Now that I was looking for it, I could see the haze of magic pulsing around her, as if the shoes were even stronger now that they’d been returned to the land they came from. She surveyed the crowd with icy grandeur, one hand perched on the back of the Nome King’s throne. A strange little creature huddled at her feet, costumed as a small shrub.
“My bride is correct to remind me of why we are here,” the Nome King said finally. “Before the ceremony begins, we must celebrate this momentous occasion!” A rictus grin spread across his face. “Let us dance and be merry!” he crowed, clapping his hands.
The woman next to me shifted nervously on her feet. Other guests exchanged brief, uncertain glances.
“I said dance!” the Nome King screamed. “Be merry!”
He must have taken a page from Dorothy’s book. The guests stood, stricken, and then one by one they began to shuffle their feet back and forth. They looked like animated corpses with their weird, sad, silent, shambling dance. Their hands and arms flapped aimlessly. Without music or rhythm to follow, they kicked randomly into the air, or spun around in place, their eyes filled with fear.
In a hidden corner I hadn’t noticed, a ragtag orchestra of Munchkin musicians suddenly struck up a jerky, tuneless waltz. Now everyone was dancing their off-kilter, graceless dance, spasming back and forth like zombies at the world’s saddest disco. The musicians looked just as awful. One of them, I saw, had his ankles chained together. Another was missing an ear; a third had a red-stained bandage wrapped around his chest.
I looked away. I couldn’t help them. I could only do what we’d come here for: finish Dorothy and defeat the Nome King, once and for all.
Dorothy threw her head back with a jubilant grin, keeping time to the beat as if she truly believed everyone was having the time of their lives. I lurched back and forth with everyone around me so as not to draw attention to myself, but unlike the others, whose movements were now growing increasingly frenzied, I was careful to conserve my energy.
Near me, they were already starting to flag. Half starved, exhausted, and terrified, they couldn’t keep up the pace. While the Nome King clapped along to the horrible music and Dorothy cheerfully tapped her foot and shimmied her hips, more than one person around me collapsed to the ground. As soon as they fell, the Diggers descended on them, dragging their inert bodies out of the ballroom.
Once they were outside, I heard their screams over the music.
It took everything I had not to run out there. To rescue them. Whatever was happening to them was almost too horrible to contemplate—but I knew that helping them wouldn’t do anyone in the room any good unless Nox, Madison, Lang, and I could first free them from the Nome King’s sick little games forever. So I shut my ears against the terrible cries even as I felt bile building in the pit of my stomach.
At last, the Nome King held up a hand and the music screeched to a halt. The musicians were panting, wild-eyed and shaky from exertion. One of them had collapsed during it all, and his companions were deliberately avoiding looking at the place where he’d stood only moments earlier.
The guests stopped dancing immediately. Once more, silence fell upon the room. From outside, one more tormented scream pierced the quiet and then, abruptly, was cut off.
No one said a word. The Nome King got to his feet.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” he began again. Again, he giggled at a joke that only he could really understand. As he droned on about how much Oz owed Ev, and about how he and Dorothy were going to change everything, I could almost feel his voice slithering through my body like a bug that had crawled in through my ear and was now trying to eat my body from the inside out.
I wanted to retch, but I kept my eyes on the ground, terrified that he would somehow see me and recognize me. Dorothy hovered behind his throne, still smiling vacantly.
All I had to do was stay out of sight. Lang would wait until the actual ceremony to give the signal, I knew. I just had to endure this charade until then.
At last, the Nome King fell silent. He held out his hand to Dorothy, and she stepped forward. “My fellow citizens of Ev,” the Nome King intoned, “I give you your future queen, the Witchslayer, the rightful ruler of Oz.”
Dorothy pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin with pride as she addressed her not-so-adoring audience. Never once had she failed to rise to an occasion. You had to hand it to her—the girl loved attention.
“Greetings, my dear subjects,” she purred. “I’m so excited to meet you all. But first, I have a very important announcement.” She raised her mask. “I want you to know we have one more incredibly special guest with us here today,” she said.
Her already huge smile widened even further than I thought was possible as she continued. “I have to say, I normally loathe party crashers, but I’m just tickled that someone as special as this would show up for little old me. With or without an invitation.”
Dorothy looked down at the crowd.
My pulse quickened. She was looking right at me.
“Hi, Amy,” she said. Her grotesque grin had suddenly transformed into a joyful snarl. “Are you going to kill me now?”
NINETEEN
DOROTHY
Just before the festivities were about to begin, I looked in the mirror in my chambers and smoothed my hair out. I looked perfect, if I do so say myself. And I still couldn’t help checking myself one last time, feeling a little tickle in my stomach as I did it: butterflies.
I know I exude a certain confidence, but I have a little secret: parties always make me just a little bit nervous! The anticipation. What dress I would wear. Who I would dance with. Would anyone die.
By now, you should know that I always have a plan—and my wedding surely wasn’t going to be an exception to that. It was my special day, after all, and there was no way I’d let a few silly little assassination plots ruin it.
I was smart enough to have realized that despite all that I’d done, the Nome King was going to try to kill me.
I almost had to admire his nerve.
And even if he wasn’t going to go quite that far, I was beyond certain that he wasn’t going to let me get my way. The second most important thing you should know about me is that I always get my way. In the end, at least.
No matter what he was up to, I was two steps ahead of him. If there was one thing my beloved fiancé wasn’t counting on, it was Amy Gumm and her little boy toy.
I have to admit, it was almost exciting! No matter what happened, this was going to be the party of the year.
Bupu entered and brought the last piece of my costume—a real-life snake that wound itself around me.
I looked at the Munchkin. “You are a good friend, Bupu.” While I dressed, I told her about my friends, about Scare and Tin and the Lion, and the things that they had wanted when I first met them, and how I had helped them.
“I am not like them,” she said. “I am not smart or courageous or full of heart.”
“Bupu, you helped me when you didn’t have to—that was heart. You helped me when you knew you could have been skinned alive. That’s courage. And you were clever enough to find out that information I needed. If that isn’t brains then I don’t know what is.”