the final test. The monkeys had tested his Wisdom—and he had failed. The Lion had tested his Courage—and he had passed. What was left? What happened if he failed? Would they really kill him, like Pete said?

“What do you think is left, Wizard?” the fairy king said. “Wisdom, Courage—what other virtue before you remains but Love?” He said the word “love” with a tone of such contempt that Hex nearly flinched. “Do you accept my challenge? Am I so much more frightening than the Lion, that you cannot trust the test I lay before you?”

That was not exactly reassuring. Hex raised an eyebrow. “What happens if I fail?”

The fairy sat up in his chair, and looked at Hex with a gaze that pinned him like an insect. “Then you are of no more use to us,” he said, “and people who are of no use to the fairies do not last long in Oz.”

“I thought Ozma was supposed to be good!” Hex protested.

“Ozma,” the king snorted, and a titter ran through the assembled crowd. “Ozma has her uses, but she is the least of all of us. Wizard, I grow impatient. Will you begin the test, or keep yapping all day?”

Hex stared at the fairy king, who blew a set of lazy smoke rings at the ceiling. “Take off your clothes,” the king said flatly, “and enter the pool. And then, Wizard, we will see what stuff you are made of.”

“Here?” Hex asked, bewildered.

“Where else?” It all seemed like some elaborate practical joke. Hex would take off his clothes, and they’d all laugh at him, and that would be the end of it; he’d be humiliated, they’d have had their fun. Suddenly, he found that he didn’t care. He was tired of cryptic pronouncements, inexplicable quests, mysterious allusions to a past he knew nothing about. If this was his chance to find out who he was and end it, he was willing to take it. And if not? If they killed him? So be it. It couldn’t be worse than the Lion, whatever they did. At least, it didn’t seem like it could be worse than the Lion. He stripped off his jacket and trousers and undergarments; the fairy king raised one eyebrow, but said nothing, and Hex sensed that he was almost impressed. He didn’t think I could do it. He stood before the fairies with his back straight, naked as the day he was born. “I accept your test,” he said, and then he walked to the pool and jumped in.

The water was as thick and viscous as oil, and he sank like a stone, realizing belatedly that he had not thought to ask how deep the pool was—and it seemed that the person he had once been had no idea how to swim. Without thinking, he opened his mouth to shout in terror, and the black liquid poured down his throat and entered his body, turning his limbs heavy and his thoughts slow and strange. He was drifting through darkness—he found, to his surprise, that he could breathe, although the air was heavy and close and scented with something unfamiliar but not unpleasant. Faintly sweet, like a delicate wildflower.

“Welcome, Wizard,” said a gentle voice. It came from everywhere and nowhere, surrounding him like the water itself; it was kind, but underneath the kindness was steel.

“Who are you?” he asked, and found that he could speak as easily as he could breathe—where was he? What kind of pool was this?

“You are in a place between places,” the voice said. “A place between times. Between what has come before, and what is yet to pass. The pool of the fairies is a very old and very powerful thing. It is here that you must make your final choice. But first, I have something to show you.”

“Who are you?” he asked again, and the voice laughed.

“I am Ozma,” it said, “and Lurline before her, and all the fairy queens who have ruled this country. I am made out of the magic of Oz itself. I am Oz, Wizard. Now pay attention.” The darkness around him swirled into an image of what he knew must be Oz, but not the Oz he had traveled through: this vision was a terrible one. Dark factories scarred the once-verdant landscape, belching black smoke into the toxic air. Munchkins in chains toiled miserably in the fields, drawing magic out of the earth with terrible machines as a glittering pink witch floated over them, her mouth drawn into a horrible grin. The Lion tore through a village, leaving a pile of corpses in his wake, his mouth and hands red with blood as he laughed mercilessly. The clanking armies of the Tin Woodman marched endlessly across the barren plains where flowers had once bloomed, crops had once grown. Iris, her wrists bound, wept piteously as a soldier dragged her behind him toward the Emerald Palace.

And then Hex saw himself and knew somehow that he was in the Other Place. He was in a huge room—a study or a library—filled with rich, expensive furniture. Bookcases stuffed with leather-bound books and curios lined one wall, and framed posters featuring his picture plastered another. His side table was crowded with flowers and cards; baskets of fan mail were piled beneath them. He was reading a book about magic, seated at an impressive oak desk covered in ornate carvings, while a butler brought him a glass of whiskey in a crystal highball glass on a little silver tray, bowing deeply.

“You can leave Oz,” the voice said. “You can return to the Other Place. This is the life that awaits you there—the life of a conjurer, a stage magician of great renown. You will be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams; you will perform for presidents and kings. Your magic will not be real, not the magic of Oz, but it will not matter—because audiences around the world will believe it is. You will live a long, illustrious life, and die a very old and very respected man.”

“But Oz . . . ,” he said.

“But Oz will become what you have seen. There will be no stopping the tide of Dorothy’s dark magic. Oz will fall.”

“And if I stay?”

