Page 153 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

So they didn’t look in the gazing ball, either of them, Rain by conviction and Tip out of deference. Ins

tead Tip opened the shutters on one side of the wide window. Facing east, away from the wind off Knobblehead Pike, the window showed a view of the valley they had walked up from. They could see the ruined stump of Red Windmill, and the valley where Upper Fanarra lay hidden. Through a dip in the mountainous horizon, probably harboring the track of their arrival, they could see where the plain of the Vinkus River must begin. And somewhere down there the beaver dam, with the mother-in-law of Luliaba waiting for them to return with a coracle to float her to her future.

Before leaving, they made a halfhearted search for accoutrements of magic, but they could only picture tchotchkes from a pantomime about Sweet Lurline and Preenella, her aide-de-sorcière. What were they expecting to locate? Magic wands? They found a bristling bunch of cattails, which magically still had their fur, but that was all the magic in them. What else might they wish for? Some faded pamphlet of practical magic, to help summon up a nice flank of terch or garmot instead of endless salads? A corked vial of smelling salts that might revive the Cowardly Lion into something of his usual growly but steadfast self? They found none of that. The only magic thing they were sure of was the crystal sphere on its stand of carven dragons in the middle of the room, and that much magic was too much. They would have to make their way without it.

In the welter of so much animal zoologics, they almost forgot Tay. They couldn’t find the otter at first, and then Tip laughed and pointed. Tay had leaped up somehow and landed on the back of the airborne crocodrilos. The green rice otter was swaying back and forth, defying gravity, having a modest little carnival ride for itself.

“Come here, you nutcase,” said Rain, and Tay obliged.

“It’s trying out what flying on a broom might be like,” said Tip. “You should try it someday too. If your mother returns with that broom.”

If Chistery is right, and it’s up to me to take charge, she thought, then I have to decide what to do.

She called a council that evening, after Nanny had gone to bed. Of the flying monkeys only Chistery sat in. Brrr was cajoled and then browbeaten to leave his larder, and the Munchkinlander and the dwarf bestirred themselves to climb onto the edge of a sideboard so they could see better. Rain took one side of the circular table, Tip opposite her. Dorothy and Iskinaary perched on stools, completing the round. Eight of them.

Tay played with a dust mouse under the big table. A broom only goes so far.

They seemed a small and enervated group, too wasted in strength to mount much of a campaign. That couldn’t matter. There was no one else, even if all they did was think.

“We can’t stay here like this,” Rain said. “Not for the threat to us—the threat is everywhere now. We can’t stay because to stay is to let more of the worse things happen. To stay is to give up.”

“We have given up,” said Mr. Boss, linking hands with Little Daffy.

“We haven’t. Have we?” asked his wife. “Well, we’ve given up the Clock, yes, there’s that. But we haven’t given up on each other.”

“That’s the point,” said Rain. “We haven’t given up on my father, surely? Or defending one side or the other against a fiercer attack than has yet been seen?”

“Wait a minute. Which side are you intending to defend?” asked Little Daffy, waving her bonnet for attention.

“Either side,” said Rain.

“That’s insane. You’re insane,” said Mr. Boss. “She’s insane,” he told his wife.

“Listen to her a moment,” said Brrr, from his lethargy.

Rain spoke as slowly as she could, working her way like a tightrope artist across her thoughts, feeling them an instant before walking the words out. “Mr. Boss. You never showed any allegiance either to Loyal Oz or to Munchkinland. What difference does it matter to you who we defend?”

“If I showed no allegiance to either, why defend either?” he shot back. “Waste of effort. I showed loyalty to the Clock, because my job was to keep it in tiktokety trim as a house and harbor for the Grimmerie.”

“And the Clock is drowned, so that burden is lifted from you. Meanwhile the book is stolen and about to do damage, serious damage, by whatever faction nabbed it. Isn’t that part of your job?”

“I quit. I was to mind the book when it was handed to me, to keep it safe. But my employer scarpered on me, leaving me holding the goods. Anyway, I gave the book to Liir. His problem now.”

“But that’s my point. The book isn’t safe. It’s on the loose, in the wrong hands—whosever hands it is in are the wrong hands. We can’t excuse ourselves from the need to stop it harming anyone—on either side—the damage could be immense.”

“After you finish St. Prowd’s,” said Chistery, “go to law school.”

“There won’t be a St. Prowd’s if Mombey has the book and can torture my father into decoding it for her. If he’s able. Or maybe being so powerful Mombey can decipher some of it herself.”

“You could read it,” said Tip to Rain. “You told me.”

“Yes, well,” said Rain, “I was only learning to read back then. Not having a history of other writing to complicate me, I managed. Lucky guesses.”

“It’s in her blood,” said Chistery, pointing at Rain. “Elphaba could read it at once, I’m told. She used it to help give me language.”

“You’re right about one thing,” said the dwarf to Rain. “I never took up with political or religious clans. Never cared to. But I suppose since my wife is a Munchkinlander and our children will be part Munchkin—”

“Not to spring any surprises on you, darling, but I’m so far beyond the changes that I’m more of a dwarf than you are,” said Little Daffy.

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