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“Why would you rather feed yourself to a dragon than go see your brother?”

The Tinman rests the empty glass on the arm of the chair. He leans his head back and closes his eyes. “Gabriel has always been everyone’s favorite. He harms none. He’s charming and funny and kind.” His eyes pop open and he sits forward, focusing on me. “But the Wizard of Oz was the golden boy. The one with so much power, you could taste it. Sometimes, when I think back to our childhood, I see our mother looking at the Wizard and she’s not looking at him with the love and reverence one looks at a child with. But greed and pride and—”

He cuts himself off and sucks back the last drop of alcohol.

“And what?” I coax, because I’m hungry for every bit of knowledge about the Wizard of Oz, even if I hate him, even if I want him dead.

The Tinman is looking beyond me, at some distant memory. “And fear.”

I shiver.

“And what does your mother think now? Now that her son rules over Oz?”

“You really aren’t from around here, are you?”

“I thought that was obvious.”

He pushes off the chair and goes to the liquor cabinet, refilling his glass. “Our mother is a Cardinal Witch.”

“Wait … really?” I press at my forehead as a new ache blooms just above my eyes. This could be a late-night drama on TV. “Which Cardinal Witch?”

I’ve met three out of the four and killed two.

Did I accidentally kill his mother?

The fact no one mentioned a Cardinal Witch was the mother to the Tinman and the Wizard seems like a huge oversight. Or maybe that’s exactly how they all prefer it, for their own reasons.

His back to me, the Tinman upends the glass, slinging the full shot down his throat. When he straightens, he breathes out like the second one burned all the way down. “She’s the Witch of the South.”

“Glinda the Good?” I haven’t met her yet, but I’ve heard mention of her.

He snorts and fills his glass again, knocks it back. I’m mildly impressed he isn’t slurring and stumbling at this point. Mildly. “Is this your plan? Sit here and get drunk?”

He turns just slightly so that I can see the sharp outline of his nose, the tension in his jaw. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah, we go after him.”

The stillness in his shoulders is a clue to what he’s thinking, but I’m not sure what that clue is. He doesn’t seem surprised by this notion of going after the Wizard. Not put off either, though he quickly recovers and hides his initial reaction behind a short burst of laughter.

“Now I believe you,” he says. “You’re not from around here. Go after the Wizard? Okay.”

I get up and cross the room to him and snatch the bottle away. “He stabbed me.”

The line of his dark brow sinks over his eyes. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“And then he took the mask, something that did not belong to him.”

“He has a habit of doing that.”

“He used me.”

“Again, he has a habit of doing that.”

“Aren’t you angry?”

“How can I be? I don’t have a heart.” He reaches for the bottle, but his movements are slow and sloppy from the liquor and I easily dodge away.

“What about Gabriel?” I ask.