“There are no certain things,” the voice said. “There is no way to see the end of this story until we are upon it. You have magic here, real magic. You have been transformed. If Oz is to have a chance, it will be because you stay. But there are no guarantees.”

“I could give up everything and still fail?”

“You could.”

“The fairies mocked you.”

“Our line is . . . different from our kindred,” said the voice, and now it seemed impossibly sad. “The burdens of ruling Oz alone have changed us. Lurline’s descendants are true to Oz, but the other fairies have become corrupt and weak. They see only themselves. If you choose Oz, Wizard, you must be wary of them.”

He drifted through the dark water, confused and lost. “What about Pete?”

He could almost hear the voice smile. “What do you think of Pete?”

“I think he’s a jerk.”

Now the voice was definitely laughing. “Do not be so quick to judge, Wizard. Pete has his own burdens to carry, and his own secrets. All will be revealed to you in time—if you choose the people of Oz. If you do not . . .”

“If I don’t, the fairies will kill me.”

“The fairies are malicious, but not evil. Whatever they told you, they will not kill you. You will be returned safely to your own time, your own home. All of this will be behind you.” The voice grew sad again. “You will forget your time here, even as Oz ceases to exist. But you must know what you were, before you can choose what you will become. I give you your memories, Wizard.”

The terrible vision of Oz, of Iris with her bound and bleeding wrists, vanished. And suddenly, his memory—the memory of who he had been, what he had done, his days in the palace and in the Other Place, the entire long, tangled ribbon of his life, spilled back into his head like wine pouring from a jar, until he was dizzy with it. The petty tricks he had played on the people as soon as he had arrived in Oz, the deceit—forcing them to build him the Emerald City, betraying the monkeys, avoiding the witches like the plague lest he be exposed as the fraud he so essentially was. His entire time in Oz had been marked with his craven cowardice and chicanery. He had made the worst possible choice at every turn. No wonder the monkeys had cursed him; no wonder Pete had treated him with such contempt. He was filled with an overwhelming shame. How could he face the people of Oz after what he had done? How could he possibly stay here? The only answer was to go somewhere no one knew him and start over.

It hardly seemed like a choice at all. “I choose—” He opened his mouth to ask her to send him back, send him home at last—but something stopped him at the last minute. What would happen to him if he returned to the Other Place? If he left behind what it was he had found here—the possibility that he was something far more than an ordinary man? He had felt the power of Oz’s magic running through him like a drug in his veins. To abandon that forever, once he had tasted it—what would that do to him? All the money and fame in the world could never come close to that elation, that exhilarating moment in the clearing when he had felt the full power of Oz coursing through him, when almost anything had seemed possible. What if that power was the chance to redeem himself? What if it would make him a better man than he had been? If he left now, if he went back to the Other Place, he would live with the regret of his loss for all the rest of his years. He would lose the chance of undoing the terrible things he had done, and never be able to forgive himself for it. And more than anything else, even if he went back to riches and fame, he would never use magic—real magic—again. Never know what it was like to summon the power of Oz. Never find out what he was truly capable of, now that he could tap into Oz’s magic. And he knew, deep down, that regret would undo him, like a cancer in his heart.

“I choose Oz,” he said. All around him, he could hear the fairies crying out—in joy, in exhilaration, in triumph, he could not say. “I am the Wizard!” he cried aloud, and then all at once he had the sensation of flying through the air at a tremendous speed until he landed with a sudden, ungainly thump on the carpet at the fairy king’s feet, stark naked and dripping wet.

The fairy king sneered down at him. “So you have chosen us after all, Wizard,” he said, and beckoned to one of the fairies behind him. “Bring our Wizard a towel,” he added, laughing mockingly. “If you are truly to be the savior of Oz, Wizard, you might want to start by putting on some clothes.”

TWELVE

The fairies bustled about, wrapping him up in soft robes, rubbing dry his hair until he batted their hands away with irritation. They tried to dress him, but he turned his back to them and put his clothes on with as much dignity as he could muster. He was acutely conscious of the king’s amused gaze. A fairy brought him a mirror and a comb, and as he tidied his hair as best he could he saw that the face in the mirror was his own, his real face; Pete’s disguise had melted painlessly away. Another fairy offered him a glass of something hot and steaming. The surface of the liquid appeared to be glowing from within. “What is that?” he asked, eyeing it dubiously.

“Sunfruit Schnapps!” the fairy said cheerfully. The Wizard took a cautious sip and the fiery liquid slipped down his throat, setting him to coughing furiously. But soon a warm glow filled his stomach, and he found he didn’t mind the burn nearly as much after another few sips. The fairies tittered as he chugged down the rest of the liquor and waved his cup around, which magically refilled itself.

“You have made your choice,” the fairy king said, and the excited buzz of the fairies fell silent at once.

“I have,” the Wizard said.

The fairy king smiled, a smile that did not reach his eyes. “We do not give, Wizard, without asking something in return. We have given you back yourself; we have offered you the power of Oz itself. And now, we will ask of you a tiny favor before you devote yourself to the glory of Oz.” Again, it was almost as though the fairy was making fun of him, the Wizard thought, his mind racing. Pete had been infuriating, but the Wizard had never doubted how much he cared about Oz. The fairies seemed different, though. The voice in the pool had said they were corrupt and weak. Was it possible they were trying to trick him? Was Pete working for them—or being used by them?

