“For now, you’re there to watch and learn. You’re there to blend in. Remember: you are Astrid, not Amy. And you are not to make any move against Dorothy without a direct order from us.”
“And how am I going to get that order?” I asked, annoyed at how impersonal he was being.
“We already have an operative in the palace who will be watching you. When the time is right, that person will bring you instructions. While you’re in the palace, try to avoid using magic. There are security measures everywhere, and magic is off-limits for maids. They’re a little lax on that rule—if it weren’t for travel spells and glistening charms, nothing would ever get as clean as Dorothy likes it, so they tend to turn a blind eye, so as long as you keep it to the small stuff it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“What about my knife?” I asked, knowing that I’d feel safer if I could have it at the ready.
“Summoning it shouldn’t be a problem,” he replied. “That’s not really a spell anyway, since the knife is always with you. You’re just activating it. Just don’t summon any demon guides or cast any reincarnation spells, okay?”
We both smirked at the irony of it. Just a few weeks ago I was struggling to use enchantment to blow out a candle and now we were talking half-seriously about me performing serious A-grade magic.
“Well, you never know,” Nox said, shrugging. “Anyway, if you do need to use magic that you think will set off the alarms—and I don’t recommend it—it will be pinned to your location. So get the hell out of there before anyone can find you.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“The Emerald Palace,” he said, turning his attention back to the scrying pool and pointing to a small square buried in a complicated grid of interconnected shapes. “These are your private quarters. You’re three floors down from Dorothy and . . .”
Suddenly I wasn’t paying attention. My stomach began to lurch. Something was happening to me.
I had almost forgotten the spell Mombi had cast. The enchantment was beginning to take hold.
The map of the palace in the scrying pool had disappeared and my reflection replaced it.
At least—I thought it was me. It was hard to be sure. My face was no longer my own. I was turning into Astrid.
My eyes shone back at me, no longer their familiar brown color but now the bright blue of a swimming pool.
Then my pink hair was a radiant, corn-silk blonde.
I stared at my reflection, trying to make sense of it.
I hadn’t noticed back in the war room, but it turned out that Astrid was pretty. She was definitely prettier than me. Her nose was a bit bigger, yes, but in a way that made her face more interesting. She had a small, heart-shaped mouth and a perfectly symmetrical oval face with high cheekbones and a chin that was neither too prominent or too simpering.
I was still trying to get used to my new face when I realized the rest of me was changing, too. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience: my skin felt like it was being ripped apart as it stretched to make room for my new bones. It turned out Astrid was tall.
When I instinctively put a hand to my cheek—just to make sure that it was still there, I guess—I noticed that my fingers were now long and slender. It looked like I’d had a manicure recently, too.
“Call me old-fashioned,” Mombi said, admiring her own handiwork, “but I liked the pink hair better.”
I barely heard her. I turned to Nox, suddenly feeling scared, suddenly unsure if I was really ready for any of this.
His face looked ashen for a minute, but then he swallowed hard and smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re still Amy.”
When I looked back into the pool, I couldn’t say that I agreed. There was no trace of the old me. I was no longer Amy Gumm.
A short time later I was wearing the maid’s green uniform I’d seen on Astrid earlier.
After I had put it on Glamora surveyed me, twirled a fiery tendril of hair around her finger in thought, and finally nodded in approval. I couldn’t help feeling proud of myself. “Remember what I’ve taught you,” she said. “Astrid may be among the lowliest of the servants, but she knows what forks to use; she knows the steps to the dances. Being a maid is only one step removed from being a princess. Don’t do anything to remind them you’re neither.”
She grabbed my shoulder with one hand and placed the other on my spine, jerking me upright. “Watch your posture. Dorothy can’t abide a sloucher, and neither can I. Walk around like that and you’ll be fired in a week. Or worse.”
I looked into the scrying pool mirror one last time. Like Mombi, I missed my pink hair. And while I knew I wasn’t Amy Gumm anymore, I didn’t feel like Astrid either.
