“That’s The Lord of the Rings,” I said. “Different book. And only dwarves use those.”
“You are such a freak,” Madison said.
“Takes one to know one,” I said.
But we were both smiling.
“Look,” Nox said suddenly, pointing over the edge of the road. “I think we’re flying over the Deadly Desert.”
We crowded next to him, staring down at the vista below us. Madison and I both gasped aloud. I’d assumed that the Deadly Desert was an empty, desolate wasteland. I’d been completely, totally wrong.
At the far edge of the horizon, the sky was lightening with the coming dawn. And far below, the faint illumination hinted at the extraordinary place we were flying over. Huge dunes of multicolored sand stretched as far as I could see in either direction. Directly below us was a cobalt-blue wave of sand. The dune next to it was crimson red, and the one after that a bright, saffron-tinted yellow.
I saw dunes of apple green, sky blue, velvety purple, and brilliant turquoise. Streams of gold, silver, and black sand separated each of the dunes so that the whole landscape was a brilliant, colorful patchwork.
“Sand sailors!” Nox said in awe. I followed his finger and gasped again, this time in delight.
Far below us, jewel-colored lizards with huge, parachute-like wings drifted over the dunes, their tiny scales reflecting the rising sun in fiery, incandescent streaks of color.
“It’s beautiful,” Madison breathed.
For a moment, the precariousness of our situation fell away, and her face was suffused with wonder.
“It’s gorgeous,” Nox agreed, but his voice held a hint of sadness. “But as far as anyone in Oz knows, it’s lethal. It’s impossible to cross on foot. The dunes are constantly shifting, and they swallow anyone who attempts it. No one’s ever tried to navigate the Deadly Desert and survived. Not without magic, anyway.”
“The Wizard did it,” I said, remembering the original story. “Didn’t he? In his hot-air balloon? And the fairies, way back in the day.”
“So did Dorothy,” Nox said darkly.
So that part was true, too. I wished I’d thought to pick up the complete set of Wizard of Oz books back in Kansas. They might have helped solve a few problems. I’d been too busy trying to find the shoes hidden in my high school. But the Dorothy of those books was nothing like the Dorothy I knew.
I thought again about Madison’s question. How did we know she was dead?
Nox and I both knew how tough Dorothy was—and how hard she was to kill. We’d left her behind when the Emerald Palace collapsed. Was it possible she didn’t actually die down there?
No way, I thought to myself. Nox is right. The whole palace came down on top of her. She’s dead.
She had to be. Because the way Oz villains kept popping up like new heads in a whack-a-mole game, we didn’t have time to kill her again if she wasn’t.
One of the sand sailors swept down a little too close to the ground, and, in a blink, the sand rose to meet it in a tiny wave. The sand sailor struggled, but it was over in an instant as the desert swallowed it whole. Madison gasped. Nox and I remained silent.
As the sun rose in the sky, the landscape below us grew even more dazzling. Soon the hot morning light beat down on our shoulders. Without shade or shelter, our flight became uncomfortably warm.
Madison pulled off her pink, bedazzled sweatshirt and draped it over her head to ward off the sun. I sweated miserably in the soft gray dress I’d worn to Ozma’s coronation. Already, that seemed like a lifetime ago—but it was only yesterday that I’d thought everything was right in Oz again. How quickly things could change here.
“Look,” Nox said, pointing again.
“I thought nothing could live in that sand,” I said.
Huge, dust-covered worms slid through the sand, lunging upward to chomp down on sand sailors with creepy fang-filled mouths that opened like wounds.
Madison was looking a little pale. “Apparently they can,” she murmured. “And, uh, guys? Is it just me, or are we sinking?” Madison’s voice was strained.
“She’s right,” Nox said. And she was.
The road was unmistakably slowing down. And it was sinking.
Toward the desert—and the huge, yawning mouths of the sandworms.
“God, this place sucks,” Madison muttered under her breath.