The Wizard narrowed his eyes. “Describe this . . . favor.”

“Long ago, you gave three gifts to three children of Oz—all of whom asked you for something they lacked. This much, I assume, you remember now?”

“The Cowardly Lion,” the Wizard said slowly. “The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman—but that was nothing. Those gifts weren’t even real. I had no power then.”

“Indeed, you thought nothing of answering their pleas, knowing that the magic they believed you had was nothing but an illusion. But what if I told you the illusion itself was a lie?”

“I don’t understand,” the Wizard said helplessly. “I was never—I never had magic, before now. I don’t even know what happened back there with the Lion. It’s out of my control.”

“The journey from the Other Place transforms your kind in ways we do not yet understand,” the fairy king said. “In the crossing, you become something more—and perhaps something less—than what you once were. Like Dorothy, you had no magic in your world; like Dorothy, Oz has altered you. You have had the power of Oz at your disposal all this time, Wizard. When you created the three gifts—the Lion’s courage, the Tin Woodman’s heart, the Scarecrow’s brain—you thought you were only offering them a kind of panacea. But there was real magic, Old Magic, in those gifts—and when those from the Other Place make that discovery it often leads them down a path of perversion and abuse.

“Make no mistake, Wizard, the magic of Oz is our magic, the magic of the fairies—and we want those gifts back. The corruption of the Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman is on your shoulders. You must bring back to us what was not yours to give.”

“You want the gifts back?” the Wizard asked, his mind whirling. “But why?”

The king rose from his throne, fierce and imperious. “The doings of my people are no business of yours, Wizard. The magic of Oz is ours to keep safe, ours to protect. You have let loose something that must be stopped, and it is up to you to make amends. The pool offered you a choice, and you chose Oz. Do not challenge Oz’s rightful rulers.”

“Look,” the Wizard said crossly, “I went through kind of a lot to get here. Pete said you could help me, and now you’re asking me to go off on some crazy quest. Is he one of you?”

The fairies stirred restlessly, and the fairy king looked almost shifty. “Is that what he told you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” the Wizard said. “Except that you had the key to my memories, and that I’d be tested—a test I just passed. I’m not helping you until you tell me who Pete is and why you sent him to me in the first place.”

The fairy king considered the question, his eyes half-lidded, before he answered. “Pete is one of us, in a way,” he said finally. “We have been waiting a long time, Wizard, to see if you might be able to help Oz with your . . .” The king paused delicately, and someone behind him snickered—“powers.”

“What do you mean, you waited? You knew I was in that field? For twenty-five years?” The king didn’t answer. And then the worst thought of all occurred to him. “Someone sent that storm to keep me in Oz—someone with real magic. That was you, wasn’t it?” The fairy was silent, but his expression gave him away. The Wizard felt fury rise in his chest. The fairies had been using him all along, and for longer than he’d even imagined. They’d left him in that field until they thought he might be useful—and they would have continued to leave him there forever if he wasn’t. And if the king lied about that, no doubt he was lying about the gifts—lying about protecting Oz. He wanted the gifts for himself—but to what end? Did the fairies want to restore Ozma to the throne, when the pool itself had told him they were corrupt? Was the fairy king imagining himself on the throne in the Emerald Palace? The Wizard schooled his features, keeping his expression neutral. He couldn’t let the fairy king guess that he knew there was more to the fairies’ demand than simply the well-being of Oz. And suddenly he was angry again, angry like he hadn’t been since he’d faced the Lion. The voice in the pool had made him believe he could be good again—but this lying pack of fairies was only out for themselves. Why should he be selfless, when no one else in Oz was? What did he care about their petty power plays? Who was to say that Ozma was any better? Maybe everyone who rules Oz is destined to put themselves first, he thought bitterly. Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s this place—and now I’m stuck here. Ozma had tricked him in the pool—tricked him into believing in the possibility of his own goodness. But what felt good about being good? He squashed down the thought of Iris—after all, even she had been trying in her own way to stab him in the back. No, the only thing that felt good was power. He’d had power once. And now he wanted it back.

“We felt you had more to do in Oz,” the fairy king said smoothly, interrupting his thoughts. “Bringing your balloon down was not the most graceful way to keep you here, and for that I apologize.” The king coughed, and the Wizard noted how difficult it was for him to so much as admit to the slightest wrongdoing—even if he was only doing it to sweet-talk the Wizard into doing his bidding. “I hope you can forgive us. Sometimes when the good of Oz is concerned we—ah”—the fairy king looked as though he was about to bring up a hair ball—“we can, er, make mistakes. Not that that happens often, of course,” he added hastily.

The Wizard drew himself up to his full height—which was, admittedly, not very tall. “I accept your apology,” he lied, “and I accept your task. I will not fail. Do not forget that I did rule Oz, and well.”

