4. Chapter 4
four
I told Nick everything about how I’d come to the Emerald City.
I started with the carnival, the key, and Mr. Diggs. I told him about Mombi and Sebastian, too. I told him about Ginger and Mr. Beaufort. I explained my arrest after coming to Oz, and Rye’s plan surrounding Langwidere. I told him about Jack. Of course, I told him about Jack, without whom I would now be dead.
“Your chimera,” Nick said. “Where is he now?”
For a long time, I didn’t answer. I couldn’t summon the words to convey what had happened to Jack, so I settled on words that would tell him enough.
“He wanted to meet you so badly,” I said. “The body you made for him…he was happy. He used it to save my life.”
“I see,” was all Nick said.
Then, without another word, he turned to go. Hollow-eyed and empty-headed, I gazed after him, fully expecting to be sealed away once more in my cage. Shock ricocheted through me, though, when he left the door open behind him.
Quickly, I gathered myself and, abandoning my nest of furs, hurried after him as, metal feet clanking, he wound down the corkscrew stairs.
I kept my distance as I descended after him, fearful he might wheel around and order me back to my cell.
Instead, when we reached the base of the steps, he paused to pivot my way.
“Your arrival has stirred much curiosity,” he said, “and since word travels, many assume you are Rye’s queen. I think, for the time being, it’s best to let those rumors stand. The folks of Oz, especially in this region, harbor an understandable fear of witches. Yet they trust their king. Rye is unable to vouch for you in person, but that ring you wear will do so until he wakes. As you’ve assured us both he will.”
He turned away again, continuing on. I followed, keeping my silence while giving the glowing emerald engagement ring Nick himself had made for me at Rye’s request a turn.
We traveled through a series of tight corridors that reminded me of the gridwork of secret passageways in the Emerald City Palace. Except these were this castle’s regular everyday passageways, and the stones used to make them were far darker—a deep gray blue instead of a pale green-blue.
More corridors followed, all of them windowless and free of ornamentation aside from torches in iron sconces. The scent of something like kerosene but sweeter permeated the space, giving this castle even more distinctness. Even more foreignness.
I hoped to ask Morella about the history of this drafty fortress. Right along with what she knew of Ozma. Later, though, when I had the chance to speak to her and not be overheard.
Finally, after several more turns, we arrived at our destination. Nick led me through a narrow and open doorway. A pair of guards, their armor heavier, more austere in design, and less ornamental than those of the Emerald City guards, manned the entrance. Both eyed me as we passed into a cramped and tall, channel-like room.
The walls stretched up and forever, toward a bell tower. Several bells hung high overhead, including one enormous one. Below, walls stamped with stained-glass windows depicting strange scenes girdled us into the rectangular space. I had no interest in trying to interpret their brilliant and beautiful images, though, since the center of the room held Rye.
The King of Oz lay in repose atop a decorative stone plinth, his stitched face expressionless, eyes shut.
Aside from the velvet emerald pillow under his once-more-crowned head, he had no elements of comfort. He did, however, still possess his sword, the hilt of which he held clutched in his gloved hands, the blade lying flush with his lower body, the tip pointed at his boots.
I broke forward, rushing past Nick to Rye’s side. No one tried to stop me as I gripped Rye’s hands, which someone had folded around the hilt of his sword.
“Why is he laid out like this?” I demanded, my voice echoing up through the bell tower.
“He is the king,” said Nick. “The ruler of all of Oz.”
“But you said yourself that he’s not dead,” I snapped, brushing a strand of that coarse feathery hair from Rye’s brow. “This is how you treat a dead man.”
“This is how I honor my friend,” corrected Nick, an edge of warning in his voice. “And for now, this is where he stays.”
I shook my head in annoyance but said nothing else. Instead, I trailed my hand down to Rye’s shoulder, the one that had been pierced by the poison arrow. Gently, I laid my palm over the spot Rye had not wanted me to see. Rewarded with the sensation of warmth, I had to shut my eyes and draw a breath. The scents of burning incense and candlewax filled my nostrils and helped to calm me. These aromas, after all, were ones of peace. And this place, as tomblike as it was—it did radiate peace. Something Rye had experienced little of. Even before the threat of Langwidere ever arose.