I was still looking at myself when Mombi spoke up. “Enough of this. It’s time for you to go.”
She reached into her robe, pulled out something that looked like a pebble, and dropped it into the pool. I leaned over to watch as it rippled in concentric circles and then began to glow. When I looked up, Mombi was already gone.
“She’s always been awful at good-byes,” Glamora said sadly. “But I’ll say one: Good-bye, darling. You’ll be fabulous.” She opened her arms and pulled me into a deep hug. It was nice of her, but I think we both knew she wasn’t Gert.
After a moment, she let me out of her embrace. “I’ll let the two of you say your farewells in private,” she said, blowing me a final kiss before leaving.
It was just me and Nox now. I’d never seen him so quiet. He was staring at the scrying pool, which was showing the map of the palace again.
“I have a list of Dorothy’s likes and dislikes and schedule. Memorize it and then destroy it.” He held the list out toward me. When my hand grazed his, he grabbed on tight.
He closed the gap between us without taking a step and his mouth closed over mine before I could speak. He was kissing me. I closed my eyes and let go of everything except him for a few seconds. I had never kissed a boy before so I had nothing to compare it to. But I was sure that whatever it was like, kissing Nox had to be different.
Because Nox was different. Power and magic flowed between us like when he’d first showed me what magic was. But it wasn’t magic at all this time. It was something completely human. Things we couldn’t or wouldn’t say with millions of words were all there, all at once. Everything we shared and everything we were was contained in this single perfect moment.
When we broke, he was breathing hard and I wasn’t breathing at all. The candles in the cave suddenly blew out. Was it us? Or had Mombi sent a gust telling us to hurry up?
He composed himself, letting his arms drop to his sides. But he was still standing within kissing distance.
“That will never happen again,” he began.
My stomach dropped. Was it that awful? I wondered.
“But it would be too bad if it didn’t happen once,” he finished. “I just wish I’d gotten to do it when you still looked like yourself.”
I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t have time to be hurt. And he was right. He didn’t want us distracted by each other. It was too dangerous. Until Dorothy was dead, I couldn’t care about the way I looked, or about what Nox thought about me, or about what Glamora had done to Astrid.
I didn’t know what was Good or Wicked anymore. All I knew was what was right.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Nox pointed at the pool, which was still glowing in concentric circles, pulsing outward from where Mombi had dropped the pebble. He smiled a smile that looked like a secret. “You jump.”
I couldn’t wait any longer. If I didn’t do it now, I’d never have the guts. So I took a deep breath and a running start and dove headfirst into the shallow water.
A moment later, I emerged out of a full-length mirror in a sloppy somersault. As I righted myself I realized I was in a dim, musty room that was so small I could almost touch both walls by stretching my arms out. I wasn’t even wet.
I stood up and looked in the mirror. Astrid sta
red back at me. I touched the cool glass—solid now, no way back—and reminded myself that this was me standing there. This was me in Dorothy’s dumb servant attire: frilly white shirt, pleated green skirt, apron, and red patent-leather Mary Janes that seemed like a mocking approximation of Dorothy’s sky-high pumps. Cute.
I smoothed down my skirt and adjusted the apron, looking around while fighting back a wave of nausea at being in one of the palace’s tiny rooms. I needed to get used to it quick. After all, this was my new home.
The servants’ quarters weren’t much better than my cell had been. There was a little white bed with threadbare sheets printed with Ozma’s faded crest and a dresser with peeling paint that had seen better, grander days. A small silver bell sat on top of the dresser. That was pretty much it.
It made my room back in Dusty Acres seem lavish. And that room hadn’t even had walls.
I yanked open the top drawer of the dresser, not expecting to find much. I was right. There were three uniforms identical to the one that I was already wearing, and a couple of plain cotton dresses—one in a plain green satin and another in white. Glamora had told me that every maid had two dresses aside from her uniform—one for escorting Dorothy to parties and one for her monthly day off.
So this was it.