“‘Well’ is not precisely the word I would have used,” the fairy king said, laughing, “but I have no doubt you will do your earnest best on our behalf. I offer you a token—and a reminder—of our . . . esteem.” The fairy king bent forward and scooped up a palmful of water from the black pool. He took his palm away, and the globe of water floated there; with both hands, he pinched and shaped it, drawing it out into an ebony cane. When it was finished, he presented it to the Wizard with a flourish. “Do not forget us,” he said lightly. “We will be watching you, Wizard. Of that, you can be certain.”

“I have no doubt,” the Wizard said coolly. “But I have no need of your gifts.”

“I insist,” the king said coldly, holding it out. The Wizard hesitated, and then accepted the cane. He tapped it experimentally against the ground; it was as solid as an ordinary cane, though the wood was shot through with an obsidian slickness that echoed the water of the pool. As he looked at it, an eye opened in the dark wood and winked at him before disappearing again. So this was how they would watch him. He would have to be very careful, indeed. He had no doubt that if he found a way to get rid of the cane they would punish him for it somehow. Now was not the time to defy them. No, he’d wait until the moment was right.

“Then we are agreed,” the fairy king said, and the Wizard smiled, matching the king’s oily grin with one of his own.

“But of course.” A flicker of uncertainty crossed the fairy’s face before vanishing again, and the Wizard smiled to himself in triumph. Not so sure of yourself now, are you? he thought.

“Then let us celebrate,” the fairy king said, “and afterward, we shall return you to the world above to begin your most noble quest.” He clapped his hands, and a parade of extraordinary creatures—lithe, beautiful girls with the bodies of human women and the heads of deer, a fat little troll in an ermine coat far too big for him, a frog the size of a man dressed in a tuxedo with tails—capered into the throne room, bearing platters of steaming dishes and a host of folding tables. Wine poured itself from floating bottles into heavy goblets of silver and gold that settled themselves onto trays, to be whisked about by mournful-looking specters as insubstantial as mist—as the Wizard saw when a fairy walked right through one of them, snatching up a wineglass as the ghostly waiter dissolved and then re-formed. The king himself served the Wizard a heaping portion of roast venison on a white china plate and drew up a folding table and a comfortable little chair before returning to his throne with a plate of his own. And though the room was full of merriment—fairies chatting, gossiping, exclaiming over this delicacy and that—they all ignored the Wizard as completely as if he were invisible, so that a miserable sense of loneliness punctuated the feast and turned the taste of the meat to ashes in his mouth.

“I had better be going,” he said aloud. No one paid him any attention as he pushed away the table and got up. Without his even reaching for it, the cane found its way to his hand. A dull, shabby corridor that bore a resemblance to the one that had led him to this awful room opened up in the wall before him. And as he stumbled down it, the Sunfruit Schnapps churned in his belly, and he wondered if he was going to be sick. As he left, the fairies’ laughter echoed behind him, high-pitched and cruel, and it rang down the hallway after him for a long time.

THIRTEEN

The climb up the stairs from the fairies’ kingdom was not as long as he remembered it, and he soon emerged, blinking, into the sunlit meadow where Pete and Iris had left him. Pete was sitting with his back against a tree, eating an apple.

“So you made your choice,” Pete said. “And you remember now what you are.”

“So I did. And yes, I do.”

They were both quiet, looking at each other.

“The fairies can be—”

“Awful?”

“I was going to say complicated,” Pete said, smiling a little, “but yes, that, too. But you have to understand, the good of Oz is what they care about most. No matter how they seem to the . . . unprepared visitor.”

“Is it,” the Wizard said. Pete looked at him, surprised, and for the first time since the Wizard had met him he looked uncertain.

“Of course,” Pete said. “That’s all any of us want. What’s best for Oz.”

“Of course,” the Wizard echoed.

“That’s why you chose this,” Pete said. “That’s why you chose to stay. To fight for what Oz once was—and will be again. We won’t fail. We’ll defeat Dorothy, and restore the balance.”

“That’s all I want,” the Wizard said smoothly, and Pete’s face collapsed into relief.

“Good,” he said. “I’m sorry I—underestimated you.” Pete took a deep breath. “Listen—I owe you an apology. All along, I expected the worst from you.”

“I can’t really blame you,” the Wizard said gently. “I did things that were unforgivable. I can hardly expect you to simply forget the past.”

“I can’t forget the past,” Pete said nobly. “But I did forget something just as important. I forgot that people can change. Even people who have done terrible things.”

“I’ve learned so much from you,” the Wizard said easily. Pete smiled, and the Wizard almost laughed. So easy to fool them; so easy to play the part of penitent revolutionary, vowing to do right by his adopted home. What would they say, Pete and the fairies, if they could see what he really wanted?

Oz had been his once, and it could be again. Not just his in name, as it had been before, but his wholly—now that he knew he had real power, now that he could access the Old Magic of Oz. He had liked the throne, liked it very much. He didn’t know why the fairies wanted the three gifts so badly, but the answer had to be their power. If he had the Old Magic, the gifts, the throne—nothing would be able to stop him. Not Dorothy, not Glinda, not a bunch of goths in black bathrobes, chain-smoking cloves underground and longing for the good old days. And Dorothy—oh yes, he remembered her. Dorothy owed him. And he was going to make her pay.

