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I just don’t know where I fit into it. I’m not sure I fit at all.

“Good luck,” I tell them, and grab Bron by the arm, clapping him on the back. I do the same for Bayla because she’s always been about equality, even if it’s a brotherly hug. “Take your time,” I add. “Do what you must.”

They nod, thank me, and leave.

The Emerald Palace is still alive and thriving with the people of the city. And it’s so insufferably close that I can’t stand another second of it.

In the darkness of my bedroom, I throw on a jacket, pull magic in, and let it carry me away.

FORTY-SIXDorothy

I give him three days before I go to him.

I don’t have to even think about where he might be. I just click my heels together and I’m standing across a room from him, surrounded by darkness.

There’s a window to my left, arched to a point, with stained glass in shades of green and red and gold in the top panes.

Wherever we are, we’re nowhere near a break in the cloud because outside the window, darkness remains.

In the days since I defeated the fighting trees and assumed my father’s divine power, several scouting groups have gone out into the Oz landscape to assess the clouds. A few more breaks have been spotted in the far north, a few in the east, and a few in the west. No one has attempted to survey the land near the Emerald Palace or the South Manor. Glinda and Rook still hold both firmly in their grip.

Since my display of power, chattering surrounding me and the Wizard has shifted, with more royal sympathizers revealing themselves. They’ve joined the Royal Poppy Battalion, as Basil has christened it.

I argued that battalion made it sound far too rugged but he said strength was required if we were going to move forward.

We haven’t decided yet on what moving forward means, but I know I have to figure it out soon.

“Kansas,” Rook says when he sees me, and my name on his lips makes my shoulders quake.

He’s partially obscured by shadows, draped over a bench set against the far wall. There’s a glass of something dark in his hand and two bottles on the table beside him. I’m guessing one of them is empty.

“How are you?” I ask him.

“Don’t bore me with pleasantries.”

“I wasn’t trying— I’m sorry. Can we start over?”

The room disappears and suddenly we’re standing in a midnight garden with spring peepers chirping in the dark and fireflies dotting the shadows. There’s a stone fountain between us with a marble lion roaring from the center. But all the water has dried up and leaves litter the bottom.

I glance around, feeling the warm but damp air on my arm, the taste of something spicy, maybe licorice, on my tongue. A ways off, an iron lamppost flickers with fire in a glass globe.

The old me would have said, “Is this real?”

But the new me knows it is not.

I’m not sure if he’s purposefully showing me the depths of his powers or if this is some kind of punishment. It does not go unnoticed that the fountain is a lion.

Either way, I will let him have this.

“What do you want, Kansas?”

“Maybe it’s hard to believe, but I did come to see how you are.”

“Why?”

“Because … I…” I had an entire speech rehearsed. I even ran it past Remy, who listened without judgment and gave me pointers on how to be more straightforward, how to consider Rook’s position despite all the horrible things he’s done.

That’s what I love about Remy. They are not a fan of the Wizard, and yet the Wizard’s position is still considered. Remy knows that even villains believe in their cause.