Dorothy Must Die
Page 64

When we broke, he was breathing hard and I wasn’t breathing at all. The candles in the cave suddenly blew out. Was it us? Or had Mombi sent a gust telling us to hurry up?
He composed himself, letting his arms drop to his sides. But he was still standing within kissing distance.
“That will never happen again,” he began.
My stomach dropped. Was it that awful? I wondered.
“But it would be too bad if it didn’t happen once,” he finished. “I just wish I’d gotten to do it when you still looked like yourself.”
I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t have time to be hurt. And he was right. He didn’t want us distracted by each other. It was too dangerous. Until Dorothy was dead, I couldn’t care about the way I looked, or about what Nox thought about me, or about what Glamora had done to Astrid.
I didn’t know what was Good or Wicked anymore. All I knew was what was right.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Nox pointed at the pool, which was still glowing in concentric circles, pulsing outward from where Mombi had dropped the pebble. He smiled a smile that looked like a secret. “You jump.”
I couldn’t wait any longer. If I didn’t do it now, I’d never have the guts. So I took a deep breath and a running start and dove headfirst into the shallow water.
A moment later, I emerged out of a full-length mirror in a sloppy somersault. As I righted myself I realized I was in a dim, musty room that was so small I could almost touch both walls by stretching my arms out. I wasn’t even wet.
I stood up and looked in the mirror. Astrid stared back at me. I touched the cool glass—solid now, no way back—and reminded myself that this was me standing there. This was me in Dorothy’s dumb servant attire: frilly white shirt, pleated green skirt, apron, and red patent-leather Mary Janes that seemed like a mocking approximation of Dorothy’s sky-high pumps. Cute.
I smoothed down my skirt and adjusted the apron, looking around while fighting back a wave of nausea at being in one of the palace’s tiny rooms. I needed to get used to it quick. After all, this was my new home.
The servants’ quarters weren’t much better than my cell had been. There was a little white bed with threadbare sheets printed with Ozma’s faded crest and a dresser with peeling paint that had seen better, grander days. A small silver bell sat on top of the dresser. That was pretty much it.
It made my room back in Dusty Acres seem lavish. And that room hadn’t even had walls.
I yanked open the top drawer of the dresser, not expecting to find much. I was right. There were three uniforms identical to the one that I was already wearing, and a couple of plain cotton dresses—one in a plain green satin and another in white. Glamora had told me that every maid had two dresses aside from her uniform—one for escorting Dorothy to parties and one for her monthly day off.
So this was it.
It didn’t take long to search the rest of my sad accommodations. I got excited for a second when I reached underneath the mattress and pulled out a battered old book. Maybe it was a diary. Some extra insight into servant life would come in handy. Hell, maybe Astrid had documented the one day a month Dorothy sunbathed in the warm glow of the Emerald City’s Rusty Knife Recycling Pile. That’d make my task easier.
Either I wasn’t that lucky or Astrid wasn’t that interesting, or both. It was just a dog-eared copy of a trashy-but-famous Oz romance called The Quadling and the Nome, one of the more boring books Glamora had forced me to read during our cram sessions.
I tossed it aside in frustration and sank down onto the bed. I was all alone for the first time in weeks, and I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do next.
Out of boredom, I opened my palm and was about to light a small magic flame when I remembered Nox’s warning not to use magic. I snapped my hand shut and leaned back. So much for my plan to pass the time by staring at fire. I sighed.
“Boredom,” I said aloud, “thy name is assassin-ing.”
It was only then that I realized I was overlooking the one friend I did have in the palace. Well, make that two friends. Friend Number One: Star the Rat. Who was, in theory, still being kept safe by Friend Number Two: Pete.
Pete. I’d almost forgotten him. Was he here? Did he know I’d managed to escape? I wondered. Or how I’d managed to do it?
Even if I found him, there was no way of telling him I was okay. I was Astrid now, and even though I had a good feeling about Pete, my witch-trained side knew I couldn’t take any unnecessary risks. I was supposed to follow the plan. Watch and wait.
I sat. I watched. I waited.
I almost jumped out of my maid’s costume when the bell on the dresser rose a few inches into the air and began to ring.
I knew it meant that someone in the palace needed service. I knew about the bell because Astrid knew about the bell. The spell Mombi had cast didn’t give me access to her memories—not exactly—but it did give me a vague sense of her instincts. What Astrid would do in this situation came through as a foreign tickle in the back of my mind.
I walked over to the bell and cautiously picked it up. It rang louder.
I held it at arm’s length toward the door. It got louder still. When I placed it back on the table, the tinkling chime faded.
It was like a game of hot and cold. The bell was telling me which way to go.
So me and the bell walked out the door, down one hall and then another and another and another. At each corner, I listened carefully, judging which way to go. The bell was getting louder and louder as I roamed through the palace. How big was this place?