The Wicked Will Rise by Paige Danielle

Author:Paige, Danielle [Paige, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-02-07T08:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

We spent the morning walking, following the Road of Yellow Brick as it took us through pastures and meadows and an orchard of squat trees whose branches hung heavy with luscious plums that I was still too full from breakfast to eat; it led us across babbling streams and over rolling hills, into and then out of lush, vibrant valleys.

A few times, way off in the distance, I noticed clusters of domed buildings that looked like villages, but whenever they popped up in my peripheral vision, the road always veered off in the opposite direction. I was familiar enough with Oz to get that it wasn’t just luck—the road knew that we wanted to be stealthy, and it was helping us.

Was this the same road that, once upon a time, had led both me and Dorothy from Munchkin Country to the Emerald City? That was a hard question to wrap my head around. That road had a fixed beginning and ending, but I knew from experience that it was also known to move around, depending on traveling conditions. I’d been told more than once that it had a mind of its own. It was possible that Ozma had summoned it with Old Magic, and it had veered off course to help us find our way.

The sun was still out, the walk was peaceful, and I was actually making some headway teaching Ozma to sing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The only problem was that she didn’t really know how to count, and kept mixing up the numbers.

After a while, I gave up on correcting her and just let her keep on singing. Even though the song didn’t make any sense at all anymore, her voice was actually nice, and I let my mind wander.

This morning’s conversation with Glinda had been unsettling, although I guess it could have been worse. But what did she want from me? Why had she changed her tune so drastically? She had to be trying to trick me . . . but trick me into what?

I was reminded of Lulu’s warning in the forest, to keep ahold of yourself. If Lulu was worried that Oz was corrupting me, did that mean that Glinda thought so, too? Had she come to me this morning because she thought she’d be able to take advantage of that?

Glinda had made it sound like, out of nowhere, she had no more use for Dorothy. I wondered what could have caused such a huge rift between them in just the few days since the battle in the Emerald City—unless their alliance had never been as solid as it had appeared. And where did that leave me? Did Glinda think that the fact that I was from the Other Place meant that I would be able to pick up the slack now that her favorite little despot had fallen out of her favor?

It was frustrating that everyone was so convinced that I had this great potential to be evil, when all

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