“We’ll be fine,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
The road was bucking and twisting as it lurched downward. I squatted down before it could toss me off, clutching tightly to its golden bricks. Madison was clinging tight, too, looking a little green.
“Look! Land!” Nox said, standing up so suddenly he was almost thrown off the writhing road.
I grabbed his ankles as an upheaval nearly sent him over the side. Past the multicolored dunes, I could see what he meant—an expanse of drab, bleak landscape, hilly and worn-down looking, that was a sharp contrast to the bright and lethal Deadly Desert.
But we were falling fast. If we crashed before we made it to the hills, either the sandworms would finish us or the desert itself would.
The worms seemed to sense our predicament and gathered beneath the road, yawning and snapping their huge teeth. Madison’s knuckles were white where she gripped the road and her face was tense with fear, but she didn’t say anything.
I felt my boots throb almost reassuringly, but when I reached within myself for my magic, it felt far away, as if I were trying to reach it through a wall of Jell-O. I closed my eyes, trying to summon something. Anything. The barest scrap of magic to keep us safe.
I opened my eyes and saw Nox looking at me. I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “I can’t do anything.” From his expression, I knew he’d been trying, too.
“We have to trust the road,” he said quietly.
I loved Nox’s faith in magic and in Oz. But it didn’t look like we were in Oz anymore . . .
Before I could reply, the road plunged suddenly downward.
Madison screamed in terror. The desert was hurtling toward us at a terrifying speed. The worms were just waiting for us to drop within reach of their serrated teeth.
“Amy! Madison! Get up! Run!” Nox yelled, pulling us to our feet.
Instantly, I saw what he meant. There was still a length of road in front of us, and we were almost all the way across the desert. The three of us staggered forward, tripping and stumbling as the road bucked wildly beneath us. I half pulled, half carried Madison forward. Where the desert ended, I could see hard, rocky ground that the sandworms couldn’t move through.
But we had to get there first. And it was a long way to safety.
“We’re going to have to jump!” Nox shouted.
Solid ground seemed impossibly far. Madison’s mouth was moving in a silent prayer—or, knowing her, a curse—but her face was set with determination.
Madison wasn’t exactly athletic—I’d never seen her lift anything heavier than a shopping bag until she started carting around Dustin Jr. She took a deep breath, eyed the gap, and jumped.
The nearest of the worms lunged for her—but somehow, impossibly, she cleared the distance, hitting the ground past the edge of the desert and dropping into a roll worthy of an Order trainee. In a flash, she was on her feet and running. The worm turned to us.
“Go!” Nox yelled. “Amy, we have to go, now!”
The road was breaking apart even as I got my footing. Bricks tumbled to the ground, sinking into the shifting sand and swallowed immediately. Nox grabbed my hand and we jumped.
I hit the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of my lungs. A worm’s teeth snapped shut inches from my foot. I rolled out of its way and somersaulted to my feet, grabbing Nox’s shoulder and pulling him to safety. The huge worm bellowed in disappointment as both of us took off running after Madison.
But we slowed down as soon as we realized the worms couldn’t pursue us on the rocky soil. Madison and I were panting and out of breath, but Nox had barely br
oken a sweat. Sometimes he drove me nuts. I’d worked my ass off to become as strong as I was, but I still did normal, human things like get sweaty and winded. Nox made even the most impossible feat look easy. It was alternately infuriating and sexy.
He looked up at the sky, where the remains of the road were rising quickly away from us. Crumbling bricks thudded here and there into the swirling sands of the desert, sinking out of sight immediately into the fluid sand.
“Ugh,” Madison said. “Rude.” She glared at the last of the Road of Yellow Brick as it dwindled to a speck on the horizon.
“I don’t understand why it took us this far and then just dumped us,” I said. “And what happened back there? What went wrong with our magic? Where are we?”
