I nodded. “All right,” I said matter-of-factly, “I’ll help.”

It was a split-second decision, not something I really thought through. But I’d hesitated yesterday, with Dorothy right under my knife, and that’d just bought me another day of feeling useless. If I could strike a blow against Dorothy and her regime, no matter how small, I was going to do it. That was my new policy. Screw waiting around.

But Ollie shook his head. “No, it’s not your fight. I have to do it myself.”

“It may not be my fight,” I replied. “But I know the palace better than you do, and I’m not a monkey wearing a dress. You’ll get killed if you keep traipsing around like that.”

“I wasn’t traipsing.”

“It was a miracle I spotted you instead of someone else.” I shook my head, thinking about the Wizard, the serendipity of it all. “I have a better chance of finding Maude than you ever would.”

An affronted look passed over his features, but then Ollie paused to consider it. “What would the Order say about this?” he asked. “What do they care about my little sister?”

He was right. I knew exactly what Nox would have said: that one winged monkey—no matter whose sister she was—wasn’t worth risking my cover. That my mission was about something bigger and that nothing could get in the way of it.

Well, maybe all that was true. But they weren’t here. They didn’t understand what it was like to stand by and watch Dorothy’s casual cruelty, to feel like a powerless coward hidden under a borrowed face. I was tired of waiting. I was my own person. Bound to the Order or not, I was still going to make my own decisions. And I felt deep down in my gut that this was the right one.

“The Wizard told me the Scarecrow is at work on something big. Something that could make everything the Order is fighting for irrelevant. They’ll probably thank me for finding out what it is,” I told Ollie, even though I knew it probably wasn’t true. “If Maude’s a part of it, I promise, I’ll get her out.”

Ollie scratched the top of his head. “I don’t know. How will you even find her?”

“I haven’t quite worked that out yet,” I replied.

“No way,” Ollie said, shaking his head. “You don’t even have a plan and you want me to just leave? Abandon my sister? No way.”

“You don’t have a plan either,” I reminded him. “And besides, I have this.”

With a flourish, my dagger appeared in my hand. I stuck it under Ollie’s chin and he held up his hands, eyes widening.

“Easy, Amy,” he said, glancing down at the blade. “What’s your, um, point?”

“My point is, you’ll die,” I replied. “You won’t last another hour here unarmed and in that ridiculous outfit. I’ve got weapons, I’m trained, and I sort of blend in. I’ve got a way better chance of finding her than you.”

“All right,” Ollie grunted, gently placing his hand on top of mine and pushing my dagger away from his neck. “I get it.”

I realized suddenly how long we’d been talking. Jellia would have noticed me missing by now.

“You should get out of here.” I walked to the window and flung it open. “I promise I won’t let you down.”

I looked back at him. Ollie nodded slowly, admitting to himself that I was his best option. As he walked toward me, he pointed a furry finger toward my chest.

“I’ll give you until midnight tomorrow,” he growled. “The Wingless Ones have a secret entrance in the Royal Gardens. If you’re not there, with my sister, I’m going back to Plan A—”

“Cross-dressing?”

Ollie grimaced. “You joke, but this is serious.”

“I know,” I replied, trying to sound confident. “I won’t fail.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly when he was at my side. “You’re the first kind human I’ve met since Dorothy took over.”

Ollie stood on the toes of his servant’s slippers and gave me a soft, tender peck on the cheek. Then he flung himself out the window, easily grabbing on to the branch of a nearby tree and scampering into the leafy cover, disappearing into the darkness of Dorothy’s artificial night.

No more waiting. I had made a promise to myself that I would help Ollie. Now I had a chance to make good on it.

The first step of my plan was to get out of the rest of my chores.

I found Jellia in the banquet hall, scrubbing the floors on her hands and knees. Normally, sunlight spilled in through the hall’s massive windows, but with night having already fallen, Jellia was forced to do her scrubbing by candlelight. Somehow, that made it even more depressing.

Before I approached, I took a few big whiffs of her dead-mouse stench—enough to make myself look queasy. Then, I staggered toward her, dragging my feet.

“Astrid,” she snapped, looking up. “Where have you been?”

I draped a hand across my forehead. “I’m feeling ill,” I told her. “My stomach . . .”

“This is no way to work yourself back up to second handmaid,” Jellia lectured.

“I’m sorry,” I pleaded, clutching my stomach. “But it’s better for me to get my rest than to puke all over Dorothy’s freshly cleaned carpets this close to the ball, isn’t it?”

She tilted her head, knowing I had a point. She forced a smile and I saw that there was a small fleck of red lipstick on her teeth. It made me feel even sorrier for her than I already did.