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“What about him?”

“You were willing to do whatever it took to free your little brother and now he’s gone—again—and you’re going to just give up?”

He reaches for the bottle. I dodge to the left. He huffs out a breath.

“Since we’ve established that you’re not—”

“—from around here,” I say at the same time he does.

The scowl deepens. “Let me save you some trouble. He’s the Wizard of Oz. He is the only man in this godforsaken land with magic running through his veins. He needs no source to burn. He is unkillable. Untouchable. Half the time, he’s impossible to pick out of a crowd, that’s how good he is at being anything other than himself when the mood suits him. He’s a monster in monster’s clothing but he will convince you that you’re the crazy one for thinking the monster was real in the first place.”

Butterflies take flight in my stomach and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

Silence stretches between us as Tin’s warning hangs in the air.

I can see the thread of truth in everything he’s said about his brother. Rook pretended to have no memory and then tagged along with me, the weak and innocent fool. He tricked me. And the moment it mattered, he betrayed me to get what he wanted.

Tin reaches for the bottle again, and this time I let him have it. He abandons the glass and instead drinks straight from the bottle.

“There’s a reason I’m here now. Don’t you think? A reason why the West had you retrieve me and bring me here. Which means there is a reason you and I are together right now.”

He swallows and drags his knuckles over his mouth, swiping away the wetness from the liquor.

“Or maybe all of it is chaos and there is no fucking reason.”

“If I made water, maybe I can make something else.”

I catch the bob of his Adam’s apple.

“Something that can defeat the Wizard of Oz.”

The bottle hangs at his side. He eyes me, brows furrowed, jaw tight. “Just a few minutes ago, you were trying to convince me you couldn’t make water.”

“Well, maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“That was quick.”

He’s not wrong. But I’m trying to convince him with every thin shred of worth I have. Because the truth is I don’t want to go after Rook alone.

Tin adds, “So what’s your plan then, huh? You think you can decide to embrace your magic, just like that, and defeat the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz?”

A ball of anxiety wedges itself into my throat. I’m distantly aware that I’m treading water that’s miles deep and dangerously dark. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I don’t entirely know why I’m doing it. But there is a bristling in my veins that feels a lot like rage and if I don’t do something with it, I’m terrified it might consume me whole.

I want to go home, but I can’t. Not yet.

I want Rook to suffer for what he did to me.

And more than that, I want the answers to my past, and the mask might be my way to get them. The West said it would help me find the truth.

I deserve to know what the witch was trying to tell me.

“You’re fucking insane,” the Tinman says.

“Probably.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t mind a bit of chaos. And it isn’t like I have anything better to do.”

I don’t argue with him about his motives, or lack thereof, and really, I don’t care what they are. Only that they drive him forward.