Dorothy Must Die (29 page)

We turned a corner and found ourselves in a long, leafy corridor—grown over with ivy—where there didn’t appear to be any more turnoffs. The hedges stretched out in a rigid line, nowhere to go except straight ahead. Unfortunately, the path looked like it went on forever, extending so far into the distance that I couldn’t see an end. The maze felt massive, like an entire world unto itself.

The endlessness terrified me. Even Star slowed down and sniffed at the air, looking around like she was trying to get her bearings.

“Come on, Star,” I urged quietly. “Don’t fail me now.”

The hedge wall on my left was covered in a blooming honeysuckle-like vine that dripped with a sweet-smelling nectar. Without really realizing what I was doing, I reached toward one of the blossoms to sample the nectar—it smelled so sweet and alluring. A purple ladybug landed on the blossom just in front of my fingers and the flower snapped close with a crunch and a squish. I jumped back. The flowers had teeth.

I started forward, wanting to put some distance between me and the flowers. Star ambled along at my side, no longer leading the way.

“What did you get me into, Star?”

Just as I said it, her head popped up into the air and she doubled back on the path we’d been following. She began to examine one of the hedges we’d passed. It looked like any of the rest of them to me, but Star, having now made up her mind, circled around and ran straight toward it. As she did, the branches slid aside, forming an opening as wide as a doorway. I gasped—more from joy than surprise—a way out! Star ran through—and I ran right behind her.

We kept running, no longer obeying the paths laid out by the maze. The walls continued to slide aside for us as we charged on, closing at our backs as soon as we slipped through.

And then, finally, we reached the center of the maze. It was so unexpected that I almost tripped over my feet while skidding to a stop. It was a large, circular area, paved with jagged flagstones. Wildflowers bloomed everywhere, the moonlight beaming down brightly on their open faces.

Dead center in the middle of the plaza was a stone fountain that looked older than time itself. Its water spiraled up into the sky in a corkscrew and didn’t seem to come back down again.

Sitting on the edge of the fountain was Pete.

As usual, he had found me when I least expected it. Like the Order, Pete was just another of my supposed allies that couldn’t be relied upon.

“You,” was all I could manage, still catching my breath.

“Hey,” he said casually. Clearly, he’d been expecting
me
. He sat there like there was nothing strange at all about meeting up in the early morning darkness for some fun times in the nefarious hedge maze.

Actually, with the way the bright-yellow half-moon shone on his dark hair, the colors around us supercharged, Pete looked almost beautiful. He looked better than normal—like an artist’s rendering of his ideal self. He looked perfectly at ease here, like he belonged.

“You brought me here,” I said suspiciously. “You had Star come get me.”

“Yes,” he said. He stood up from his perch on the fountain but didn’t come any closer.

“How?”

“Star may not be able to talk, but it’s not so hard to communicate with her if you know the trick,” he replied.

More half answers. This was way beyond its expiration date.

“What about the maze? Did you do all that? Do you control it?”

He laughed. “No one controls the maze. Especially not me. It’s a living thing—like you or me or Star. If you’re kind to it, it remembers. If it’s your friend, it will help you.” He smiled and gestured at everything around us. “These hedges and I go way back,” he said. “So I asked it for help.”

What was he saying? That he had trained this place?

I took a step closer.

Who are you?
I wanted to ask.
What do you want from me?

I wanted to ask those things. But I had asked them before. I knew he wouldn’t give me a straight answer. And if he somehow did now, I wasn’t sure I would like it.

“If you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you just come to my room—like before? Why go through all this?” I asked instead.

“Things are about to get messy around here, Amy,” he said. “It’s not safe for me in the palace.”

I wanted to laugh. “And it’s safe in
here
? I hate to tell you this, but the flowers have teeth.”

Pete laughed. “Okay, true,” he said. “If you make it here to the center, though, you’re in the safest place in the whole Emerald City. Maybe in all of Oz. Dorothy’s afraid to come in here. Even
Glinda
’s
afraid. They should be—it’s more powerful than they are. More powerful than Mombi, for that matter.”

