The End of Oz
Page 30

I wasn’t wearing any clothes, someone was pounding on the door, and I wasn’t alone in the bed—and then I remembered. Nox was the person next to me. Nox. I’d slept with Nox. For another second I sat there, with a grin that did not need the aid of PermaSmile. If I was honest with myself, the Amy I was before my trailer landed in Oz hadn’t even allowed herself to really imagine having a boyfriend. Being close to Nox was a whole new kind of magic.
Next to me, Nox stirred and groaned, flinging an arm over his eyes in protest before he sat up.
“Hi,” I said. I was blushing again, but at least this time it was dark.
“Hi,” he said. His smile looked the way I felt. “Come here.” He pulled me to him into a long, passionate kiss. And then there was an even more forceful thump at the door.
“All I want,” Nox said in low voice, tracing my collarbone with one finger in a way that definitely should not have made me feel the way it did—it was just a collarbone!—“is to spend the rest of my life in bed with you. But I guess we have to save the world, or something.”
“Or something,” I agreed reluctantly. I stretched and stood up with a sigh, locating my clothes at various points around the room, and flushing yet again as I remembered how they’d ended up there.
“Don’t put those on,” Nox protested.
“Shut up,” I said. I couldn’t stop the idiotic grin that refused to leave my face. Then again, I didn’t want to.
“I mean it.”
I threw his shirt at him. “We have to go kill Dorothy. You said so. Also the Nome King is coming to kill us.”
He flopped backward dramatically. “Who cares anymore? I can think of way better things to do.” I joined him on the bed, our shoulders touching. I always wanted some part of him touching some part of me.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We get married, obviously. Oz custom,” Nox said.
“Shut up!” I cried, elbowing him. “What happens for real, after we finally beat Dorothy and the Nome King?”
“Amy Gumm, always thinking about the future,” Nox said, rolling over and toying with my hair. “I wish I knew.”
Madison kicked the door again. “Hurry up!” she bellowed.
“We’re coming!” I yelled.
Madison muttered something and stomped away.
“You can’t hate her forever,” I said as her steps died down.
“You can’t not still hate her a little. Or a lot.” He searched my eyes. “She hurt you.”
“When I came back, she . . . it didn’t seem important anymore, hating her. It was so small compared to all the things we faced here. We need to be on the same page, Nox. All of us. There’s no room for hate. We’re fighting Dorothy and her super-scary fiancé.
“If it were up to me no one would hurt you.” While he said this his finger was tracing tiny circles on my arm. The action was unconscious on his part, and it affected me all the same.
“I love you for that. I mean . . .” I had said the words without thinking about it, but I meant the words. We had said it last night. But it was different in the light of day.
Nox pushed back my hair and looked into my eyes. “I love you, Amy.”
“I love you, Nox.”
“When you asked before about our after . . . I don’t care where we end up. As long as we’re together.”
“Together isn’t a place, Nox.”
“It is to me.”
Nox kissed me long and deep, and I knew then that we were going to be very late for breakfast.
A half hour later, I headed down first.
Lang and Madison were hunched over the table, talking in low voices. They looked up when I came into the room, but they didn’t move apart. They looked like they’d been there for a long time.
“Where’s Nox?” Lang asked.
“He’s, uh, he’s . . . I don’t know,” I said. I could feel how hot my cheeks were. Madison started to laugh.
“Sure you don’t, Ames.”
“I do not! I have no idea where he slept last ni—”
Nox chose that exact moment to emerge from the same bedroom I’d just come out of, and Madison rolled her eyes.
“Sleep well, Nox?” she asked sweetly. He looked confused.
“I slept fine?” he said, and she collapsed into giggles.
“I bet you did,” Madison snorted.
“Knock it off,” Lang said sharply.
She wasn’t joking—and she wasn’t talking to Madison either. My temper flared. At Madison for bringing up where Nox had slept. And at Lang for thinking she had any reason to weigh in. But mostly, I was angry at the situation. No matter how much I wanted the opposite to be true, we were here for a reason that had nothing to do with what was happening between Nox and me. And at the same time, what was happening between Nox and me was what we were fighting for.
“I’m ready for business,” I told her, sitting down at the table. Nox sat next to me, his thigh touching mine. I let myself lean into him a little. Madison’s eyes flicked over me, but she didn’t say anything this time.
“I don’t know if you’re ready for this,” Lang said.
“The Nome King’s on his way?” Nox was suddenly very, very serious.
Lang shook her head, and for the first time, I realized that she was almost at a loss for words.
“I’ve been invited to a wedding,” she said.
“A wedding?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.
“A wedding,” she repeated. “The Nome King and Dorothy are getting married.”
 
 
THIRTEEN

DOROTHY
I have to admit, Bupu’s news that my new fiancé was planning on killing me didn’t come as a total shock. But still, I was miffed. I knew I’d sensed a spark between us. And the idea of ruling our twin kingdoms together wasn’t entirely unappealing. I don’t like to share, it’s true, but I’ve also never met anyone who came as close to being my equal. “Okay, Bupu,” I said. “What exactly did you hear? Why did the Nome King go to all this trouble to rescue me if he’s only going to kill me? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Bupu snuffled a little and dabbed at the corner of her eyes with her sleeve.
“The shoes,” she said miserably. “He wants mistress’s shoes.”
“I know that,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He thinks they’re his, the ninny. But he can’t have them. They’re bound to me. If he kills me, they’ll be useless.”
It occurred to me as I said this that I had no idea if it was true. Except in a way, I did. If he could get the shoes back just by offing me, I’d have been dead the minute he found me. So it was something else.
He needed to marry me to get the shoes. But why?
Something occurred to me.
“Bupu, what’s a wedding like in Ev?”
“Your wedding will be the most splendid ever seen in all of Ev,” Bupu assured me.
“Bupu, I don’t want to have a wedding if I die at it, do you understand that part?” She nodded vigorously. “So,” I said patiently. “Before the Nome King kills me, what happens exactly at a traditional Ev wedding.”