And yet…
A discordant pressure forms in my chest in the place where my heart used to be. Without it, killing is easy, love hard, but love can exist in the mind as much as the heart and sometimes my mind gets in the way.
I can remember a time when we were brothers, when no one could tear us apart.
But he’s proven over and over again that he will always choose himself. And with Gabriel forsaking our mother, no longer the favorite, our other brother has taken the reins.
I don’t have to guess whose side she’s on.
“Do you think the witch will kill Dorothy?” Cleo asks.
I come to an abrupt stop. Cleo slams into me.
“You are overly concerned with people not dying. It’s irritating.”
“You’re irritating,” she grumbles.
I trudge forward. “I don’t know why she’d kill her when it’d be easier for me to do it.”
“Have you stopped to ask yourself why she wants Dorothy so badly?”
My pace slows. “Why do you think she wants her?”
“I asked you first.”
I sigh. “A girl doesn’t fall from the sky often.”
“No, one doesn’t.”
“Especially not a girl who can kill a Cardinal Witch.”
“Yes.”
“But if the West was concerned about the girl’s ability to kill witches, why risk her own life?”
“A working theory is she wants the girl to kill the other Cardinal Witches so only she remains.”
I stop again, but Cleo catches it this time and comes to a stop beside me.
“What is it?” she asks.
If the West really wanted the other witches dead, that would include the South. Fucking Glinda.
“And if she does?” I ask Cleo. “Do we care?”
“You’re truly asking me for my opinion?”
“Yes.”
She thinks for a second. I overheard the innkeeper telling Cleo not to doubt what she knows. I haven’t looked very hard at who she is, what she might be. But a part of me has wondered if there is more to this East Ender than meets the eye.
I’m realizing I might trust her intuition more than I’m willing to admit.
“My opinion…” Cleo starts, her gaze unfocused and faraway. “I think the Cardinal Witches have had lots of time to right the wrongs of the royal family and the war that destroyed so much of Oz. And they haven’t. They’ve only made things worse. They’ve exploited the citizens of Oz at every turn. So if they aren’t going to fix Oz and protect its people, then they need to step aside and let someone else do it.”
The conviction in her voice makes the hair on the back of my neck stand.
“Perhaps we are more alike than we first realized,” I tell her.
