Very Bad Wizards

by Stunich, C. M.

  It's all a bunch of bullshit.

  Clearly, the 'Emerald City' is only green because every fucking person in it is wearing these damn glasses. I could see it, even from all the way up here: every citizen has the same glasses locked onto their head, just like Tuala said.

  As far as for where here is, I'm not sure. It's clear the building we're in is situated on a hill, overlooking the city. It's vast, stretching for miles in every direction and surrounded by a massive wall covered in the tiny shapes of guards, their armor catching the light as they move along them.

  Now, serving girl is back, and she's trying to convince me to let her dress me. The thing is, I thought I was a prisoner, but she's kowtowing and groveling to me like I'm some sort of god.

  “Oh, gracious sorceress,” she whispers, bowing low again, her green hair (which is probably blonde, sans these stupid glasses) coiled up on her head and fastened into place with a metal clip in the shape of a winged monkey. “I've been instructed by Dorothy herself to make certain you look presentable, and getting into a dress such as this on one's own is no easy feat.”

  There's a quiver of fear in her voice, but since I'm the prisoner here, I just assume it must be because of Dorothy.

  “I thought Dorothy was a good wizard?” I bite out, my tone caustic. I'm being facetious here: if Dorothy were as good as she pretends to be, she wouldn't have sent her tin-armed General Mannix out to kill Stryker and imprison me.

  “So she is,” says the green girl, raising her head just slightly to look at me. “And she rules the Emerald City wisely and well. But to those who are not honest, or who approach her from curiosity, she is most terrible, and few have ever dared ask to see her in person.”

  That's … an interesting bit of information.

  “What's up with these glasses?” I ask, wondering how much information I might get out of this girl. Anything is better than nothing. As it is, I'm going into this meeting completely blind.

  “Because if you did not wear spectacles, the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you,” she intones, as if reading from a script. “Even those who live in the city must wear them night and day.”

  I glance back at Taavi, but he just sits upright on the bed, panting, looking ridiculous with those glasses stuck to his long-muzzled face. Goddamn it.

  “Wow, you sure are a fount of knowledge,” I snap, noticing that the girl cringes and draws back from me. While I'm not entirely lacking in self-esteem, I'm also pretty sure that I'm not all that intimidating either. “Fine, cinch me into that awful corset.”

  I tug the satin nightgown over my head, leaving myself completely naked in front of both Taavi and the green girl. The latter is clearly too scared of me to look directly in my direction anyway, and the former ... Well, Taavi didn't look at me when I was naked in the woods, and he was human. Now that he's a dog, I guess the curve of my hips and the small mounds of my breasts mean even less.

  The servant offers me up some underclothes to shimmy into, and as I do, I realize that the wound on my thigh isn't hurting nearly as much as it did the night before. Peeling the bandages back, I find what might very well be the most shocking thing I've seen yet: my skin, unblemished and smooth.

  “The wound is gone,” I whisper, stumbling over to the mirror in green panties and nothing else. Looking at the back of my thigh, I see that the exit wound is healed as well. There's not even any scar tissue to show where it might've been. “Are you seeing this?” I'm talking to Taavi, but the servant girl doesn't bother to answer me either.

  Instead, she clears her throat politely and waits for me to move back over to her, holding my arms up so that she can slip the pretty dress over my head.

  While she ties up the laces—cinching me in so tightly that I can barely breathe—I stand there, mind spinning. This land they call Oz is weird, a little bit strange, a lot fucked-up. But nothing's shaken me quite so much as seeing my own body betray me with such a trick. Then again, I did send lightning bolts crashing from the sky with a simple flick of the wrist, didn't I?

  The difference is: I didn't know that it was all real then. I do now.

  “You're ready,” the servant girl declares, nodding her head and exhaling with relief, like she wasn't sure she'd be able to tame my tangled brunette locks or fit me into the ridiculously tight corset that's crushing my ribs. “Dorothy will be pleased.”

  “Just so long as Dorothy's happy,” I reply snarkily, and the girl smiles, like she actually thinks that acidic tongue of mine is speaking truth. She raps her knuckles once on the double doors and they swing wide, revealing the same guardswoman with the wings.

