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“Dorothy,” he starts.

“I killed her,” I say, my voice wet and clogged in the middle of my throat.

“So what?”

His response, distant, emotionless, should absolve me of my guilt, but it doesn’t.

I frown at him.

He crosses his thick arms over his chest and the thin material of his knitted shirt strains against the muscle and metal. “From where I was standing, it looked like that’s exactly what she wanted. She wanted to provoke you into using your magic. Her death was the byproduct she had resigned herself to.”

I shift to him. “But why would she do that? I didn’t even know I had magic until that moment. I mean…” I take in a breath, trying to push the tears down. I still don’t know if I want to believe I have magic even though everything is pointing to the fact that I do. Aunt Em always made me feel special and different, but I thought she was cultivating intuition. Was there more? Could she sense it? And did landing in Oz finally break it free?

“The West could have just told me. I don’t understand any of this.”

“I’ve never understood the minds of witches.”

I swipe at my face, trying to piece any of this story together with the very little detail that I know. I remember Ana telling me the West helped overthrow the royal family, that she was angry because she was the firstborn daughter, the one intended to inherit the throne. But for whatever reason, she’d been passed over.

Maybe she was too embarrassed to face me.

I turn back to the Tinman. “Do you know why the West was pushed out of the royal line?”

He shakes his head.

“What’s your theory?”

He paces to the windows and looks across the valley to the mountains. “The royal family was royal because they needed no source for their magic. It just came to them.” He glances back at me. “Like you. But the West needed fire to burn for her magic. Maybe she was a bastard. Or maybe they just thought her weak.”

I’m so desperate for answers, and the frustration at the lack of them makes my teeth grind together.

Rook took the golden mask, the same mask the witch said would help me find the truth. And her note—

“Her note,” I blurt out.

“What?”

I race back downstairs to the puddle of my blood, but there’s nothing there. I check the witch’s clothing again but find no slip of paper left behind.

The Tinman catches up just as I hurry in the other direction, back to the armory.

“Dorothy, what the hell are you doing?”

“The note! I didn’t finish reading it!” I take a wrong turn and double back, meeting up with the Tinman as we return to the armory. I fetch my destroyed dress and check the pockets.

“They’re empty. The note isn’t here.”

I meet the Tinman’s eyes.

“If there were answers in that note,” he says, “then the Wizard took it.”

I toss the dress aside and curl my hands into fists. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Get in line.”

“What are his weaknesses? How do I get to him?”

“He has none.”