“Okay, I’m going to explain how this works,” I said. “But first, let’s get you something better than that awful sack.” I hopped out of bed—and then gasped out loud when my feet hit the softly carpeted stone floor

Despite the nice nap, I was a mess. My body was bruised and battered. Every part of me ached. It turns out having a palace fall on you is pretty rough on your general health and well-being.

Bupu was at my side immediately, crying “Mistress! Mistress!” in distress. I waved her off.

“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth, although I had no idea if that was true. The truth was, I could barely even stand up.

“How will mistress be able to walk for the wedding?” Bupu blurted, staring at me. And then she clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at me in horror, her eyes wide.

“Bupu,” I said. “What wedding are you talking about, exactly?”

Bupu’s eyes filled with tears. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” she whispered. “It’s not my job to say things. It’s my job to watch over you and . . . and . . .” She burst into sobs.

“And . . . ?” I prompted. And then I realized. Of course. “And tell the Nome King what I’m up to?”

She nodded mutely. “Please don’t tell,” she said. “He’ll skin me. He said he’ll have the Diggers sk-sk-skin me alive and they’ll do it, too, they will, they’ve done it before!” she babbled, tugging at my hand beseechingly.

“Of course I won’t tell on you, darling,” I said, my mind racing.

It would be easy enough to feed her information to take back to the Nome King. If I could win her over, I could use her as a double agent. Slowly, the beginnings of a plan began to take shape in my head.

But first, I needed my shoes working again. And more information.

“Bupu, you must be very strong,” I said gently. Her shoulders squared up immediately and she looked into my eyes. “I will protect you from the Diggers, I promise. But you have to tell me everything. All right?”

She nodded again, her eyes huge.

“What wedding are you talking about, Bupu? What wedding am I supposed to attend?”

She cocked her head.

“Yours, mistress,” she said.

SIX

Nox, Madison, and I didn’t have long to wait. At the far end of the courtyard, a section of wall swung inward. It was a door, I realized, effectively camouflaged by being indistinguishable from the stone walls around it. We exchanged nervous glances.

“So, what’s the deal with this chick?” I asked Nox.

“To be honest, I wasn’t ever sure she was real,” Nox said. “We started hearing stories about her right before you showed up in Oz. But like everything in Ev, it’s impossible to say what’s true and what’s just some crazy story. It’s not like we have a passenger pigeon service across the Deadly Desert.”

“But it’s possible to cross, or you wouldn’t have heard anything.”

“Mombi—” He paused for a second, conflicting emotions battling for supremacy on his face. “There are . . . spells. It’s been done at least once.”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes; he was being deliberately vague. I fought back the urge to hit him. He was always going to be Nox, no matter how I felt about him: refusing to tell me everything until he decided it was time for me to know the whole truth.

“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice even. “And obviously the Nome King can go back and forth. That still doesn’t cover who Langwidere is.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure you want to know,” Nox said.

“We’re about to go face this bitch in there,” Madison interrupted, jabbing her finger at the yawning black doorway, “and homeslice over here is holding back because he thinks his information is too ‘scary stories to tell in the dark’ for the girls to handle? In case you missed the memo, we’re going to find out the truth in about T minus five, so maybe tell us what you know?”

Nox looked at her, startled. Despite the seriousness of our predicament, I had to resist the urge to laugh. Madison clearly had no use for Nox’s pretty-boy mystery act.

He shot an apprehensive look at the open doorway and then said, “Supposedly she’s into wearing people’s heads. She has a . . . collection. Nobody knows what she really looks like.”

“Oh,” I said. Okay, that was pretty gross.

Incredibly, Madison rolled her eyes in disdain. “That’s so Silence of the Lambs it can’t possibly be real,” she said. “Somebody plagiarized that plot point just to scare you. I don’t believe it for a second.”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t have Anthony Hopkins in Oz,” I pointed out.

“I’m trying to keep our spirits up. Can you work with me?” Madison snapped.

“Right,” I said. “Sorry. So, our options are stay in the courtyard with no food and no water in the middle of a desert and die of dehydration shortly if we don’t sunburn to a fiery crisp, or go into Scary Princess Palace and meet an unknown, potentially very gruesome fate with no weapons and possibly no magic.”

Nox thought for a minute. “We could wait to see if the Wheelers come back,” he offered.

“Please tell me this isn’t really happening,” Madison said to the sky. “Someone? Are you there, God? It’s me, Madison.”

“I know,” I said sympathetically. “It’s not . . . ideal.”

“Ideal?” Madison snorted. “I’m still not convinced I didn’t accidentally smoke some really bunk weed. Not that I would do that. I am a mother now. But if this is real”—she waved a hand at the creepy courtyard—“we might as well get this part over with, right? Plus, I’m about to drop dead of heatstroke.”

“Ladies first,” Nox said, ushering me forward with the ghost of a smile.

At that, I did sock him in the shoulder, and he flashed me a real grin that made my knees weak. It felt like ten years ago that I’d been kissing him in the Emerald Palace and a flush of heat that had nothing to do with the scorching sunlight rose to my cheeks. He took my hand and squeezed it.

“We got this,” I told him, with more confidence than I felt. “It can’t be as bad as the Scarecrow’s lab.”

“It could be worse,” Nox said cheerfully.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” I said, but I was smiling as we walked toward the doorway. Whatever was waiting for us, we were going to face it together.

Madison was right: the cool, dark corridor might be leading us to our doom, but after the hellish journey across the desert, being out of the sun was a blissful relief. If we got out of here alive, I was never going to take shade for granted again.

I stood blinking for a moment, allowing my eyes to adjust to the sudden change in light. As I got used to the dim corridor, I was able to pick out elaborate, carved murals in the stone walls. Dropping Nox’s hand, I stopped to look closer.

They were the stuff of nightmares: multi-limbed demons with white blubbery skin that reminded me of dolphins and oversize heads with bulging black eyes tearing people apart, monsters with three or four or five heads wolfing down human flesh, helpless humans boiling in vats of oil or being tormented on any number of awful devices. Most of the people seemed to be missing their heads, which were carried around instead by the monsters: monsters bowled with them, made necklaces out of them, lounged in huge thrones made of grinning skulls. . . .