“Experiments?” Could that explain what those—things—had been that attacked her village? They definitely weren’t human but they didn’t look like any other creature she had seen or heard of. And what they’d done to her family—that was something that had never happened, not in the entire history of Oz. If they were some terrible experiment gone wrong, that might explain what they were capable of. But who would create such a monster? And why? She tried to keep her voice steady, but Melindra gave her a searching look before she continued.
“So far, it’s all just rumors. No matter how hard we try, we can’t get any concrete intel. And Gert and Mombi have been keeping mum about it if they know anything. The heads of the Order don’t like to tell us much.” Melindra shrugged again. “I mean, obviously, ever since Dorothy Gale came back to Oz things have been different.” Melindra glanced over at Lanadel and saw her expression. “Well, it sounds like I don’t have to tell you,” she said quietly. “You know it didn’t take long before everything changed for the worse. Even the Pond of Truth started to tell lies. And the rumors coming out of the palace . . .” Melindra shivered involuntarily. “Raids on villages at the outskirts of Quadling Country. Even murder. And worse than murder. Enslavement.”
“I know all about that,” Lanadel said bitterly, without explaining. Melindra raised an eyebrow, but when Lanadel didn’t say anything else, Melindra didn’t press her.
“So that’s where the Order comes in. Listen to me ramble—I don’t mean to talk your ear off,” Melindra apologized.
“Nobody’s told me much,” Lanadel admitted. “I don’t even know how many members of the Order there are.”
“None of us do,” Melindra said. “I mean, there’s the trainees here, you, me, Holly, and Larkin, you’ll meet them soon enough”—something in Melindra’s voice suggested that the longer Lanadel waited before that happened, the better—“Nox, obviously, and Gert and Glamora and Mombi. Some of the other original trainees from this cell are out on missions.” Melindra sighed. “Dangerous stuff. These are dangerous times. But supposedly there are other cells, other training sites—we don’t get told much, you know? The less we know, the less we can give up if we get . . . captured.”
Lanadel shuddered. She knew what Dorothy’s creatures could do to someone they caught. What kind of tortures they would improvise . . .
“Anyway,” Melindra went on, “there aren’t many of us here right now, but there are more of us around Oz. And our numbers are growing because the more people Dorothy kills, the more people are ready to join the Order.”
“I came here for the same reason as you,” Lanadel said. She decided to be honest. “To fight. But I also didn’t have anyplace else to go.”
“Yeah,” Melindra said. “That’s true for most of us.” Her face took on a distant look that Lanadel recognized. It was the same expression that crossed her own face whenever she thought—or tried not to think—about what had happened to her family. “Nox might be an asshole,” Melindra said, her features returning to their usual animation, “but he lost his entire family to one of the Woodman’s raids. Mombi raised him—he’s basically more witch than boy. Like, you know how it seems he doesn’t have actual human emotions? He kind of doesn’t have actual human emotions. Partly it’s Mombi’s fault, but I mean—how do you get over a thing like losing every single person you love?”
Suddenly Lanadel was crying. She did her best to hide it from Melindra by dunking her own head underwater, but there was no concealing the way her shoulders were shaking as sobs racked her still-malnourished body. What was this tough, confident warrior going to think of a girl who cried at the drop of a hat? But instead of mocking her, Melindra threw her arms around her.
“Oh, wizard’s balloons, I’m so sorry! Me and my giant mouth,” Melindra babbled. “I don’t even think before I start talking. Don’t pay any attention to me at all.”
“It’s fine,” Lanadel mumbled into a mouthful of Melindra’s wet, sweet-smelling hair. Melindra’s embrace was the closest she’d gotten to another human being in weeks. Unless you counted getting punched in the face by Nox. She relaxed into the other girl’s arms, relishing in the comfort of her warm, damp skin.
