“Houses, no, but…” He narrows his eyes and glances down the Yellow Brick Road, the way I was headed. “There might be a city that way. Or maybe I’m wrong. I can’t be sure. I just seem to remember one being there.”
“Your guess is better than mine and I’m willing to hold out hope you’re right. I could use a bed and you could really use a doctor.” Without thinking, I reach over to push aside another lock of his hair to get a better look at the cut on his forehead. “That one might need stitches.”
“You have a pretty nasty gash too.” He gestures to my forehead.
I reach for it, then remember. “Right. But I don’t think I have a concussion. You might.”
He tilts his head. The lock of hair goes rogue again. “You know a lot about wounds, Kansas?”
I step back and meet his eyes. He has no memories and yet his gaze somehow pierces through me, penetrating. Like he knows everything all at once.
“Dorothy.”
“Of course.” He tests the wound in question with a brush of his fingertips and pulls back with a sharp hiss. “You may be right. A doctor might be needed.”
“Of course I am.”
His tongue darts out, swiping at his bottom lip, leaving a wet trail that glistens. “Stubborn and confident.”
I blink and look away from his mouth, which is now smilingat me. He has a dazzling smile. A smile that makes my belly dip. “You’re teasing me.”
“No. Well…yes.”
I huff out a laugh. “Come on. We’ll walk together. Toto?”
Toto gives the man a long, lingering stare, and then trots off ahead of us.
“He’ll come around eventually,” I tell Rook.
“I’m not worried at all,” he says, and his smile widens.
FIFTEEN
Tinman
Faos’s shadow follows me overhead, making sure I stay the course. The Yellow Brick Road doesn’t stretch this far northwest, so I’m forced to keep to the well-trodden dirt track that stretches from the Crossroads to the mountain villages inhabited mostly by miners and outlaws.
The witch’s castle sits at the foothills of the mountains where the air is warmer, the trees a little greener. It’s been snowing in the mountains for months and the only things that grow there are the dense shrubs that find purchase between rock crevices.
When I reach the castle, Faos leaves me for the roost in back, the beating of his wings disappearing with his soaring shadow overhead. I consider turning around and leaving, but this potential deal has piqued my interest. I had just given up on the prospect of winning my brother’s freedom.
The dirt road from the mountains meets up with the Yellow Brick Road from the Crossroads and when I step onto it, the bricks glimmer gold.
They are a poor substitute for the river that used to run swollen with magic, but what they lack in power, they make up for in flash. It screamsegotistical wizardin every fucking brick.
“Tin Woodman,” another winged monkey calls out fromthe gloom. He’s standing at the front gate wearing the guard’s uniform of leather vambraces and matching breastplate stamped with aWright in the center. His gaze pauses on the metal flash of my arm before cutting back to my face. “You made it.”
“Did I have a choice, Mantos?”
He shoves a key into the lock and gives it a turn. A thunderous clank sounds on the other side as a dozen cogs and latches open up.
The gate finally swings in and I stalk forward.
“Farewell,” he says behind me, not bothering to hide a snicker.
There are more guards at the next entrance—an arched metal gate with spikes lining its bottom edge. It’s open already, permitting me inside.
I’ve been here countless times before and nothing ever changes, and yet I look for clues as if a change in the atmosphere might give me something to exploit against the witch.
