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“She must be stopped!” someone shouts in the crowd.

A whisper of consensus spreads through those gathered.

“And she will be,” Rook says, quieting the spark of fervor. “But we can’t ignore where this all truly began.” He turns to Blue handcuffed in the center of the stage. “I know it will be hard to believe, but this man here, this is what remains of the God of the West.”

A gasp rolls through the crowd like a fog spreading over a chilled field.

“Our troubles truly began when the gods abandoned us.”

There’s an agreement that follows the gasp, but for as many nods as there are, there are also looks of confusion. All this time, they’ve been led to believe that if the gods returned, they would be saved.

But even I can tell Blue isn’t up for saving anyone. Least of all himself.

“Now I ask of you,” Rook says, “should the gods who abandoned us, starved us, isolated us from whatever lay beyond our borders, be allowed to get away with their crimes?”

“No!” the crowd shouts.

The frenzied energy of the city square is palpable.

“There’s something else you should know!” Rook says, his voice booming through every pocket of open space. “Something that led to me helping in the fight against the royal family, a family I once considered my own.”

The crowd is silent now, almost as if they’ve taken a collective breath and held it, waiting for the reveal.

“The gods and the royal family conspired to kill me before I was yet a man.”

Another gasp. Mouths drop open. Eyes widen.

“Tell them, God of the West, why you would conspire to kill a young boy with so much potential?”

Blue laughs and the sound echoes through the square. “The divine shall not permit the might of false idols.”

A ripple of confusion. People are turning to their companions with furrowed brows.

When I glance at Tin, I see an echo of that confusion.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” I whisper.

“I think so.”

“Is Blue just being an asshole?”

“I don’t know.”

Rook has come to a standstill, but there is tension in his back, and in his hands, now clutched into fists at his sides.

What is he going to do now that Blue has called him out for being a false god in front of everyone? And is it true? It can’t be. The Wizard is the most powerful person in Oz.

I watch Rook for his reaction, but as I watch, I sense the shift in his demeanor. I don’t know if it’s that I’m tuned in to him or because maybe, just maybe, we are more similar than I’d like to admit.

It feels like the tension in a coil, and the tension is about to spring.

“I’m going up there now,” I say.

“Wait,” Tin says, his hand on my arm, but as he grabs me, Rook reaches over his shoulder and to his back … where an axe suddenly appears.

“No!” I shout and the crowd turns to me as I shove them aside.

“Dorothy!” Tin shouts, tossing back his hood.