“Oh, you know,” I replied shakily. “You’re, like, an icon where I come from.”
Suddenly she narrowed her eyes at me. “And where, exactly, is that?” she asked.
“Kansas,” I said. “The United States.”
Her face instantly darkened. “Kansas,” she said slowly. “You’re from Kansas.”
“You’ve heard of it?” I asked, a hint of unwise sarcasm creeping into my voice. I knew it was the wrong thing to say, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my greatest weakness: I never can.
“And how did you get here from Kansas, Miss Gumm?” she said sharply.
“Well . . .”
She arched an overplucked eyebrow and cocked her head, waiting for my answer. In my pocket, I felt Star wriggling, and I squeezed her tightly, hoping that she would get the message to calm down. I had a pretty good feeling the princess wouldn’t take kindly to the fact that I had brought a rodent into her royal court.
Star cooled it, thank goodness, but she had momentarily distracted me and now Dorothy was waiting for her answer. She cleared her throat testily. “What brought you here, Miss Gumm. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
I knew I should have made up a lie. But what was the point now? I had a feeling they knew more about me than they were letting on anyway. It was probably the only reason I was alive and Indigo wasn’t.
“A tornado,” I said, mustering a smile.
The hairs on the back of my neck were standing at attention. Inside the pocket of my hoodie, I felt Star quivering. I was pretty sure they didn’t know about her at least.
“Why you little . . . liar,” Dorothy spat. “How dare you!”
I opened my mouth to lie—an actual lie this time. To say that no, I hadn’t come from Kansas at all.
It was too late. Dorothy’s face was burning with aggrieved rage. “I am the only one. There can only be one.”
My gut twisted. I understood. We had the same story. It was like we were wearing the same dress to the prom. Only it wasn’t a party. Dorothy thought her landing here was fate—that it made her special. Another girl from Kansas meant that it was just a regular occurrence and that she wasn’t special at all. Or—worse—that I was here to take her place.
I did my best to scramble, trying not to trip over my words. “Your Highness, I’m just a regular girl from Kansas. I’m nothing like you. You’re a princess. Look at you. Me, I’m not interested in that. I just want to be myself—I’d never want anything that you have.”
I was only trying to placate her, but as I spoke the words I realized they were true. I didn’t want anything Dorothy had. I didn’t want to be anything like her.
Dorothy hooted in derision. “More lies! If you come from where I come from, all you do is want. And if you had even the smallest taste of what I have, you would never stop wanting.”
She tapped the tip of one of her shoes as if to illustrate her point. “There can only be one,” she repeated through gritted teeth.
Dorothy rose to her feet. Her face was pinched with barely suppressed fury. “Take her away,” she said.
The Scarecrow turned to her. “Your Highness,” he said in a calm, soothing voice. “Maybe we should let the Tin Woodman review the charges against her first?”
The Tin Woodman pulled out his stupid piece of paper and cleared his throat to read aloud. But Dorothy wasn’t having it.
“Take her away!” Her scream reverberated up through the room, ringing in my ears. Her face had turned a deep red, and her fists were clenched so tight at her sides that they were vibrating.
My legs buckled inward. I felt like I was watching the whole scene unfold from somewhere far away. From my new, distant vantage, I searched myself, looking for any shred of the strength and anger and stubbornness that had always served me so well. For any secret weapon buried deep within that could help me out of this.
I found nothing. I collapsed to my knees, shaking.
No one else in the room even flinched. “Amy Gumm of Kansas,” the Tin Woodman said calmly, “you will be tried for your crimes of treason one week from today. . . .”
For the first time, Ozma acted on her own accord, letting out a high, lilting giggle. Dorothy’s eyes were still drilling through me.
“If found guilty,” the Tin Woodman said, “you will be sentenced to a Fate Worse Than Death.”
Chapter Ten
My prison cell was a perfect cube, all white, without a speck of dirt anywhere. The walls were white limestone, freshly scrubbed, and the tiny bed in the corner was all white, too.
As soon as the Tin Woodman had slammed the cell door behind me after shoving me inside, the door had simply disappeared, like it had never existed. I pressed myself against the cool, smooth surface of the wall where it had just been, searching for a crevice, a seam, any sign at all that there was a way out—that there had ever been a way in. I didn’t find anything.
There was, however, a window in the room. It was no bigger than a foot wide, and it neatly framed a little swatch of the starry night sky. So Dorothy must have finally decided to let the sun set after all. When I stood on my tiptoes, the glittering green vista of the Emerald City was barely visible, poking up into the blackness.
To get to this dungeon, I’d been escorted down what had felt like hundreds of stairs. It seemed impossible that there could be a window all the way down here, deep in the bowels of the palace. But there it was.
It had to be magic. Was it the stairs that were just an illusion, or the window? And why was there a window in here anyway? It seemed unlikely that my captors would care whether or not I was comfortable.
Well, it was clean. And there was a view. That comprised the entirety of my prison’s luxuries. When I sat down on the bed in the corner, I found it hard as stone. That’s because there was no mattress to speak of: the bed felt like stone because it was stone.
I sat there trying to think of what I was going to do next while at the same time trying to suppress my mounting sense of panic. Meanwhile, Star was investigating, sniffing the walls, clawing at the floor, probably searching for an exit or maybe just something to eat. She wasn’t having any luck on either count. When she saw that I was awake, she abandoned her quest and jumped up onto the bed next to me.
I tried to keep my eyes open. I could sleep when I was dead, and if I didn’t want that particular sleep to come very soon, I had to find a way out.
But I was too exhausted. I didn’t even really know how long I’d been awake for. Before I knew it, I was out.
When I woke up, the sky outside my window was still dark. For how long? I wondered. Dorothy controlled the sun in the sky. According to Indigo, she basically controlled time itself around here. How was I ever going to escape power like that?
“Star,” I said, “we are completely and totally screwed.” On top of everything else, I was becoming one of those people who talked to their pets.
I’d barely been here a day, and I was already starting to feel insane.
In desperation, knowing it would do me no good, I stood and banged my fist against the wall until it was throbbing with pain. I tried to move the bed to the window, but it was rooted in place. When that didn’t work, I jumped up and tried to grip the edge of the window to hoist myself onto the ledge.
I just hung there limply. I had never been an athlete and, unfortunately, I was never going to become one. Even under pressure of death.
I screamed. I screamed until my throat hurt. I didn’t get so much as an echo in response. It was like the walls absorbed everything I could throw at them.