“What are the jails like in the North?”
Frabess frowned. “They are horrible places. Locasta keeps them underground because she tells everyone she keeps bad sorcerers in there. She’s given out the story she’s consecrated the ground so that magic can’t be practiced there, but my family knows the truth. That isn’t possible.”
“Yes, it is,” Galen said. “Consecration is something where the Fisher King comes from. I don’t think it would work on Oz magic. It’s meant to ward off evil like the Fisher King. I don’t think she’s actually done it. It would keep the Fisher King out of the jail.”
Dorothy looked panicked. “If witches are real, is the Fisher King a vampire? I thought that vampires and demons couldn’t enter consecrated grounds?”
What the fuck were vampires and demons? Kans-ass was such a weird place. Dorothy said witches weren’t real there, but you could do special mojo to the dirt to keep something called a vampire out? What was a vampire anyway?
Galen just gave her a gentle smile. “The Fisher King is not a vampire in the sense that he drinks blood, but he exists because he steals magic from people, so in a way, he is a vampire like you’ve read about.”
Okay, drinking blood was just unsanitary. What if you caught some kind of cooties from someone? What the fuck went on in Kans-ass anyway that they had stories about people going around drinking blood? I liked to bite Francesca, but I wasn’t about to start sucking her blood like a leech.
“So, what does it mean?” Francesca said. “We know the jails in the North are buffets for the Fisher King. She has to have protection on the jails as we do in Emerald City so they can’t fight back, but how would the Fisher King’s magic work?”
“Have either of you been to the jails in the North?” Ozma asked Frabess and Galen.
They both shook their heads no. I was trying not to get upset with Galen. He’d already given us a lot of information. Why did he bother me so much? I just knew I was getting irrationally angry with him for not knowing anything about a jail in the North.
“Frabess, you are strong in magic. If the Fisher King steals magic, how did your family not end up in the jail with him feeding on you?” Saffron asked.
That was a good fucking point. All of us trusted Frabess, but she was the only Gillikin among us. If everyone in the North had turned into a twisted fuck, could we really trust her?
“She would have if she could, trust me. My family is just as loved as Locasta is. We have a reputation for saving lives and fixing bad magic. Locasta would have a lot of questions to answer if she accused one of us and threw us in jail.”
“She’s right,” Galen said. “Locasta had to keep up appearances until the Fisher King was ready to strike. He wasn’t strong enough until now. My mother kept his ring when they imprisoned him and took his stolen magic. She gave him his ring back, and he’s been getting stronger over the centuries feeding off sorcerers in the North. He has what he needs to get strong enough to take on Oz now. He’s got Glinda, but Locasta still has to play it safe. Glinda has the moniker Glinda the Good. If anyone finds out Locasta is holding her prisoner, his plan will blow up.”
Francesca cracked her knuckles. She did that when she was plotting.
“Then we’ll have to create a diversion and dangle something else the Fisher King wants while an army breaks Glinda out. The Fisher King wants me. I’ll just pretend I really need to talk to my Aunt Locasta.”
Fuck. I knew she was going to say that.
Chapter 21
Frankie
L
ike I was shocked the room erupted when I suggested using myself as bait. Offended, yes, Shocked, no. With Glinda captured, I was the highest-ranking Sentinel at our disposal. I wasn’t about to send Saffron in, and we couldn’t exactly send Ozma. That left me. Everyone was just going to have to deal with it.
Everyone was screaming over each other, and I thought to just let them yell. I was totally shocked when Dorothy stood up and yelled for everyone to shut up. What had gotten into her? Dorothy was maybe two inches taller than I was, but she looked like a giant when she pushed her chair back and stood.
“It should be me, not Frankie. The Fisher King doesn’t know why I’m here, right? Maybe that means I’m here for something good, unlike last time. It’s not like I have any magic he can’t steal. They used me last time, and I want to fight back. Frankie is going to be needed to help free Glinda. Let me distract Locasta.”
“No way,” I said. “You can’t go in there alone. You’d have nothing to fight your way out with.”