Pete took a step forward, and the long grass parted to reveal the most familiar highway in Oz: the Road of Yellow Brick. Waiting, as it always was, to take travelers to the Emerald City, no matter where their journey began. The Wizard smiled to himself. Like Dorothy had once said, there was no place like home. He found he was very much looking forward to his return.

“Are you ready?” Pete asked, taking the first step onto the golden road.

“Oh yes,” the Wizard said, tapping his cane lightly against the yellow bricks. “I am very ready indeed.”

EXCERPT FROM DOROTHY MUST DIE

Follow Amy Gumm’s mission to take down Dorothy in . . .

ONE

I first discovered I was trash three days before my ninth birthday—one year after my father lost his job and moved to Secaucus to live with a woman named Crystal and four years before my mother had the car accident, started taking pills, and began exclusively wearing bedroom slippers instead of normal shoes.

I was informed of my trashiness on the playground by Madison Pendleton, a girl in a pink Target sweat suit who thought she was all that because her house had one and a half bathrooms.

“Salvation Amy’s trailer trash,” she told the other girls on the monkey bars while I was dangling upside down by my knees and minding my own business, my pigtails scraping the sand. “That means she doesn’t have any money and all her clothes are dirty. You shouldn’t go to her birthday party or you’ll be dirty, too.”

When my birthday party rolled around that weekend, it turned out everyone had listened to Madison. My mom and I were sitting at the picnic table in the Dusty Acres Mobile Community Recreation Area wearing our sad little party hats, our sheet cake gathering dust. It was just the two of us, same as always. After an hour of hoping someone would finally show up, Mom sighed, poured me another big cup of Sprite, and gave me a hug.

She told me that, whatever anyone at school said, a trailer was where I lived, not who I was. She told me that it was the best home in the world because it could go anywhere.

Even as a little kid, I was smart enough to point out that our house was on blocks, not wheels. Its mobility was severely oversold. Mom didn’t have much of a comeback for that.

It took her until around Christmas of that year when we were watching The Wizard of Oz on the big flat-screen television—the only physical thing that was a leftover from our old life with Dad—to come up with a better answer for me. “See?” she said, pointing at the screen. “You don’t need wheels on your house to get somewhere better. All you need is something to give you that extra push.”

I don’t think she believed it even then, but at least in those days she still cared enough to lie. And even though I never believed in a place like Oz, I did believe in her.

That was a long time ago. A lot had changed since then. My mom was hardly the same person at all anymore. Then again, neither was I.

I didn’t bother trying to make Madison like me anymore, and I wasn’t going to cry over cake. I wasn’t going to cry, period. These days, my mom was too lost in her own little world to bother cheering me up. I was on my own, and crying wasn’t worth the effort.

Tears or no tears, though, Madison Pendleton still found ways of making my life miserable. The day of the tornado—although I didn’t know the tornado was coming yet—she was slouching against her locker after fifth period, rubbing her enormous pregnant belly and whispering with her best friend, Amber Boudreaux.

I’d figured out a long time ago that it was best to just ignore her when I could, but Madison was the type of person it was pretty impossible to ignore even under normal circumstances. Now that she was eight and a half months pregnant it was really impossible.

Today, Madison was wearing a tiny T-shirt that barely covered her midriff. It read Who’s Your Mommy across her boobs in pink cursive glitter. I did my best not to stare as I slunk by her on my way to Spanish, but somehow I felt my eyes gliding upward, past her belly to her chest and then to her face. Sometimes you just can’t help it.

She was already staring at me. Our gazes met for a tiny instant. I froze.

Madison glared. “What are you looking at, Trailer Trash?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I staring? I was just wondering if you were the Teen Mom I saw on the cover of Star this week.”

It wasn’t like I tried to go after Madison, but sometimes my sarcasm took on a life of its own. The words just came out.

Madison gave me a blank look. She snorted.

“I didn’t know you could afford a copy of Star.” She turned to Amber Boudreaux and stopped rubbing her stomach just long enough to give it a tender pat. “Salvation Amy’s jealous. She’s had a crush on Dustin forever. She wishes this were her baby.”

I didn’t have a crush on Dustin, I definitely didn’t want a baby, and I absolutely did not want Dustin’s baby. But that didn’t stop my cheeks from going red.

Amber popped her gum and smirked an evil smirk. “You know, I saw her talking to Dustin in third period,” she said. “She was being all flirty.” Amber puckered her lips and pushed her chest forward. “Oh, Dustin, I’ll help you with your algebra.”

I knew I was blushing, but I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or anger. It was true that I’d let Dustin copy my math homework earlier that day. But as cute as Dustin was, I wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d ever have a shot with him. I was Salvation Amy, the flat-chested trailer-trash girl whose clothes were always a little too big and a lot too thrift store. Who hadn’t had a real friend since third grade.

