Page 74 of A City of Emeralds and Envy
“Simplicity might be best here.” Riordan gives Jasper a cool nod of approval. “Well done.”
It’s simple, yes, and it sounds too easy. West may have noticed Caer playing around with his invisibility when we were traveling. He might suspect exactly that tactic.
Whatever his plan is, he’s not going to sit quietly in his chambers and let us stride into his castle.
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I’m going to sit here and let Dorothy and her little band of assassins walk right into my castle.
The fools think I can’t see them. They don’t realize the orbs Dorothy found expired years ago—they should last for months, but they only blocked my perception for a couple of hours before the effect wore off. I have the whole group in my sights again.
I hook both legs over the armrest of my leather chair, my eyes fixed on the dark glass ball in which the shapes of the would-be assassins are moving ever nearer.
I tug another berry off the stem with my teeth, then toss aside the empty twigs. The juice swirls over my tongue, sweet as the taste of Dorothy’s arousal.
I messed up with her. I did something I didn’t plan for, something she doesn’t suspect—something that changed the dynamic between us forever. She might be furious when she finds out. Or maybe she’ll be relieved, because it means I can’t kill her like I planned to. Not without destroying myself at the same time.
I’ll wait until she’s close enough to kiss, and then I’ll tell her everything.
She’s taking so fucking long to get here.
With a sigh, I leap off the chair, nearly knocking over the tall wooden stand that holds my scrying stone. I pause to steady it, then stride to the window of the tower room where I spend most of my time. My people continue with their lives, exactly as they did before the advent of the Green Wizard. They’re under my thrall, just enough to keep them happy, hard-working, and worry-free, while I take on all the anxieties of keeping this place safe. With my compulsion power gone, I can’t enthrall anyone new, or alter the conditions of their obedience. It’s just as well—otherwise I might be tempted to summon them together into a great army and compel them to go to war against the Wizard for me. So many of them would die—it would be dreadfully unfortunate. And I am a wise, noble lord. I do not waste my resources.
This little band of wayfarers, though—they could be the tools I need to remove the Green Wizard—destroy him once and for all. He thought to use them against me, but what if I turned the tables on him?
I’ve tried to defeat him, without success. Every day I wake up regretting the wish I made—thinking of how I could have worded it differently. I wished for the ability to evade the Wizard and his forces, both for myself and my people—and in return I received the protective barrier around my kingdom and the ability to transport myself from place to place, just like the power of my sister’s shoes. Unfortunately, neither those shoes nor my new power could get either of us off the Isle.
If I could have left Oz alone, would I have done so? Would I have abandoned my people to the Wizard’s mercy? It’s something I ponder from time to time, never with a satisfactory answer. My existence here is one long, droning series of dutiful days spent managing the petty affairs of my people. I spend my nights pacing my chambers, gnawing over the same problems again and again.
My wish was carefully worded, but I still came away with an unintended side effect—my new skin tone. The Wizard said he added it to help me camouflage myself in his presence—part of my wish to “evade” him, he said. Of course it was a purely vindictive move, brought about by his rage at being forced to grant the wish. In those first few days, I tried every kind of illusion, glamour, and charm I could think of to regain the true color of my skin. But I barely mind the green now. Beauty is beauty, in any shade, and I’m as gorgeous as ever.
I scan the ground far below my tower window, squinting at bushes and trees to see if I can spot the travelers. They’re nowhere in sight. They must be climbing the mountain, planning to approach the castle from the back. They think they’re clever.
I’m not afraid for my life. None of them are as powerful as I am, not even Dorothy—not yet. I have conversation in mind, not conflict. A truce, for our mutual benefit.
When they arrive, we’ll bargain.
If they would only hurry up.
Walking back to the scrying stone, I run my fingers over its glossy surface. I may be the only being alive who knows precisely why the Green Wizard is so desperate to obtain this, the last scrying stone on the Isle. Once I’m dead, and he has destroyed it, nothing will stop him from conquering this region. The barrier protecting my domain will fall, and my people will be prey to his enthralled armies—my siblings’ subjects, gathered from the East, North, and South. He will storm this castle and lay claim to all the magical artifacts I managed to rescue from the ruins of Caislean Brea.
I suspected him from the moment he crashed into the former royal seat, long abandoned by my parents after they faded into the next life, but still an important location for the Isle, particularly when the four rulers wanted to meet at a neutral location.
My siblings were fascinated by the god-star, or the “Green Wizard,” as he immediately told us to call him. He promised them power, and they were all too greedy for it.
But I broke into the vault the day after his arrival and took with me all the most precious treasures of our land. I wanted to protect them from him.
My siblings would not believe I was simply being cautious. They considered me a thief, and the Green Wizard fed their delusion until he managed to isolate me. By the time my siblings realized his true nature, it was too late.
Here I have stayed, watching the god-star destroy my family, sitting on a trove of magical items I cannot use. None are powerful enough to take him down, or to break through the spell that prevents anyone from leaving Oz. I suspect that spell wasn’t laid by him at all, but by whoever sent him here. This Isle is his prison, and by extension, our tomb.
When Dorothy and her friends arrive, I will tell them all these things. They’ll listen, because they have to—because she and I are bound now, forged by a chain we both willed into existence. A poisoned chain, maybe—a twining of toxic serpents—but it’s the way of my family, the practice by which we have ensured spousal loyalty. It’s the reason why neither my siblings nor I bound ourselves to anyone, until the god-star arrived and ensnared my sister.
I warned her not to bed him. His was an unnatural form, untrue. The bond that was supposed to ensure their eternal love was corrupted from the start because of what heis. And when the connection between them was brutally severed, it fractured her spirit so deeply that he was able to send her away from the Isle. By the time he was done with her, the barrier spell did not even recognize her as a living thing, but as something undead, sustained only by the terrible wish she spoke and the curse he laid upon her.
I have no doubt she is truly dead now. I pity those she must have destroyed before she met her demise.
Peering into the scrying stone, I can’t hold back a rueful smile. My would-be killers are at the southwest tower, taking weapons from my unconscious guards, preparing to enter the narrow gate.
