Chapter 10

Ten

"What are we going to do?" Straw's voice was as panicked as Nick's heavy heart. "Everyone's asleep, and I can't wake them up. Shall I find a rooster? Will it crow if it's after dawn?" He had been shaking Lional for a full minute as Nick did his best to stay on exhausted feet.

"Go to the village," Nick ordered the scarecrow. "Get help. I might not be able to stay awake myself."

Straw turned toward the far-off village, the trails of cooking-fire smoke so distant they were barely smudges on the horizon. "I won't fail this job," he muttered in grim determination, clenching his gloved hands.

The scarecrow started walking, but his janky steps seemed to be no better than a toddler's crawl. It would take him forever to get to the village, and forever to get back, if he even remembered what he'd been sent for when he got there. But Straw was all they had, and as a new wave of sleepiness fell over Nick, he put his faith in the shambling strawman.

"Stay on your feet," Nick whispered to himself. "You have to stay on your feet." He couldn't fall victim to whatever was making them all pass out, which seemed to be the bright-orange pollen. Most of what had been cast into the air had fallen onto the carpet of moss, but even the slightest knock against a poppy would unleash more.

For her, stay on your damn feet and keep your damn eyes open…As he looked down on Dorothy's deeply slumbering form, her breaths seemed to be longer and slower with each passing moment. When would they become so slow she could no longer survive?

Nick's fear hardened his skin as it shoved past the inner traps of his self-control. His gray skin thickened to cool silver, painful but somehow helping him as he suddenly snapped alert, the lullaby-call of the poppy field repelled by his feelings.

Apparently, the pollen wasn't putting them to sleep with each breath, but as a toxin absorbed through the skin. A glance at Lional's orange-covered nose and Dorothy's pollen-smudged hands seemed to confirm his sharpened mind's theory. He might have followed them into their unconsciousness had the brush of Dorothy's stained fingertips, and the feeling they'd loosed within him, not immediately solidified the very skin she'd touched. The toxin, it seemed, couldn't sink through metal.

Nick wasn't sure what good the knowledge did him, as his friends were still out cold and falling deeper into sleep by the moment.

At least he knew what to do for himself, and that was something. He forced his mind to ride the wave of allowing enough emotion to show on his face to keep his skin resistant to the slumbering poison of the plants, all the while finding a balance to keep himself pliant enough to be able to move.

The village was so far away he doubted Straw's slow speed would be able to get him there in time, let alone convince the villagers he wasn't a magical monster. And then convince them, on top of that, to blindly send help back before his friends' slumber became permanent.

If Nick didn't do something radical and soon, who knew when Dorothy, and the other two, would draw their last breath.

The breeze-filled sway of the poppy flowers throughout the field was as treacherous as a minefield, threatening more pollen, but it wasn't what happened above the blooms that caught his eye. Rather, the rustle and dart of ground animals tracing their way around the stalks, moving across the pollen-dusted moss as if it was nothing.

The mice!Nick thought. How do they survive in here? The one Lional picked up was positively covered in pollen.

He focused in on a furry shape, climbing up one of the thick, tall stems, shaking the flower on top, and forced his hardening legs to carry him to it.

"Excuse me, little mouse," he said to the red petals as he got close to the lightly swaying poppy, pinching his nose—though it wouldn't help. "Perhaps you could help me."

The flower paused and shook a few more times as a field mouse appeared, folding back a petal to see who was talking. Its pudgy little body barely made the poppy bend under its mousy weight.

"Well now, what can I do for you?" the mouse asked in the squeaks and chirps of the mouse language as it rubbed pollen off its whiskers and onto its tiny shoulders.

"Good Sir Mouse," Nick began. His mouse accent wasn't the greatest and the cadence of the words was different than the normal language of Oz, but he believed he could get his point across. "I'm alarmed to find my friends have been captured by poppy dreams and was hopeful you could explain how you're capable of navigating this dangerous realm."

"Oh, why that's quite sad that they have not survived the poppy field," the mouse replied.

