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Is he afraid of me?

I spin the handle on the faucet and the water cuts out.

“Silas will live.” I turn to face him. “I couldn’t kill our beloved eldest brother even if I tried.”

Another growl.

“What is it? You know I can’t speak lion.”

From outside my chambers, there’s a commotion, a rattle of the door handle, voices rising and falling.

A second later, Glinda bursts in, followed by Lacosta, then the captain of my personal guard, Bron, and his twin sister, the captain of the Cardinal Command, Bayla.

“I told you the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz has returned to us.” Glinda comes to a stop in the wide hall that runs between my sitting room and bedchamber. From her vantage point, she can’t see Gabriel huddled in the corner, but I can sense the question flickering behind her eyes.

“Your Eminence.” She bows her head ever so slightly.

“Your Eminence,” the others echo and bow at the waist.

Their words may portray respect, but their gazes are penetrating.

I’m shirtless, in nothing but the black trousers I wore to the Provost Ball in Glimming Hollow.

I’ve scrubbed off most of the blood, but I saw myself in the mirror briefly before the steam clouded my reflection—I am haggard, weary, still shrouded in the grime of betrayal.

It had to be done.

Did it?

I can practically taste the sharp edge of Kansas’s shock on the tip of my tongue.

She was always meant to be a means to an end. Easily disposable.

Why did she have to surprise me by being so much more?

“So?” Glinda asks.

“The Witch of the West is dead.”

Lacosta’s mouth drops open.

Glinda smiles and claps. “The Wicked Witch is dead!”

Bron and Bayla remain as stoic as ever. It’s why they command two of the most powerful armies in all of Oz. Nothing ruffles them, not even the death of a Cardinal Witch.

Cardinal Witches are supposed to be unkillable, but some of that is propaganda.

They can be killed, just not easily. I fought the West multiple times and never quite managed it. But I knew it was possible with the right tool.

Turns out that tool was the right girl.

“Bayla,” Glinda says. “Send a message to the communication authority. Tell her we must prepare an announcement for the Land of Oz. Tell them our Great and Powerful Wizard has finally defeated the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“No.” My dissent cuts through Glinda’s joy like a knife.

I grab one of the emerald towels hanging from the hook to my right. The towel snaps in my hand. “Bayla isn’t yours to command. And I didn’t kill her.”

Glinda purses her lips together and manages to look unfazed and annoyed all at the same time. “Then who did?”