It didn’t take long to search the rest of my sad accommodations. I got excited for a second when I reached underneath the mattress and pulled out a battered old book. Maybe it was a diary. Some extra insight into servant life would come in handy. Hell, maybe Astrid had documented the one day a month Dorothy sunbathed in the warm glow of the Emerald City’s Rusty Knife Recycling Pile. That’d make my task easier.
Either I wasn’t that lucky or Astrid wasn’t that interesting, or both. It was just a dog-eared copy of a trashy-but-famous Oz romance called The Quadling and the Nome, one of the more boring books Glamora had forced me to read during our cram sessions.
I tossed it aside in frustration and sank down onto the bed. I was all alone for the first time in weeks, and I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do next.
Out of boredom, I opened my palm and was about to light a small magic flame when I remembered Nox’s warning not to use magic. I snapped my hand shut and leaned back. So much for my plan to pass the time by staring at fire. I sighed.
“Boredom,” I said aloud, “thy name is assassin-ing.”
It was only then that I realized I was overlooking the one friend I did have in the palace. Well, make that two friends. Friend Number One: Star the Rat. Who was, in theory, still being kept safe by Friend Number Two: Pete.
Pete. I’d almost forgotten him. Was he here? Did he know I’d managed to escape? I wondered. Or how I’d managed to do it?
Even if I found him, there was no way of telling him I was okay. I was Astrid now, and even though I had a good feeling about Pete, my witch-trained side knew I couldn’t take any unnecessary risks. I was supposed to follow the plan. Watch and wait.
I sat. I watched. I waited.
I almost jumped out of my maid’s costume when the bell on the dresser rose a few inches into the air and began to ring.
I knew it meant that someone in the palace needed service. I knew about the bell because Astrid knew about the bell. The spell Mombi had cast didn’t give me access to her memories—not exactly—but it did give me a vague sense of her instincts. What Astrid would do in this situation came through as a foreign tickle in the back of my mind.
I walked over to the bell and cautiously picked it up. It rang louder.
I held it at arm’s length toward the door. It got louder still. When I placed it back on the table, the tinkling chime faded.
It was like a game of hot and cold. The bell was telling me which way to go.
So me and the bell walked out the door, down one hall and then another and another and another. At each corner, I listened carefully, judging which way to go. The bell was getting louder and louder as I roamed through the palace. How big was this place?
When I reached a carved oak doorway, the ringing stopped. I’d really been hoping the bell would lead me to one of the normal doors, but of course it put me in front of this monstrosity at the end of the hall. The door was carved into a landscape scene that twisted and moved as I stared at it, almost like crude animation. In it, dozens of blackbirds repeatedly dropped dead over an endless field of corn.
I knocked, and then jumped back as a blackbird exploded into a puff of feathers beneath my knuckles.
An impatient, somewhat familiar voice told me to enter. My heart sank when I saw the Scarecrow sitting on the edge of his bed in the center of the room, waiting for me. Or rather, waiting for Astrid.
“Yes, Your Royal Scarecrow?” I chirped in my sweetest voice, even though I was shaking on the inside. I was face-to-face—and alone—with the monster who’d experimented on Melindra. I felt my hand tingling and I was comforted with the knowledge that my knife was there if I needed to summon it.
The Scarecrow’s room looked less like a bedroom and more like an enormous, filthy study. Every surface was cluttered with loose papers and dirty plates and bits of straw. The whole place smelled stale and moldy, like the bootleg firewood our neighbor used to wheelbarrow around Dusty Acres. Lying on the floor near my feet I noticed a bound leather book open to a drawing of a monkey’s internal anatomy, with little notes in shaky handwriting penciled in the margins.
I shivered and forced myself to look away, letting my eyes travel upward, where walls of bookshelves stretched beyond the reach of the candlelight.
“Well? What took you so long?” the Scarecrow snapped. My eyes snapped, too, back down to where he sat, his creepy button eyes looking right through me. “Why didn’t you just zap yourself to me?”