“That’s why I go in with her,” Ozma said. “Saffron or Frankie can cloak my magic, and I can bring a satchel with invisibility potion. I’ll just keep refreshing it until Dorothy is out.”
I crossed my arms and glared at both of them. “You don’t know how to disarm hexes yet, and neither of you has mastered a weapon. You told us Locasta can drop the old woman glamour at any time, so everything we know about her training could be a lie.”
Ozma just glared at me. “I have the Nome King’s belt. I’ll wear it. Dorothy is right. She’s the only one the Fisher King doesn’t want to steal magic from.”
Daxar had my back. “No, but he’s going to want to get his hands on her. If the Fisher King doesn’t know why she keeps ending up here, he’s going to want her close until he can figure out why. And Ozma, even with the belt, you are ill-trained to go up against Locasta until we know more.”
“It’s not a bad plan,” Saffron said. “Dorothy can pretend like she wants to talk to Locasta since she helped her before, and Glinda isn’t giving her any answers, and it’ll be Frankie or me in there with her instead of Ozma. If that belt does what my mother’s shoes could, then it’s needed more getting Glinda out.”
Ozma looked pissed off. “I go where Dorothy goes.”
I knew that look. It was the look of a woman in love. Ozma and Dorothy? That was also punishable by death in Oz. I had a feeling Ozma was going to be changing a lot of things when she was queen. I shot Ozma a look like I understood. I did. I totally got it.
“I’ll be there with her, and I’ll protect her. I’ll be right behind Locasta with my sword the entire time they are talking. If I feel Locasta calling magic at any time, I’ll cut her head off, okay?”
Cutting her head off was the worst thing I could possibly do. It would be a diplomatic nightmare for me, Glinda, and Ozma if old Tattypoo got beheaded while we were in the North. I’d probably just knock her out with the butt of my sword long enough for us to teleport out instead of killing her just yet. Locasta deserved to die for what she did to my mother, but it wasn’t the time yet. If I killed Locasta now, I wouldn’t just have the Fisher King after me. I’d have all of Oz after my head.
Ozma knew that too deep down because she gave me a curt nod. “Only kill her if you have to. Save Dorothy if she tries anything, but only kill Locasta if necessary. The North has an army, and if they think Emerald City attacked the North and murdered Locasta, they will attack.”
“This plan still has flaws,” Daxar pointed out. “The North does have an army, and we don’t. We have twenty-one men who like polishing their badges and a school full of students who have barely started training. We don’t have the numbers to take on the North.”
Galen finally spoke. He’d been silent this entire time. He boldly met Daxar’s gaze.
“Oz used to have an army. I know the history is that Oz doesn’t have an army because they never went to war, but it did go to war to try to defeat the Fisher King. They buried the bodies right at the edge of the Deadly Desert. I can call an army of the dead that would love a second chance at defeating the Fisher King.”
Saffron’s nose wrinkled. “Won’t that be stinky? I’m just picturing an army of corpses bursting out the ground. Frankie? You know what it’s like when the potion calls for fresh parts. If you don’t use them right away, it stinks up the house.”
Galen threw back his head and laughed. “My father considers necromancy his most powerful
weapon. He would be so offended to hear you talk about it as a smelly art. I suppose it is. It can be pretty gross if you are raising a fresh corpse. This army has been dead a long time. All of the disgustingness is long past.”
I still felt like we were missing something important, and I didn’t like that feeling. We still needed a plan to get Frabess’ family out of the North, but what about the other families in the North that were totally innocent? I had a feeling the North was about to become a battleground. We weren’t going to wait for the Fisher King to build an army an attack Emerald City. We weren’t going to let him steal enough magic to get to where he was the first time he was here.
“You forget something, Galen,” Daxar said. “There are two sides to every disagreement. Isn’t there the possibility that the men you raise will be the Fisher King’s men?”
