The End of Oz
Page 24

I felt her smile again. “Dorothy was just like you once, you know. Headstrong and intelligent and brave. Looking for adventure wherever it found her. None of us are entirely Wicked or entirely Good. Or entirely evil, for that matter. We are made of what shapes us.”
That was pretty cryptic advice, but I had a feeling it was all I was going to get.
“Be brave, my dear,” Lurline said. I felt a brush of lips across my forehead.
A fairy’s kiss. Just like Gert had kissed me once, after my first battle in Oz. The battle where I’d thought I’d watched her die. Warmth spread through my body. Her kiss washed away my exhaustion and fear. I felt completely safe.
“Good-bye for now, dear Amy,” she said. But her voice sounded farther away. Below me, the verdant jungle was crumbling into dust. Darkness swallowed me again, but this time I wasn’t afraid.
“Amy!” Someone was shouting my name in the distance. “Amy, what happened? Amy!” The voice was full of panic—and familiar.
“Nox,” I said.
“Amy!” His voice was tinged with relief. I opened my eyes. I hadn’t even known I’d closed them. I was in Lang’s guest chambers. Nox and Madison were staring at me, their eyes huge with fear.
“Holy shit,” Madison breathed. “What just happened? Are you okay? You just had, like, a seizure, and your shoes were glowing, and your eyes were like rolling back in your head—”
I interrupted her babble. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine, I really am. Nox, you’re not going to believe this, but Mombi’s alive.”
“What?”
“I saw it,” I said eagerly. “Just now. I was with Lurline.”
“You were having a seizure,” Madison said, her face suddenly concerned. “You didn’t go anywhere, Ames.”
I shook my head impatiently. “No, listen. I saw them—I saw her. She’s alive, Nox.”
Nox turned his back, his shoulders hunched. I had never seen him cry, but when I wrapped my arms around him I realized he wasn’t crying—he was laughing.
“It’s hard to kill a witch,” he said. I smiled sadly but before I could respond I heard footsteps pounding down the hall. Seconds later, Langwidere flung the door open, her eyes wild with fury—and fear. Her mask was gone, her kimono clutched tight around her chest, and she was breathing hard.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snarled. “What are you doing?”
We all looked at her in surprise.
“What were you thinking, using magic like that here? You couldn’t have told Dorothy you were here any more clearly than if you’d marched up to the Nome King’s palace and banged on the door. Whatever you just did sent up a signal flare of power so huge they probably felt it in Oz.”
Nox and I exchanged glances. “I didn’t think—” I began.
“No,” she said. “That much is clear. You have to get out of here before they come looking for you. I’m not going down with you just because you’re a bunch of idiots.”
“I’m sorry,” I said hastily. “I know it was a huge risk. But I saw Lurline, Lang. She told me we have to work together. The road brought us to you for a reason. You know it as well as I do.”
“Lurline is a myth,” Lang snapped. But for the first time, she seemed almost uncertain. She was wavering. Somewhere, some part of her knew I was right.
Nox could feel it, too. “We don’t have anywhere to go,” he said. “Lang, we want to kill Dorothy just as much as you do—and bring down the Nome King while we’re at it. They were going to find out we were here sooner or later. We just have to move faster. You have to let us help you.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to be issuing ultimatums,” Lang said. “And I fight alone.”
“That’s not what you learned in the Order,” he countered.
“I learned a lot of things in the Order,” she said. “Thanks to you, I learned how to abandon the people you trust and send your allies into danger.”
Nox looked at her for a long beat, then said, “I’m sorry, Lanadel!” At the sound of her old name, she started. “I know you think I made a mistake. But I didn’t have a choice. I had to do what was best for the Order. You know that. I would never have put any of you at risk if I didn’t have another option.”
“You killed her!”
And then he really looked at her. “Lang, Melindra isn’t dead.”
Melindra? What did she have to do with any of this? I knew Melindra and Nox had . . . history. And I knew Melindra wasn’t my biggest fan. But we’d trained together, fought together. I might not like her, but I’d trust the half-metal, half-human girl with my life.
“You’re lying,” Lang said. “No one survives the Scarecrow’s workshop. No one.”
“She did,” I said. “He’s not lying. I’ve met her.” I had no idea what was happening, but if Nox needed to convince Lang that Melindra was alive, I could at least help him do that. “She was alive when we left Oz, anyway.”
I felt a small well of pity for Lang rise up in me. She had built her life around an elaborate vengeance plot—only to learn that Melindra was alive after all.
“What did he do to her? How did she escape?”
“Melindra’s the best fighter the Order’s ever seen,” Nox said. “You know that as well as I do. She survived. She’s . . . different. But she survived.”
Of course, I thought. Lang had been part of the Order before Melindra was tortured, transformed into one of the Scarecrow’s twisted creations. But if Nox was leaving that part out, it was on purpose, so I kept my mouth shut.
To my utter surprise, Lang’s eyes filled with tears. She turned away from us, staring sightlessly at the wall. Nox reached out to touch her shoulder, but thought better of it and pulled his hand back. All her disguises had fallen away; her face was filled with raw emotion and so much pain I wanted to grab her up in a bear hug, even though I knew prickly, easily angered Lang would be more likely to take it as an assault than a gesture of comfort. Finally, she reached some kind of inner decision. She sighed and straightened her shoulders, pushing her long hair out of her face.
“I’m not going to work with you. I don’t like you, and I don’t like anything about this. But I’ll take you to one of my smuggling hideouts,” she said. “It’s warded—it will hide you for now. And then I can decide what to do next—and how to get rid of you without risking my own skin.”
I let out my breath slowly. We were that much closer to Lang helping us. But I had no idea what had just happened between her and Nox. I shot him a look, but he shrugged helplessly. And Nox was a lot of things, but he was never helpless. I bit my lip, keeping my own questions to myself. Right now, we had to stay alive long enough to defeat Dorothy and get the hell out of Ev.
“Let’s go,” Lang said. Without waiting to see what we’d do, she stalked out of the room.
We didn’t have much choice but to follow.
 
 
ELEVEN

Much to my relief, this time we weren’t traveling by Wheeler. I had seen so many creepy things in Oz that it was surprising anything could still make my skin crawl, but I would be happy if I never saw those awful creatures again as long as I lived. Instead, Lang led us underground, down a twisting series of steps and tunnels that led to a huge, torch-lit cavern.