“Rye,” I said to him in a whisper, “I’m going to fix this, I promise.”
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what I meant by “this.” Did I mean him, Oz, or both? And now that I thought about it, hadn’t Rye made a similar promise to me? When we’d been standing together outside the ballroom, right before everything had collapsed.
The poppies he’d tucked into my crown as he’d spoken words that had echoed the ones I’d just uttered… That young girl atop the Ozma fountain, she’d worn them just the same.
The clanking of metal steps heralded Nick’s approach. I frowned as he drifted into my periphery, disliking him now both for his treatment of me, and Rye. But then those metal hands came to rest on the stone plinth, their fingers edged with rust, their joints fashioned similarly to how Jack’s wooden ones had been.
My anger toward Nick rushed out of me at once and, just as quickly as I had formed my grudge against him, I forgave him everything.
Those metal hands had built Jack’s form. A form which had, for a short time, granted him freedom, and a chance to become more fully himself. Or…at least an opportunity to figure out who he wanted to be. And Nick had built Jack’s body with care. So much care that it had inspired Jack to idolize Nick. In a way, Jack had loved this person—even without knowing him.
So how could I hate him?
“Did Rye tell you about the poppies?” Nick asked.
“You mean that they are the official flower of Oz?”
To this, Nick remained silent for several beats. Then, at last, he spoke again.
“How much do you know of Dorothy?”
Next to nothing. Only that Rye adored her. Which was saying something since, outside of her, he did not adore anything. At least, I had never seen him react with much emotion to anything other than her. And, well…me.
Regarding the details of his and Dorothy’s relationship, though, I was left to guess.
Did I want to know now? Now that I had received my first glimpse of the possibility that Rye did care for me. More than just as a friend…
Could he feel that way for Dorothy as well as me?
Would things change between us—me and him—if she were to come back?
“I know Rye cares for her deeply,” I said, “and that she traveled with you, Rye, and Cahal to this castle to defeat West.”
“There were poppies along the way,” Nick said. “Fields of them. We traveled through one of those fields as a shortcut to the Emerald City. We did not know a portion of the blooms had been hexed by West. Made poisonous. Dorothy was most affected. She fell into a deep, death-like slumber. Dorothy’s dog, Toto, and Cahal became severely lethargic. Rye and I were unchanged. So, we divided the group in half. While I tended to Toto and Cahal, Rye took Dorothy to the nearest village. When Cahal recovered enough to accompany me to the village, we discovered that Rye had left to take Dorothy far North. We waited weeks for their return.”
“She survived,” I said because of course she must have. And that also meant something or someone had helped her to recuperate.
“There is a healing spring in the wilds of Gillikin Country, the northern quadrant of Oz. Rye alone knows where to find it.”
“Does no one else?”
“Glinda,” he said bleakly, “and perhaps Dorothy.”
Glinda was a prisoner of Langwidere and had been since before my arrival. Siphoning the famed Witch of the South’s power was how Langwidere had been able to gain access to the Emerald City Palace from her own kingdom of Ev, which was located on the other side of the impassable Deadly Desert.
And Dorothy. Well, four years ago, she had gone home to Kansas.
How much did I want her to be here now? Only as much as I never wanted to lay eyes on her.
“And there’s no one else in Oz who would know where to find this spring?” I pressed.
“No one here,” replied Nick, his tone inflecting downward, “in Winkie Country.”
“But you’re saying the spring could help him recover. Perhaps even cure him.”
“Perhaps.”
“Then…we have to take him.”
“We have to think of a plan,” corrected Nick. “Tomorrow.”
I wanted to argue, but what argument did I have? What was there to insist on? Heading back out into the snow with Rye to ride north and try to find this mysterious spring in a land—a world—I still knew virtually nothing about?
