“The knife doesn’t count,” I said. “It was a present.” Nox opened his mouth to protest and then shut it again, shaking his head.
Mombi sighed. “I’ll stay here with Gert to see if there’s a way we can help Glamora. Nox, you, Melindra, and Amy look for a way to rescue the princess and her traitorous other half. Annabel, we’ll need fighters here, too.” The girls nodded.
But I wasn’t the only one who’d had the brilliant idea of taking action while the sisters battled it out. Suddenly, the castle shuddered around us. We hurried back to the edge of the balcony and looked down. Glinda’s girl army had moved a battering ram up to the castle doors—but this wasn’t an ordinary battering ram. It was huge, glittery, pink, and shaped like—
“Is that a Munchkin?” Nox gasped in horror. Glinda’s twisted magic had transformed an ordinary Ozian into a giant, fossilized pink weapon. The Munchkin’s face was twisted in horror, his eyes squeezed shut as though he was still in terrible pain. Pink flames burned in his open mouth, dripping onto the ground where they sizzled and smoked like molten pink lava. Even as we watched, Glinda’s soldiers drew back and lunged forward, slamming into the door with terrific force.
“We can’t help him now, and that door won’t hold forever,” Gert said grimly. “We’d better prepare ourselves.”
TWENTY-ONE
None of us needed a second prompting. We raced downstairs to the palace’s main entryway, where the big wooden doors were already splintering. Gert, Mombi, and Nox joined hands, power flickering around them as they prepared to face Glinda’s army. I tightened my grip on my knife. With a huge cracking noise, the doors burst open, sending chunks of wood flying through the air. Mombi flicked her fingers, and the pieces froze in midair and then clattered harmlessly to the ground. The first girls were already clambering through the hole in the doors, spears at the ready. Nox hurled a ball of magic at the invaders, and one girl shrieked in agony as it struck her full in the torso. She fell to the ground, her armor smoking, but more girls were already climbing over her inert body.
I ran forward, my knife raised. Up close, Glinda’s soldiers were terrifying. They’d filed their gleaming white teeth into sharp points bared by their eerie PermaSmile grins. Their armor crawled with tiny pink bugs that jumped at their opponents, buzzing and stinging. I knocked a soldier’s spear out of her hand with one blow and cut her throat on the reverse swing, kicking her body out of the way as another girl came for me in her place. “Are they clones?” I screamed across the hall to Nox, who was battling two more of Glinda’s soldiers. The girls didn’t even register my question, and Nox was too busy to answer it. “What are you?” I asked the girl I fought now. “Why are you fighting for Glinda?” She bared her sharp teeth and lunged toward my throat. “Fine,” I said, and stabbed her through the heart.
“Behind you!” Nox yelled, and I turned just in time to dodge another blow. Nox sliced his way toward me. Right as he reached me, another soldier raised her sword, readying herself to stab him through the back. I hurled him to the ground and deflected her blow. A second later he leapt to his feet, kicking her legs out from under her with unearthly speed and grace.
Nox and I were fighting back-to-back—the way we always had. I couldn’t help it. It just felt right. On either side of us Annabel, Melindra, and the other members of the Order slashed and stabbed. Gert and Mombi darted around the room, casting spells as they saw an opening. More girls pulled down the remnants of the palace doors, and soon the battle spilled out into the courtyard. Glinda and Glamora, in her jeweled form, hovered overhead, swooping and diving through the air like human comets as they hurled fireballs and sizzling, lightning-shaped bolts of pink magic at one another.
“Over there!” Gert called. I dispatched my newest opponent with a hard punch and looked up. Pete and Ozma were huddled up against a rock, wide-eyed and clinging to each other, still in chains. Pink chains, I saw with disgust. After all of this is over, I’m never wearing the color pink again, I thought.
“Now’s your chance, Amy!” Gert shouted, clearing the way to the prisoners with a huge ball of fire. I raced through the gap in the melee to Ozma’s side. “Ozma! Are you all right?”
“The corn harvest will be ready soon,” she said politely.
“She’s fine,” Pete gasped. His face was bruised and bloodied, as if someone had beaten him up recently. I had a pretty good guess as to who that might be. And I wasn’t too sorry about it either. “You have to get us out of here,” he pleaded.
“So you can sell us out to Glinda again?” I snarled. “Worked out pretty well for you last time, huh?”
“I was desperate!” he cried. “Polychrome was going to kill me. You know that!”
“Well, she can’t kill you now, because she’s dead,” I said.