Lang needed Madison as a bodyguard about as badly as I needed a winged monkey for a pet. But she was the strongest of the three of us and the most likely to be able to protect Madison if anything went wrong.
When something went wrong, I amended silently.
“So we’re sailing into the palace in disguise, hoping nobody recognizes us,” Madison said.
“Pretty much,” Nox confirmed.
“Cool, just wanted to check our odds of survival.” She sat back. I knew she was thinking about Dustin and her baby. Whether she’d ever see them again.
I’m going to get her home safe, I thought. Whatever it takes. If I have to die doing it. Madison hadn’t asked for any of this. I owed it to her to protect her.
“We need a better plan than that,” I said. “I’d like at least some chance of coming out of this alive.”
Lang nodded, toying thoughtfully with the silver bracelet on her wrist. “The Nome King always wears a silver knife at his belt,” she said. “It’s made out of the same metal as this thing.” She held up her wrist. “It’s magical, obviously, and it’s incredibly old—older even than he is. It’s probably strong enough to kill Dorothy, even though she has the shoes.”
“Probably?” Madison echoed dubiously.
“Can we use it?” I asked.
“I’ve never tried,” Lang said. “He never lets it out of his sight.”
“But he’ll be distracted at the wedding,” Nox pointed out. “And he’ll be so preoccupied with stealing Dorothy’s magic that the odds are good he won’t notice us until we’re close enough to take him out.”
“I think we should split up when we get to the wedding,” I said. “If the Nome King kills one of us, there will still be two more of us to try for the knife.”
“We’d be stronger as a team,” Nox argued.
“You’re letting your feelings get in the way,” Lang said. Her tone was matter-of-fact, not her usual bitchy snark. “Amy’s right. More of us, more chances to defeat him.”
Nox shot me a complicated look.
“Believe me, I don’t like it either,” I said frankly. “I’d way rather stick with you both. But this might be our final chance to defeat Dorothy and get the hell out of this crappy kingdom. We can’t blow it.”
Nox nodded reluctantly. “Okay,” he said. “We split up.”
“We don’t have much time,” Lang said. “We’ll have to get dressed and leave as soon as we’re ready if we want to make the ceremony.”
Something was still nagging at me. “It’s just so weird,” I said. “Why invite people, if the whole point of the ceremony is for the Nome King to get control of her magic? Why go to all the trouble? And why costumes?”
“It could be a trap,” Lang said slowly. “But for who? Neither one of them knows you’re here.”
“For you?” I asked her. She shook her head.
“If the Nome King wanted me dead, he has plenty of ways to kill me without going to all this trouble.” She sighed. “You said it yourself, Amy. This could be our only chance. Trap or no trap, we have to take it.”
Nox nodded. “She’s right,” he said. “We’ll be cautious, but we have to do this.”
Lang looked at him, obviously surprised that, for once, they agreed.
I smiled at them both. “I never said we shouldn’t do it. I just think we should be smart.”
They grinned back, and after a second, so did Madison. It felt good. Like we were on a team for the first time since I’d joined the Order. Like maybe, just maybe, we all had each other’s backs—even Lang.
The nagging feeling wasn’t going away. But they had a point. Whether or not we were walking into a trap, this was our only chance. Once the Nome King had control of Dorothy, they’d both be unstoppable.
I had tried to finish this one way. I had chosen myself instead of putting the knife into Dorothy. But this time I did not have the luxury of walking away.
And this time, if I had to kill her, so be it.
FIFTEEN
DOROTHY
It was too bad, really, I reflected as I readied myself for my wedding with the Nome King, that I didn’t have any girlfriends. I’d always had Tin and Scare and the Lion before, and of course I missed them and was mostly sorry they were dead, but I longed for the cozy rapport I’d once had with Glinda and Ozma—minus, of course, the backstabbing, betrayal, and secret motives. Even that blissed-out hippie Polychrome had had potential for friendship—after all, she did have an eye for fashion, even if it was outrageous—but of course, she was dead, too.
Ozma and I had once been close, before she’d refused to acknowledge that I’d obviously been brought back to Oz to rule it myself—a refusal that truly hurt me to the core, since I’d thought our friendship would prevent her jealousy. In fact, it was always other girls’ jealousy that had gotten in the way of the kinds of relationships I craved: first, back in Kansas, when none of my so-called friends believed me about Oz (the humiliation of my sixteenth birthday party was a moment I’d never, ever forget—or forgive) and later when it turned out Glinda and Ozma had meant to betray me all along after I’d given them so much of myself. Jellia hadn’t been my friend, exactly, but she’d been very helpful, until it turned out she was actually a spy working for the Order.
And that was it, really. I gazed thoughtfully at my reflection as Bupu brushed my hair. Was Bupu a friend? Could servants really be friends? I mean, they were barely people. But it was true that around Bupu I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time—human emotion, I guess. Which I’d found previously to be a failing in all my doings in Oz, but Bupu didn’t exactly seem like the type to have some evil plan up her sleeve to undo me. I was obviously the only person she’d ever encountered who treated her well and talked to her as if she was intelligent (which, in her own way, she actually was), and she was so grateful for my attention and affection that she lavished all the love and adoration pent up in her small, squat body on me.
And while she wasn’t my equal, not by a long shot, I found myself growing fonder of her by the day.
“I won’t let the Nome King kill you,” Bupu promised me again. “No matter what.”
“That’s very sweet, Bupu,” I said, but my mind was a million miles away. My charm might be working on the Nome King, but even a girl with my skills would have a hard time pushing a cranky old despot to do a complete 180 in just a handful of days. I didn’t have time to convince him I was more use to him alive than dead. I knew I’d managed to get through to him just the teensiest bit, but not enough for him to set aside his murderous plan. He was old, and let’s face it—old people are lazy. I had given this a great deal of thought and I had realized that he would most likely stick with his boring plan of betrayal and carnage rather than open his mind to what I had to bring to the table. I sighed heavily. What a nuisance.