“Come,” said Nick, “I’ll show you to your quarters.”
“I want to stay.” I gripped the edges of the stone harder as if that could keep me anchored here if he or one of the guards snatched me up to carry me away again.
“As you wish,” said Nick. “When you’re ready to rest, which I advise you to do, one of my guards will escort you.”
He didn’t say anything else after that but turned and walked away. Out of the cathedral-like room, perhaps toward whatever corner of this gloomy, isolated fortress he called his own.
Relief rushed through me at being left alone with Rye, even if we weren’t exactly isolated. There were the guards outside the door, after all, and a quick upward glance showed Grip perched on one of the sills of the stained-glass windows.
Still, in Nick’s absence, silence settled into the space, and there came a small inner peace with being reunited with Rye. Even if he was not currently with me.
I clutched one of his hands again, squeezing his fingers.
“I’m going to get you to that spring,” I said, my whisper carrying up through the hollow space, into the silent throats of the bells. “I’ll find it.”
I waited for him to answer, focusing on his face as if, with concentration, I’d be able to nudge him awake. And why couldn’t I? My intense focus had accomplished much more before—things that had even made Rye’s normally stoic expression break into one of shock and wonder.
Growing still, I shut my eyes. Then, with my consciousness, I swam through my body, searching for the source of my power, which my arrival in Oz had first activated.
I held back, though. After learning what I had about the toxin Rye had been infected with, I could not risk turning him human again, even if I was able to summon my powers despite the bracers. That would only cause the poison to spread. Perhaps, though, just tapping into the way I had bypassed these shackles before could help me to feel more empowered. More in control…
Again, I tried to remember how I had accomplished that feat in the ballroom.What were the elements that had been involved?
I’d been with Rye.
I’d been happy. I’d felt safe. Calm. And…hadn’t I been daydreaming?
I didn’t dare go back to that moment, the moment that had led us to this one, so I took my mind somewhere new. I pictured myself and Rye together in that flower-covered gazebo, the one in the gardens of the Emerald City Palace, the one in which we had staged our fake wedding.
In my imagination, though, I summoned just the two of us. Also, I kept Rye firmly in his scarecrow form. I had on my wedding gown, and he had on his kingly attire, his silver spiked crown atop his head, gleaming in the predawn.
“I’m lost without you,” I told him in my mind.
He only smiled his slightest of smiles.
“You can’t be lost,” he said, fingertips lifting to brush my cheek in the same way I had just brushed his in reality. “Not when you’ve finally been found.”
“How can you think I’m her?” I asked, taking that hand. Again, I squeezed it.
“I don’t think,” he whispered. “I know. And I know because you taught me how.”
“How to what?”
“Have faith.”
At once, I opened my eyes, which began to swim with tears. Because those words—his. Were they truly words I could have thought up?
“Tip,” whispered a voice—Morella’s.
I popped my head up from where I’d bowed it over Rye and, straight across from me, between two of the stained-glass windows, stood the witch.
Her brimstone eyes, wide with incomprehension, did not rest on me, though. Instead, they dwelled upon something behind me. I didn’t need to turn and look, however, because the same phenomenon unfolded behind her.
The figures and scenery in the stained-glass windows.
They…were moving.
A ribbon of yellow ran through all the windows, seemingly connecting them—something I hadn’t noticed before. And on that trail of colored glass representing the Yellow Brick Road walked several iterations of Dorothy, Rye, Cahal, and Nick.
In one window, the quartet stood with their backs to the viewer, the Emerald City Palace shining in the distance. In another, Dorothy and Rye tended to Nick, who appeared frozen in place, an axe raised overhead. In still another, Dorothy peered up at a pike, upon which hung Rye, a floppy-brimmed and pointed farmer’s hat taking the place of the crown that I had always known him to wear.
The figures in the glass moved in subtle ways, heads turning toward and then away from one another as if they were conversing, sharing their thoughts. The grass at their feet swayed. The sun above them shone, rays dancing over the glass-enshrined scenes.
