“Don’t get me wrong, Glamora’s magic is effective. But it’s almost a shame to see it change. I haven’t seen one with so much written there—every thought right there on the surface. It’s a rare thing in a place like this.” For the first time I didn’t think that he was trying to hurt me. Maybe he spoke only one language. The truth, and nothing but. It had stung like hell, but it made what he was saying now sound all the more real. In a place like this, that little bit of truth might be a compass in an upside-down world.
“But I suppose Glamora’s thinking ahead. If you’re going to fight Dorothy, you need to build a wall instead of a window.”
“Is that what you did?”
He shrugged noncommittally.
“I don’t think mine was ever a window.” His chin jutted up the tiniest bit further into the air, like he was rising above something.
I wanted to know what. But he was already walking away.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day I woke to see that Glamora’s makeoever had stuck. Pink cheeks, perfect hair. But the change in my appearance didn’t help me with my lessons.
In the morning I saw Nox for training, which resulted in more bruises for me to wash off in the spring. With Gert, I still wasn’t able to produce any magic. Finally, almost out of sympathy for me, she cast a listening spell with the snap of her fingers and we listened to Glamora singing in her room. Later, I found some small success with Glamora. I poured tea without spilling a drop.
After dinner I found a trunk in my room filled with dresses. A note in Glamora’s purple cursive said Wear one.
Was it a reward? Was it possible that in all my classes, I was doing best at the etiquette? If Mom could see me now . . .
I sifted through the gowns and pulled out a pretty pale gray one that somehow complemented my hair. It was strapless silk and floor-length. Although I wasn’t much of a fan of dresses, this one seemed to know exactly where to hug and exactly where to fall. I didn’t know if magic could be woven into fabric or not, but it was perfect.
A few seconds later, a bat wearing a purple ribbon flew in, landing on my bed.
It wore a note around its neck, written in the same purple script: Follow me.
I followed the bat deeper into the labyrinth of the mountains into a cave I hadn’t been in before. It was totally Glamora, grand, like old movie Grand-with-a-capital-G. A real crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and a bank of what I could only guess were windows along one wall overlooked a stunningly realistic panorama of the Emerald City. But the real spectacle was beneath my feet. The floor was made of glass, and underneath it was rushing water. It must be the water that fed the spring. The effect was like standing on top of a river. It made me dizzy—for a second I almost lost my balance.
“It’s not nearly the same as my ballroom back home, but it will have to do. . . .” I spun around at the sound of Glamora’s voice to find her in the corner, watching me.
Just then, Nox appeared in the doorway of the cave.
“You didn’t wear the suit?” Glamora accused sweetly.
Nox made a face and shook his head, as if whatever she’d left for him was too awful for him to even consider.
Glamora waved her arms and music filled the air. It was somewhere between jazz and pop with a soulful pretty voice that wrapped and unwrapped itself around the beat. It was a love song. If I didn’t know better I would think that Glamora was trying to play at matchmaking. . . .
“Very well, but a gentleman never keeps a lady waiting,” Glamora insisted.
I stifled a laugh, not sure which was funnier: the idea of me being a lady or him being a gentleman.
But the laugh didn’t escape because Nox was striding toward me, rearrranging his face and his swagger to make it seem like this was his idea entirely.
He gave a little bow. His pointy hair didn’t even move when he bent over. I curtsied, determined not to give in too easily to what must be another one of Glamora’s etiquette lessons.
Nox took my hand and pulled me closer, putting a sure hand on the small of my back, steadying me. We began to dance. I breathed him in against my will. He smelled like the healing spring back in the caves, fresh and alive and full of magic.
Glamora called orders at us after every rotation we made around the room.
“Posture!”
“I don’t know how they dance where you’re from, but here in Oz no one leads.”
“You are equal partners in the dance. In the circle. In life.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that one.
“Are you ever serious?” Nox finally demanded, but even he was starting to break under Glamora’s ridiculous instruction.
“Are you ever not?”
The dance wasn’t quite a waltz—something that I’d never done but had seen in enough old movies on TV. It was more of an elaborate pentagram that crisscrossed the room over and over.
Another couple appeared beside us—a pretty woman with caramel skin and green hair, and a handsome man beside her in a top hat. I opened my mouth to ask who they were.
“Illusions,” whispered Nox as a Munchkin appeared behind him.
“Look at your partner!” Glamora barked.
In seconds the ballroom had filled with fake couples, swirling around us.
It made sense that Nox could do this. He was the most coordinated, most physical being I’d ever met. But still, with every step we took in unison, I grew more aware of him. Even if he was annoying, and arrogant, and too serious all the time, I had to admit it: he was hot.
I didn’t look up. I didn’t want him to see anything other than indifference in my eyes.
Prom was coming up in a couple of months back at school. There were already posters in the halls with a really cheesy silhouette of a couple lit from behind by the moon. The theme was “A Night to Remember.” I was never going to go to prom anyway. And it’s not like anyone would be dancing even remotely like we were now. But I suddenly realized that this might be as close as I would come to “A Night to Remember.” Dancing with a witch boy who didn’t want me here.
As we danced, I dared to steal glances at his face. In this moment, Nox didn’t look like he didn’t want me here. Maybe it was years of Glamora instruction, and he was simply good at being a gentleman. Maybe it was the tapping of her foot to the music against the floor that was almost hypnotic. But he didn’t look completely tortured.
“Remember,” Glamora said, her voice floating across the dance floor. “This isn’t a battle. Unless it is—in which case you should still keep your eyes on one another, to make sure that no one makes a move that isn’t wanted.” Glamora laughed, like it was an inside joke with herself.
Nox’s face shifted suddenly, like he was remembering something.
“You think that you’re too good for us,” Nox said, the brightness of his voice not matching up with his words.
“Excuse me?” No one ever thought I was too good for anything. I grew up in a freaking trailer.
“Gert says you’re holding back. You’re afraid to be like us.”
“That’s not true. I’m afraid to be like Dorothy. Not the rest of you.”
“You’re already like us, you know. You wished for this. You wished to be as far away from your mom as you could get and your wish came true.”
“How do you know that? And anyway, that doesn’t make me Wicked. Or formerly Wicked either,” I argued. I tried to drop his hand but he wouldn’t let me go.
“You’re afraid to do anything but wish for things to happen to you. You wish you could go show up on your dad’s doorstep, meet his new wife and new kid—you wish you could say all the things you want to say to him. You wish you could have left your mom on your own. You’ve wanted to run away for almost as long as you can remember. But it took a tornado to do it. You couldn’t even make that happen on your own.”