Galen tapped his finger to his nose. “I didn’t run away until I thought I had all the facts I needed. The first time they beat the Fisher King and his men, all bodies were burned because he could raise the dead. The Fisher King ferreted some bodies away for later, and I don’t know where they are since he never spoke of the location. He spoke of the bodies buried along the deadly desert. He can force the dead to do his bidding, but it’s harder to do when their spirit is fighting it. All the men buried out there hate him. He could raise them and force them to fight, but he doesn’t want to. It would take all his concentration to keep them fighting us because they would be fighting him for control.”
“Can you explain this whole necromancy shit to us over dinner?” Idris asked. “I can’t decide if it’s cool or totally fucked up you can make corpses come back to life.”
I grabbed Idris’ hand and squeezed it. I was so glad he was trying, but we weren’t done here yet.
“So, Dorothy and I will see Locasta, and the rest of you will try to free Glinda. Galen will call an army of the dead for backup, and we have an army of Flying Monkeys. We still need a plan for Frabess’ family.”
Frabess just nodded at me. “Let me worry about my family. You concern yourself with Dorothy. Daxar can head up the team getting Glinda.”
Daxar reached over the table and tucked one of my braids behind my ear. “Stealth. We don’t want anyone to know we were in the North. We were nearly caught at Mombi’s, and I suspect that’s how Locasta caught Glinda in the woods. We can’t teleport into the North. We’re going to have to take the Yellow Brick Road out and figure out how to disable Locasta’s alarms. Francesca, Saffron, were you taught how? It wasn’t included in my knowledge transference spell.”
I knew, and Frabess should have learned to be helping Saffron. The problem was, magical alarms were tricky. It was the whole point behind setting them. They wouldn’t pick us up if we walked into the North, but I had a feeling Locasta had her alarms set in the more remote areas of the North for any type of magic. And a lot of the North was unexplored. Everyone lived in Uptown in the same area, and there were only two roads in and out of the North. The rest of the North was forest, mountains, or the Deadly Desert.
“Frabess and I will have to do knowledge transference spells for disabling magical alarms. Disabling them is easy. You just have to find the threads of the spell and unravel it. It’s actually finding the spell that’s almost impossible. They are designed to blend in with their surroundings. They could be hidden in wallpaper, pretending to be a petal on a flower. There’s a spell to amplify your sight and help you spot hidden spells, but anyone worth their salt adds it to the alarm.”
“Go rest, Francesca. I’ll expect you in my office for training tonight. You missed all your training when Glinda got scared and portalled me to the North to spy. We’ll pick up where we left off, and we’ll do the knowledge transference spells in the morning. Everyone start getting things ready to leave. We’ll set out on foot after Francesca and Frabess have recovered from giving us the knowledge to disarm a magical alarm.”
I’d spent all this time hating Glinda. I was still furious with her for putting Daxar in danger like that. Glinda wasn’t thinking like a Sentinel anymore, and she hadn’t been for a long time. Glinda was simply a woman scared for her life right now, and she didn’t have friends around her as I did. If Glinda had just told Saffron and me what was going on and not put a geas on the entire staff, we all would have protected her, and this would have gone very differently.
I got it. The Fisher King got what he wanted. He isolated all of the Sentinels, even Glinda. I understood because he did the same thing to my mother. He made sure my mother and Adora were alone so they could be killed. He turned Glinda in a suspicious and paranoid person. Glinda forgot all of her training and all of her allies and did exactly what he wanted her to. She ran straight to him.
I couldn’t save my mother, and I couldn’t save Adora, but the Fisher King wasn’t taking Glinda too. Having your magic slowly drained from you until you turned into a husk sounded like a horrible way to die.
The Fisher King wasn’t killing another Sentinel on my watch.
Chapter 22
Oprix
I
understood why we were rescuing Glinda. I wasn’t the type to sit back and let that slide. What I didn’t get was why everyone seemed so forgiving of the Sentinel of the South. Even Frankie seemed to understand her actions now, and I didn’t. Maybe things were different in the South, but the Winkies didn’t play games with the truth like that. We wouldn’t have set up some school to get Frankie and Saffron out of hiding, and we would have been honest with them from the start. Honestly, I didn’t understand any of it. Was there a problem with honesty? I knew Frankie liked her Quadling games with Daxar, but I thought that was just in the bedroom. Did Quadlings play games with the truth too? I never got that vibe from Daxar.
