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“Why did you take me?”

My thoughts drift back to my brother and the food spread before us and I am at once angry to be yanked away from Kansas and eager to get back to her.

“Am I not allowed to rescue my little brother out of the goodness of my heart?”

He levels his gaze at me and for a moment, he is the lion sizing up a shadow in the reeds. “I may at times be foolish, but I am not a fool.”

I laugh. “Very well. I need you to find something for me.”

The look on his face shifts. “The West said something similar.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“She said I have the ability to find lost things.”

“And do you believe her?”

He takes down another swallow of ale. “You wouldn’t be saying the same thing if it wasn’t true.”

I nod. Good. I do not have the time, nor the patience for convincing. “What if I told you that you have the ability to find the gods?”

He does not laugh. In fact, there is no hint at surprise.

“The witch mentioned that too, I’m guessing?”

He picks at the label pasted on the bottle of ale. “Yes.”

“And?”

“And … you rescued me to use me.”

“No, I rescued you to help me save Oz.”

He goes still. Now there is hunger on his face.

Even before Silas lost his heart, he was hardworking and competent at everything he did. By day he was a soldier, by night a woodsman felling trees to help fill the remote villages’ ovens and hearths.

I left home at a young age to study magic with the royals.

Gabriel was left in the south to be coddled by our mother with no more agency over his life than a fig tree.

Gabriel has always wanted utility.

“How do I do it?” he asks.

“You don’t even have to think about it. Perhaps you take yourself out to the garden and just head in a direction and see where it leads you.”

He snorts. “It can’t be that easy.”

“Yes. It can.”

“And should it lead me somewhere I don’t want to go?”

“I will always be there when you need me. I promise.”

“You weren’t when she took me.”

I reach over and grasp his shoulder, squeezing. “And for that I will forever be making amends.”