He held out a piece of paper with a gold seal on it, and for the first time I got a look at his hands. A chill ran through my entire body.
He had fingers like knives and needles, each one of them twisted into a slightly different shape. Like dentist tools.
I had avoided cavities my entire life exactly because I’m not good with pain. My body tensed up, anticipating one of those sharp things pressing into my skin.
“Treason?” I squeaked.
At the Tin Woodman’s words, Ollie, who had been frozen at my side, suddenly came to his senses. He began to screech his ear-shaking monkey wail and he sprung into the air like he’d been shot from a slingshot. Hooking his tail onto the branch of the nearest apple tree, he used it to pull himself up into its leafy boughs.
It all happened in an instant. I got one last glimpse of his tail as he swung into the next tree and then disappeared into the orchard completely.
As he went, Bicycle-body reared on his hind wheel to chase after him but the Tin Woodman put up a calm hand. “Let him go,” he said. “The Lion knows the movements of all the beasts. He will take care of him. He won’t make it beyond the forest.”
Ollie had gotten away. He had abandoned us, if you wanted to be technical about it, but I didn’t blame him. For a second, I almost wanted to cheer. I hoped he made it far, far away.
I was happy about it, but Indigo and I didn’t have that option. And we were in big, big trouble.
She had been right all along. There were consequences in Oz. Supersized consequences that didn’t fit the crime. If Ollie had been tied to a post for “sass,” then what would our punishment be?
I wanted to tell her I was sorry. She had warned me—begged me, even—and I had ignored her. But was I sorry? Should I not have freed him? I didn’t think so. What else could I have done?
It had been right to free Ollie. But was that what we were really being punished for? Her frozen face broke, and she collapsed to her knees, sobbing.
“P-p-please,” she sputtered through her tears. “I was trying to help Dorothy. I was bringing the traitor to be interrogated! I swear! I just wanted to help! I can give you information!”
She was betraying me. She had to, of course, and I didn’t blame her. This was on me, and if her pleading helped her then at least one of us would get out of this.
I knew that, but still, it stung to listen to her selling me out.
“Is that so, little one?” the Tin Woodman asked coldly. “You were delivering the outlander to your princess?”
“Of course!” Indigo pleaded. “I love Dorothy more than words. Why would I ever betray her when she’s made me so happy?”
I had to help her. Since I wasn’t from Oz and didn’t know all of Dorothy’s rules, maybe they’d be more lenient on me. I stepped forward. “She’s right. She had nothing to do with any of this.”
Indigo glanced at me now. I think she seemed grateful, but it was hard to tell.
The Tin Woodman looked her up and down for a second and then nodded to the man with the plate over his mouth. The plate slid open to reveal a spigot-like device that telescoped outward in Indigo’s direction.
“What are you doing? I was the one who took the apple. I was the one who freed the monkey.” The words tumbled out wildly. Whatever the thing was that they were pointing at Indigo, it looked like it was going to hurt.
He grumbled to himself, as if he didn’t owe me any explanation. “Save your confession for Dorothy, outlander. Loyalty is very important in Oz. The Munchkin must be punished for her cravenness.”
“She just told you she’s been loyal to Dorothy.”
“Perhaps. But she was not loyal to you. Either way, she is guilty of the crime.”
“What are you talking about? You can’t have it both ways—either she’s guilty of being disloyal to Dorothy or she’s guilty of being disloyal to me.”
“Indeed.” The Tin Woodman’s metal face somehow managed to look smug. “Now. For her punishment.”
The gunlike nozzle extended from the Tin Soldier’s lips. It twisted and pivoted, adjusting itself as he put Indigo in his sights. She was heaving and shaking on her knees.
“Run,” I said again. “Run!” I cried, willing her to get up. She didn’t listen. She didn’t even open her eyes.
The Tin Soldier fired and the device made a popping sound.
A tiny sigh of desperate relief escaped my lips when I saw what came shooting out of his mouth: a stream of iridescent bubbles. That was it? I wanted to laugh as the innocent-looking bubbles floated toward Indigo, zipping forward in a happy little stream. They began to swarm her like bees on honey.
But instead of popping when they touched her, they clung to her clothes and skin. She swatted at them frantically but it was no use. They didn’t budge. My eyes widened in horror as the bubbles began to melt into her flesh.
I made a move forward to help her—to do anything—but before I could get to her, Sword-Arm’s blade snapped out at me. She pressed it tight against my jugular.
“I’m sorry!” I told Indigo. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at me then. “No. You were right. Please help us,” she said. “You’re from the Other Place. You’re like her. You can do something.”
A calm look came across her face—too calm. Like, good-bye calm. Then the bubbles covered her face, too.
As they merged with her body, her tattoos separated from her skin and slipped off her, the ink puddling in a shiny, mercurial mass. Indigo was melting.
She was barely recognizable now. She was just a big lump of sticky, pinkish flesh, her arms and legs only barely discernible as limbs, her features only little misshapen blots where her face should have been.
“Make it stop,” I begged, still crying. “Please. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know. She shouldn’t pay for what I did. Please.”
“I hate to burst your bubble,” the Tin Woodman said with a sly grin, “but ignorance is no excuse. You can tell the whole story to Dorothy. The princess is . . . curious about you.”
Pop!
All I could see of what had been Indigo was a red splatter of bone and blood where she had knelt just a few seconds ago. I felt myself gagging, but nothing came up. I leaned over, hands on my knees, trying to get a breath.
She had painstakingly written the history of the world on her body so that it would live on. And the Tin Woodman and his goons had just erased her with the push of a button.
“It’s very messy, but we find it’s a deterrent,” the Tin Woodman said.
This place was insane. He was insane. I thought they’d given him a heart—how had he become this?
“Now as for you,” I heard him saying. It sounded like he was talking to me from the end of a long tunnel. “The princess is very interested to meet the girl who dropped out of the sky.
“Take her,” he told his men. I didn’t resist as they grabbed me. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything.
Everything went black. I became a shadow, like them.
We were standing in the middle of the road and then we weren’t. The world blurred before me for a second in a swirl of colors. I blinked hard, trying to keep from getting dizzy, and when I opened my eyes again, I was standing on a glossy marble floor.
I looked up. The Tin Woodman and his metallic backup band were standing beside me. We must have traveled by magic.
The room we were in was the biggest I’d ever been in. It was bigger than my high school auditorium that doubled as a gym, and, where there should have been a ceiling, an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of rainbows formed a majestic dome, casting a shower of vivid colors down upon the pair of gold-and-emerald thrones that sat majestically on a raised dais.