  I snap my fingers, and Taavi leaps off the bed, falling into step beside me as I trail behind the servant girl into a cavernous hallway. The entire wall opposite my opulently appointed jail cell is covered in floor-to-ceiling windows. Down below, I can see the sprawling grounds of a well-kept garden, including a hedge maze. Just beyond that, the city extends to the edge of the woods. I can see the Yellow Brick Road from all the way up here, even tinted green as it is from the glasses.

  “Right this way,” the servant girl says, gesturing for me to follow after her. Swiping my palms down the front of my brocade green corset, I suck in a deep breath and keep pace with her. What else can I do? I've got no weapons, no access to that crackling energy that makes up my magic. And Taavi ... he trots alongside me, glancing up every now and again, just to make sure he's doing what he's supposed to.

  I sure as hell hope we don't end up in some supernatural prison in another world. Wouldn't that be the pits?

  The servant girl takes us through seven passages and up three flights of stairs until we come to a great hall, filled with the ladies and gentlemen of the court, all dressed in rich costumes. Male or female, it doesn't seem to matter. Some people are wearing ballgowns resplendent with jewels of all shapes and sizes, sewn in the hems of their dresses or along the necklines of their bodices. Others are wearing coats encrusted with jewels that look impractically heavy as they hang off the shoulders of the courtiers.

  All of them are wearing glasses—some wire-rimmed spectacles, others masquerade masks with lenses over the eyes, and even a few with opera glasses attached to their heads by lock and key.

  As soon as we enter the room, the gossiping and laughing, the clinking of glasses … it all comes to a stop. Everyone turns to look at me curiously through their green glasses, whispering behind raised hands, looking me up and down as if taking my mettle. They seem to pay special attention to the mark on my forehead and, when I lift my skirts to take the few steps that lead up to a raised dais and another door, the silver shoes.

  Just then, a bell rings, and the serving girl turns to me. “That is the signal; you must go into the throne room alone.”

  “Fine by me,” I murmur, hating the pressing crush of stares from the courtiers. “Come on, Taavi.”

  We head for the double doors together, their surfaces carved with a large, balding head, its jeweled eyes glittering as I reach out and pull on one of the handles. There's a guard just inside the door, also dressed in green, with a green beard threaded through with gems and bits of ribbon. He closes it behind us as Taavi and I stride into a cavernous chamber with a high, arched roof, the walls and ceiling and floor covered with large emeralds. The skylight in the center of the roof lets in more than enough sunshine to light up the entire space, the gems and jewels sparkling beneath the golden light.

  But what interests me most is the throne of green marble that stands in the middle of the room. Most importantly, it’s the winged girl sitting on it that draws my attention.

  Her hair looks green, like everything else, but based on the shade of it, I'm guessing it's a mousy brown. Either way, it's pulled into two fat pigtails on either side of her face, the locks cascading down to the floor. She's got hair as long as Stryker's, I think as I pause near the end of a long carpet. It just seems like the right place to stop. I swallow a lump of fear as I study the girl’s crown, embedded wi
th glittering emeralds, and the weighty earrings hanging from her lobes.

  Taavi lets out a little growl, and I reach down, burying my fingers in his ebony fur.

  Dorothy watches me carefully, lounging in that throne of hers like an insouciant princess, her gaze shrewd, a sardonic smile tainting her green lips. Those, at least, I think are actually painted green. Her lids, too, sparkling with tiny gemstones and glitter. She's wearing a gown that puts mine to shame, in a solid green silk that I think might actually be white. And she's the only person not wearing glasses.

  From behind the throne, Tuala appears, the skeleton key hanging from her neck. She's completely nude, her green hair in pigtails to match her mistress'. She smiles at me, but it's a feral smile, all teeth and no mirth. The hair on the back of Taavi's neck lifts up as he curls his lips in a snarl.

  “I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek,” the woman on the throne says, and there's absolutely nothing in her voice or composure that lends to the terms small and meek. One of her legs is tossed over the arm of the throne, head resting in the palm of her other hand. Looking at her now, I find it impossible to imagine this woman living in Kansas. She doesn't just look like she belongs in Oz. No, it's more like Oz belongs to her. “And you must be Oz, the Great and Terrible.”

