“How about this?” Nox asked, not looking away from me. The purple-pink light from the setting sun reflected in his gray eyes, making them look practically neon. “How about you and I just leave. Let them have their war. We’ll just find a place to hide, just the two of us, and then, when it’s all over, we’ll climb out from the wreckage, and start the whole thing all over again. We’ll rebuild it all. Together.”
He reached forward and took my hand, and my heart nearly skipped a beat. It sounded so beautiful. Just him and me. On our own. No more war, no more suffering. No more running. It was like a beautiful dream—except that it was impossible, no matter how much some part of me wished it could come true. I couldn’t sacrifice the people I loved just to be with the boy I wanted. And I knew Nox well enough by now to know he’d never be able to do it either. It would tear him apart. And then we’d just be two bitter, brokenhearted people in a dead and ruined world. I knew it. And so did he.
“You don’t believe that,” I said.
“What if I do?”
“You don’t. That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard you say. It’s not you.”
“Maybe I’m an asshole.”
“You might be an asshole, but you’re not a selfish asshole.”
“How do you know that, Amy?”
“Because I couldn’t possibly love a selfish person,” I said.
His eyes widened in shock. “Amy,” he said hoarsely, “I . . .” But he didn’t finish. He was staring over my shoulder, at the view below the Tin Woodman’s balcony.
“You what?” I said softly, not sure if I had said too much.
That was when I realized it wasn’t what I had said that had surprised him. It wasn’t even me he was looking at anymore. He was staring over my shoulder out onto the horizon.
“I think we’re in trouble,” he said. I whirled around.
In the plain below the palace, an army was waiting for us. But not just any army. They were clones. A sea of creepy clones with cornflower-blue eyes and clear, ageless skin. Tendrils of golden hair spilled from their helmets. They were all virtually identical, and behind those flat blue eyes there was a terrifying blankness. And there was no mistaking the glittering pink figure who floated at its head.
Or the girl and the boy in chains at her side.
TWENTY
“Go get the Wicked,” Nox hissed, tugging me down so that Glinda couldn’t see us over the railing of the balcony. “Now.” He didn’t have to tell me twice. I pelted down the stairs until I crashed directly into—
“Melindra!” I gasped. She looked the same as she had when I’d last seen her, tall, fierce, and ready for battle. The blond hair on the human half of her head was shorn close to the skull, and the tin half of her body was dented and battered. Behind her stood Annabel, the red-haired unicorn girl with the purple scar on her forehead who’d trained with me, too. There were more people in the room I didn’t recognize, all of them with the same tough, wary warrior’s stance. Glamora was rubbing Gert’s back, and Gert looked exhausted. She must have used her power to summon the Wicked one at a time.
“Amy, what is it?” Gert asked when I crashed into the room.
“It’s happening!” I gasped. “Upstairs, now!” I turned around and ran back to Nox, not waiting to see if they were following me.
Glinda had come prepared for battle: instead of her usual ruffled dresses, she was dressed in a tight pink catsuit that looked like leather studded with little scales. Her golden hair was drawn back in a severe bun, and she carried a huge pink staff in one slender hand.
“Oh dear,” Gert said as she gazed down at Glinda and her legions. They wore matching silver armor, polished to a blinding glow that made me think uncomfortably of the Tin Woodman, and their silver-tipped spears glittered like diamonds.
“When did she get an army?” I asked.
“She’s always had an army,” Mombi said. “She just doesn’t use it very often.”
“What do you mean, very often?”
“General Jinjur invaded the Emerald City and deposed the Scarecrow before Dorothy returned to Oz,” Melindra said. “Didn’t they teach you this?”
“I skipped the history lesson on the way to the battle.”
Melindra rolled her eyes. Whatever problem she had with me, she hadn’t gotten over it. Great.
“Glinda summoned her army then and drove Jinjur out of the palace,” Mombi filled in. “Together, Glinda and the Scarecrow put Ozma on the throne.”
“Wait, I thought Ozma was the one who banished Glinda,” I said, confused.
Gert nodded. “She was. Glinda thought she’d be able to control Ozma—to rule Oz through her. But Ozma has—had—a will of her own. Glinda tried to oust her. Ozma banished her. It wasn’t until Dorothy returned to Oz that Glinda was freed.”
“Dorothy’s not with her,” Gert said, looking down at the battlefield, where Glinda’s troops were moving into formation.
“If she’s moving against us without Dorothy, that’s a big deal,” Melindra said. “She’s never openly gone against Dorothy’s wishes before. She couldn’t be more clear about trying to take power for herself now if she posted it on a banner.”
“If she is working with the Nome King somehow, he could have forced her hand,” Mombi said. “Either way, I don’t like it. Facing a united Dorothy and Glinda is bad enough—but with both of them acting on their own . . .”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking those pretty little girls won’t tear you to pieces,” Melindra said. “Trains ’em herself, Glinda does, and you can imagine the kinds of exercises she thinks up.” We all shuddered collectively. “They’ll gut you soon as look at you. Some of the best fighters in Oz.”
“They used to be some of the only fighters in Oz,” Gert said.
“Well, those days are long gone,” Mombi said shortly, “and they’ll shoot us off the balcony if we stand here like fools for much longer. Nothing to do but go inside and prepare for battle. Luckily the walls are three feet thick. The palace will be easy enough to defend, as long as we stay inside.”
“We haven’t prepared for this,” Melindra said, and the tough girl sounded almost plaintive.
“You’ve trained for battle,” Nox said curtly. “That means you’ve trained for this.” Melindra flashed him a hurt look and I tried not to gloat.
Glinda’s army had finished moving into tight formations and the Sorceress hovered above them at the center of it all. Flanking her, Pete and Ozma sagged in their chains. The enchanted princess was staring around her with that all-too-familiar vacant air. Pete looked miserable and sullen. You deserve it, I thought in disgust, remembering the way he’d betrayed me and Nox to Glinda in Polychrome’s palace. Pete had escaped with Glinda—if escape was the right word for what she’d done to him.
I didn’t care if he was suffering now. I remembered Polychrome’s crumpled body, Rainbow Falls burning. Polychrome’s unicorn-cat Heathcliff lying broken and bloody. Pete could go to hell for all I cared. But Ozma was different.
Ozma was an innocent in all of this. But it was more than that, too. She was also the rightful ruler of Oz. There was every chance that she was the only one with the power to change anything. If only we could unlock it.
“We have to rescue her,” Nox said, echoing my thoughts.
“There’s got to be a way,” I agreed, and was gratified to see the flash of approval in his eyes. Maybe I was faking it until I made it, but Nox was right. Acting confident did give me a renewed sense of strength. How could what we faced possibly be worse than what we’d already been through?
Below us, a trumpet sounded, and Glinda rose even higher in the air to hover over her army.