“Look! Land!” Nox said, standing up so suddenly he was almost thrown off the writhing road.

I grabbed his ankles as an upheaval nearly sent him over the side. Past the multicolored dunes, I could see what he meant—an expanse of drab, bleak landscape, hilly and worn-down looking, that was a sharp contrast to the bright and lethal Deadly Desert.

But we were falling fast. If we crashed before we made it to the hills, either the sandworms would finish us or the desert itself would.

The worms seemed to sense our predicament and gathered beneath the road, yawning and snapping their huge teeth. Madison’s knuckles were white where she gripped the road and her face was tense with fear, but she didn’t say anything.

I felt my boots throb almost reassuringly, but when I reached within myself for my magic, it felt far away, as if I were trying to reach it through a wall of Jell-O. I closed my eyes, trying to summon something. Anything. The barest scrap of magic to keep us safe.

I opened my eyes and saw Nox looking at me. I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “I can’t do anything.” From his expression, I knew he’d been trying, too.

“We have to trust the road,” he said quietly.

I loved Nox’s faith in magic and in Oz. But it didn’t look like we were in Oz anymore . . .

Before I could reply, the road plunged suddenly downward.

Madison screamed in terror. The desert was hurtling toward us at a terrifying speed. The worms were just waiting for us to drop within reach of their serrated teeth.

“Amy! Madison! Get up! Run!” Nox yelled, pulling us to our feet.

Instantly, I saw what he meant. There was still a length of road in front of us, and we were almost all the way across the desert. The three of us staggered forward, tripping and stumbling as the road bucked wildly beneath us. I half pulled, half carried Madison forward. Where the desert ended, I could see hard, rocky ground that the sandworms couldn’t move through.

But we had to get there first. And it was a long way to safety.

“We’re going to have to jump!” Nox shouted.

Solid ground seemed impossibly far. Madison’s mouth was moving in a silent prayer—or, knowing her, a curse—but her face was set with determination.

Madison wasn’t exactly athletic—I’d never seen her lift anything heavier than a shopping bag until she started carting around Dustin Jr. She took a deep breath, eyed the gap, and jumped.

The nearest of the worms lunged for her—but somehow, impossibly, she cleared the distance, hitting the ground past the edge of the desert and dropping into a roll worthy of an Order trainee. In a flash, she was on her feet and running. The worm turned to us.

“Go!” Nox yelled. “Amy, we have to go, now!”

The road was breaking apart even as I got my footing. Bricks tumbled to the ground, sinking into the shifting sand and swallowed immediately. Nox grabbed my hand and we jumped.

I hit the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of my lungs. A worm’s teeth snapped shut inches from my foot. I rolled out of its way and somersaulted to my feet, grabbing Nox’s shoulder and pulling him to safety. The huge worm bellowed in disappointment as both of us took off running after Madison.

But we slowed down as soon as we realized the worms couldn’t pursue us on the rocky soil. Madison and I were panting and out of breath, but Nox had barely broken a sweat. Sometimes he drove me nuts. I’d worked my ass off to become as strong as I was, but I still did normal, human things like get sweaty and winded. Nox made even the most impossible feat look easy. It was alternately infuriating and sexy.

He looked up at the sky, where the remains of the road were rising quickly away from us. Crumbling bricks thudded here and there into the swirling sands of the desert, sinking out of sight immediately into the fluid sand.

“Ugh,” Madison said. “Rude.” She glared at the last of the Road of Yellow Brick as it dwindled to a speck on the horizon.

“I don’t understand why it took us this far and then just dumped us,” I said. “And what happened back there? What went wrong with our magic? Where are we?”

Nox was looking at his fingers, wiggling them experimentally. “I think the road is bound to Oz,” he said slowly. “It wanted to help us, for whatever reason, and so it took us as far as it could.”

“Took us where, though? Is this some part of the mountains? Why couldn’t it go any farther?”

Nox shook his head. “Amy, I think the road took us all the way across the desert. That’s why our magic isn’t working. That’s why the road collapsed.”

“You’re saying we aren’t in Oz anymore,” I said slowly.

He nodded. “We crossed the entire desert. That means we’re in Ev. The Nome King’s kingdom. I didn’t even believe it was real.” He snorted softly. “Then again, the Nome King was supposed to be a legend, too.”

Ev. The word stirred something in my memory. Something important.

Had Lurline told me about Ev? About the Nome King, and what he wanted?

But whatever the memory was, it was gone.

“I still don’t understand what that has to do with our magic,” I said. “Or why the road would dump us here.” I looked around. “We tried to defeat the Nome King in Oz, but he was too powerful. Maybe there’s nothing in Oz that can stop him, and that’s why the road brought us here,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe Ev’s magic is different somehow? Or there’s something here we can use to defeat the Nome King?”

“If Ev’s magic is different, that would explain why we’re having trouble using ours,” Nox agreed. “And the road doesn’t do anything without a reason. But as far as we know, the Nome King isn’t here. The last time we saw him was in Oz.”

I sighed. It was a lot to figure out. But there had to be a reason we were here. And if the Nome King was from Ev, that had to be a part of it. It would make sense if the road had brought us here to discover a weapon we could use against him.

“They don’t have, like, treasure maps in Oz, do they?” Madison asked. “You know, ‘This way to enchanted object that kills evil sorcerer, gets everybody home to safety’ type maps?”

Nox rolled his eyes at Madison.

“My magic comes from Oz,” Nox said. “I think that’s why it’s so hard to reach here. Ev must have a different kind of power. The shoes are part of Oz, too. But your magic . . .”

He didn’t finish, but I knew what he was thinking. My magic was part Oz, part me. And I was from the Other Place. Which meant that maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to make my own magic work here. If I could somehow bypass the Oz parts—if that was even possible—I could tap directly into the magic that came from me.

But if I tried to access it without the shoes, it might also just kill me.

“Why is this place ugly as hell?” Madison asked, looking around. “I thought there were supposed to be, like, singing Muppets or something.”

“Munchkins,” I said automatically.

Madison was right. If this was Ev, it was a total dump. Dorothy had been draining the magic out of Oz for awhile. The trees had stopped talking and the river was running in reverse. But there was still some magic and color left in Oz.

In Ev it was as if there had never been any color or magic. The landscape was bleak and twisted. The blackened, winding path that stretched away from us was like the Road of Yellow Brick’s evil twin sister. In the distance, dilapidated shacks dotted the horizon like scabs. There was nothing green and growing. No water. No sign of life. No flowers.