“What does it mean?” I whispered, turning slowly to scan each of the windows. But then, remembering the bracers, I lifted my wrists into view.
Glinda’s rubies. Once more, they had turned emerald. They shone that way now, their centers swirling with some pearlescent dust. I looked back to the windows, which continued to shift, the visions before me bringing my heart new pain. Because here were my powers at work, but what were they doing? Nothing helpful. And, certainly, I wasn’t controlling them.
“This is impossible,” hissed Morella.
“Because of the bracers?”
“No, fool,” she snapped. “And don’t speak to me with others so close. You’ll raise suspicion.”
The guards. With the windows behaving this way, I’d all but forgotten about them.
I turned toward the door to find the pair peering into the chamber, eyes round with awe behind the visors of their iron helms.
So many questions sprang to my lips. Questions that I wanted—needed—to ask Morella since she was my only link to magical knowledge. I couldn’t, though. Not until we were away from prying eyes and listening ears. But I wasn’t ready to leave Rye yet.
Even as tired, as drained, as I was.
I traced his wounded shoulder with my hand again. If only I could learn to control these powers that, apparently, even despite the bracers, I did still hold sway over. I could heal him then.
Even trying would be too risky now, though. Now that I knew what I did about the type of poison he’d been afflicted with.
Out in the hall, the guards began to whisper, fear underscoring their muffled hisses. I tuned them out, peering back to the windows, which depicted key phases of Dorothy’s journey with her friends. Namely, the introduction of each member of their small party.
The first window depicted Dorothy only.
Just like the statue of her in the square of the Emerald City where the yellow brick road officially spiraled to an end, she carried a small wicker basket. Her little black dog followed at her heels.
I frowned at the scene, at once recalling something Mr. Diggs had said to me shortly after showing up in Mombi’s tent to deliver the golden key to Oz. He’d said something about another girl. A girl who was my “opposite.”
At the time, I’d thought he’d mistaken me for someone, and had been rambling on about misremembered things. Now I had an inkling of just who that other girl might have been.
Who he might have been as well…
Mr. Diggs, after all, had warned me not to “tell the scarecrow” about him.
And hadn’t I learned later how Rye had banished The Wizard, a man originally from my world, from Oz?
Mr. Diggs and The Wizard… Could they truly be one and the same?
If so, it stood to reason that he might have given me that key—my means back to Oz—so that, upon my arrival, I’d serve as a distraction for the king who had banished him. Before fleeing Mombi’s tent, Diggs had said something about needing to “catch a doorway.” He had to have meant a doorway to Oz. He could have used the key to prop open an entry point, after all, before giving the token to me. Something that would explain his vanishing act.
Perhaps Diggs even knew of my latent powers—had known they would manifest the moment I arrived in Oz. Understood those powers would land me before the king.
And what better way to keep Rye from interfering with Diggs’s return than to send the king a witch?
None of that answered why Diggs would want to return to Oz—especially if he’d been banished as Rye had said “on pain of death.” But unraveling that part of the puzzle was an entirely different issue.
Regarding my identity, there was enough here to give me more than just a moment’s pause. And the most leading evidence of all was how convinced Rye had been. Knowing him, he would have had to have been one hundred percent convinced I was the princess to do any of what he did.
To say the things he’d said to me…
To sacrifice all that he had.
And Rye. Wasn’t he nearly always right?
The math surrounding my age might not be adding up but…what in Oz did?
My frown deepened as I scanned the animated windows that depicted nothing of Oz’s long-lost princess. And yet, didn’t their animation alone suggest that she, too, might have a part in the story being told within those panes?
I wasn’t certain if Ozma and I could be one and the same.
But then, with so many puzzle pieces now laid out before me that wanted to fit together, I could officially no longer discount the prospect either…
Of course, then. I did have someone else I could ask.
Later. When my discussion with her could not be overheard.
When I could corner her…