Page 117 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

Rain didn’t count years any more than days. She hardly knew how to understand Agroya when he said it was now the fourth year into the war between Loyal Oz and Munchkinland.

He told them about the conscription of Animals in Munchkinland and how the second front of the war—the battle of the Madeleines—was faring. (Not well for either army, a tidal sweeping of forces back and forth, with heavy loss of life on both sides.) Nor flinched at this and wondered if her husband might have been drafted to serve in the Munchkinland army.

“Brrr? Hah. He’ll have slipped through that duty,” said Liir consolingly. “They didn’t call him the Cowardly Lion for nothing.”

Nor didn’t speak to Liir for some time after this. Maybe, thought Liir ruefully, his half-sister had never entirely forgiven him—or his mother—for sweeping into the lives of her parents, unsettling everything, forever.

“How do you know so much about the progress of the war?” Candle asked Agroya. “Out in this wilderness, so far from the battle lines?”

In his halting way he replied, “I possess little else to pay for the goods of your table. I carry news in my mind. I traffic in it. A useful coin.”

“Tell us more, then,” said Liir. “What about Lady Glinda?”

But Agroya had never heard of Glinda, which made everything else he said a little suspect. “I don’t go to cities,” he admitted. “Tribal life among the Scrow is life in grasslands. Moving, camping, moving, always. Following the herds.”

“Is Shem Ottokos still the chieftain of the Scrow?” asked Liir.

Agroya spat but admitted as much. Ottokos must have been the one to exile him, Liir guessed. Then Liir regretted having asked the question, because Agroya turned and squinted at him. “So you’re Liir? The one who helped our queen through her final passage?”

Liir sat ramrod straight, unwilling to confirm his identity, and Candle picked up on his hesitation, but Agroya saw through their silence. He said, “I was in disgrace that time, in chains in a tent, but I heard what you did.”

“I never did,” interjected Nor. “This is news to me. Tell me.”

“Princess Nastoya was stuck between life and death, unable to move because of a disguise locked upon her, and together you two brought the disguise off.” Agroya pointed at Candle. “You played some stringed instrument so well you make dead relics to sing, and you”—now he pointed to Liir—“you had a charm of remembering; you helped our Nastoya leave behind her disguise as a human, and die as an Elephant. This is legend with our people.”

“How droll,” said Nor to their guest. Ever leery of pomposity. “I hope you sell little pictures of it to passing travelers.”

“And she talked to you before she died,” said Agroya to Candle.

“Oh, did she?” said Liir to his wife. He’d been away up until the last moment. “You never mentioned this.”

“She awakened, as the dying sometimes do,” the visitor reminded Candle. “She told you about your child.”

Candle, apologetically: “I was pregnant, very pregnant.”

After sending Rain out on a fool’s errand, and Iskinaary to keep her at bay, Liir returned to the subject. “What did Nastoya say?”

Agroya helped himself to a handful of walnut meats. “She said that she saw the promise and trouble your child will bring.”

“Oh, that,” said Candle. “What child isn’t full of promise and trouble?”

“Our princess said that we Scrow will watch for your child and help her if she needs help. Nastoya pledged us to this.”

“Wasn’t that sweet,” said Candle. “And then she died.”

“I’m no longer a full brother to my tribe,” he continued, “but in honor of my ancestors and my former queen, I must ask if your daughter needs the help we promised to give.”

“Oh, not today, thanks,” said Candle. “How kind of you to remember.”

The fluting formality of her voice made sense to Liir: Candle had become wary. She’d seen the danger too. “Let me get you some cakes to take on your way,” he said.

They loaded Agroya up with as much as they could spare. Nor agreed to escort him well beyond the northern lake. As soon as they were gone, Liir asked Iskinaary to rush Rain away to the southern lake, five hundred yards to the south, ostensibly to find owl pellets to add to her collection.

Then Liir rounded on Candle, but good. He was incensed that Princess Nastoya’s dying comments had never come up before. Candle pooh-poohed his sensitivity. “What did her comments mean anyway? Nothing that any dying old matron wouldn’t say to any pregnant young woman.”

“The trouble that Rain would bring—did Nastoya’s mention of that decide you to leave Rain behind when you slipped away from Apple Press Farm?”

At this Candle turned pale—in a Quadling it looked like fever—and she was unable to speak for some moments. When s

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