I wasn’t the type of girl Dustin would go for, with or without the existence of Madison Pendleton. He had been “borrowing” my algebra almost every day for the entire year. But Dustin would never look at me like that. Even at forty-pounds pregnant, Madison sparkled like the words on her oversize chest. There was glitter embedded in her eye shadow, in her lip gloss, in her nail polish, hanging from her ears in shoulder-grazing hoops, dangling from her wrists in blingy bracelets. If the lights went out in the hallway, she could light it up like a human disco ball. Like human bling. Meanwhile, the only color I had to offer was in my hair, which I’d dyed pink just a few days ago.

I was all sharp edges and angles—words that came out too fast and at the wrong times. And I slouched. If Dustin was into shiny things like Madison, he would never be interested in me.

I don’t know if I was exactly interested in Dustin, either, but we did have one thing in common: we both wanted out of Flat Hill, Kansas.

For a while, it had almost looked like Dustin was going to make it, too. All you need is a little push sometimes. Sometimes it’s a tornado; sometimes it’s the kind of right arm that gets you a football scholarship. He had been set to go. Until eight and a half months ago, that is.

I didn’t know what was worse: to have your shot and screw it up, or to never have had a shot in the first place.

“I wasn’t . . . ,” I protested. Before I could finish, Madison was all up in my face.

“Listen, Dumb Gumm,” she said. I felt a drop of her spit hit my cheek and resisted the urge to wipe it away. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. “Dustin’s mine. We’re getting married as soon as the baby comes and I can fit into my aunt Robin’s wedding dress. So you’d better stay away from him—not that he’d ever be interested in someone like you anyway.”

By this point, everyone in the hallway had stopped looking into their lockers, and they were looking at us instead. Madison was used to eyes on her—but this was new to me.

“Listen,” I mumbled back at her, wanting this to be over. “It was just homework.” I felt my temper rising. I’d just been trying to help him. Not because I had a crush on him. Just because he deserved a break.

“She thinks Dustin needs her help,” Amber chimed in. “Taffy told me she heard Amy offered to tutor him after school. Just a little one-on-one academic counseling.” She cackled loudly. She said “tutor” like I’d done a lap dance for Dustin in front of the whole fourth period.

I hadn’t offered anyway. He had asked. Not that it mattered. Madison was already steaming.

“Oh, she did, did she? Well why don’t I give this bitch a little tutoring of my own?”

I turned to walk away, but Madison grabbed me by the wrist and jerked me back around to face her. She was so close to me that her nose was almost touching mine. Her breath smelled like Sour Patch Kids and kiwi-strawberry lip gloss.

“Who the hell do you think you are, trying to steal my boyfriend? Not to mention my baby’s dad?”

“He asked me,” I said quietly so that only Madison could hear.

“What?”

I knew I should shut up. But it wasn’t fair. All I’d tried to do was something good.

“I didn’t talk to him. He asked me for help,” I said, louder this time.

“And what could he find so interesting about you?” she snapped back, as if Dustin and I belonged to entirely different species.

It was a good question. The kind that gets you where it hurts. But an answer popped into my head, right on time, not two seconds after Madison wobbled away down the hall. I knew it was mean, but it flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to even think about it.

“Maybe he just wanted to talk to someone his own size.”

Madison’s mouth opened and closed without anything coming out. I took a step back, ready to walk away with my tiny victory. And then she rolled into her heels, wound up, and—before I could duck—punched me square in the jaw. I felt my head throbbing as I stumbled back and landed on my butt.

It was my turn to be surprised, looking up at her in dazed, fuzzy-headed confusion. Had that just happened? Madison had always been a complete bitch, but—aside from the occasional shoulder check in the girls’ locker room—she wasn’t usually the violent type. Until now.

Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones.

“Take it back,” she demanded as I began to get to my feet.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amber a second too late. Always one to take a cue from her best friend, she yanked me by the hair and pushed me back down to the ground.

The chant of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” boomed in my ears. I checked for blood, relieved to find my skull intact. Madison stepped forward and towered over me, ready for the next round. Behind her, I could see that a huge crowd had gathered around us.

“Take it back. I’m not fat,” Madison insisted. But her lip quivered a tiny bit at the f-word. “I may be pregnant, but I’m still a size two.”

“Kick her!” Amber hissed.

I scooted away from her rhinestone-studded sandal and stood up just as the assistant principal, Mr. Strachan, appeared, flanked by a pair of security guards. The crowd began to disperse, grumbling that the show was over.

Madison quickly dropped her punching arm and went back to rubbing her belly and cooing. She scrunched her face up into a pained grimace, like she was fighting back tears. I rolled my eyes. I wondered if she would actually manage to produce tears.

Mr. Strachan looked from me to Madison and back again through his wire rims.

“Mr. Strachan,” Madison said shakily. “She just came at me! At us!” She patted her belly protectively, making it clear that she was speaking for two these days.

He folded his arms across his chest and lowered his glare to where I still crouched. Madison had him at “us.” “Really, Amy? Fighting with a pregnant girl? You’ve always had a hard time keeping your mouth shut when it’s good for you, but this is low, even for you.”

