Dorothy Must Die

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Wizard took a step toward me and tipped his hat, revealing a bald, shiny head with a horseshoe of curly gray hair. He smiled at me with a mischievous twinkle in his eye and gave a little bow.

I’d expected to come face-to-face with one of Dorothy’s underlings or maybe even Her Awfulness in the flesh. With some effort, I calmed the fight-or-flight reflex, especially since flight had already failed. The Wizard wasn’t one of Dorothy’s allies, but that didn’t make him one of my friends.

“Oh, excuse me, sir,” I managed to get out, trying to play it cool. “I was just dusting.”

The Wizard looked pointedly at my empty hands.

“Yes, well,” he replied thoughtfully, “spick-and-span as this whole place appears, I suppose one would need an invisible maid for the invisible dust.”

I let out a nervous laugh that was only half feigned.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” I said, and tried to walk around him. The Wizard took a step backward, getting in my way. He smiled at me again and tipped his chin, almost like we’d just accomplished some kind of fancy dance step. It took some menace out of the moment. Even so, I took a second to size the old man up.

The Wizard looked like a handsome, aging movie star. His clothes were perfectly tailored, his suit a stiff brocade like it was cut from a tapestry. Soft silk ruffles peeked out from his collar and cuff links with little silver Ws punctuated his wrists. He touched the brim of his hat as I appraised him. Compared to the rest of his outfit, the black hat with its black band looked simple and worn, almost like it came from another time.

“It must have been a trick of the light,” the Wizard said impishly, waving at the solarium’s dozens of twinkling windows. “A sleight of body, perhaps.”

I knew he was screwing with me but I stared at him with the inoffensive blandness I’d picked up from the rest of the maids.

“If that’s all, sir, I have more chores to be done,” I said with an excess of politeness.

The Wizard fixed me with a mysterious, catlike smirk. “Ah. That’s what we like around the palace. Initiative. Gumption. Spunk. It seems to me that I used to know someone else like that, too.”

My mind immediately went to the most obvious person: he was talking about Dorothy.

“Of course, I’m speaking about myself,” he said. He gave me a sly wink, like he knew it wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say. “What’s your name, child?”

“Astrid,” I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. This guy was crafty, I didn’t want to give anything else away.

Of course, I knew what everyone knew about the Wizard—that he’d come to Oz in a balloon, that he’d set himself up as its ruler in Ozma’s absence, and that he wasn’t a real wizard at all, just a guy with a lot of fancy tricks. And, of course, there was the fact that he had supposedly left Oz just around the same time Dorothy had, to go back to his own world. My world.

Clearly, some parts of the story weren’t quite accurate—for starters, he was still here in Oz. But for some reason, in all my lessons with the Order, Glamora and Gert and the rest had never brought up the Wizard at all. Had he ever really left in the first place? Did they know he was here? I wondered how it all connected.

The Wizard had turned away from me and was examining the painting. He leaned in close, like he was super-interested in the brushwork, and then stepped back and ran his finger along the edge of the gilded gold frame.

“I see you missed a spot, Astrid,” he said, holding up his index finger, which was perfectly clean. “You’ll have to be careful about that next time. You’re lucky it was me who noticed. Others around here get quite upset when things are where they don’t belong.”

“It won’t happen again, sir,” I said. I inched toward the door, but part of me wanted to stay. It seemed like the Wizard was trying to warn me, which meant maybe I could trust him. Or at least get some valuable information out of him, making this whole excursion to the solarium not a total screwup.

“How long have you been working in the palace, Astrid?” he asked, seeing me linger.

I hesitated. “Several years now,” I said finally, figuring it was a vague enough answer that it was probably safe.

“And what do you think of your job? Of the princess?”

“It’s wonderful, sir,” I said. “I’m so lucky to be able to work for someone as wise and beautiful and generous as Dorothy.”

“Ah yes,” the Wizard replied, as if we were discussing the weather. “Dorothy certainly has ways of keeping her servants smiling. After all, the minute you start grumbling, you’ll be sent off for an official Attitude Adjustment from the Scarecrow.”

“I—” I wasn’t sure how to respond. The Wizard seemed like he was tempting me to be critical of Dorothy. I wanted to trust him. But he’d already caught me doing magic and I didn’t want to give him more ammunition if he wasn’t on my side. He almost seemed to be hinting to me that he was—but just because Glinda and Dorothy hated him didn’t mean he was a good guy.

“The Scarecrow is so brilliant,” I finally said. “Without him, we wouldn’t have so many of the advances in magical technology that make Oz the place it is now.”

The Wizard smiled sadly and fiddled with his boutonniere. “Of course,” he said. “Where would Oz be if not for the Scarecrow’s great experiments? Ravens with human ears; men with bicycle wheels instead of legs—it’s a glorious world we live in now, isn’t it? It almost reminds me of the one I came from.” At that he looked back up at me. It was almost like he was trying to gauge my reaction.

I didn’t let myself react. “Yes, sir,” was all I said.

“I hear,” the Wizard mused, “that the Scarecrow is working on his greatest experiment yet.”

I perked up. This was exactly the type of information that would be valuable to the Order. I had to be careful not to seem too interested, though.

“In his lab, sir?” I asked casually.

“Oh yes,” the Wizard replied. “Day and night in his secret laboratory. Not sleeping. Probably working his fingers to the . . . well, I’m not sure if the Scarecrow actually has bones. But you get the point.”

I nodded enthusiastically and tried not to choke on my own fake sincerity. “He sacrifices so much.”

The Wizard’s face lit up.

“Those who have sacrificed always have the most to lose,” he said, watching me closely. “Ever hear that expression, Astrid?”

I shook my head. “No, sir.”

“Ah. You will, my dear. You will.”

What the hell did that mean?

Before I could ask, the Wizard tipped his hat and strolled out.

My heart was pounding on my way back to my room. What was the Wizard trying to tell me? Did he have some clue as to who I was or what I was here to do? It was like trying to put a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle together without the picture on the box.

Ozma. The Wizard. The palace was full of cryptic oddities that I couldn’t quite get a handle on. Who could I trust?

It was almost like the universe wanted to provide me with an answer when I opened my door to find Pete sitting on my bed.