“There was something weird about that kid Tip’s pallet. There was no magic there, but it was also like there was no aura coming from it either. Tip has some kind of spell on him.”
I pulled her to my chest and kissed her head. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
Chapter 39
Frankie
I
knew Idris wanted to get naked if we completed our mission. I did too, but it didn’t feel like we won. It felt like this big, stupid loss because Glinda didn’t plan well enough. She even canceled history again. I didn’t know if she was lazy or just stupid, but if she expected all these students to take on the Fisher King or Locasta, they needed to know their history. I needed to know more about the Fisher King.
I wasn’t taking it anymore. We had the entire day free, so I wandered down to the jails. Glinda had given us free rein of the palace, but no one knew what to do with me when I wanted to go down to the jails. There was a stammering guard I was about ready to deck in the face.
“Well, I should check with Glinda. She didn’t say anything about the jails.”
“I have to question the prisoner. How would I know there was a prisoner down here unless Glinda told me? If she gets mad, she can get mad at me, okay?”
“I guess. But no funny business.”
The Emerald City jails were nearly empty. Mombi was in an empty cell all the way at the end of the hall. I pulled a chair to the outside of her cell and straddled it. She pressed her ugly face against the bars and wriggled her fingers at me.
“Francesca of the West,” she hissed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Has Glinda been down here?”
Mombi just threw back her head and cackled. “Glinda would leave me down here to rot. What do you want?”
“Information.”
“What do I get out of it?”
“I don’t cut your fucking head off,” I said, calling my sword to me. I twirled it a few times to show her I was serious.
Mombi paled a little. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Locasta.”
“What about her? She’s a bitch.”
“Did she ask you to take the heir?”
“Who says I have the heir?”
“Tip will be in Emerald City soon. We’ll find out eventually.”
“Tip is a stupid boy. He’s probably dead on the road somewhere. He’s not who you are looking for,” Mombi spat.
I stood up and grabbed the bars of her cell. Mombi shrunk back. I was the shortest out of all the living Sentinels. I didn’t even tower over the Munchkins. Mombi was taller than me, but she was afraid of me. She was trying not to show it, but she was cowering a little. She knew just as well as I did she was lying to me. Mombi still had her magic, but it didn’t come to her naturally as it did to me. It wasn’t in her blood. Mombi did her magic with ingredients and potions. She had none of that in the cell with her if the Oz guards did their job and searched her.
“Locasta never tamed you and took your magic from you,” I sneered. “You never had any to start with. Your magic always came from black market ingredients and hexes from people willing to sell them to you. I don’t take you for the type of letting that rumor sit. The hex you put on Locasta that makes her appear like an old lady probably could have been easily removed if she tried. Locasta would have known you have no magic, which begs the question of why there were alarms outside your cottage. You’re keeping a secret for Locasta, or you are working with her. I think those alarms were for your protection, and there aren’t alarms for teleportation all over the rest of the North, or we would have known about them.”
Mombi’s thin mouth spread into an evil grin. “You don’t have a single shred of proof, just theories. Everyone loves Locasta and knows about our battle. She banished the Wicked Mombi and took her magic. How do you plan on proving your little theory, you little unripe tomato?”
That wasn’t the first comment I had gotten about the color of my skin, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Everyone thought my green skin was exotic and beautiful before that spell that made everyone think my mother was a Wicked Witch. After that, people started calling us names and coming up with all kinds of horror stories about how my mother was trying to make a potion so awful, it would have killed all of Oz, but all it did was turn our skin green. Another theory was that we were envious of the Wizard having the throne, and we had turned green because of it.
I had no idea why my skin was green, but I owned it. I came this way, and I wasn’t about to try to change it. I could have glamoured myself with different color skin, but why bother? I knew my skin wasn’t this way because of a potion or because I got jealous. I was born this way, and the people who were important to me found it beautiful.
Mombi could taunt me all she wanted about the color of my skin, but I wouldn’t rise to it. It wouldn’t be something I hadn’t heard before. The unripe tomato joke was a particular favorite of some of the Winkies. The Winkies were mostly farmers, so if there happened to be a fruit or vegetable in the West that was green instead of yellow, chances are, I got compared to it at one point.
I pressed my face against the bars. “That’s the best insult you’ve got? I’ve heard better taunts from a fourteen-year-old Winkie farmer boy. I thought you were Wicked, Mombi?”
Mombi’s entire body relaxed like she was no longer afraid of me. “I don’t have to taunt you. I just have to sit here and do nothing. By the time any of you actually figure out what’s going on, you’ll all be dead or slaves.”
“You forget Tip is on the loose and on his way to Emerald City. He’s lived on a pallet in your sitting room, and I’m sure he’s seen and heard some shit, Mombi. I don’t need you to talk. Tip can probably tell us your secrets.”
Mombi let out this cackle that sounded like Oprix’s mother was killing a chicken for dinner.
“All your hopes on one boy who has never left my yard. Tip knows nothing of the dangers of Oz. He probably didn’t even make it to the Yellow Brick Road. Tip and that silly pumpkin man are either lost or dead.”