“She threw the first punch!” I yelled. It didn’t matter. Mr. Strachan was already pulling me to my feet to haul me off to the principal’s office.

“I thought you could be the bigger person at a time like this. I guess I overestimated you. As usual.”

As I walked away, I looked over my shoulder. Madison lifted her hand from her belly to give me a smug little wave. Like she knew I wouldn’t be coming back.

When I’d left for school that morning, Mom had been sitting on the couch for three days straight. In those three days, my mother had taken zero showers, had said almost nothing, and—as far as I knew—had consumed only half a carton of cigarettes and a few handfuls of Bugles. Oh, and whatever pills she was on. I’m not even sure when she got up to pee. She’d just been sitting there watching TV.

It used to be that I always tried to figure out what was wrong with her when she got like this. Was it the weather? Was she thinking about my father? Was it just the pills? Or was there something else that had turned her into a human slug?

By now, though, I was used to it enough to know that it wasn’t any of that. She just got like this sometimes. It was her version of waking up on the wrong side of the bed, and when it happened, you just had to let her ride it out. Whenever it happened, I wondered if this time she’d be stuck like this.

So when I pushed the door to our trailer open an hour after my meeting with the principal, carrying all the books from my locker in a black Hefty bag—I’d been suspended for the rest of the week—I was surprised to see that the couch was empty except for one of those blankets with the sleeves that Mom had ordered off TV with money we didn’t have.

In the bathroom, I could hear her rustling around: the faucet running, the clatter of drugstore makeup on a tiny counter. I guess she’d ridden it out again after all. Not that that was always a good thing.

“Mom?” I asked.

“Shit!” she yelped, followed by the sound of something falling into the sink. She didn’t come out of the bathroom, and she didn’t ask what I was doing home so early.

I dropped my backpack and my Hefty bag on the floor, slid off my sneakers, and looked over at the screen. Al Roker was pointing to my hometown on one of those big fake maps. He was frowning.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen America’s Weatherman frown before. Wasn’t he supposed to be reassuring? Wasn’t it, like, his job to make us feel like everything, including the weather, would be better soon? If not tomorrow then at some point during the extended ten-day forecast?

“Hey,” Mom said. “Did you hear? There’s a tornado coming!”

I wasn’t too worried about it. They were always predicting disaster around here, but although nearby towns had been hit a few times, Dusty Acres had always been spared. It was like we had cliché to shield us—Tornado Sweeps Through Trailer Park, Leaves Only an Overturned Barbecue. That’s something that happens in a movie, not in real life.

My mom emerged from the bathroom, fussing with her hair. I was glad to see her vertical again, freshly scrubbed with her face all done up, but I had to wince at the length of her skirt. It was shorter than anything I owned. It was shorter than anything Madison Pendleton owned. That could only mean one thing.

“Where are you going?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. “For three days, you’re one step away from a coma and now you’re heading to the bar?”

It was no surprise. In my mother’s world, there were only two pieces of scenery: the couch and the bar. If she wasn’t on one, she was in the other.

She let out an accusatory sigh. “Don’t start. I thought you’d be happy that I’m back on my feet again. Would you rather I just lie on the couch? Well, you might be content to mope around the house all day, but some of us have a life.” She fluffed up her already teased hair and began looking for her purse.

There were so many things wrong with everything she’d just said that I couldn’t even begin to process all the ways it was infuriating. Instead, I decided to try the sensible argument. “You’re the one who just told me there’s a tornado on the way. It’s dangerous. You could get hit by a tree or something. Won’t Tawny understand?”

“It’s a tornado party, Miss Smarty-Pants,” Mom said, as if that explained things. Her bloodshot eyes lit up as she spotted her purse lying on the floor next to the refrigerator and slung it over her shoulder.

I knew there was no point arguing when she got this way. “You need to sign this,” I demanded, holding out the slip of paper Strachan had given me. It was to show that she understood what I’d supposedly done today, and what the consequences were.

“I got suspended,” I told her.

It took her a few seconds to react, but when she did, her face registered not surprise or anger, but pure annoyance. “Suspended? What did you do?” Mom pushed past me again to get to her keys. Like I was just a thing that was in the way of something she wanted.

If we lived in a regular house, with one and a half bathrooms, I wondered, would she still hate me this much? Was resentment something that grew better in small spaces, like those flowers that Mom used to force to bloom inside in little vases?

“I got in a fight,” I said evenly. Mom kept staring. “With a pregnant girl.”

At that, Mom let out a long, whistling sigh and looked up at the ceiling.

“That’s just great,” Mom said, her voice dripping with something other than motherly concern.

I could have explained it to her. I could have told her exactly what happened; that it wasn’t my fault. That I hadn’t even hit anyone.

But the thing is, at that moment, I kind of liked having her think I’d done something wrong. If I was the kind of girl who got in fights with pregnant girls, it meant it was on her. And her stellar lack of parenting skills.

“Who was it?” Mom demanded, her plastic purse slamming into the counter.

“Madison Pendleton.”

