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“Hi. I know this is…” I wave a hand over my face. “It’s weird, I know. And it’s difficult to explain.”

Blue leans over my shoulder and says, “No, it’s not. It’s magic.”

Remy nods. “I assumed.”

“I don’t want to bring you trouble but I wondered if you might have two rooms for us? Blue can pay double the rate.”

Remy’s brow arches. “Double?”

Blue holds out his hand to reveal a palm filled with coin.

“That’s not necessary,” Remy says and grabs two keys from the rack behind the counter.

“We insist,” I say.

“Dorothy.” Remy takes my free hand and squeezes. “It’s not necessary. Come. Follow me.”

We’re led up the familiar creaky stairs where the walls are covered in framed art.

A rush of warmth runs through me but it’s quickly squashed by the guilt again.

I can’t get the carnage out of my mind.

I never should have jumped in the middle, but then Blue may very well be dead.

There was no good outcome.

And I blame Rook for putting us all in that position.

Remy gives me the same room I had before, and Blue gets the room across the hall.

“Do you have any ale?” he asks.

“Of course. But that you have to pay for.”

“Happily.” He takes the key, gives the room a quick scan, and then heads back downstairs.

“You’ve made new friends,” Remy says in the doorway as I drop onto the bed.

“You could say that.”

“But your other friend…”

“He was the Wizard of Oz.”

Unlike Ana, Remy doesn’t immediately argue against the idea.

“He did seem rather…” Remy trails off as if searching for the right word. “My grandmother used to say janteloven. Tall poppy syndrome.”

I scratch Toto beneath the chin. “What’s that mean?”

“It means he stuck out. It means he wanted to be the tallest poppy.”

I laugh. “You could definitely say that about him. I don’t know how I missed it. I truly thought he was this naive, amnesiac, harmless man.”

“In your defense,” Remy says, “that is what he wanted you to believe.”

I set Toto on the end of the bed and he curls into a ball. If he’s been traumatized by being dognapped and kept in a dungeon, he’s not showing it.