He raised an eyebrow mischievously.

“You know Mombi,” I said. Of
course
he did. I should have known.

“I do,” he said. “Mombi and I go way back, too.”

“So
you’re
my handler. The one who’s been keeping an eye on me for the Order. Are you the one who told her to rescue me in the first place?”

Pete shook his head emphatically. “I don’t work with the Order. Just because I know Mombi doesn’t mean I like her.”

“How do you know her, then? Wait, never mind. I don’t know why I thought you’d answer that, since you haven’t answered any of my other questions.”

Pete’s expression darkened. “She may say she’s working for the good of Oz, but Mombi doesn’t do anything for the good of anyone except herself. Take it from me.”

I rolled my eyes and walked over to the edge of the fountain.

“Pete,” I said. “Why should I take
anything
from you?”

“I guess you shouldn’t,” he said. I couldn’t decide whether he sounded apologetic about it.

“So what do you want from me? Why did you bring me here?”

“I wanted you to know how to find the center,” he said. “I wanted you to understand this place. To introduce you, I guess. It might be useful to you someday.”

“Introduce me.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanted to introduce me to
a bunch of magical hedges
.” I was pissed at how evasive Pete was being, but the logical part of me knew this was a valuable place to know about. With things getting hot in the palace, the Tin Woodman sniffing around, the magic I’d used last night—I might need a place with carnivorous flowers to hide in.

Pete just shrugged. He tried to take my hand in his, but I pulled it away.

“And I wanted to say good-bye,” he said. “I have to leave the palace. I couldn’t before. But Dorothy’s weak right now. She’s being hit from too many angles. I don’t even think she realizes it. I have to leave while I can.”

I felt it like a punch in the gut. Mysterious and flighty as he was, at least Pete usually
tried
to be helpful. But now—just like the Order—he was leaving me behind. And I still didn’t have any answers. Was it a coincidence that he had just been walking by when my trailer fell out of the sky, that he kept showing up and disappearing?

I backed away from him. Pete was more than he seemed. That much was clear.

“Who
are
you?” I asked.

“I had started to think that there was no hope for Oz,” he said, again not answering the question. “Things were just so bad. The day I met you I was walking around looking at all the damage. Thinking there was no way things could ever get better. That we shouldn’t even bother trying. And then you dropped out of the sky. You reminded me that there was still Good here. Even if it was just the promise of Good.”

Good
. There was that word again. Back home, I had always thought of myself as a good
person. Maybe a good person with a little bit of a temper, but still
good.
Here, in Oz, it had gotten more complicated—words like
Good
and
Wicked
had lost their meaning. What mattered was right and wrong.

At least, that’s what I’d thought. But Pete thought I was
Good,
and the way he said it made me wonder if it still mattered after all.

“It was selfish of me to get so close to you,” he went on. “But it wasn’t
just
selfishness. I wanted to make you feel like you weren’t alone, so that you could be the force for good Oz needs.”

His words made me feel unsteady. “I don’t know what that means,” I said. “I hardly know anything about you. You’re not a gardener at all, are you?”

“I wish I could tell you everything, Amy. I wish I could take you with me. But I can’t. We all have our secrets to keep.” He looked at me pointedly, and I remembered that I was still wearing Astrid’s face. “And you’re bound to Mombi now. I can’t break that. Even if I wanted to.”

He knew that, too. What else did he know about me?

I turned away from him and trailed my fingers through the water in the fountain. I half expected to feel something when I touched it—that it would be magical, charged somehow. But it was just water.

Then Pete stood up.

“Wait—” I said. I stood too. “Please.” I had so much more I wanted to ask him. Even if he wasn’t going to give me the answers.

But he was running his fingers through his hair, looking away. He had more he wanted to say, too, I could tell.

“Don’t trust anyone. Don’t even trust me. Trust yourself,” he said. “You’ll know what to do. Be safe, Amy.”