Nox was looking at his fingers, wiggling them experimentally. “I think the road is bound to Oz,” he said slowly. “It wanted to help us, for whatever reason, and so it took us as far as it could.”
“Took us where, though? Is this some part of the mountains? Why couldn’t it go any farther?”
Nox shook his head. “Amy, I think the road took us all the way across the desert. That’s why our magic isn’t working. That’s why the road collapsed.”
“You’re saying we aren’t in Oz anymore,” I said slowly.
He nodded. “We crossed the entire desert. That means we’re in Ev. The Nome King’s kingdom. I didn’t even believe it was real.” He snorted softly. “Then again, the Nome King was supposed to be a legend, too.”
Ev. The word stirred something in my memory. Something important.
Had Lurline told me about Ev? About the Nome King, and what he wanted?
But whatever the memory was, it was gone.
“I still don’t understand what that has to do with our magic,” I said. “Or why the road would dump us here.” I looked around. “We tried to defeat the Nome King in Oz, but he was too powerful. Maybe there’s nothing in Oz that can stop him, and that’s why the road brought us here,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe Ev’s magic is different somehow? Or there’s something here we can use to defeat the Nome King?”
“If Ev’s magic is different, that would explain why we’re having trouble using ours,” Nox agreed. “And the road doesn’t do anything without a reason. But as far as we know, the Nome King isn’t here. The last time we saw him was in Oz.”
I sighed. It was a lot to figure out. But there had to be a reason we were here. And if the Nome King was from Ev, that had to be a part of it. It would make sense if the road had brought us here to discover a weapon we could use against him.
“They don’t have, like, treasure maps in Oz, do they?” Madison asked. “You know, ‘This way to enchanted object that kills evil sorcerer, gets everybody home to safety’ type maps?”
Nox rolled his eyes at Madison.
“My magic comes from Oz,” Nox said. “I think that’s why it’s so hard to reach here. Ev must have a different kind of power. The shoes are part of Oz, too. But your magic . . .”
He didn’t finish, but I knew what he was thinking. My magic was part Oz, part me. And I was from the Other Place. Which meant that maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to make my own magic work here. If I could somehow bypass the Oz parts—if that was even possible—I could tap directly into the magic that came from me.
But if I tried to access it without the shoes, it might also just kill me.
“Why is this place ugly as hell?” Madison asked, looking around. “I thought there were supposed to be, like, singing Muppets or something.”
“Munchkins,” I said automatically.
Madison was right. If this was Ev, it was a total dump. Dorothy had been draining the magic out of Oz for awhile. The trees had stopped talking and the river was running in reverse. But there was still some magic and color left in Oz.
In Ev it was as if there had never been any color or magic. The landscape was bleak and twisted. The blackened, winding path that stretched away from us was like the Road of Yellow Brick’s evil twin sister. In the distance, dilapidated shacks dotted the horizon like scabs. There was nothing green and growing. No water. No sign of life. No flowers.
“If we’re in Ev, the road brought us here for a reason,” Nox began. “Maybe Amy’s right and there’s a—”
But he didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Because right then the Wheelers came.
THREE
DOROTHY
Quelle surprise, bitches! I’m not dead!
Believe me, I’m just as shocked as you are. When the Emerald Palace started crumbling around me and that god-awful Amy Gumm left me to die, I thought I was a goner.
There I was, inches from death, abandoned by Amy and her dimwit boy toy—after everything I’ve done for Oz! These kinds of situations really lead you to face your own mortality, do you know what I mean? Some people say their entire life flashes before their eyes. At the moment the palace fell, I totally expected to die. And I wasn’t happy about it, but I’ve led an exciting and productive life and accomplished a lot. People would definitely remember me after I passed. I had to be content with that.
A huge chunk of the cavern crashed down right next to my head. I closed my eyes and prepared to say good-bye—and then the floor fell out beneath me and I tumbled into the arms of the handsomest man I’d ever seen, just like that.
