Dorothy Must Die (21 page)

Sindra snorted. “Well, he shouldn’t have told Dorothy what she couldn’t spend the palace reserves on.”

I didn’t press her further, but it sure sounded to me like something dark had befallen Lord Aurellium. And now here was his wife, a playdate for Dorothy. So she spent her days entertaining the important people of Oz she hadn’t yet executed or driven into hiding.

Around teatime, we almost crossed Dorothy’s path. It was impossible not to hear her coming. Her red high heels clicked unnaturally loudly through the halls, as if amplified by magic. Not to mention she brought with her the heavy footfalls of her bodyguards and the tittering of her entourage, a group of gaudily dressed Dorothy-appointed beauty experts and jesters, all of them constantly jabbering about how wonderful she was. I wanted to get a look at my target, but Hannah yanked me away.

Dorothy was never alone, I realized. It was unclear whether that was a tactical decision—or maybe even she couldn’t stand to be alone with herself.

After teatime, Dorothy either took a nap or met with her council of advisers, or possibly both. Either way, we weren’t allowed on the upper floors during that time, lest we disturb Her Greatness.

There was no way the maids didn’t see how screwed up everything was. But they went cheerfully along. Or, at least, they pretended to. Never for a moment did they doubt Dorothy’s magnificence and kindness and perfection.

It was like they were brainwashed. Either that or scared out of their minds.

Later that day, a whistling Jellia and I were sweeping dirt from the narrow hallway that ran between the palace and the Royal Gardens when the unmistakable clanking of metal parts came echoing in our direction. The unspoken rule among the maids was to stay out of sight of Dorothy and her advisers—particularly the metallic Grand Inquisitor and his Tin Soldiers—except that wasn’t an option now. There weren’t any doors or exits in our little hall; either we ran back toward the palace in the direction of the incoming metal man, or we ducked into the Royal Gardens where servants were strictly forbidden.

Jellia’s giddy facade melted under a fresh burst of panic. She froze, clutching her broom and staring down the hall. I grabbed her and pulled her over to the side of the hallway, our backs tight against the wall. She was shaking.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“But—but what if she didn’t like the song I was whistling?” Jellia stammered.

Before I could answer, the Tin Woodman rounded the corner. The last time I’d seen him had been in battle and for a moment I tensed up, half expecting him to come at me. But he didn’t so much as glance in our direction. He didn’t recognize me—couldn’t recognize me. I tasted blood and realized I’d been biting the inside of my cheek.

“Please, please don’t, it was just an accident!”

The Tin Woodman was dragging a young man along by the elbow. He wore the emerald-plated armor of the palace guards. He thrashed against the Tin Woodman’s unforgiving grip to no avail. From around the young guard’s neck hung a cardboard sign that said Crime: Wandering Eye.

“I didn’t mean to look at her!” the guard pleaded.

“Silence,” came the Tin Woodman’s icy reply.

As they went by, I made the mistake of meeting the young guard’s eyes. I should’ve kept my gaze downcast and subservient like Jellia. Desperate, the guard tried to lunge in my direction.

“Please!” he screamed. “Help me! This isn’t right!”

I could’ve done something. Cast a fireball spell. Summoned my knife and saved that guard. I wanted to save him because I couldn’t stand to see that fear in his eyes. But then the Order’s whole plan would’ve been blown. Disgusted with both myself and the situation, I looked away.

The Tin Woodman shoved the guard onward, out into the Royal Gardens. He didn’t bother closing the door all the way. After a moment, I crept over to peek outside.

“Astrid!” Jellia hissed. “What are you doing?”

I shushed her and watched as the Tin Woodman led the guard to a sunny bed of overgrown sunflowers. They stopped there, the guard still pointlessly struggling. I wondered what Wandering Eye meant. Had he checked out Dorothy? What was the punishment for that?

The sunflowers shuddered, then parted, and there stood the Lion, stretching in his sun-drenched napping spot. I couldn’t believe it. Here I’d been dumbly sweeping away while Dorothy’s beast slept right outside the door. The Lion looked totally recovered from his battle with Gert. His thick muscles rippled under his coat of golden fur as he drew himself up, looming over the guard.

The Tin Woodman exchanged words with the yawning Lion but I couldn’t hear them. I had to stop myself from casting a listening spell, again remembering Nox’s warning about using magic. Whatever they said, it made the guard collapse to his knees.

A moment later, the Lion crooked one claw delicately against the guard’s face, the motion so smooth I almost missed it. Something that looked an awful lot like a Ping-Pong ball sailed in an arc away from the guard’s face and into the waiting, open maw of the Lion.