“It’s not fine. I’m an idiot.” Melindra laughed harshly and let her go, and Lanadel did her best to recover—although she wasn’t sure whether she was more flustered by crying in front of Melindra or by the other girl’s embrace. It was almost as if she was still in Melindra’s arms for a few more seconds. It reminded Lanadel of the way her heart kept beating fast for a few seconds after she stopped running. Only she hadn’t moved a single step. Melindra kept on talking, unaware of her effect on Lanadel. “They didn’t waste much time giving me etiquette lessons, I’ll tell you that much. One day with Glamora and”—she snapped her fingers—“that was it. ‘We need you in the field,’ was what Nox said, but I knew what that really meant. ‘You’re such a buffoon we’re not even going to try and teach you to pass as a courtier.’ Like I said, undercover is not my strong suit.”
“Etiquette lessons?” Lanadel asked, surreptitiously wiping her eyes.
“They haven’t foisted Glamora on you yet? Girl, you better pray they keep that witch away from you.” Melindra held her hands out of the water, waggling her fingers at Lanadel. She had never been as animated about anything as Melindra seemed to be about everything. Lanadel’s brothers had been the boisterous ones. She missed the way they took up space. She had only known Melindra for the span of a few minutes, and she already knew that Melindra, too, was larger than life. “Anyway, I’m turning into a straight-up prune and Nox’ll be on my ass in a minute if I don’t get out of here and back to the training caves. Plus, I’ve just about yammered your ear off.”
“Nox will come here?” Lanadel squeaked in horror.
“There’s nowhere he won’t go if he thinks you’re slacking,” Melindra warned with a grin. “And I mean nowhere. Of course, if that’s what you’re into . . .”
Lanadel was out of the water so fast that Melindra burst out laughing. “You better watch out, or I’ll tell him that’s how to motivate you!” she called out as Lanadel threw on her dirty training uniform. She already knew a fresh set of training clothes would be waiting for her on the threshold of her sleeping cave in the morning. Melindra pulled herself out of the healing pool, and Lanadel couldn’t help but notice the way the muscles rippled in her arms as she heaved herself out of the water. “See you in the dining hall later?”
“What dining hall?”
Melindra rolled her eyes. “Oh, they pulled the solitary thing on you, too? Apparently it’s supposed to teach you initiative. You have to find the dining hall on your own if you don’t want to go completely nuts in your room alone. But yeah, there’s a dining hall. You know that bell that rings every evening?”
Lanadel nodded.
“That’s dinner. Just wander around when the bell rings. It’ll find you.” With that and a cheery wave, Melindra trotted out of the cavern before Lanadel could even thank her.
“Dining hall?” Lanadel echoed, shaking her head. Welcome to the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, she thought. Where absolutely nothing is easy.
THREE
As soon as Lanadel heard the bell sound for dinner that night, she ran out of her room and into the long, low-lit stone corridor outside. It’ll find you, Melindra had said. What in Oz was that supposed to mean? She looked both ways down the corridor, half expecting sweet-faced old Gert to appear out of nowhere and tell her she’d solved some key riddle before leading her to the dining hall. But the hallway was as empty as always. Clear veins of crystal ran through the rough-hewn stone and glowed with an otherworldly light no matter what time of day. The floor was covered with a rug made from the fur of some animal she didn’t recognize: tawny orange gold with zigzagging black stripes. She knew the passageway to the left led to the big white cavern where she trained alone with Nox and, beyond that, the healing pool. So she turned to the right and started walking.
And suddenly she wasn’t alone. “Melindra told you,” said a familiar voice, and Lanadel jumped. Nox had appeared out of nowhere.
For a second, she debated the value of pretending not to know what he was talking about, but she decided against it. “Were you ever going to?”
Nox looked at her with his usual infuriating, inscrutable expression. “You have to learn to take initiative,” he said. “You have innate skill, Lanadel, and I don’t doubt your motivation. But you’re too afraid to take risks.”
“Does everything have to be about training? Can’t you just tell me where the dining hall is instead of letting me sit alone in my room for weeks thinking I’m the only person here?”
