8. Chapter 8
eight
How was I going to explain this? Nick was going to notice Rye’s missing crown.
The items in the windowsill and the half-eaten apple I’d been able to hide. But the crown? Nick would assume I took it. Which would not be good. Especially when he had to be watching me closely, surveying each move I made and weighing every suggestion I came up with to see if I was trying to weasel my way onto the throne.
He, after all, did not believe me to be Ozma.
In truth, I scarcely believed it.
And if what Pae had said was true, that there was talk in Oz of me being a murderess and a usurper, the odds were against me when it came to convincing anyone otherwise. I was a witch after all. Furthermore, I was a witch who was not Glinda.
Ironically, because of the turmoil caused by West and East, the mere fact that I was a sorceress left me powerless to prove my innocence. Not so long as Rye was not up and walking about and ruling like he should be.
“I guess we’re not going to talk about Pae,” I said after returning to my quarters and shutting the door behind me.
Morella didn’t answer or appear.
“Nick is going to notice the missing crown,” I told her, something she already had to be aware of. “And I’ve been the only one in that room. The only one visible. Who was that anyway?”
Obviously, Pae and Morella had history. Intimate history if that kiss had been any clue.
And where the heck had he gone anyway? Vanishing like that. Surely, he couldn’t still be in the castle—sneaking about on the grounds. Unless he was…
“Giving me the silent treatment isn’t going to help either of us get what we want,” I said.
Still, Morella didn’t appear.
“Fine,” I said, “when Nick asks me about the crown, I’m going to tell him the truth. All of it.”
Surprisingly, that threat didn’t pry Morella out of my shadow, either. Which probably meant that, for the moment, nothing would. But then, maybe she’d sensed someone was approaching my room because there came a quiet knock on my door.
“Yes?” I asked.
“My lady,” said a male voice from without, “the Emperor of the West, King Nikletin, has sent me to inform you dinner has been laid out in the dining hall. He wishes you to join him.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll…be right there. In…just a moment.”
God. Nick had already seen. He already knew about the crown.
This was his way of confronting me.
I had to think of something to tell him.
Could I really tell him the truth? That Rye’s crown had been stolen by a…a…
Well, what was Pae anyway?
“King Nikletin also requests you come dressed for a short outdoor excursion.”
Excursion?
I frowned down at myself and the blue, too-big dress. Turning, however, I found that winter clothes had been laid out for me on the boat bed. This included trousers, a warm tunic, gloves, and a hooded cloak.
A tinge of fear corkscrewed through my empty stomach.
Had Nick changed his mind about sending me in exchange for Cahal?
Could I do anything about that decision if he had?
“Thank you,” I said again, “I’ll be right there.”
No more words came through the door after that.
I deliberated, staring at the new garments, hoping Morella might still materialize.
Then, relieved simply to be heading in some solid direction, I stripped off my dress on the way to the new clothes.
I pulled on the fitted pants first, finding them lined with fleecy fabric. Next came the tunic and its belt. Matching knee-high tan boots went on after that. I shoved the gloves into the accompanying leather pouch. Last of all, I slung the heavy deep emerald cloak, beautiful with its embroidered hood and hem, over one arm before starting for the door.
I paused along the way, though, my gaze falling to where I’d discarded my dress.
The lining bore a tag I hadn’t noticed before—one that someone had sewn in by hand. Stooping, I gathered the dress to inspect the initials that had been stitched into the tag, perhaps indicating the dress’s maker or owner.
D. G.
Dorothy Gale.
Of course.
Who else?
Instead of dropping the garment back to the floor, I folded it with care, chiding myself for not recognizing its homespun charm before now. Maybe all the garments in the hutch belonged to Dorothy. Perhaps she had been a guest in this castle, this room once. After it had been claimed by the new rulers of Oz—her friends.
I carried the dress back to the hutch and laid it on the lid, fingers lingering along the cotton fabric, which had likely come from my world. Or, rather, the world I’d grown up in. The only world that, until Oz, I’d ever known.
