“Amy,” Mombi said warningly. “We made a deal. Remember? You agreed to join us when you took my hand.”

“I didn’t know what I was agreeing to,” I said, twitching against Gert’s hold on me.

“Your ignorance makes no difference. The spell was cast. You’re bound to the Order now.”

“Bound?”

“When I rescued you from your cell, it was under the condition that you would join us. You agreed. The spell was cast and I couldn’t undo it if I wanted to. You’re one of us now.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Glinda. “I know what you did to the Munchkins,” I spat at Glinda. “You may look sweet, but I know who you are.”

“Oh!” Glinda exclaimed. She laughed again, high-pitched and lilting. “I’m not who you think I am,” she said.

She didn’t so much stand as pose, seeming acutely aware that she was the pretty purple flower in a sea of gray and brown and black. “I’m not Glinda. I’m Glamora, her twin sister. She’s the Good witch; I’m the Wicked one. Of course, she’s also the one who’s turned Oz into the hellhole it is now, so it’s really all relative.”

Then that laugh again.

I eyed the witch suspiciously. A twin? That seemed like a convenient excuse. As I thought back to my first day here in Oz, it was true that she didn’t look exactly like the woman I’d seen in the field. Mostly, it was a matter of style. Rather than Glinda’s bouncing curls, this witch had her strawberry-blonde hair pulled into a severe bun. And though her dress was just as fancy as the one I’d seen Glinda wearing in the field that day, it was simple and elegant, nothing like the frilly nightmare Glinda had worn.

“You say Wicked like it’s a good thing,” I said.

“You’re getting the hang of it.” Glamora’s voice was glittering mischievously. “Down is up, up is down. Good is Wicked, Wicked is Good. The times are changing. This is what Oz has come to.”

I looked around at the faces of the Wicked, or formerly Wicked. I wanted some answers. “How did you find me?” I asked slowly. “How did Mombi know I fell from the sky? How did you know I was there in the palace?”

We have eyes within the palace. And the palace has eyes everywhere. The rest I’m afraid I had to obtain from you.

The thought popped into my head. A thought that wasn’t mine. “Amy. Sit. Let us explain,” Gert said, this time out loud. I ignored her command and her concerned gaze. I didn’t want to look at her. “Sit,” she repeated, this time a little louder. I resisted, but found I had no control over my own limbs. It hadn’t been a request.

Fighting each step as I went, I walked over and sat down in a cold metal chair.

“Oz has changed,” Gert said. “The trees don’t talk. The Pond of Truth tells lies, the Wandering Water stays put. The Land of Naught is on fire. People are starting to get old. People are forgetting how it used to be.”

“It used to be the three of us would never have imagined we’d be standing in the same room together,” Mombi said in her raspy voice. She gestured to herself, Glamora, and Gert. The boy still hadn’t said anything. He was just standing with his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t really look any happier to be here than I was. “Wicked witches aren’t supposed to work together. But that was before Dorothy.”

Gert could see that I wasn’t buying it. More than see, I guessed, she could read it in my mind. I wondered if she was included in the once-Wicked, too. “We call ourselves Wicked to show that we stand against Dorothy and everything she represents,” Gert said. “Wickedness is part of Oz. It’s part of the order of things. It’s always been the Good versus the Wicked. Magic can’t exist without Goodness. Goodness can’t exist without Wickedness. And Oz can’t exist without magic.”

“No matter what Dorothy might think,” Mombi said. “Glamora. Show her.”

Glamora waved her hand across the stone table, and it rippled as its surface transformed into a dark pool of water. Then she waved her hand again, and a picture began to form in the pool, reflecting up from the bottom.

It was a map, and it was divided into four equal triangles, each one its own color. Blue, red, yellow, purple. At the center was an irregular blob of green.

“This is Oz,” Glamora said. One by one, she pointed at each of the quadrants. “Munchkin Country, Quadling Country, Winkie Country, Gillikin Country.” Blue, red, yellow, purple. As she pointed, their names appeared in dramatic script. “Here on the edge”—she ran her finger along the perimeter of the rectangle—“is the Deadly Desert. It protects Oz from outsiders. No living thing can cross the Deadly Desert without using powerful magic. Anyone who touches its sands will turn instantly to dust. Or, that’s how it used to be.”

She jabbed a long purple nail at the blob in the center. “And this is the Emerald City. Where Dorothy lives.”

Then she passed her hand over the pool again, and the colors disappeared, replaced by shimmering white dots, little pricks of light covering every inch of the map. “The white lights represent Oz’s magic,” Glamora said. “Its lifeblood. This is what Oz used to look like. And this”—she snapped her fingers—“is what it looks like now.”

The light dimmed and faded until most of the map was a dull, washed-out gray, dappled with a few gaping black holes here and there. There were still a few glittering spots spread across Oz’s four quadrants, as well as one spot in the south that was particularly bright, but other than that, the vibrant, shimmering landscape of just a moment ago was gone.