The Wheelers dumped us unceremoniously on the hard ground and circled us again, leering and throwing insults. “Say hi-hi to Princess!” the leader shrieked, happy. “We go now to burn and burn!”

“Burn! Burn! Burn!” the others chanted, wheeling back and forth ecstatically. And then, with one final rotation, they were gone, speeding out of the gate in a racket of clattering wheels and screams. The doors slammed behind them. We were alone.

And now we were trapped.

FIVE

DOROTHY

I awoke in the caverns underneath the Emerald Palace. It was all a dream, I thought. I’m dead. I’m underground, and I’m dead. I blinked sleep away, my vision clearing. Being dead felt pretty much the same as being alive. Actually, being dead felt a lot better than being alive had felt ever since that god-awful bitch Amy showed up in Oz. In fact, it was downright comfortable.

Because I was lying in a bed, I realized. A big bed. The kind of bed I’d always liked best—satin sheets (black with red trim, very goth, a little tacky, but obviously expensive), a rich velvet coverlet (more black), high enough off the ground to need a little stool to get in and out (also black, filigree, studded with rubies).

Was I in Hell? Was that the reason for the black sheets? Aunt Em and Uncle Henry had always told me I’d end up there if I didn’t say my prayers or feed the chickens on time or milk Bessie or follow any of the ten thousand other orders they gave me every single day, but they’d turned out to be wrong about a lot of things. They weren’t even my parents. I’d never even known my parents. It’s really a wonder I turned out so well.

I sat up in the giant bed and looked around. I was in a cave, true, but it was looking less and less like the caverns underneath the Emerald City and more and more like somebody’s very weird idea of high luxury. It looked like something out of one of those creepy paintings that had hung up in the church Aunt Em used to take me to back in Kansas. You know the kind I mean: devils tormenting sinners with pitchforks, rivers of blood, lots of gore and dismemberment and serpents? Well, imagine if one of those painters began decorating homes, and you’d start to get an idea of the room I was in.

No windows, of course—it was a cave, after all. Lots of velvet drapes and sinister artwork with people engaged in activities that looked either very unpleasant or very indecent. The rest of the furniture in the room matched the four-poster bed and the stool, all of it carved with creepy elf-looking creatures that had to be the Nome King’s various ancestors. If my family was that ugly, I certainly wouldn’t have commemorated it in stone, but to each their own. Everything was studded with more rubies, and I do mean everything.

And then I looked up and suddenly the Nome King was looming over me. I made a very undignified noise of fright as everything that had just happened came rushing back to me all at once.

Thankfully, it wasn’t actually him, and no one was in the room to witness my embarrassment. It was a huge, somber oil portrait, larger than life-size. His pale eyes seemed to be staring right at me in a way that gave me the shivers, but otherwise he looked very handsome. He was wearing his iron crown and regal robes of black velvet. One hand rested on a staff topped with a massive ruby. Serpents, tongues of fire trailing from their fanged mouths, coiled at his feet, looking up at him with what I can only describe as loving expressions.

So I wasn’t dead. Score one for Dorothy the Witchslayer: survived Armageddon. (With help.) (But still.) I was obviously in the Nome King’s guest bedroom—at least, I could only hope I wasn’t in his actual bedroom.

Some fresh air would’ve been nice, but the whole “windowless underground lair” situation suggested I’d have to pass on that particular luxury. And I had to admit, although the Nome King’s style was not entirely to my taste, the place was beautiful. Crystals spiked downward from the ceiling, a black fountain burbled black water in one corner, and now I noticed that a huge black wardrobe was tantalizingly half open, revealing a delectable selection of—you guessed it—black-and-red dresses. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I matched. I looked down. Someone—I could only hope not the Nome King himself, because that would be a little forward of him—had gently bathed the dust from my skin and dressed me in a scanty negligee made of black lace and silk. A matching robe lay across the end of the bed and I threw it over my shoulders, feeling suddenly vulnerable. I wanted to wear something else, something of my own choosing, so I snapped my fingers to summon a nightgown with a little more coverage.

Nothing happened. I must still be tired from my giant ordeal and the shock of losing my crown. I snapped my fingers again and waited for the answering feeling of magic to flare up within me.

Instead I got what felt like faint, magical heartburn. I tried again. And again. Each time, the response was stronger. But it was nowhere near strong enough.

Was it possible Ev was interfering with my magic? That I was going to have to outwit the Nome King without my power to help me?

Ooooookay. That was a problem. And it was a problem I was going to have to solve very, very soon.

I threw off the covers, staring down at my glittering red heels. Was it something to do with the shoes themselves? That dimwit Amy Gumm had tried to imply that the shoes might be bad for me, but that couldn’t possibly be the case. The shoes were what had brought me back to Oz. The shoes were a gift from—

Glinda. Who, as it turned out, might not have entirely had my best interests at heart. It’s not as though I hadn’t had my suspicions at times. After all, she was still a witch underneath all that pink and glitter.

But I didn’t care. I wanted the shoes working again the way they were supposed to. The way you wanted to keep drowning in the poppy field after the first time you’d passed out there. The way you kept craving more and more power once you’d had your first taste of it. The way some things just got under your skin. Without them I was nothing. Without them I was just little Dorothy Gale, farm girl, eyes on the horizon and up to her ankles in cow shit. I never wanted to be that girl again. And I wasn’t going to be.

What was wrong with my magic? And did it have anything to do with the Nome King?

I needed some food and a manicure before I could do any serious thinking. At least, for the time being, I seemed to be safe. Even if I was no closer to figuring out what the Nome King’s plan was for me.

I wondered briefly if the Nome King had a handy Jellia Jamb type around; he didn’t seem like the kind of fellow who’d be much use in that department. Oh, Jellia. Do you know, after everything she did to me, I sometimes almost miss her? Nobody could apply a topcoat like Jellia. If only she hadn’t betrayed me. If only I hadn’t had to punish her. I sighed. It’s so hard to get good help these days.

So here I was, in the bowels of the Nome King’s underground lair. No magic. No way back to Oz. Not even a throne. I was Dorothy Gale, Witchslayer. I had an endless supply of gumption. I could survive this. But how?

And then a soft rap sounded at my door. I brightened. Hopefully, this was breakfast. I was starving. I sat up expectantly and called, “Yes?”

The door swung open soundlessly to reveal the Nome King.

“You’re awake,” he said in that smooth, sinister voice. It wasn’t entirely his fault that everything he said came out of his mouth sounding like he was trying to summon a demon from the far reaches of Hell.