Maybe this had even been the dress Dorothy had traveled to Oz in. Finer only by the smallest degrees than the one I had arrived here wearing.
Dorothy and me… Maybe we weren’t so different. Maybe soon I’d find out for sure.
I spun toward the door, not wanting to leave Nick waiting.
A quiet swish of fabric had me spinning at the last second, though, and glancing back.
The dress now lay in the sooty hearth, swept there by an unseen if not unnamed force.
I took a quick step toward the hearth—but not quick enough. Flames roared to life, engulfing the garment in an instant. I glared at the destroyed dress, jaw clenched.
Morella’s message couldn’t have been clearer.
She could, and would, make her strike against Dorothy if I dared to bring the girl back to Oz.
The question was, would I be strong enough to hold her at bay when the time came?
Since enlisting Dorothy’s help was the only way that I could see to save Rye…
Well, I would simply have to be.
I entered the dining hall to find Nick seated in the throne-like chair at the head of a heavy wooden twenty-foot-long table, its varnished surface polished to a high gloss.
Only the two of us occupied the vaulted chamber. Again, the guards stood stationed outside of the doorway, and no one entered after me. Another indication that Nick held little fear of me. A good thing, I wanted to believe.
“I’m glad your attire fits,” he said.
I strode toward him, pausing to drape my cloak across the chair next to the one that had been given a place setting as well as a plate full of delicious-looking food; the one directly to the left of Nick’s.
“We must be heading out into the snow,” I said as I took my seat. “I’m admittedly curious.”
“There’s something I’d like you to see,” he said, “and no, I’m not delivering you to Langwidere.”
“I won’t say the worry hadn’t crossed my mind.” I picked up a fork and dug into the fried eggs.
Nick did not have a plate in front of him. There was, however, a goblet.
I couldn’t tell if it contained any liquid, though, and so far, he hadn’t reached for the chalice.
Had to be for show. Since he didn’t have a mouth.
“The guards tell me you were yelling at Rye earlier.”
“I wasn’t,” I said truthfully, taking a bite so that I could chew and think. Of what to say next. Or if I should bother trying to hide from him anymore. Morella’s destruction of Dorothy’s dress weighed heavy on my mind. The image of that fire incinerating the cloth burned in my thoughts, reminding me that I had two choices. Tell Nick about Morella before I tried to retrieve Dorothy, or keep my secret and, in connecting with Dorothy, risk a life that wasn’t mine to risk.
Nick’s words about neither of his friends wanting him to betray the other to save either returned now to haunt me.
Dorothy wasn’t my friend. I didn’t know her. But Nick obviously cared for her—even loved her. Quite possibly, Rye loved her too. In a way that I didn’t want to think about.
My plan. I couldn’t go through with it. Not so long as Morella remained an issue.
“One of my men claimed you explained yourself by stating that you were yelling at…yourself.”
“I wasn’t doing that, either,” I admitted, scooping up my drink, which I sipped without first inspecting. A mistake.
I swallowed the biting liquid and coughed, my mug hitting the wooden table with a clunk that sent a portion of my drink—one infused with strong alcohol—sloshing out onto the table.
“It’s called flamebrew,” he said. “Drink it all if you can.”
“Drink it all?” I rasped. “I won’t be able to stand!”
“A blizzard has moved in,” he said. “What we need to see lies without. We must go tonight. Drink it all or regret that you did not. The choice is yours.”
All?That seemed like overkill. And did he really think I was going to be able to stay upright let alone travel any distance after so much drink?
“You’re not going to tell me where we’re going,” I said.
Or why we needed to head there in a blizzard.
“It’s not far,” he said. “We’ll be back at sundown.”
He wasn’t going to yield. Not to that avenue of questioning. So, I’d switch.
“Do we have any updates?” I asked. “On Cahal?”“Are you going to tell me who you were talking to in the bell tower?”
I sighed loudly, taking my fork, and attacking the tiny spuds I’d come to favor.
