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“The girl.”

Lacosta gasps and then clamps her hand over her mouth.

Gabriel chuffs out a breath.

Glinda’s eyes snap to my left, the girl and the witch immediately forgotten.

“Is it him?” Her voice wavers. It’s the first hint of real emotion I’ve seen on her face in a very long time. Everything about the Witch of the South is a performance. Except for when it comes to Gabriel.

My youngest brother stands up on all fours and pads around me into the doorway, his long nails clicking on the marble floor.

“My baby boy!” Glinda rushes forward and drops to her knees, wrapping her arms around the scruff of Gabriel’s neck. “Oh darling. I’ve missed you so.” She scratches behind his ears, then puts his massive, broad face in her hands and kisses him on the nose.

“Mother,” I say.

Glinda looks up. She hates it when I refer to her as my mother. As a witch, she ages more slowly than most mortals, so if you were to put us side by side, you might imagine us siblings. She doesn’t like being reminded of her age and I think, deep down, she likes being a Cardinal Witch more than the mother of the Wizard. As if her proximity to me detracts from her own power.

It wasn’t always this way, but I’m unable to pinpoint when it changed.

“Gabriel has been in the witch’s dungeon for the last three years with no physical contact from others,” I remind her. “Give him some space.”

She swallows, narrows her eyes, but very quickly relents. Climbing to her feet, she smooths out the thick fabric of her dress. “Why hasn’t he turned back?”

“You’ll have to ask him.” I dry my hands on the towel as I push past the others and down the hall to my sitting room.

“What about this girl?” Bayla asks.

“What about her?”

“You barely told us your plan when you left,” Bron says. “All you said was that there was a girl you had to find and that you thought she might be the key to everything.”

Did I say that?

I drop the towel on one of the green velvet chairs. Blood is still crusted beneath my fingernails.

How badly did I stab her?

Gut wounds are notoriously hard to survive, but if she’s half as powerful as I think she is …

Was it a dare?

Was I daring her not to die?

Show me how powerful you are, Kansas.

She’s going to come after me. I know it.

A thrill pools in my gut. How long will she wait? How long do I have to wait?

I think of her now, halfway across Oz … with my brother of all people.

If she hates me now, once my brother is through with her, she’ll believe me to be pure evil.

“Gabriel, darling,” Glinda is saying. “Why won’t you change back?”

Gabriel lets out a low rumble.

I turn to them and snap my fingers.