“You ready?” Nox asked. He whirled around into a crouch, his back pressed against mine, and we prepared to fend the attackers off.

“I’m ready,” I said, ignoring all the blood and the pain in my left arm from where the monkey who’d tried to strangle me had bitten down with his sharp little teeth.

Then everything stopped.

The hyena dropped to the ground, and a split second later the rabbit did the same. What the hell? Were they dead? I looked around.

They were frozen. Every beast, every creature of the forest—all frozen, as if someone had pushed a giant pause button. But how?

I looked immediately to the Lion. Had he done this?

But he seemed as surprised as Nox and I were, dropping the girl whose fear he’d been feasting on into a heap on the ground and looking up. During the fight, he’d been happy to let his henchmen take care of business while he enjoyed his dinner, but now he was interested.

This isn’t good, I thought, nervously shifting my grip on my blade. Whatever spell had just frozen all our other enemies didn’t seem to have any effect on the Lion himself.

And I still had no idea who had cast it.

The Lion rose up on his legs in a fury, and roared into the sky.

Then I understood. I could feel her coming, could feel the warmth of her energy suffusing my body. It was Gert.

I looked up to see Gert descending from the sky. She landed in the middle of the clearing amidst the strange, museum-like menagerie of the Lion’s still-frozen henchmen. Without a word she raised her hand and a solitary lightning bolt appeared from above, coursing silently through her body.

I gasped. What was happening? I stared at her squat, round body as it began to glow with energy; her face burning with a fury that was almost inhuman. For the first time, I thought I understood why she called herself Wicked now.

At that moment, the citizens of Pumperdink, who had been just as frozen as the Lion’s beastly army, seemed to be released from her spell. They began shouting and scurrying around, scattering in every direction, running for their lives. I looked at Nox.

“She’s using everything she has to hold the beasts,” he said. “But it will take all of her concentration. The Lion’s too strong for her. We need to protect her until Mombi gets here. She’ll know how to finish him.”

He sprung forward. “Let’s see how you deal with someone who’s not afraid of you,” he snarled. He thrust his hands up and a torrent of sizzling blue energy came shooting out. Growling in anger, the Lion leapt through the air and landed with a crash at Nox’s feet.

But Nox had disappeared. He materialized behind the Lion just in time to take a swing at him.

If it had been baseball, Nox would have hit a home run. If the Lion had been a normal Lion, Nox would have sliced his head clean off from behind. But this wasn’t a game, and this Lion made the lions I’d seen in the zoo look like kittens. Nox connected with a thwack, but all it did was make the Lion mad: he spun around and lunged again, and Nox barely managed to get out of the way in time.

I still hadn’t moved. I couldn’t help it. Maybe Nox wasn’t afraid, but I was.

But when the Lion grazed Nox’s cheek with his claw and I saw blood, my body forgot all about fear and sprung into action. I held my knife close, drawing out as much magical power as I could from it. I zapped myself to Nox’s side. At last I was finally getting used to fighting like this.

The Lion jumped back, momentarily surprised. He hadn’t been expecting me, but it only took him a second to get his bearings and charge, unhinging his jaw and leaping for me.

I didn’t let myself flinch. Instead, I took advantage of the moment and thrust my knife forward into his gaping jaw, hoping that at least there he was vulnerable.

I was right. I was lucky.

My blade sank to the hilt and when I pulled it out, hot, sticky blood gushed out of the Lion’s mouth. He recoiled and let out something that almost sounded like a whimper of pain.

At first I thought I’d actually done it—finished him, with that one blow to the spot where he was vulnerable. It would have worked in a video game. But the Lion wasn’t going to be beaten that easily.

With blood still pouring down his face, he pivoted and, in a flash, wrapped both of his massive paws around Nox’s neck. “The runaway,” he said, in a tone that was velvety and smooth, almost a purr. He was looking at Nox, but it was clear he was talking to me.

He cocked his head and sniffed, his nostrils flaring as if he could still smell the Other Place on me.

“Everyone in the kingdom is on the lookout for you, little one. I thought I was just out for a snack tonight. I never expected to find you. Dorothy will be so pleased when I bring you back to her. Let’s make a trade. You give up and come with me and I’ll let your friend go.”

Nox’s eyes met mine, fierce and sure. Do not make a deal, they seemed to be saying.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, trying to sound more certain than I was. “He doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The Lion shook out his mane and gave me a wicked smile. “Very well,” he said. He opened his enormous jaws and, as I watched in horror, blue smoke began streaming out of Nox’s eye sockets and nostrils. Blue, the color of his magic. Nox began to shake.

“Stop!” I screamed. I raised my knife and prepared to throw it, aiming it at the Lion’s head—but I hesitated. What if I hit Nox instead? What if it didn’t work? I had been training, but I still wasn’t ready for something like this.