“Pumpkin, man?”
“Oh, yes. Tip is quite immature for a twenty-two-year-old man. He attempted to scare me by building a man from wood and sticking a carved pumpkin on its head. Old Mombi doesn’t scare easily. I used one of the new ingredients and spells I had just acquired to test them on the pumpkin man. He came right to life. Tip took him with him when he ran away. You’ve got an ignorant boy who has never left the yard being led by a man who has hardly been alive at all with a hollow head. They are both doomed.”
The black market in the North had a powder that could bring things to life, and Locasta hadn’t shut that shit down? How was she managing to keep the façade of a loving grandmother and a peaceful, happy North when the black market was passing around things like that? That was forbidden magic. Sure, sometimes random things like Scarecrows came to life in Oz, and now they ruled Emerald city, but that was because we lived in a fairyland. No one was supposed to have that power on their own.
“Where is this powder now? Back in your shack?”
“That awful boy took it with him. He’s got no idea how to use it. He’s probably brought something to life that just up and ate him.”
I was getting nowhere with Mombi. She was lying about Tip being stupid, but not about him ever leaving the yard. But I knew better than she did. I grew up with Oprix and Idris, and we got into plenty of trouble. Tip never left the yard as far as she knew. I was guessing Tip had been planning his escape for years, and Mombi did or said something that made him leave that night.
If Tip survived growing up with Mombi, then he had to be clever and resourceful. If he really was the missing heir, there was so much inside him untapped that he didn’t know about. Some of it had to escape when he needed it to.
I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know how, but I knew Tip would find his way to Emerald City. I just had to get to him before Glinda did. I had to do it before Mombi’s threat came t
rue and we were all dead.
Chapter 40
Frankie
S
omething changed with Daxar in our lessons after we went to the North. Our next lesson was back in his office instead of his chambers. He was distant. He never moved from behind his desk, and there was this sadness behind his eyes. He was going through the motions of trying to tell me what to do in the gardens when I left instead of doing what we had been doing and what was working.
I wasn’t having this. I wasn’t letting him pull away. If he was ending this, he was going to tell me why.
“Cut the bullshit, Daxar. What’s going on?”
“I put you and all your friends in danger because I couldn’t wait two minutes for you to get back. I saw you weren’t back like the others, and I didn’t even think. I didn’t listen to anyone there telling me to wait. All of you had to go back for me, and you could have died because of me. I can’t explain my feelings for you. We haven’t known each other for long, but I feel like we click. I would have burned down the entire North to get you back. Instead, you had to save me.”
I didn’t care what he thought. He wasn’t just going to sit far away from me at his desk for this conversation. I got up and sat in his lap. He pulled me to his chest, and I nuzzled my face in his neck.
“It wasn’t just Glinda who should have shared information before we left. You and I should have spoken. When the Sentinels are working together, someone always stays behind to make sure everyone gets out. It’s usually supposed to be the most senior Sentinel, but I watched Glinda just teleport out. That left me. I know you had a knowledge transference spell done, but you can’t possibly have learned everything about being a Sentinel. Transferring all that knowledge would have killed you. You and I should have had our own plan in case something went wrong.”
Daxar sighed. “You’re right. If we had talked, I would have found out she never told you about the alarms. Frabess is from the North, and when I overheard them, she told Glinda to tell everyone. If we knew she hadn’t told everyone, I would have sent for Frabess, and maybe we could have figured out what she was really up to. This isn’t the Glinda I grew up knowing.”
“You know she hasn’t even tried to question Mombi?”
Daxar let out this deep chuckle and started stroking my braids. “I’ll bet you did, though. What did you learn?”
“She lied through her teeth the entire time, but I was reading her. Mombi doesn’t have inherent magic. Nothing Locasta could have taken away from her. All her magic comes from ingredients she bought at the black market and potions anyone can brew. Whatever curse she used on Locasta to make her look old should have been easily removed by a Sentinel since Mombi doesn’t have magic. Which begs the questions why there’s this epic story about how Mombi cursed Locasta, terrorized the Gillikins, and Locasta swept in, took her magic, and saved the North. I think they are working together.”
“Let’s do this instead of Quadling games tonight,” Daxar said. “Can I just hold you while we try to figure this out?”
Did he think that was all I wanted from him? I liked this too. If all we did was this from now on, I’d be happy. I just liked being close to Daxar. Fuck, he was willing to take on the entire North for me.
“We can do this whenever you want. We don’t always have to play Quadling games.”
“What would Mombi and Locasta get from working together if Mombi has no magic?” Daxar asked.
“Locasta has always been the weakest Sentinel from what I’ve been told. After my mother became known as the Wicked Witch of the West, she started letting more slip about the alleged Good Witches. From what my mother told me, Glinda has always been strong with magic and prefers using it over fighting. She hated her fight training. She mastered her weapon, but not without a lot of complaining, and she hardly ever uses it.