  “That's what I hear,” I quip back, wondering how prudent it is to act like a flippant asshole when I'm the powerless one in the scenario. I don't exactly have a lot to bargain with, now do I?

  “How presumptuous, for your mother to name you after the land,” Dorothy muses, sitting up and dropping her feet to the floor. She's got on a pair of fabulous heels that wouldn't be out of place on an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race; they're just that fucking extra. “But unsurprising. Ozma, herself, was named after the land by her own mother.”

  My attention piques at the mention of my mom, a woman who, apparently, I didn't actually know for shit. As close as we were, as much time as we spent together, that's a serious emotional blow. It's easier for me to rearrange my worldview to include the land of Oz than it is to admit that Mom was a stranger.

  Dorothy looks down at me from pale green eyes that I suspect would be blue without the glasses, the slightest frown creasing her perfect mouth. She looks at me thoughtfully for a minute.

  “Where did you get the silver shoes?”

  The question surprises me, even as I remember Taavi telling me to never take them off. He said that nobody else could either. Guess he was right, since I'm still wearing them.

  But that question has seriously perked up my mood.

  If Dorothy's asking me about the shoes, then she doesn't know everything. I do have something of a bargaining chip up my sleeve, don't I? Maybe I could offer up the shoes in exchange for freedom? By asking me about them, she's just tipped her hand. Clearly, the shoes matter to her. A lot. I mean, it's the very first question she's decided to ask me, after all.

  “I got them from the Wicked Witch of the East, when my house fell on her and killed her,” I reply with a bit of a smirk, taking a few steps closer to the dais where the throne sits. Tuala sits down on the steps beside Dorothy's throne, watching me carefully.

  “I see.” Dorothy leans forward, putting her elbows on her knees and steepling her fingers together. She rests her chin on them as she watches me. “A clever way to use the East's weakness against her; cardinal witches are not easy to kill, and gravity, in particular, is not an easy weapon to wield.”

  Gravity? I think, remembering Stryker's face when he told me the only thing that scared him was a lit match. Ah. So that was her weakness. How … unfortunate for her.

  “Where did you get the mark upon your forehead?” Dorothy continues conversationally, watching me like I'm something to be wary of. Interesting. I remember the servant girl's fear and wonder what it is that they're both so afraid of. The wizard thing? But if so, then what the hell happened to my magic? I'm not exactly an expert in it, but when Stryker uncurled my fingers and touched the tips of his to them, I could feel it. It was there, and it wasn't so hard to find when I knew to look.

  But now it's gone.

  “Ah, well,” I start, remembering that awful kiss. Well, I mean, it was a good kiss. A great kiss, even. But I didn't ask for it, and consent is kind of a thing with me. My eyes narrow. Fucking Bain the Good Witch. What a piece of work. “That's where the Good Witch of the North kissed me when he bade me goodbye and sent me to you.” I shrug my shoulders. Might as well be honest until I have reason to do otherwise.

  Dorothy cocks her head slightly to one side.

  “You were on your way here, to Emerald City?” she clarifies, and I nod. She had her general kidnap me and kill one of my friends, and yet, she doesn't seem to know shit about me. “What is your relationship with Stryker, the Vain and Arrogant?”

  My stomach twists at the mention of his name. He's dead. His blood spattered across me, hot and steaming. Even if I didn't know the man for shit, that'll remain one of the worst moments of my life. Pretty sure I'm still in shock over it.

  “Does it matter now?” I ask, my voice cracking just slightly. “What do you want from me?”

  “The question, my fellow wizard, is what do you wish from me?” Dorothy smiles at me, and it's not entirely unpleasant. If I hadn't seen my friend murdered by her general's hand, I might've believed it. “You say you were traveling to the Emerald City to see me, so there must be something you need?”

  The words crouch on the tip of my tongue: send me back to Kansas; I don't like your country, it's as beautiful as it is deadly. Instead, I wet my lips and think over my answer carefully.