It was his eye, I realized. The Lion had flicked out the guard’s eye and swallowed it. I backed slowly away from the door.

“What did they do to him?” Jellia whispered, her curiosity proving to me that the maids weren’t entirely oblivious and brainwashed.

“You don’t want to know,” I replied. “We should get out of here.”

So this was what I was up against. A psychotic midwesterner with a reservoir of magic who was never alone, surrounded by loyal killers that would disfigure one of their own without a second thought. Meanwhile, I’d received no further instructions from Nox or the Order, and hadn’t seen any sign of Pete, my one sort of friend in the palace.

Sure. This whole assassination thing would be a piece of cake.

On the third day, there was a flutter of activity among the staff. Someone important had arrived in the palace.

“The Wizard!” Hannah whispered in excitement as she headed off to clean the north wing while I gathered my materials to handle the south.

“The Wizard?” I asked, hoping for more details. But Hannah was already scurrying away.

Neither Glamora’s lessons or Gert’s had ever touched on the Wizard. Honestly, I’d forgotten all about him. Hadn’t he gone back to the Other Place in his balloon? What was he doing in Oz? As usual, I was two steps behind.

But the Wizard was definitely here. I decided to detour past Dorothy’s solarium, knowing that if she kept to her regular schedule she’d be in there. It wasn’t on Astrid’s normal cleaning route for the day, but that was a risk I’d have to take. I needed to find out more.

The hallway was totally clear, and I made sure to keep my footfalls light. The door to the solarium was ajar, probably because Dorothy figured no one would have the guts to eavesdrop. I pressed myself against the wall outside the open door, peeking into the room. Inside, Dorothy was stretched out on a green velvet divan with ornate, gold legs. Next to where she reclined, a tower of little finger foods and pastries overflowed with snacks. Dorothy wasn’t even bothering to lift a finger: the cookies were floating right from the tray and into her mouth.

I did a double take when I saw who was sitting across from her on a brocade couch: Glamora.

No. Of course not. It was Glinda. She was wearing a slinky pink slip dress, her red hair piled in a perfectly coiffed updo, and she was sipping primly from a pink teacup.

“I don’t trust him,” Dorothy complained. “Why does he have to come here at all? I let him do what he wants; I let him get away with using magic. Can’t he just stop pestering me?”

“The Wizard may be an irritating ally,” Glinda replied. “But he would make a dangerous enemy. Let’s keep him happy.” It was freaky how much they looked and sounded like each other. Hearing Glamora’s voice coming from Glinda’s mouth made me miss her sister a little. Even if I’d never liked her that much in the first place.

“I don’t see why I can’t just kill him,” Dorothy complained. “It would make everything so much easier. I hate him, and I hate his dumb little hats.”

“The Wizard is from your world,” Glinda reminded her. “That makes things more complicated. His magic is unpredictable. Trying to kill him could easily backfire. As long as we keep him on our side, he’s harmless. He might even be able to help us. You know as well as I do that we share . . . similar goals.”

“Hmph,” Dorothy said. “I just want him out of my life.”

“Patience, Dorothy,” Glinda warned. “Why don’t we take a look and see what he’s up to? I agree that it’s better to keep a careful eye on him.”

Dorothy let out a loud sigh of frustration. She clapped her hands together and I snuck a peek to see what they were doing. Their attention was directed at a painting of a pleasant woodland scene that hung on the wall, over the fireplace. I took the opportunity of their distraction to watch more closely.

“Magic picture!” she barked. “Show us the Wizard.”

At Dorothy’s command, the picture began to rearrange itself, like the paint was still wet and an invisible brush was creating a different scene. Suddenly the trees became a face I recognized: the Tin Woodman. Then another face formed. This was one I’d never seen before. But I had a good guess as to who it was. It was an older man with a narrow face, mischievous eyes, and overgrown, almost hornlike eyebrows. He had a small, jaunty top hat sitting on the baldest part of his almost entirely bald head.

The Wizard was having lunch with the Tin Woodman. Even their voices carried crystal clear through the magic of the painting. It was like watching one of those high-def TVs my mom always talked about putting on layaway. It made me nervous, knowing Dorothy had access to this kind of power. I wondered what the limits of her spying were.

I also wondered if I might be able to use this magic painting myself instead of relying on old-fashioned sneaking around.

“Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?” the Wizard asked casually, leaning back in his chair and buttering his scone.

The Tin Woodman looked up from oiling his joints with a scandalized expression. “I couldn’t possibly. I—”

In the solarium, Dorothy turned to Glinda and I yanked my head back behind the door frame. “He’s trying to turn him against me,” she hissed. “Listen to him.”

