“The palace is leading us in circles!” Nox said behind me. “We have to figure something else out.”
“Keep running!” I argued, tugging him down another hall. We ran through a doorway into a huge room I didn’t recognize, a wooden door slamming shut behind us. The room was a perfect circle, studded with identical doors every few feet. The ticking of the Great Clock thundered through the chamber. Nox tried every one of the doors in turn, but they were all locked. The Emerald Palace had sent us to a dead end.
“You’re right,” I said. “The palace is moving against us.” It was time to use magic. “Don’t let go of me,” I told Nox. He nodded and tightened his grip on my hand.
I closed my eyes, sending feelers of magic out through the palace. The more I tuned in to my magical senses, the more I could see and feel. The rats running through the palace cellars. The whirring and clicking of the soldiers as they battled the witches outside. The few remaining living inhabitants of the palace, creeping in terror through the halls and hiding in forgotten rooms. The evil in the palace was so strong it made my skin itch, as though a million ants were crawling all over me. I steeled myself and kept looking.
And then I felt her. A malevolent mass at the heart of the palace, like a fattened spider at the center of its web. I shuddered involuntarily. Nox’s fingers tightened through mine. “Where is she?” he panted in my ear. I knew what we had to do.
“This way,” I said. Instead of trying to open one of the doors, I turned and led him directly into the wall. But instead of slamming into solid stone, we hit something firm but yielding. At first it resisted us, as though we were walking into a wall of butter, and then dissolved. There was a rushing noise, and everything went dark and very, very cold. Nox was holding my hand so tightly I thought I might lose circulation in my fingers—but I was squeezing his back just as hard.
“Amy Gumm,” said a familiar voice. “You found me. I had a feeling you would.”
THIRTY-ONE
A red spark lit the darkness and slowly spread outward. Nox and I were standing side by side on the rough stone floor of a cavern so huge its ceiling was lost in darkness. In front of us, a dark pool of water reflected the low red light, and on the far side a familiar figure hunched over an ornate, old-fashioned clock. I’d been expecting something huge, monstrous—but it just looked like an ordinary antique you might see in your grandparents’ house, except for the fact that it was made out of solid gold and studded with dozens of pebble-sized emeralds. In the red light, Dorothy’s face looked hideous and twisted, like a monster’s. The clock shook, and a low boom echoed through the dark chamber.
“I knew it was just a matter of time before we met again, Amy,” Dorothy said. Her voice was raspy and low, like she’d suddenly taken up a pack-a-day habit. She coughed, and the clock boomed again. I realized the sound was the same ticking, but slowed down somehow. Dorothy smiled. “No pun intended,” she continued. “Time is what matters, when you get right down to it. For everything there is a season, right? I learned a few things in the Other Place, Amy. I learned that things don’t get any more fun there for girls as special as me. I learned that magic really is the best way to do things. And what better source of magic than the heart of Oz?”
“Lurline’s pool,” Nox said. He was still squeezing my hand, but his voice was steady.
“You’re smarter than you look,” Dorothy said coquettishly. “Between the Great Clock and Lurline’s little puddle”—she gestured to the dark pool—“I have enough magic to keep me going for as long as I want. Which is, of course, forever. I thought the Wizard was on my side. I thought Glinda was my friend. But the only person you can really rely on is yourself.”
“You can’t do this,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. “Using the Great Clock will let loose all of Oz’s magic. And Oz and Kansas are two sides of the same place. You know that. You’ll destroy them both.”
“I don’t care about Kansas,” Dorothy snapped, but for the first time she sounded uncertain, as if she hadn’t thought her plan through.
“That much magic will tear you apart,” Nox jumped in. “You can’t survive it.”
For a second, Dorothy almost looked to be on the verge of changing her mind. As impossible as it seemed, I thought we might have convinced her to abandon her crazy plan. But then she scowled.
“You’ve taken away everything I cared about, Amy Gumm,” Dorothy said. “You killed my friends. You ruined my city and made Oz impossible for me to rule. You even killed my dog. I’m not going to do anything you tell me. And I’m not going to let you take away Oz.”