“There’s been some questions about Locasta’s line in the North, according to my mother. From what my mother said, there’s some inbreeding there because they thought it would make them stronger. Even before she got cursed, Locasta wasn’t as strong as the other Sentinels. She never really progressed past the staff with her weapons. She was always good with potions and magic that requires ingredients, but her inherent magic has never been strong.”
“What if that’s just what she wants us to think? From what Glinda says, the North has always wanted their relative recalled from that cave, and another Sentinel sent. What if the North has been plotting this for years, and all the Sentinels just think Locasta is the weakest link?”
“It’s a theory. Now that I’ve met with Mombi and assessed her, Locasta could have broken the spell, even being weaker in magic. She’s keeping it for a reason. I don’t think there are magical alarms against teleportation all over the North. I think they are just around places and people that are working with Locasta, like Mombi. That was why Frabess didn’t know they were going to go off.”
“You’re probably right, Francesca. We need to call a meeting with your group, and if you don’t mind, I want to bring Frabess in. We all signed up to teach here and agreed to the geas because we trusted Glinda. Glinda clearly doesn’t trust us and has her own agenda she didn’t tell us about. I won’t remember what she told us to get her on her side until she lifts the geas, but I wouldn’t have agreed to what happened in the North. She put all of us in danger.
“Oprix, Idris, and I have been patrolling the gate looking for Tip. Saffron and Emarus have been going on a lot of dates at that little bistro with a view of the gate. We’re trying to get to Tip before Glinda does.”
“My allegiance started with Glinda, but after meeting you and what happened in the North, I’ll always be on your side. I think it’ll be the same with Frabess and Saffron. I think you’re right, Francesca. We need to find this Tip before Glinda does.”
“If Locasta is working with Mombi, we’re going to need to find him soon because the North has a trained army, and Emerald City just has lazy captains who like polishing their badges.”
Daxar kissed the top of my head. “As much as I’m enjoying this, you do need to go to the gardens and focus on your training.”
I didn’t want to get up. I could have slept like that, but I knew why I needed to get to the gardens. It wasn’t just about my training. Galen was always waiting there, and he seemed to have answers about everything. He gave them to me in spurts, but he was the only person capable of telling me the truth right now.
I peeled myself away from Daxar and headed to the garden.
Chapter 41
Frankie
I
had no idea if Galen just had good manners or he got some sort of sick twist out of watching me with my sword. I could always feel him out there when I entered the gardens, but he never showed himself or spoke to me until after my sword was back in its sheath. It was the same tonight. I was usually easily able to forget he was out there and empty my mind to train. Too much had gone on to do that tonight.
I stopped mid-thrust and looked around. “Galen?”
He refused to show himself. “You aren’t done training, Francesca.”
“No shit, but I can’t concentrate. Things went down in the North.”
“You don’t think shit will go down when you’re a Sentinel, and you’ll still need to focus? Finish your training. I’m well aware of what happened in the North. I was there. If you don’t continue your training, I’ll just disappear.”
Who the fuck did he think he was? Only Daxar could give me orders, and that was because I allowed him to. I hardly knew Galen except for our nightly visits. He still hadn’t told me why his hair was green. But I was just supposed to do whatever he told me?
He must have been spying more than I knew. “Francesca, Daxar would want you to finish your training before you talk to me. If you won’t train because you need to, do it because he would want you to.”
I swung my sword over my head in an angry circle. I wasn’t centered. I didn’t feel like I was flying. This wasn’t dancing like it always wa
s since I started training with Daxar. I was angry.
I heard Galen again. “I’m not Daxar, and I don’t play Quadling games. I can’t do for you what he does. But I have an idea that will help you. You need to center yourself focus on your emotions. Why don’t you try singing to yourself?”
“How the fuck did you get into the palace to hear me sing? I don’t want you creeping around and watching me when I think I’m with my friends.”
“I wasn’t watching you. One of the cooks was talking about it when she was on the street. She liked your singing. Apparently, there’s another chef who sings to his sauces in the palace kitchens with a miserable voice. Would you please try singing?”
It couldn’t hurt. I’d never tried singing with my sword before, but it made me happy in the kitchen. I sang softly to myself as I went through centering exercises with the sword. Galen was right. It helped a lot, and I soon forgot he was out there like I usually did. Now, it really did feel like dancing.
I spun and thrusted my sword, forgetting all about Dorothy Gale and Locasta. I didn’t stop until my throat started hurting. I raised my sword to the moon, but it was in a different position than usual. I had trained way longer than usual. It had to be close to midnight now. Idris and Oprix must be so worried, but they hadn’t come for me because they knew my training was important.
Galen’s green hair materialized from a bench. He had a dagger in his hand and was slicing an apple. He must have been sitting there, invisible, this entire time. He also must not care who saw him because we usually talked with him hiding behind a bush.
“You’re a good singer,” he said, standing up to walk over to me.
He was much taller than I was, but who wasn’t? He was almost as tall as Idris. His brown cloak was off his head, giving me a full view of his long green hair, giving the world full view of his green hair.
Sentinels of Oz: A Reverse Harem Academy Romance (Emerald City Academy Book 1) Page 17