Before I could reply, he took a running leap and dove headfirst into the fountain. The water was only about a foot deep, but it swallowed him easily. I ran over and leaned into the pool, but all I saw was clear water shimmering over the mosaic-tiled bottom. It was empty. He was gone. I sighed in frustration.

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” I said to Star.

I thought about following—about jumping right into the pool after him. But somehow I knew that whatever door Pete had just passed through was closed.

With all the magic in Oz, with all the magic the witches had taught me, there was one trick I still hadn’t mastered: how to make people stay.

The hedge maze basically showed me the way out, opening up its walls for me. As I passed, the bitey flowers made sweet little kissy noises at me. That didn’t really cheer me up.

I returned Star to my room, hiding her back in the drawer and using some of the padding from my ripped-up mattress to make her a bed. I figured the Tin Soldiers wouldn’t bother tossing my room twice. After that, I rejoined the other maids, scrubbing and dusting through the rest of the afternoon. No one seemed to have missed me, although I didn’t see Jellia anywhere.

Around dinnertime, the sun came back up. Dorothy must’ve been awake.

The maid staff was only half done with our meals when all of our bells started ringing at once. Something was wrong, and as they led us to the throne room, it wasn’t hard to guess what.

It wasn’t just the maids. The halls were crowded with people all heading in the same direction: guards, gardeners, deliverymen, cooks, everyone. I even saw the Wizard’s hat sailing through the procession.

“They know who it is,” someone behind me whispered. “They’ve discovered the traitor who helped the monkey escape.”

Even though I’d barely had time to touch my dinner, I felt sick to my stomach. If they knew who it was, then they knew it was
me.
I knew how Dorothy liked to work: that she was looking forward to calling me out from the crowd in front of everyone, making me beg and humiliate myself while she tortured me with my own fear.

I thought about running. I could teleport myself to the hedge maze and hide in there. I could make it out before the Tin Soldiers had the chance to grab me.

Or I could summon my knife and fight.

I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going back to one of those tiny dungeon cells. And I damn sure wasn’t going to the Scarecrow’s lab for any Attitude Adjustment.

Before I could decide anything for sure, Sindra sidled up next to me.

“I just can’t wait for things to get back to normal,” she said. “You know, I found a metal screw in my bed. The Tin Soldiers must have searched the room. And what if
I’m
the traitor? I mean, I
did
bring up some of those hay bales.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I replied, and picked up my pace to get ahead of her.

As we entered the throne room, my eyes came to rest on the Wizard. He observed the crowd with an inscrutable smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He stood in the middle of the crowd, but separate, too, as if he were surrounded by an invisible bubble. Really, it was that people were a little afraid of him. They didn’t want to stand too close. I was just surprised that he was down here with all us common servants.

The staff milled about, chatting, some of the maids taking the opportunity to flirt with the guards, but it all came to a halt when the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman entered. The crowd hushed as the two took their places next to the two empty thrones.

Audible gasps and a smattering of clapping rippled through the crowd when Dorothy sashayed into the room. It was the first time I’d seen her since the incident in her chambers a few days ago, and I noticed with disgust that all the beauty sleep seemed to be working—her skin looked perfect, like a doll’s, not a blemish to be seen. The spike heels of her magic shoes—which I pointedly avoided looking at—sparked against the marble with her every step. Dorothy’s hair bounced at her shoulders, even more shiny and perfect today than ever. She wore a leather dress of that familiar blue-and-white pattern that hugged her farm-girl curves before fishtailing out at the bottom.

Dorothy sat on her throne, daintily crossed her legs, and regarded us all with an expression equal parts imperious and murderous. At her side, the second throne—usually reserved for Ozma—remained empty. I guessed that the
actual
princess wasn’t important enough to get invited to this sort of thing.

The Tin Woodman banged the butt of his ax on the floor.

“Attention!” he shouted, as if everyone in the crowd wasn’t already staring at the throne.

Slowly, a thousand-watt grin spread across Dorothy’s face, as insincere as a piranha’s. She cleared her throat and her voice began to echo through the room.