Nick didn't really care to hear the word "survived," but he used the angst it created to keep his balance of metal skin.

"They're not dead"—at least, he hoped they weren't—"but they may soon be if I cannot find a cure for them."

The mouse shifted on his flowery perch and tapped his nose with a tiny paw.

"That's because they haven't partaken of poppy-honey," the wise little mouse declared. "The local bees make it from the poppy pollen, and we mice know to drink a little taste of it every few days so that we can hunt the area for delicious snails and ladybugs."

"Where would I be able to get some of this miraculous honey?" Nick asked.

"The beehive over the impassable Ozlo River."

For a horrifying moment, Nick thought he was going to have to backtrack all the way to the river from the day before, when he realized that the little mouse might be talking about the creek Toto had been sniffing for. To the little creature, a jumpable stream would be an impassable river.

"Remind me where that is." Nick gestured toward the tree line: the direction they'd all been heading in before the pollen hit.

The mouse put his tiny paw over his eyes to shield from the bright sunlight and looked off into what must have been a great distance for him and then nodded.

"That's it. The great river running through the wood over yonder. Over there, you'll find the combs of honey guarded by the nectar wasps."

"Excuse me, good mouse, but I thought you had spoken of bees making the honey, not wasps."

"I did. The bees make the honey under the guard of the nectar wasps. You'll have to negotiate with one and then the other."

"How do the mice find themselves capable of bartering for the honey?" Nick hoped he wasn't insulting the mouse, but he needed details.

"The queen of the field mice journeys there once a month and dances for the amusement of the queen of bees."

"Your queen dances?"

"Of course! It's how bees communicate, you know." The mouse wiggled a bit, for his own amusement. "And they take great enjoyment in watching other creatures speak their language through their own hops and swirls and dances."

Nick knew what he needed to do. Even if he couldn't get the honey—his rusty joints barely fit for walking, much less dancing—he could at least try bathing the pollen off of his friends in the creek.

"Give me a moment, Sir Mouse," he said.

He limped back and scooped Dorothy up from the ground, hugging her to him, her legs draped over one arm, her shoulders over the other, and her head resting against his chest. It became another source of fuel to keep his metal-skin-balance, although he could tell having her in his arms was working a little too well, as his back was already resisting any movement.

"Can you lead me to them, Sir Mouse?" Nick stiffly asked, returning to the poppy.

The mouse gave an excited squeak that neither had nor needed a translation. "Why, that sounds like excellent fun! Especially if you're going to try to dance. I've never seen a statue dance before."

Most statues have more rhythm than me, but I've got to try something, Nick thought.

The mouse spiraled down the stem to the ground and, without asking permission, climbed Nick's pant leg, rocketing up his shirt to his shoulder, and perched there with a smug, mousy look on his face. His little paw shot out, one minuscule finger pointing at the tree line in the distance. "Onward, steed!"

Nick grimaced inwardly, though he understood that carrying the tiny guide was for the best. Even on a good day, he'd have been slower than the mouse, losing sight of him quickly. And this was a very, very, very bad day.

"Since we're going to the water anyway, perhaps I could just wash the pollen off of my friends," he suggested to the mouse as he lurched forward, obeying the mouse's instructions. Half drowning in the creek would be better for him than trying to dance, which would be both painful and mortifying.

"We tried that when we first got here generations ago," the mouse replied, as they continued along their way. "All it did was soak the pollen in faster and made our fellow mice find the doom-sleep quicker."

"Well, then let's not do that," Nick said, and fell silent trying concentrate on showing just enough hope to keep his skin pollen-resistant, listening intently to Dorothy's breaths. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn they were getting shallower.

Nick had expecteda small series of beehives hanging from various trees with hundreds of bees flittering about and was unprepared, though he shouldn't have been, for the sheer size of the dome-like hive. It stood chin high and as wide as his cabin. The whole of it dominated the middle of a clearing next to the Ozlo creek, on the opposite bank.

