The End of Oz
Page 46

Another memory flooded in—Aunt Em baking pies in the kitchen of the old homestead. She’d made me pie after Tommy slighted me. “Nothing cures a broken heart like pie,” she’d said.
“I don’t want my heart. But I’ll take the pie,” I’d quipped. I could see Aunt Em’s smile and hear her laugh and I could almost taste the pie. At the time it tasted like hope and cinnamon.
With some effort, I dragged myself back to the present, only to hear the Nome King quietly clear his throat. He was looking at me with surprise and some annoyance. I wondered when he’d stopped talking.
“My fellow citizens of Ev,” the Nome King said pointedly, “I give you your future queen, the Witchslayer, the rightful ruler of Oz.”
It was my cue—the moment I’d been waiting for. Immediately, all my senses sharpened; my memories vanished like smoke on the wind. This was it. This was my only chance, I knew, to escape the man who wanted to steal the fruits of all my hard work and claim it as his own.
Being a woman, it turns out, isn’t any different in a make-believe world than it is in the real one.
I stepped forward and took off my mask. And then I looked directly at Amy. It was ironic that she was the key to my escape after trying so very hard to end me. I looked at her; the dress she’d chosen wasn’t horrible. Losing the pink hair, though, was a big mistake. But it was perhaps the best I’d seen her look since that trailer dropped her in my kingdom.
Her eyes flickered with more than recognition. More than hate. She knew what I was up to. She was smarter than I had ever given her credit for, after all. Once upon a time we were both in the Other Place wishing for some magic, excitement, and friends. And here we were now. Two tornados later. Two girls from the Other Place all dressed up at my wedding ball . . .
“Hi, Amy,” I said. “Are you going to kill me now?”
And the ballroom broke out into chaos.
 
 
TWENTY

I wasn’t caught entirely off guard by Dorothy’s words. That small niggling part of my brain had told me to be prepared for something like this. And as soon as she spoke, I realized exactly what she was doing. The Nome King had said there would be one ruler. That meant he never planned for Dorothy to survive. He just wanted to marry her to get her magic, and then he was going to kill her. Clearly she knew this—and she wanted to escape, and she wanted me to help her do it. She was trying to create a distraction for the Nome King so that he didn’t kill her.
At her side, the Nome King was muttering something that sounded like a curse but was most likely a spell. A black cloud formed in the air over his head, the darkness spinning and cracking with forks of red lightning.
He held up his hands, preparing to attack, but whether he was going to go for me or Dorothy was hard to tell. My guess was me; he couldn’t kill Dorothy until he’d stolen her magic. And he needed to complete the wedding ceremony to do that.
All around me, pandemonium was breaking out. People were screaming, pulling off their masks, stampeding toward the entrance to the ballroom. Diggers lashed out with whips and knives on the unarmed guests, and within minutes the air in the ballroom stunk of blood.
I had to fight against the tide of panicking guests to stay close to the dais. Where were Madison and Nox? And where was Lang? I didn’t dare turn around and look. Dorothy didn’t know I hadn’t come to the wedding alone. If they could avoid her while I faced her down, they had a chance to get away. Leave me here, I thought at Nox ferociously, hoping in vain that he’d somehow added psychic powers to his résumé without telling me. Get Madison somewhere safe. Don’t try to rescue me.
Because this was my task. It was my responsibility. All of this had happened because I hadn’t been able to bring myself to kill her before.
I fought my way through the oncoming wave of people, trying to reach the dais. The Nome King hurled a bolt of red lightning at my head. I ducked and it hit the floor behind me with a sizzling hiss.
Okay, he was definitely targeting me first. And Dorothy was slinking toward the edge of the stage, her eyes on him.
I’d been right. This was all part of her plan—I was here to distract him while she made her escape. And the cavern must have a secret exit—the one she and the Nome King had come through. If she got away now, there was no telling if I’d have another chance.
Everywhere I looked, the Nome King’s soldiers were springing into action. Dorothy had caught them off guard, but they recovered quickly. I knew if I ended up in their grip, it was game over. I could fight off a few of them, but I was horribly outnumbered. One of them came at me, his knife raised for a killing strike. I ducked and twisted, but he followed my movements effortlessly. The Nome King took training his fighters seriously.
Then again, so did the Order. This was what I was made for.
I dodged him again, circling back to get enough room to strike. He stuck by me like a leech, lunging forward again and again with his knife.
But he was favoring his right side, where a huge map of scars suggested an old, still-painful injury. I feinted to the right and saw what I was looking for—just the barest hint of a flinch as he moved to protect his vulnerable side. And that was my chance. I leapt up and spun in midair, bringing my booted foot around in a powerful kick that connected solidly with his knife hand. The blade clattered to the floor and I kicked it away, going for my own weapons.
Before I could get to them, he’d already recovered from my attack and was launching one of his own. He leapt forward, wrapping lean but incredibly strong arms around my torso and pinning my own arms to my sides.
I kicked backward with all my strength and heard a satisfying snap as my boot connected with his knee. He bellowed in pain but refused to let go, dragging me to the floor with him as he collapsed. Dorothy watched the fracas with an amused smile. The Nome King glanced at her and she froze. A frown crossed his face.
He was starting to figure out she’d planned this, too.
And then I saw Nox fighting his way toward me. “Get out of here!” I yelled at him, suddenly feeling panicky. “I’ll take care of my own damn self!”
My exasperation gave me the extra surge of strength I needed and I broke the guard’s grip, elbowing him in the face with a satisfying crunch. “The dais!” I screamed at Nox, pointing. “It’s all that matters!” His expression faltered but, seeing that I’d broken free, he nodded at me and turned to fight his way toward where Dorothy was edging slowly but surely toward the secret exit.
The pandemonium in the ballroom was working against us, but at least it was slowing the guards down, too. A shrieking woman battering ineffectively at another man trying to tear the gold necklace from her throat lurched into the path of two guards headed in my direction. I shoved my way through the crowd and leapt onto the dais, where the Nome King stood, sneering.
“Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t my old friend Miss Gumm.”
He raised his hands again, preparing to throw another bolt of magic at me. If he hit me directly, I knew he would kill me. My magic was still weak, but I dug deep within myself, and managed to throw up a defensive shield just in time.
Then Lang was at my side. She hit the Nome King square in the chest with a fireball that set his velvet suit ablaze with blue and gold flames. He made a fist and punched the air and I felt the impact myself as his magical blow thudded into her jaw, snapping her head back. But she held her ground, advancing toward him. He made a fist, and she cried out, clutching at the silver bracelet around her wrist. It began to glow red and the metal seared its way into her skin. I winced at the smell of burning flesh.