“Zapping is forbidden in the palace,” I said, the words out before I could even think about them.
I let out an internal sigh of relief when the Scarecrow seemed exasperated but not suspicious. “You should know by now that those silly rules don’t apply when I ring,” he grumbled. He gave me a meaningful look.
Oh no, I thought. Please please please don’t tell me he’s Astrid’s secret boyfriend.
But he just scowled as he gestured toward a square metal tray that was sitting on a table next to his bed. “I’m feeling duller by the second here.”
Doing my best not to disturb his mess, I carefully stepped over piles of junk and picked up the tray.
It took everything I had to stay calm when I saw what was actually on it: knives and scalpels and curved needles and pliers and an assortment of other things I didn’t even want to think about. Some of them were still bloody.
These were probably the same tools this monster used to dissect and experiment on innocent Ozians. On people like Melindra.
And what did he want me to do with them? I was still trying to figure it out as he casually leaned his stuffed body against his bed’s ornate headboard and started removing a series of straight pins from his scalp, dropping each one carefully into a metal wastebasket near his feet.
I noticed that they had blood on them, too. I cleared my throat and nodded toward the horror show of instruments on the tray.
“What would you like me to do with these tonight, Your Eminence?” I kept my voice detached, like a good, subjugated servant girl, even as my skin crawled at the scene before me. I hadn’t been prepared to face the Scarecrow within minutes of my arrival. I hadn’t been prepared for the Scarecrow at all.
He looked me up and down with his dead and shiny button eyes. “I want you to do the same thing I always want. What’s gotten into you?” Without waiting for me to answer, he plucked a scalpel up from the tray I held and began carefully using it to break apart the stitches that held his canvas skull together. “I got started without you. The syringe is already filled.”
I noticed it then: a syringe with a needle at least four inches long was sitting right there next to the rest of the bloody utensils. I picked it up, wishing I’d learned a spell to keep my hand stead
y.
When I turned around the Scarecrow was lifting the flap off his head, revealing his brain.
I’d seen a monkey brain once in biology class. This was kind of like that, only pinker and goopier. The whole thing was suspended in red, gelatinous mush that I’d mistaken for blood.
I picked up the syringe. I gave it a little squirt like I’d seen nurses do on hospital shows. Where was I supposed to stick it? My borrowed Astrid instincts were quiet. Maybe the magic only went so deep, or maybe she’d done such a good job blocking out these traumatizing scenes that they didn’t transfer over, or maybe my own instinct to run away screaming was overriding my Astrid sense.
Either way, I stood there holding the needle like a dummy.
When I waited a moment too long, his gloved hand shot up and grabbed my wrist with a steel grip. His hold was tight, yet I could feel his straw insides crunching as he squeezed. I almost flinched away, but that wouldn’t be an Astrid move. I kept my eyes downcast and frightened.
“Get it right, girl. Or I’ll be the one sticking needles into you next.”
“Yes, sir,” I said meekly, adding a shudder that wasn’t entirely feigned.
When he let go, I went for it, jamming the needle into the pinkest part of his brain mass. Part of me hoped there might be an air bubble in the needle or something, and my next job as servant girl would be mopping bits of Scarecrow off the walls. I pushed the plunger, releasing the fluid. The Scarecrow let out a long moan of relief. His head lolled over to his shoulder and a little felt tongue I didn’t even know he had dangled limply from his mouth. I willed myself not to throw up.
“Ahhhh,” he moaned again.
I pulled the needle out and put it back on the tray, slowly backing away.
“Do you know how many brains I had to drain for this stuff?”
The thing is, he wasn’t looking at me. It sounded more like he was talking to himself; he barely seemed to remember I was there at all.
“It’s exhausting,” he continued, “but it’s the price they must pay to have the finest brain in all of Oz.”
Dorothy Must Die: The Other Side of the Rainbow Collection: No Place Like Oz, Dorothy Must Die, The Witch Must Burn, The Wizard Returns, The Wicked Will Rise Page 20