That was how I met my current fiancé, the Nome King (so romantic, don’t you think! I couldn’t have staged it better myself) although of course I had no idea at that exact moment who he was or how on earth he’d gotten there—in the nick of time, too—or that shortly I’d be planning our wedding. Or that I’d also be working on thwarting an extremely diabolical plot against poor little moi.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to my rescue.
He gently laid me on a silver sleigh pulled by some of his soldiers. They were all clad in identical black uniforms, and discs of light were embedded in their foreheads. This light lit our way down the tunnel. I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been born that way, or if the Nome King had someone like Scare come up with clever inventions. Instead of running on snow, the sleigh moved across stone, just as smoothly. It was piled high with red velvet blankets and pillows.
My rescuer got into the sleigh next to me and poured some water out of a silver flask onto a soft cloth, dabbing the dust and blood from my face with a featherlight touch. There must have been something special in that water because I felt almost instantly better. His servants took off running, and good thing they did—behind us, the tunnel began to collapse. But luckily his soldiers were as fast as they were strong, and soon we left the destruction behind.
Once we were clear of the palace and farther into the dark tunnel, I looked down and inspected myself. It was worse than I thought—my dress was ruined. I felt every slash in the gingham like a wound to my heart. I also had bruises and cuts. I called on my magic to repair the damage but felt only a faint flicker in response. I must still be too weak from the collapse of the palace. I would have to try again later.
I turned my attention to my rescuer. “Who are you?” I asked. Even then I had my suspicions about the identity of my knight in shining bald armor who had whisked me out of danger.
“I am the King of Ev,” he told me solemnly. “I had a premonition you might be in danger, dearest Dorothy. I’ve been digging under the Deadly Desert for years”—I kept mum, but between you and me, he was not supposed to be doing that—“trying to reach Oz on a mission of peace.”
I raised one eyebrow. Even in my weakened state, I knew the Nome King did not exactly have a reputation as the world’s greatest pacifist. But it was like he could read the thought before it even finished crossing my mind.
“I know in the past I haven’t always been a perfect ruler,” he said quickly. “But things are desperate in Ev, Dorothy, and only Oz can help us. For years, my people have been starving. The earth is barren. The citizens are poor and without hope.”
Not my problem, I thought.
“You??
?re poor?” I blurted.
“My land is poor in some ways, but rich in others,” he replied cryptically.
I cocked my head to the side. I was not a fan of riddles, even though every witch and even the Wizard himself (when he was alive) spouted them on a regular basis, but he had just saved my life, so I kept listening.
He reached into his pocket and then held out his closed fist. When he opened it, it was filled with rubies. Red, like my shoes. I reached for them, but he closed his hand with a chuckle.
He hung his head humbly. “I’ve made mistakes, Dorothy, and I regret them every day. But I’m reaching out now to try and make amends for the sake of my people.”
Who among us hasn’t done things she might regret at some point in her life? You might find this hard to believe, but even I wonder sometimes if I always did the best thing for Oz. I, for one, should not have been so kind. I should have killed Ozma and Amy Gumm when I had the chance. If I had just been less merciful, then Tin, Scare, and the Lion might still be alive. My beautiful palace would not have landed on top of me.
It’s a natural consequence of being a ruler, of course—you’re just responsible for so much. It’s impossible to be everything that everyone expects of you. And if sometimes you overreact because of stress or something like that, you know the whole world is watching and judging, even though you’re only trying your best.
Where I come from, in Kansas, trying your best is all you can do. But in Oz people expected me to be perfect. I immediately understood what the Nome King was saying. He needed someone who’d been there. Who knew how he felt. Only another ruler could sympathize with what he was going through.
“I understand exactly what you mean, Nome King,” I said, covering his hand with my own. His skin was cool and smooth as stone.
I don’t think I’m imagining things when I say I felt a spark at that very first touch. In all my life I’d never met a man who was my equal. Of course, Tin had been in love with me for ages, but that was just creepy.