36. Chapter 36
thirty-six
“Now!” said Pae after wrenching me out of the mirror and back into the dining hall of Nick’s castle.
At his command, Dorothy rushed forward with a brass candelabra. Wielding it as a cudgel, she smashed the mirror, which shattered on impact, its shards flashing silver as they collapsed to the cold stone floor.
I’d already cut my magic from the portal. But the instinct to destroy the mirror was still understandable.
Back in Morella’s cave storeroom, Nick had told me Glinda had never stepped foot in this castle. Which should prevent access to Langwidere and her forces. But hadn’t the princess already proven herself capable of so much we’d assumed impossible?
Spotting Sebastian, I half crawled, half scooted to where he lay still swathed in that sheet. Picking his head up, I guided it onto my lap. The moment seemed a dark mirror to the one after Rye had found me and Sebastian in the palace passageways after our kiss. Rye had knocked Sebastian unconscious in that instant. Just like then, Sebastian wasn’t coming to, which suggested he might be more injured than I wanted to believe. His form didn’t bear any marks or bruises. So far as I could tell, he wasn’t bleeding.
What had Pae done to him?
“Sebastian,” I said, smoothing his hair, my relief at having him back combatted by my anguish over what I’d seen before leaving—and what it might mean.
One of two things, perhaps.
Either I had disrupted the larger plan Sebastian had been piecing together, or Ginger was the true reason Sebastian hadn’t wanted to depart with Jack and Cahal. Because he wouldn’t be able to leave her behind.
Or else there was a third option I hadn’t considered yet. Something my addled mind couldn’t conceive of—not in this moment.
One thing was for sure. I was far from having the entire picture regarding all that had occurred during Sebastian’s tenure in the overthrown capital of Oz.
There was one person, one being, however, who might just know the answers to the questions swirling through me, wreaking havoc like a storm.
That creature slid into view before me, golden eyes beaming with that same strange inner light that exuded warning and hinted—even if distantly—at violence.
“Twenty-four hours,” Pae said. And then, without another word, he vanished.
His message was clear. No explanation needed.
I had twenty-four hours to produce the golden cap I’d already promised him, an article that wasn’t yet mine to give. Instead, it belonged to the king who now stood in the doorway of the dining room, his metal frame flanked by a small fleet of guards our commotion must have drawn.
Nick’s mask prevented me from reading any scowl.
But there had to be one beneath that fa?ade of metal.
Couldn’t I feel it?