He stopped short and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye. His thick, dark hair was wild. This close, his familiar sandalwood scent was almost overpowering. It was as if the rich smell emanated from his skin.
“This isn’t a joke, Lanadel,” he said. “The Order is the only hope Oz has of stopping Dorothy before she goes too far. Every one of us has to be ready all the time. So yes, everything has to be about training.” His voice dripped with disdain as he repeated her words.
Not for the first time, fury flooded through her as Nox needled her. “Fine,” she snarled suddenly, ducking away from his grip and into the fighting crouch he’d taught her. For the first time since she’d arrived in the caverns, Nox was caught off guard. And when she threw the hardest, fiercest punch she’d ever mustered in her short life, it connected solidly with his chin with a resounding, incredibly satisfying crack. Nox reeled backward, slamming into the corridor’s walls, and she was already ready for him as he brought his own fists up a second too late. She whirled into a roundhouse kick, sweeping his feet out from beneath him, and when he crashed to the floor with a startled “oof” she was already on top of him, her forearm pinning him to the ground by his throat as she straddled his chest. For a second, she saw a flash of something in his eyes that almost looked like respect.
And then a huge, invisible hand was squeezing the life out of her, pulling her off of Nox and pinning her up against the wall where she’d thrown him seconds earlier. She could feel its might crushing her ribs, pushing the breath out of her chest until she saw stars and the edges of her vision grew dim, but she refused to stop struggling.
“You—cheated—used—magic—” she wheezed, but the invisible hand only gripped her more tightly.
“Use it!” someone was yelling into her ear. “Use your anger, Lanadel!”
Something flared to life inside of her—the tiniest flicker of light kindled by the burning rage in her heart. She could almost see it—a finger of flame that was just the tip of a roaring fire.
“That’s it!” Nox yelled. Right before she passed out.
When she opened her eyes, a huge, whisker-sprouting wart surrounded by a sea of wrinkles dominated her entire field of vision. She shrieked and the wart moved backward, resolving into the wizened, ancient features of Mombi. Lanadel had had little contact with the stern witch who seemed to be more or less the head of the Order, and what contact she’d had mostly consisted of the old woman barking orders. She didn’t look any happier or kinder now.
“What did you do to her, hit her over the head?” Mombi grumbled. Nox was standing next to her, looking almost sheepish.
“I just thought—she needed some—she was almost there—”
“Magic is my subject!” Mombi snapped, poking a stubby finger into Nox’s muscular chest. Lanadel couldn’t help a feeling of smug satisfaction at Nox’s pleading expression. So he made mistakes after all.
“She was so close,” Nox said, some fire returning to his voice as he met the old witch’s gaze. “You need to push the trainees harder if you want to see results. We’re at war, Mombi.”
“You think I need to be reminded of that by you?” the witch snarled. “We need to push the trainees, yes. We don’t need to suffocate them!” She gestured violently toward Lanadel. “You could have killed her, Nox.”
“We’re all going to get killed if we’re not strong enough,” Nox said coldly. Mombi made a disgusted noise and turned away, stomping off down the corridor.
“No magic!” she shouted over her shoulder. “That’s my job, Nox, and don’t forget it again.” Nox watched her go, his expression unreadable, and then sighed and extended a hand to Lanadel.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. She ignored his outstretched hand, getting to her feet without his help. She’d been about to yell at him, too, fired up by what had just happened, but his unexpected apology stopped the words in her mouth. Nox never apologized. For anything.
“You were right,” she said, the words surprising her as she said them. Nox raised an eyebrow. “I could feel something happening. Was that . . . magic?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at her thoughtfully. “It was. I wasn’t sure if you had it in you, to be honest.”
“How does that stuff even work? How can you tell?”
“Oz’s magic is—well, it’s complicated, to say the least. There’s a lot about it that we just don’t understand. For a long time, it seemed like only the witches could use magic. That’s what everyone assumed, anyway. But all that went out the window with the Wizard.”
