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Prologue

The Wizard knew he was different. He was different because he was the first.

Power was passed down from witch to witch, woman to woman.

It was not inherited by men.

And yet, he was powerful.

When he was five, he made his brother disappear for an entire day after they fought over a toy.

When he was seven, he made himself disappear when his mother went into a rage about gods.

And when he was nine, he caught the attention of the royal family.

For hundreds of years, Oz was ruled by the royals.

They were not as powerful as the gods, but they were better than the witches. Witches needed a source to burn to fuel their magic. But the royals needed nothing.

They were magic.

It was believed, for as long as anyone could remember, that the royal family was descended from the gods. That divine blood flowed through their veins.

And the Wizard, as far as anyone could tell, needed no source to burn.

His mother was a witch from a remote village in the south, his father unknown. He was not of royal blood.

By all accounts, he should not exist.

He was an anomaly. A miracle.

The royal family invited him to come live at the palace amongst them, to train with the best of the witches all of Oz had to offer.

His mother didn’t want him to go. There had already been several attempts on his life. He was called a prodigy and an abomination in equal measure. It was not unexpected that some people wanted him dead. But rumors had swirled that some of those people might have been the royals and the gods themselves, envious of his power. His mother was not immune to those rumors. And did he not know how much his mother had sacrificed for him? To keep him safe? Why would he want to put himself in harm’s way? She could teach him whatever he wanted to know.

The Wizard had always obeyed his mother, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to learn. His mother was powerful, but not powerful enough, though he would not tell her that to her face.

So he packed a bag and in the dead of night, he snapped his fingers and there he was …

The Emerald City.

The glittering, gleaming, beating heart of Oz.

The royal family welcomed him, this boy with immense power and so much potential it bristled in the air.

Back then, it was just the queen and her king, their first and only daughter still in the nursery, much too young for public appearances. The family was happy to install him at their side. He knew he could be charming and jovial, and he played it up, wanting to delight and captivate them.

The Wizard would not admit this to his mother, but as the months sped by, he came to think of the royals as his family. They included him in everything. From meals to parties to promenades down the Emerald Boulevard and events at the Emerald Square, where the people of the city waved and shouted for his attention.

Playing the part of an aristocrat came easily to him, but training, learning his magic, that was much harder.

Some days, mostly on stormy days, the magic roared inside of him. And at night, when no one was watching, he could do anything. He could conjure entire worlds and destroy and fly and disappear. He could travel from the East End to the West End with nothing more than a thought.

But in the daylight, when all eyes were on him, the magic was stifled. He did not like people watching him fail. Failure was fine so long as there were no witnesses.

If he fell in the dark, he could pick himself up. If he fell in the spotlight, he wanted to melt into the cobblestones.

And he did fail. Again and again. They tried everything from repetitive spellwork, to auditory mantras, to hand-carved wands to help him focus his magic.