“He said his name was Pae,” I blurted out and shoved one of the morsels into my mouth. I chewed and chewed, swallowed, and then went for another larger swig of flamebrew. “I don’t know who or what he was, but he stole Rye’s crown, and that’s where that went in case you were wondering. Which, I know you must be.You probably think I took it, but I didn’t. This Pae person. He spoke fast, and he moved even faster. No one could see him but me. And then he disappeared. I sound absurd but I don’t care. I don’t like secrets and keeping them has gotten me, Rye, Cahal, and you all where we currently are.”
Sip. Swig. Cough.
“Pae Woot,” said Nick, his tone even, like he wasn’t at all surprised.
“You know him,” I said around a bite of crisped and buttered bread.
“He’s known by some as Woot the Wanderer,” Nick said. “Others call him…other things. He’s a somewhat…notorious figure in Oz. Can you describe him?”
“Well,” I said, going for yet another swig, “he’s purple, for one. And he has yellow eyes. Clawed hands. Sharp teeth. Tail. Pointy ears. Funny hair.”
“I see,” said Nick.
“Do you?” I gave a nervous laugh. Then stifled it by shoveling in a mouthful of fried egg.
“Woot is a demon,” Nick said.
The eggs went down weirdly and landed in my stomach with a slosh. I reached again for the fizzy flamebrew and took another long draw. The bottom of the mug swam into view.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so sorry to have the task of draining the cup. The flamebrew had bite but also possessed a spiced undertone, its flavor as warm as its pleasant burn.
“West summoned him from a nether realm using a magical golden cap,” Nick explained. “The cap that allowed her to summon him also enabled her to enslave him and others of his kind. Many horrors that befell the people of Oz happened at the hands of Woot and the other demons.”
I set my fork down, my stomach flipping the eggs, the flamebrew sending fire through my veins.
“What happened to the, uh, demons after West died?” I asked.
“The death of the cap bearer, in essence, freed the demons,” said Nick. “Some, including Woot, chose to remain in Oz. Others returned to their originating dimensions.”
“Um,” I said, “you said the death of the cap-bearer freed them…‘in essence.’” Language that suggested there was a caveat.
“Indeed,” said Nick. “So long as there was no one in possession of the cap, there could be no one in charge of the demons.”
“That would change if someone new got ahold of the cap,” I guessed.
“Precisely,” said Nick.
“Who holds the cap now?” I asked.
“Glinda took it,” he replied. “At the close of the war. She hid it somewhere safe. Somewhere it could not fall into the wrong hands.”
“Glinda’s still captive in Ev,” I said. “Or…so I assume. Which means someone could have gotten ahold of the cap.”
“Very true,” said Nick. “The question now is, what was Pae doing here and who, if anyone, is he working under.”
“So,” I said, speaking to my plate, “you believe me? About Pae?”
“So far,” he said, “you’ve not given me any reason not to believe you. And Rye believed in you. Very much. Or else you would not be here now.”
Sorrow hit my soul like an avalanche of snow, cold, all-encompassing, and suffocating.
I needed to tell Nick about Morella. I needed to as soon as I could. Before we involved Dorothy. That was truly the right thing to do.
Rye had tried to do everything on his own. He’d tried to keep everything to himself. Shoulder the weight of all threats on his own. He’d let his fear of triggering Langwidere into action funnel him onto a singular path that, because of Morella’s involvement, had become just another trap.
He’d painted himself into a corner by keeping silent. I couldn’t repeat his mistake.
“You have things heavy on your mind,” Nick said. “Let us go on our adventure. Then, when we come back, we will discuss Kansas, Dorothy, and Cahal.”
I nodded, then drained the rest of the flamebrew that really hadn’t been so difficult to down.
This “adventure.” Perhaps it would give me time to plan my approach. Time enough to sort through how I would tell Nick the truth about me and West.
Hopefully, the effects of the flamebrew will last through then.
Of course, I could always ask for more.