“Thanks,” I said. “Melindra had it coming. She’s too used to winning. She let her guard down.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But you beat her fair and square. You’ve gotten so much better. It’s not just the magic. It’s the rest of it. I don’t even think you know you’re doing it. The way you move; the way you think on your feet. You’ve gotten so good so fast. You’re a natural, you know.”
“I wonder what happened,” I said.
He gave me a funny look. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was never like this before. Back home. Where does it come from?”
“Amy,” he said. “It comes from you.”
I couldn’t help thinking back on what Melindra had said after I’d beaten her. She had just been trying to provoke me, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. In some ways, I wondered if she was the only one that I could trust around here. At least she was for real with me.
Everyone in this place had an ulterior motive. It wasn’t even all that ulterior. Everything anyone did, everything they said to me, was all designed to push me in one way or another, was all meant to force me into becoming the person they thought I was. To become the weapon they needed. Nox was no exception. It would be stupid to think he was.
And yet, every now and then, it was like he was trying to tell me something that had nothing to do with Dorothy, or with the cause.
“What do you think you would be like?” I asked. “You know, if it weren’t for Dorothy. If you’d had the life you were supposed to?”
He looked at me in surprise, like it was something he had never even considered. “I . . .” He paused. “I don’t know. That’s the funny thing, isn’t it? As much as I hate her—as much as I wish Oz was how it was supposed to be, that we could all just be happy—I would be a totally different person, then. I can’t even imagine who I would be. Maybe someone better, I don’t know. Maybe someone worse. I like who I am.” He rolled his eyes and laughed ruefully to himself. “Maybe I owe her.”
“Let’s not get carried away here,” I said. But I knew what he meant. It was like me and my mom. Yeah, she’d been pretty crappy at the whole parenting game, but what if she hadn’t been? Who was to say I wouldn’t have turned out like Madison Pendleton?
“My whole life has been about fighting her, you know?” Nox was saying now. “Who will I be when she’s gone?”
“Do you think it will ever really happen?”
He tilted his head, pushing his fingers through his wild mane of hair, looking both vulnerable and certain of something. “I know it will,” he said. “I wasn’t sure at first, but now I know.”
“How?”
“I don’t know who brought you here or how they did it. But I know there was a reason for it. You’re here to help us. And I know you can do it.”
Suddenly I was aware of how close we were standing—so close I could smell his familiar sandalwood scent. I felt a pull toward him. One I didn’t just attribute to magic.
“And then what? Then who will we be?”
He leaned in toward me the tiniest bit.
“Then everything changes,” he said quietly. “Then I’m different. You’ll be different, too. You’re different already. I knew it from the beginning, but . . .”
I leaned toward him now, too, and, as if I were channeling Gert, anticipated something I really wanted. Wondered if I actually could make it happen. Without any magic at all.
Suddenly his face changed and he looked away. “You have to promise to be careful tomorrow,” he said. “I didn’t want to bring you, but Mombi wouldn’t listen. The Lion’s no joke. You have to promise me you won’t do anything stupid. I—we need you too much. You’re too valuable.”
For a second, I’d thought he’d been saying something different. But now his jaw was set, and I remembered again.
“I know the deal,” I said. “I know why I’m important to you.” I was testing him now. I wanted him to correct me.
He stared at me for what felt like the longest time. But he didn’t say anything else.
I turned around.
“Dorothy must die. I get it. But in the meantime, what are you living for?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. “I have to go,” he said. I was already walking away. “There’s planning to do. You should try and get some sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A screeching sound woke me in the middle of the night. When I opened my eyes, still groggy, I saw it. A bat.
It was zigzagging around my room, wings flapping, howling with a voice that was ten times bigger than its body.
I knew what it meant. It was a signal. It wanted me to follow it.
When I got to the war room a few minutes later, everyone else was already there, dressed for battle and clustered around Glamora’s scrying pool. Melindra and Annabel had grim looks on their faces. In other words, some things were the same as ever.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The Lion’s moving faster than we thought,” Gert said. “It’s time to go.”
Glamora pointed to the pool, where the shadowy image of an enormous lion breaking through the door of a small thatched house appeared. It was too dark to really make him out, but he didn’t look so cowardly to me. He looked mean—and hungry.
Behind him, I could see other silhouettes. The bumpy outlines of some kind of reptile, and a furry blur that looked like it might be some kind of enormous rodent.
“The Lion spent so long afraid of every creature in the forest. Now he commands them,” Nox whispered.
“What are those things?”
“You name it. If it has claws and teeth and it drools, it probably answers to the Lion.” I felt myself shiver as my imagination filled in the blanks.
“What are they doing?” I asked quietly, fighting back the irrational fear that he could hear me.
“What they do best,” Glamora replied. “Going door-to-door. Some of the villagers he’ll capture to bring back to Dorothy; the rest of them he’ll kill. For fun. After he eats, of course.” She trailed her fingers through the water, and the image disappeared in a swirl of red. “It’s too late for this village—it’s already lost. But he’ll be on to the next one soon, and if we act fast we can stop him before he gets there.”
“Not to mention get to us,” Nox said.
“Exactly,” Mombi interjected. “He’s less than a hundred miles from us. If he gets any closer, we run the risk that his senses will be able to see past the magical barriers that keep us hidden here.” She looked at me. “I hope what I saw yesterday wasn’t a fluke, Amy. This isn’t a test anymore.”
“Mombi,” Nox said, cutting in. “Please. Think about it. Amy should stay behind. We can’t risk her on something like this. It’s too dangerous.”
Mombi dismissed him with a wave of her gnarled hand. “We’ve already been through this, Nox. I wouldn’t expect you, of all people, to let your feelings get in the way of what must be done. We need all the strength we can muster tonight.”
“If we can’t count on Amy now, when all the rest of us will be there, she won’t be much good alone against Dorothy anyway,” Melindra added, shooting a sidelong glance in my direction.
I was annoyed. They were talking about me like I wasn’t even there. And why was Nox trying to prevent me from going? Didn’t he think I’d improved? “I’m going,” I said coolly, all heads turning in my direction. “Melindra’s right. And I’m a member of the Order now. I’m not just going to hide out here while everyone else fights.”
Nox’s forehead creased in frustration, but he let it drop. It was settled.
Mombi, Gert, and Glamora left the war room to make the final preparations. I was about to leave when Nox pulled me aside. “Here,” he said, pushing something hard into my hand.