I got the feeling there was something I was missing. Ozma disappeared with Dorothy and Daxar left with Frabess. We went back up to our rooms, and Ozma had already given rooms to the Flying Monkeys who came with Daxar. Like usual, there was a huge spread of food waiting for us when we got back, but for once, I wasn’t hungry. Idris certainly was. He was always hungry. He dove in and started making a plate right away.
“You look constipated, Oprix. What’s wrong?” Idris asked, shoving a piece of meat in his mouth.
“You aren’t worried we are about to go charging into the North? All of this could have been prevented if Glinda had just been honest from the start.”
Frankie tackled me, and we went crashing into the sofa. She nuzzled my neck, and I took in the smell of wildflowers. She always smelled like wildflowers.
“Sentinels are not all-knowing and all-powerful, Oprix. If my mother hadn’t died when I was sixteen, I would have heard the same horror stories Glinda did about the Fisher King. The Fisher King managed to kill two Sentinels without stepping foot outside his cave. If you were a Sentinel and you knew that and the other remaining Sentinel may have turned to his side, you’d either dive into your training and start gathering your allies, or you would forget it and fuck up. Glinda fucked up, but you can’t hold that against her just because she’s a Sentinel. We still have regular emotions, and we get scared.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist and squeezed her. “You aren’t acting scared.”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted. “But I guess I’m less scared than Glinda was because I met Galen and he’s been telling us the Fisher King’s secrets. He’s got the Fisher King’s powers too and can help us fight him.”
Idris glared at Galen over the massive sandwich he’d made. “Talk, Galen. If you’re going to be sniffing around my girlfriend, I need to know I can trust you. You’ve helped us a lot, but it’s fucking weird you can talk to corpses.”
“Can I eat too?” Galen asked.
Idris nodded towards the spread, and Galen started making a sandwich just as big as Idris’. Galen settled back into an overstuffed chair and took a big bite. He practically groaned like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten.
“My parents didn’t want to teach me the magic I inherited
from them, but they also didn’t pay me any attention when they weren’t ordering me around or beating me. It was almost too easy. I watched her try to teach him to use Sentinel magic, and I watched him try to teach her the Black Arts where he comes from. She was able to learn some of his magic, but without his ring being charged up, he could only manage Oz magic that used ingredients. That was how I learned my magic. I’ve got a few Black Arts spells that can make things go badly for Locasta if Frankie can plant a hex bag in her room while she’s there.”
Idris perked up. Frankie was still wrapped around me like this contented house cat. She knew this needed to play out just as much as I did. I liked Galen and trusted him. He had a hard life. Frankie’s feelings weren’t solid on him yet like Idris was worried about, but I didn’t have the same rules Idris did because I wasn’t a Flying Monkey. If Frankie fell in love with someone I hated, I’d just deal with it.
I knew Idris. He’d huff and puff and make a total ass of himself. He’d tell himself and everyone else that it was the way of the Flying Monkeys that a new mate wasn’t brought in unless everyone agreed to it. He’d go through this big show of talking to anyone she was interested in and acting like he approved them, but even if he hated someone, he’d never try to tell Frankie she couldn’t love someone.
Idris would never admit that, but I’d known Idris since we were children, and he was just a Flying Monkey and couldn’t change into a man. Idris liked to talk and brag, but he worshipped Frankie. He was making Galen into a pissing contest, but even if Frankie decided she loved him, and Idris didn’t like him, he’d never tell her she couldn’t love him.
And Frankie, the girl curled up in my lap. She kept telling Idris not to worry about Galen, and she didn’t know how she felt about him, but you had to be pretty blind not to see it. Galen intrigued Frankie, and there was the same static in the air that I felt when she was with Daxar or Idris. I might be the only one willing to admit it right now, but Galen was going to be one of us soon.
Francesca, The Great and Terrible: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance Page 10