“My aunt Em used to say there wasn’t any such thing as being too generous,” she said. “My dear aunt Em was never a princess, of course, but I still try to live by her words. I like to think I treat you all not just as subjects but as friends.”

She paused, and the crowd responded with clapping and cheering, not all of it entirely forced. I had to say, this wasn’t the Dorothy I’d expected. She might have been a total bitch in private, but she sure knew how to work a room.

“And how am I repaid for my generosity?” Dorothy went on, a hand daintily spread across her cleavage, her tone suddenly wounded. “With betrayal. A betrayal of me, a betrayal of Oz, a betrayal of all of
you
.”

Angry muttering began to spread through the room. They were actually
buying
this crap.

I could practically feel her eyes boring right through the crowd and into my skull. I knew that, at any second, she would be dispatching the Tin Soldiers to push through the audience and drag me up to the throne to be punished in front of everyone. My fists clenched. I was scared, yes, but also felt my anger starting to rise. I must be prepared to draw my dagger and make sure Oz’s benevolent ruler died first.

“We will have our justice!” Dorothy shouted. “The truth always reveals itself.”

Cheering again. They couldn’t make up their minds—were they angry or happy? Were they really clapping for the downfall of a traitor? Or because it wasn’t them being punished today?

“Bravest Lion,” Dorothy said through clenched teeth, “bring me the traitor.”

The Lion loped out from the door behind the throne. A murmur went through the crowd. The Lion’s ferocious figure was always intimidating but the nervousness sweeping the room was also partly owed to the prisoner he dragged behind him.

Jellia Jamb, the head maid and Dorothy’s most trusted lady-in-waiting, her hands bound behind her back.

I lurched forward in surprise, bumping shoulders with one of the guards. He glared at me, but I hardly noticed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Jellia. This wasn’t right. Not at all.

The Lion held her with one paw digging into her arm through the puffy sleeves of her uniform. Her hair was disheveled, her face ashen and quivering. The PermaSmile had been wiped from her face. Her uniform was all torn up.

My mind raced. Was this a trap? Was Jellia going to inform against me? Or was she going to take the fall?

Her keys. Oh no. I’d stolen her keys, they’d figured it out, and now she was to blame.

My fault. This was my fault.

“Come forward,” Dorothy demanded, curling a finger at Jellia.

The Lion released her and Jellia stepped forward, righting herself quickly when she stumbled for a moment.

Dorothy looked her up and down, clucking her tongue. Then she stood up and straightened the crooked flaps of Jellia’s collar.

“There,” Dorothy said, almost intimately, almost like she was just speaking to Jellia. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was something tender about it.

I held my breath. What was she going to do to her? And, more importantly, what was I going to do about it? I couldn’t just stand here while someone else got blamed for my crimes against Dorothy.

“Jellia,” Dorothy said, sitting back onto her throne and crossing her legs casually. “You stand accused of freeing the monkey, Maude, from the Scarecrow’s private medical facility where she was being kept for her own good. How do you plead?”

Jellia’s chin trembled as she opened her mouth to speak. “Guilty, Your Highness,” she said.

The room gasped, no one louder than me. Jellia hadn’t done it—so why was she confessing to the crime?

“Additionally,” Dorothy continued, “we discovered several pieces of evidence in your room suggesting that you have been in regular contact with a ragtag band of magic-using malcontents and usurpers operating out of Gillikin Country.”

The Order
. She meant the Order.

Jellia was my handler. How could I not have seen it? Getting me close to Dorothy. Letting me check my room this morning. Hell, she’d probably allowed me to pickpocket her keys. Tears welled up in my eyes—tears of belated gratitude, frustration, futility. I fought them back.

Jellia didn’t reply to Dorothy’s accusation.

The Lion twitched and pawed impatiently at the ground. He growled, baring his teeth, and Jellia flinched away from him. Dorothy stroked his back, calming him.

“Well?” she asked Jellia. “What do you say to that?”

Jellia looked around the room. I tried to catch her eyes, but it was almost as if she refused to look at me. She raised her chin high.