“I thought Dorothy proved his power was fake back in the day.”
“It was and it wasn’t. All that stuff with the giant talking head—yeah, that was just cheap tricks and illusions. But the gifts he gave to the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Woodman were real enough. Plus, there’s the matter of how he got to Oz in the first place. As far as we know, no one can cross over from the Other Place without magic. There’s a lot we don’t know about the Wizard.”
“A lot we didn’t know, you mean,” Lanadel said. “He’s dead, right?”
Nox shook his head. “Nobody knows. There are rumors . . .” He scowled in frustration. “There are always rumors. If he is still alive, he could be a powerful ally. Or a powerful enemy. Or just . . . powerful. The Wizard has always been famous for putting his own interests first. But until we figure out what’s going on with Ozma, he might be able to rule in her stead. At least he was peaceful, which is a lot more than we can say for Dorothy.”
Lanadel’s eyes widened. “You’re trying to put the Wizard back on the throne?”
“Nobody knows the entire plan,” Nox said severely, as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have—even though he was the one who’d brought the Wizard up in the first place. “That way, if you’re captured . . .” He didn’t have to finish, repeating what Melindra had said back at the healing pool. Lanadel had seen what Dorothy’s minions were capable of. She had no desire to be anywhere near their clutches with information they wanted to get out of her. “Anyway,” he added less sharply, “everything in Oz is different now. I have magic.” He flexed his fingers. “Melindra, Holly, and Larkin have magic. There are others. They won’t tell me the full truth”—a note of bitterness entered his voice—“but I don’t think even Gert and Mombi fully understand what’s happening with Oz’s magic right now. I’m sure they’d love it best if they were the special ones. Keep the rest of us in line, that kind of thing.” He was pretending he was joking, but she wasn’t fooled. There was something dark and unhappy underneath his light words. Some old, deep wound. She remembered what Melindra had said about Mombi raising him. He’s more witch than boy. But if that was true, and Mombi wasn’t letting him in on the Order’s decisions, that had to hurt.
“And I have magic, I guess,” she finished.
“I had a feeling. But Mombi was right. She should have been the one to guide you to find your power—to learn control first. Magic in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what she’s doing can be incredibly dangerous. That’s why I shouldn’t have pushed you as hard as I did. I triggered your power, sure, but like Mombi said, I could have really hurt you.” He sighed again and pushed his dark hair out of his cool gray eyes. “I just . . .” He trailed off, his gaze distant.
“Like you said, we’
re at war,” she supplied. “You can’t afford to be soft. And anyway, it worked. If it makes me stronger, I don’t care what you do.” She hadn’t realized how true that was until she said it out loud. How little she cared about her own life. If training killed her, so be it. If she wasn’t strong enough to avenge her family, she’d just join them.
“You mean that, don’t you?” He didn’t sound surprised.
She didn’t have to answer. She knew he could see it in her eyes. The fire was still burning. And next time, she was going to learn how to use it. “Come on,” he said, putting one hand briefly on her shoulder. “It’s about time somebody showed you the dining hall.”
FOUR
“Hall” was definitely the wrong word for the cavern Nox led her to. “Cathedral” was more like it. The cave was practically the size of her old village. The ceiling was so far overhead that it was lost in darkness, but long stalactites of glittering crystal reached downward out of the shadows, reflecting the light of dozens of chandeliers that floated over a single long oak table that stretched the entire length of the cavern. More glowing veins of the same crystal that lit the hallways streaked across the floor and up the walls; combined with the chandeliers, the effect was almost dazzling despite the fact that they were underground. A fire the size of a small house burned in a vast hearth at the far end of the cavern. Behind it, a foaming lavender waterfall descended from an opening in the ceiling, sending out clouds of jasmine-scented mist. Naked, chubby winged Pixies capered in and out of the water, giggling and splashing each other with tufts of foam.