She narrowed her eyes but not at me. She was remembering Madison. “Of course. That little pink bitch who ruined your birthday party.”

Mom paused and bit her lip. “You don’t see it, do you? She’s already getting hers. You don’t need to help it along.”

“What are you talking about? I’m the one who was suspended.”

Mom flung her hand out and gripped the air, mimicking a pregnant belly. “I give her a year. Two tops before she’s got a trailer of her own around the corner. That boy she’s with won’t stay. And she’ll be left with a little bundle of karma.”

I shook my head. “She’s walking around like she’s God’s gift. Like she and Dustin are still going to be prom king and queen.”

“Ha!” Mom hooted. “Now. But the second that kid comes, her life is over.” There was a pause I could drive a truck through.

For a split second, I thought of how things used to be. My before Mom. The one who’d dried my tears and challenged me to a cake-eating contest at that fateful birthday party. “More cake for us,” she’d said. That was when I was nine. After Dad left, but before the accident and the pills. It was the last time she’d even bothered remembering my birthday.

I didn’t know what to do when she acted like this. When we were almost having a normal conversation. When she almost seemed like she cared. When I almost saw some glimmer of who she used to be. I knew better but I leaned into the kitchenette counter anyway.

“One second, you have everything, your whole life ahead of you,” she said, fluffing her hair in the reflection from the stove. “And then, boom. They just suck it all out of you like little vampires till there’s nothing left of you.”

It was clear she wasn’t talking about Madison anymore. She was talking about me. I was her little vampire.

Anger pricked in my chest. Leave it to my mother to turn any situation into another excuse to feel sorry for herself. To blame me.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “You’re right. I’m the one who ruined your life. Not you. Not Dad. The fact that I’ve been taking care of you every day since I was thirteen—that was just my evil scheme to ruin everything for you.”

“Don’t be so sensitive, Amy,” she huffed. “It’s not all about you.”

“All about me? How could it be, when it’s always about you?”

Mom glared at me, and then there was a honk from outside. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this. Tawny’s waiting.” She stormed to the door.

“You’re just going to leave me in the middle of a tornado?”

It wasn’t that I cared about the weather. I wasn’t expecting it to be a big deal. But I wanted her to care; I wanted her to be running around gathering up batteries for flashlights and making sure we had enough water to last through the week. I wanted her to take care of me. Because that’s what mothers do.

Just because I’d learned how to take care of myself didn’t mean I didn’t still feel panic setting in every time she left me like this—all alone, with no clue when she’d be back, or if she’d ever be back at all. Even without a tornado on the way, it was always an open question.

“It’s better out there than in here,” she snapped.

Before I could think of a good enough retort, she was gone.

I opened the door as she slid into the front seat of Tawny’s Camaro; I watched as Mom adjusted the mirror to look at herself and saw her catch a glimpse of me instead, just before the car vroomed away.

Before I could have the satisfaction of slamming the door myself, the wind did it for me. So maybe this tornado was coming after all.

I thought of Dustin and his wasted scholarship, and about my father, who’d left me behind just to get out of here. I thought of what this place did to people. Tornado or no tornado, I wasn’t Dorothy, and a stupid little storm wasn’t going to change anything for me.

I walked to my dresser, pushed up flush against the kitchen stove, and opened the top drawer, feeling around for the red-and-white gym sock that was fat with cash—the stash of money I’d been saving for an emergency for years: $347. Once the storm cleared, that could get me bus tickets. That could get me a lot farther than Topeka, which was the farthest I had ever gone. I could let my mother fend for herself. She didn’t want me. School didn’t want me. What was I waiting for?

My hand hit the back of the drawer. All I found were socks.

I pulled the drawer out and rifled through it. Nothing.

The money was gone. Everything I’d spent my life saving up for. Gone.

It was no mystery who’d taken it. It was less of a mystery what she’d spent it on. With no cash, no car, and no one to wave a magic wand, I was stuck where I was.

It didn’t matter anyway. Leaving was just a fantasy.

In the living room, Al Roker was back on TV. His frown was gone, sort of, but even though his face was now plastered with a giant grin, his jaw was quivering and he looked like he might start crying at any second. He kept chattering away, going on and on about isotopes and pressure systems and hiding in the basement.

Too bad they don’t have basements in trailer parks, I thought.

And then I thought: Bring it on. There’s no place like anywhere but here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DANIELLE PAIGE is a graduate of Columbia University. Before turning to young adult literature, she worked in the television industry, where she received a Writers Guild of America Award and was nominated for several Daytime Emmys. She currently lives in New York City.

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BOOKS BY DANIELLE PAIGE

Novels

Dorothy Must Die

The Wicked Will Rise

Yellow Brick War

Novellas

No Place Like Oz

The Witch Must Burn

The Wizard Returns

Heart of Tin

The Straw King

Ruler of Beasts

Order of the Wicked

Collections

Dorothy Must Die: The Other Side of the Rainbow Collection

COPYRIGHT

THE WIZARD RETURNS. Copyright © 2015 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © January 2015 ISBN 9780062280787

Version 10182016

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FIRST EDITION

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