Page 21

“Thank you, Cleo,” he said with a nod. “We’ll just be a moment.”

Cleo bowed and scurried from the room. Of course, being the silent mouse she was, she spied on them through a crack in the doorway.

The Wizard had been concerned about the rivalry between the East and the West, and he wanted to check in on Delphine to see if there was anything he could do to help soothe the tension.

Cleo had thought it was very diplomatic of him, but Delphine had ranted about it for days afterward, as if he didn’t trust Delphine, when, as far as Cleo had witnessed, there had been no such insinuation. Of course, she couldn’t say that because she wasn’t supposed to know what had been said.

Because of that chance meeting in the breakfast room in the East Castle, Cleo is now sure that the man standing in front of her is the Wizard himself.

His hair is a little shorter, his cheeks a bit hollower. But he has the same piercing green eyes and the aura of someone who knows he is always the most powerful person in the room.

“The mushroom,” he says and holds out the crystal.

“What?” she sputters.

“It’s a memory.”

Before she can figure out what he means, her brain skips backward to all the books on etiquette she has read. What’s she supposed to do? Curtsy? Get on her knees? Run screaming from the room?

Eminence.

Right.

“Your Eminence,” she blurts.

The Wizard frowns but it’s clear he’s amused by her.

“Yes?”

“Hi. Your Eminence.” She bows. She’s not wearing a dress and she can’t remember if you’re supposed to only curtsy in a dress? Gods be damned, it hasn’t been that long since she read a book!

“Hi.” He tosses the mushroom up and catches it again. “Where’s Glinda?”

“Ummm … I don’t know. I’m sorry, did you say the crystal is a memory?”

“Yes.” He leans a shoulder into the bookshelf and crosses his legs at the ankles. There is an ease about him that Cleo envies. He’s the Wizard of Oz, and she’s no one, and yet he’s standing here chatting with her like they’re equals. “Crystal, metal, or glass can store memories. It used to be a customary practice. Memories you wanted to save or memories you wanted to hide.”

The cat in her pocket suddenly feels like it weighs a ton.

“Why do you say ‘it used to be’?”

He captures the stem of the mushroom between his thumb and index finger. “The queen of Oz,” he says, his gaze on the crystal. “She was so powerful, she could read you if she touched you. Your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, and all of the things only your conscience would know.”

“How do you get the memories into the crystal?”

“Magic.”

Cleo reaches into her pocket, fingering the ears of the cat. Her heart thumps hard in her head.

“How do you get the memories out?” she asks, suddenly desperate to know.

“Magic,” he says again.

“But how—”

The door rattles open and the Wizard looks up.

Glinda flits into the room wearing a fresh dress of pink and white satin with diamonds glittering on the bodice. “There you are, my darling.”