  “I want Taavi back to normal,” I say, pointing at the dog and lifting my chin. Act as if you deserve good things, and they'll find their way to you, my dad used to say. That's what I need to do now, act as if I deserve what I'm asking for, instead of pleading for it. “And I want help finding my Aunt Emily. She disappeared sometime after I arrived in Oz.”

  Dorothy and Tuala exchange a glance before turning back to me.

  “Give me the shoes,” Dorothy says, still smiling that pretty smile of hers. She holds out her hand, as if she expects me to simply pass them over. Something feels wrong about this; I don't like it. I remember my own words of wisdom, to never bargain with the fae. Dorothy does have wings on her back although I’m pretty sure they’re fake, but I still don't trust her.

  “Give you the shoes, and I get Taavi back?” I ask for clarification, and Dorothy smiles a little wider.

  “Anything you wish for, Oz, you can have.” She raises her perfectly manicured brows at me, hand still extended, waiting. “Now, pass the shoes over and I'll gift you emerald-studded heels in return, enchanted ones that allow the wearer to dance any dance known to the land of Oz without missing a step.”

  “Do not take those shoes off under any circumstances.” Taavi was dead serious when he told me that. I feel like, since he can't exactly speak for himself right now, that I should take all the advice he gave me and run with it.

  I take a small step forward, and Dorothy's eyes blaze with excitement. Too bad that expression won't last when I tell her no.

  Before I get the chance to speak, a door opens on the opposite side of the room from the ones Taavi and I came in through. Heavy footsteps precede the arrival of General Mannix, dressed in gingham that, with the glasses on my head, looks like dark green over paler green. He's wearing the same castle-shaped badge on his chest, his silver hair and eyes tainted with green.

  He barely glances in my direction as he makes his way over to Dorothy's throne. She, on the other hand, never takes her eyes off of me.

  “Your majesty,” the general says, his voice as cold as iron. He bends low at the waist before rising to his full height. His mouth is lush, his cheekbones glorious, his eyes framed with dark lashes, but I just can't see past the memories of blood. He killed a random faerie creature for no reason whatsoever; he murdered Stryker in front of me; he shot me through the leg. My thigh tingles as if in response to the ghostly wound,
and Mannix's silver eyes swing my way. His stare is devastating. Even though it feels like weakness, I find myself looking away. “I have need of your wise and illustrious counsel.”

  I glance back, relieved to see that both Mannix and Dorothy have turned away from me to stare at each other. Tuala, however, is still watching me, like I might stage some sort of surprise coup if she spends too long blinking.

  “I'll be in shortly,” she says, looking down at him like he's some sort of conquest, a triumph to be celebrated. On the other hand, he seems to be looking at her with barely repressed hatred. It simmers in his eyes like so much flame. “Is it urgent?”

  “It involves the West, your majesty,” he continues, his voice giving me chills that seem to seep into every limb, like frostbite. Dorothy's face tightens up slightly, but she nods, looking back to me with a slightly deflated version of her smile.

  “You're excused, General.” Mannix nods, takes another bow, and lets himself out the same way he came in. The sound of the door closing behind him feels final, like a death knell foretelling my own funeral. “Now, Oz, where were we?” Dorothy asks, forcing her smile a little wider. It looks painted on, forced. “Ah, yes, the shoes.” She holds her hand out again, but already, I'm shaking my head.

  “I'd rather keep them, if that's okay with you.” My voice sounds hollow, edged with fear, but it's the best I can do. General Mannix, with his pistol for a finger, is only a room away. All it would take is a single command from Dorothy, and Tuala could grab him, bring him back here. They could force me to kneel on this cold, marble floor, and blow my brains out like they did Stryker's. I swallow hard as Dorothy's smile slips into a frown. She glances Tuala's direction, and the two of them exchange a long, searching look.

  “Oz, it would please me greatly if you handed over the silver shoes,” Dorothy repeats, turning back again, her eyes searching me carefully. “Then we can move on, get you registered, put you in the Trials. You'd be fighting for the glory of our great land, for the chance to march with the army against the West. It's the greatest honor that could ever be bestowed on a wizard such as yourself.”