“That accusation is true,” she said, her eyes blazing. “I am a member of the Revolutionary Order of the Wi—”

Dorothy lunged forward and slapped her before Jellia could finish. To my ears at least, the slap echoed like a thunderclap. The room, which had started to buzz during Jellia’s second confession, went completely quiet.

To even Dorothy’s surprise, Jellia didn’t look at all cowed. Instead, she raised her head even higher, looking out on the crowd once again. It was like she was shaking off the meek, PermaSmiling, and servile creature we’d all known. Her spine stiffened and her shoulders rose up, like her false persona was an actual weight she’d been carrying. Gone was the woman who’d chastised me for not starching my pleats, the woman who’d carried around a dead mouse for days on Dorothy’s orders. Suddenly she looked like a warrior.

I should’ve known. Should’ve thanked her for wiping what must’ve been blood off me. For protecting me.

Dorothy recoiled from Jellia, as if scalded by the brazen impertinence. She gathered herself and shouted, struggling to be heard over the increasingly buzzing crowd.

“Treason! Sass! Unsanctioned magic!” Dorothy shrieked out the charges. “I sentence you to—!”

The ropes binding Jellia’s hands burned away with a puff of smoke. The crowd gasped as Jellia cut off the princess, her voice rising louder.

“People of Oz!” she yelled. “Dorothy’s tyranny has lasted long enough! It is time for us to rise up! It is time for us to reclaim the magic that is rightfully ours! My fellow Ozians—in times like these, the Wicked will rise!”

No one knew what to do—the idea of a royal decree being interrupted was so preposterous that even Dorothy had frozen, her face bright red. I heard some boos from the crowd, but a larger part was silent, some leaning intently forward, whispering among themselves. Others edged toward the exits, not wanting to be involved in whatever came next.

I looked over to where the Wizard had been standing and saw that he was gone. But where?

Dorothy stomped her ruby-wrapped feet, more like a spoiled child than a regal princess. “Stop it! I trusted you!”

Jellia turned toward her and, as she did, Dorothy pointed an angry finger at her. It began to glow.

My knife suddenly appeared in my hand, almost without me realizing it, but no one else noticed—everyone’s attention was firmly on Jellia and Dorothy.

A crackling bolt of electricity shot from Dorothy’s finger, straight toward her former maid. Jellia raised a palm as if to say
Stop
, and it bounced right off her, curling back in Dorothy’s direction. Dorothy gasped, but the Tin Woodman flung himself in front of her just in time to absorb the spell, sparks hopping across his metal body.

“Kill her!” Dorothy screamed.

Jellia’s outstretched hand began to glow. But before whatever spell she was casting could fully coalesce, the Lion bounded forward and sunk his teeth into Jellia’s shoulder. She screamed as the Lion tore into her, shaking her back and forth until her arm came completely off with a sick tearing sound. Those closest to the thrones, including Dorothy, were sprayed with Jellia’s blood.

Now people were screaming, running toward the exits. Others remained, too scared to even flee without official dismissal from Dorothy. I stood, frozen, in the midst of the chaos.

The Lion flung his head back—for a moment Jellia’s hand was visible between his teeth, then it disappeared down his throat.

“Stay and watch!” the Lion bellowed at the crowd. “See what happens when you raise a hand against the princess!”

Released from the Lion’s maw, Jellia crumpled to the floor. Her face was deathly pale, but her eyes finally met mine, her wide eyes serene and unwavering. I felt my knife charging with magical energy. I wasn’t sure if it was me doing it or the weapon itself—I didn’t care. I couldn’t let her suffer for what I’d done.

I took a step forward, but someone grabbed me by the shoulder.

“No,” a voice whispered in my ear. I sucked in my breath. “She knew the risks. She knows what she’s doing. She was willing to sacrifice herself for you. Don’t make it for nothing.”

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to. I knew that voice. It was Nox.

The Lion loomed over Jellia, one mammoth paw poised to open her throat. The Scarecrow stepped forward suddenly, putting himself between the Lion and Jellia, his stitched mouth crooked into a smooth smile.