I’d gone to hell in the underworld. And hell had followed me home.
After Verte and Dorthea stepped outside Oz’s workshop to give me space, I found some ink and used a brittle twig like a quill. Very carefully, I striped my left arm.
“Didn’t get enough of ink stains?”
I didn’t acknowledge Morte and instead blew to dry the seven lines of ink. One for each time I’d died. With the memory lapses, it was obvious I couldn’t trust my mind anymore, but hopefully I could still trust my body to tell the truth. For good measure, I added my name. In case I ever had the misfortune to forget who I was again.
Morte chuckled darkly. “Didn’t I say you were born to be Forgotten? End this already and submit.”
“Never,” I whispered more to myself than Morte.
Even now, I still had lingering fragments of Dorthea’s memories. Of Mom, erm, Queen Em. And trying to play hide-and-seek with Verte. I also had a wicked craving for chocolate wands. Worse than that though, her feelings…
I didn’t know you could be so lonely in a palace full of people.
“Didn’t you?”
“Get out. Get out. Get out.” I scrubbed at the ink marks swirling up my calves, trying in vain to wipe them clean.
“I will not. It’s my workshop,” Oz said after poofing up from being in the form of that green book bug thing. Staring down at my legs, he said, “Unless you weren’t talking to me.” He combed his fingers through his mustache, his glasses wiggling into place on his nose. “You know, it’s oft been said that hearing voices is either a sign of brilliance or madness. Now talking back to them—”
“Mind your own business,” I said and glared at Oz. After I had come back to my senses, Verte and Dorthea had the intelligence and survival instincts to stay clear of me. The Storymaker lacked both.
He ignored me and grabbed my wrist. “What’s all this now? Very interesting mark.”
My shadow growled.
“I’m keeping score. Now bugger off. Literally.”
“Pfft. Not those chicken scratches. The iridescent inked flower on the inside of your wrist.”
He held my hand and pointed…to nothing.
I snatched my wrist back. “You know what’s oft been said about people seeing things?”
He smiled and tapped his glasses. “I’d imagine it’s said that they have eyes.” He turned and went over to the lone corner of his crumbling workshop and started yanking down books and flipping through them. “I know I’ve seen that mark somewhere. But I can’t recall in which fairy tale. Hmm…”
“Now who’s talking to himself,” I muttered. But that brought me ’round to a thought niggling in the back of my mind. “Hey, about voices…”
“Was it Rose Red? No.”
I tried again a little louder. “Uh, I had this question.”
“I know. Janghwa Hongryeon jeon.” He again ignored me and started tracing his finger over a page and mumbling words in a foreign tongue.
“OZ!”
He startled and tossed the book over his shoulder. “You don’t have to shout. I’m right here.”
I suppressed an eye roll. “Question. Voices. In the flames.” I wasn’t sure even how I wanted to ask this.
I didn’t have to.
“No, you didn’t imagine them.” Dorthea knocked on the workshop’s crumbling stone column. “Can I come in?”
I shrugged but said nothing as she entered. Dorthea called the green flames to her hand and twirled them like a jester’s ball. “It’s the curse. I hear them constantly. And the legion gets bigger each time I drain life energy. It makes me stronger.”
“Makes you a nutter,” Verte corrected, stomping in from the clearing.
Dorthea squeezed her fist and extinguished the flames. “Yes, that too. But every voice brings power and knowledge with it. Which is why I know what that is.” She pointed to the underworld ink staining my soul and legs. “Why didn’t you tell me you were being stalked?”
“Speaking of nutters, how could I explain my shadow can move on its own and is trying to devour my soul?” My face heated. There was such a jumbled mess of emotions in my gut that I didn’t even know which one caused the blush. I picked my favorite—anger. “And who the hex do you think you are to lecture me? Saving you is what got me into this mess, and the only reason you know about Morte is because you and your curse took a bite out of my soul.”
Now it was Dorthea’s turn to blush. “I didn’t—”
“You never do.” The thought that she, of all people, had sifted through my private thoughts. What had Dorthea seen? That worried and infuriated me. “Tell me, did I taste good?”
Her eyes shot open, and Dorthea’s blush turned to a queasy gray. “No, I—”
“I haven’t seen Kato and Hydra. You’re looking a bit chunkier than normal. Did your curse overeat and get them too?”
Flames burst out of her body, arcing in a circle, scorching everything in its path—straight to me.
“ENOUGH!” Verte shouted. The flames snuffed out at her command. “You both may be dumb as talking doorknobs, but I would have bet my Sorcerer’s Illustrated collection that you were better than this. I’ve waited more than two centuries for all the pieces to come together, and I will not let you”—she pointed a shiny red nail to me—“or you”—she used the other pointer finger for Dorthea—“or especially you”—she pointed both fingers at the Storymaker—“to muck it up. Now, march. Everybody, go outside.”
And we all did, because you knew a storm was coming when Verte’s wart started wiggling like a weather vane. So it was best to listen up. Or take shelter.
Half the ironwood trees that formed the wall surrounding the clearing had rotted and fallen into twisted piles of bark. The rest didn’t look too far behind.
“Timber, little hero. I will see you fall soon as well,” Morte promised as the sun shone on me.
A pile of leaves lay on the crispy grass, a stark contrast of alive and dead. Not too far away, there was another pile. Of bags.
“Where are we going, and for that matter, where are Hydra and Kato?” I looked at where the chicken-legged house had stood. That space remained empty. If she had swapped heads, there would be a new shack. “Did she…” I put a hand to my neck.
Oz followed my stare. “Oh, she’s fine. Both, in fact, are still with us, if that’s what you mean.” His brow furrowed. “Well, not with us, as you can plainly see from space-time theory. But that’s here nor there, as in they are not here but there.”
“There is where?” I suddenly felt like I had been transported to Suessville.
“Cam—” Dorthea started before Verte cut her off.
“Camping. Dreadful idea and you know this spoiled brat”—she nudged her thumb at Dorthea—“no way she was going to stoop that low. So Kato broke it off and ran away with Hydra. That Gwenevere, she’s always been into younger men.”
“Lies.”
Duh, and not a particularly good one either. Whatever was going on, they didn’t trust me to know about it. With those two gone, there was just the five of us, if I counted Morte.
I smiled weakly and counted the pile of bags. Enough belongings for one or two people at most. “So should I guess? We aren’t going anywhere.”