Glinda shook her head. “That’s not what it sounds like to me. It seems to me that they’re discussing a matter closer to our mutual friend’s stuffed heart.”

“No!” Dorothy groaned. “Not
this
again.”

I tentatively leaned in to see Glinda shrug, put a red-clawed finger to her red-painted lips, and point at the painting, where the Wizard was patting the Tin Woodman’s shoulder sympathetically. He tried to swat it away with one of his knife-tipped hands, but the Wizard jerked back just in time to avoid getting sliced.

“It’s useless,” the Tin Woodman said. “Everything I do, I do for
her.
And still, she will never love me the way I love her.”

I almost gave myself away by laughing out loud, but swallowed it just in time. The Tin Woodman was hopelessly in love with Dorothy!

Really, it wasn’t funny. It was sick. Well, okay, maybe it was a little funny.

Then I remembered what I knew about the Tin Woodman. He’d lost a love and accidentally chopped off his limbs with an enchanted ax. But what if the ax hadn’t been enchanted at all? What if the Tin Woodman was just a guy who was known for taking things too far in the name of love?

“Why not start small?” the Wizard was advising. “Ask her for one dance at the next ball. That couldn’t hurt, could it? And maybe it will lead to something else.”

The Tin Woodman’s forehead crumpled like aluminum foil, then smoothed itself out again as he considered the idea.

“Perhaps.”

“Ugh! It would
literally
hurt! He has knives for fingers,” Dorothy complained. She clapped her hands again and the painting changed to a motionless, pastel image of a sunny seascape. “Enough! Encouraging the Tin Woodman’s pathetic crush is treason. I could have the Wizard’s head for that.”

Glinda waved off the suggestion. “Oh, hush,” she said. “You can’t blame him for that. We’ve
all
found ourselves having those conversations with your metal admirer. He
never
changes the subject; it’s impossible
not
to encourage him. Anyway, we shouldn’t be rash. Remember when you disposed of the Wogglebug and then, a few months later, you wanted another?”

“I remember,” Dorothy grumbled begrudgingly.

“There were no more Wogglebugs. And there is only
one
Wizard.”

Dorothy conceded with a nod and a pout, but I wasn’t so sure. It looked like she might still prefer a world with no Wizard at all.

Glinda stood up. “Well, my dear . . .”

Glinda looked ready to leave, so that was my cue. I slipped away from the door and padded quietly down the hall. I wasn’t so bad at this spy stuff and I didn’t even have a magic painting. Now, I just needed to figure out what to do with everything I’d just learned.

In the banquet hall, scrubbing endlessly at the shiny marble floors, I had plenty of time to consider my next move.

I had so many questions. Why wasn’t the Wizard back in the real world where he belonged? Why didn’t Dorothy trust him? And what made him and
his
magic so dangerous that they couldn’t risk dealing with him?

But I wasn’t just thinking about what they’d talked about. I was also thinking about that picture, wondering exactly how far it could see. Nox had warned me about using magic, but I wouldn’t be casting anything, since the painting was already enchanted. It was probably safe, right?

I rushed through the rest of my cleaning. It wouldn’t be up to Jellia’s standards, but I didn’t care. I needed to do something. I’d been gathering information for three days and still didn’t have a concrete plan to get closer to Dorothy. I could keep playing maid and, in the meantime, let Dorothy go on murdering her enemies and disfiguring her allies, all the while wasting my days cleaning until I slipped up and got beheaded for the crime of Soap Scum. Or, I could take a risk, speed things up, and use her magic painting.

Yeah. Worth it.

I tiptoed back to the solarium. This time, it was empty.

I looked both ways down the corridor to make sure no one was coming, and crept into the room, approaching the picture. It had changed again. Now it was a painting of a quaint little cottage, like something you’d see in a dentist’s office.

I wasn’t sure it would work. The picture was probably just a normal painting without Dorothy’s magic to make it do its thing. Even so, I looked around nervously one more time, and then faced it.

“Magic picture,” I whispered, trying to mimic Dorothy’s sharp command, only quietly. “Show me—”

“Ahem.”

I’d been caught. Without thinking, without even turning around, and definitely without considering Nox’s warning about magic, I cast an invisibility spell. My cover was blown. Escape was now the only thing on my mind.

I disappeared only for a second. Before I could even move my invisible feet, a feeling like getting splashed by a bucket of cold water came over me. Just like that, I was visible again, my spell canceled. I stood smack in the middle of Dorothy’s solarium, exposed.

The Wizard stood before me.