Hundreds of pinecone-sized holes made up the majority of the hive's entrances and exits, and the entirety writhed with a carpet of bees so thick it was hard to see the color of the nest beneath. The bees themselves were larger than his thumb and were taking off and landing in groups of tens and twenties.

Those, he could have dealt with. But the nectar wasps that protected the hive were the size of cats, and they watched with beady black eyes from the surrounding tree branches, waiting for any sign of trouble. Nick had no doubt that their terrible, vicious-looking stingers, as long and twice as pointy as a magic wand, could easily penetrate even his metal skin.

"Now what?" Nick asked the brave mouse. "Do we cross?"

They stood under the shade of an ozpen tree, identical to those opposite, minus the nectar wasps. The creek couldn't have been more than knee height at its deepest point, and crossing was certain to be the easiest part of what came next.

"Certainly not!" The mouse ran down the full length of Nick and scurried to a neighboring tree, parallel to the hive on the other side. There, he squeaked loudly and began drumming his back feet on the tree roots. The rhythm was uniquely chaotic yet also musically intricate.

The hive of bees began fluttering their wings in response and the large, deadly-looking wasps tensed their multi-faceted eyes, scanning the threat that was Nick and his small, furry companion.

When the mouse finished the rhythm, he nodded his head once to Nick and then, without further ado, jogged back toward the flowery field.

"Where are you going?" Nick called after the field mouse, as he held onto the still form of Dorothy.

"I'm going to go get my queen. She's going to want to see this," he called back.

"Great," Nick mumbled. An even bigger audience. "What do I do next?"

The mouse definitely laughed before replying, "Get ready to dance!"

The bees poured out of the hive and took to the air in one giant ball, swarming to the trees nearby where they became a strange, living fabric that draped across the boughs and down the gnarled trunks, thrumming their wings in the same beat the mouse had done. The sound was like nothing Nick had ever heard, the combined buzz of thousands so loud he would've covered his ears if his arms weren't occupied with more pressing duties.

"I should do what the mouse said," he said quietly to the sleeping woman in his arms.

Reluctantly, he lowered Dorothy to the leaf-strewn floor of the small woodland, laying her down on a soft, mossy spot, and stood back to his full height, his skin rubbing cold against the fabric at the elbows and shoulders of the shirt he wore. With his arms politely at his sides, in case the bees took him covering his ears as a slight, he waited.

But a different sound cut through the almighty drone. A flap of wings as a crow swooped down and landed on a rotten, mushroom-adorned log just at the water's edge. It turned back over its shoulder, eyeing Nick in a way that felt unequivocally judgmental.

"Are you part of this?" Nick asked. "The mouse didn't mention a bird."

The crow cawed and took off, flying toward the poppy field.

Nick couldn't help but follow the trajectory, his innards seizing, his entire body turning rigid as he watched the crow soar through a dark red swirl of smoke, appearing at the threshold of the poppies. A slow, deliberate spiral of thick crimson. There was no need to guess on who was moments away from emerging from the cloud in her full green wickedness.

Nick's gaze flitted back to Dorothy. There was nowhere to hide her. Even if he could get her behind a tree, he wasn't fast enough to avoid detection. Still, Zolesha would have to step over his cold, dead body before he would let any harm come to his… travel companion.

He moved to stand over Dorothy, one foot firmly planted on either side of her.

But as he continued to watch the red smoke swirling, he realized why it was taking so long—Zolesha wasn't alone.

A young woman appeared from the crimson haze, a bright-blue umbrella open over her shoulder. Another sister? She had the same long, light-sucking dark hair and red lips, though he couldn't see the rest of her face beneath the umbrella's brim, tilted to keep the shade on as much of her as possible. Below the hand that held the umbrella's curved handle, a pale-blue sleeve had rolled back to her elbow, revealing a forearm of the whitest white, glistening even in her self-made shade.

"Nicholas!" An all-too-familiar voice dragged his attention back to the other figure, who had finally made her entrance.

Zolesha and her companion stood within the poppy field, either unaffected or unaware of what the pollen could do. Nick hoped it was the latter. With Lional still knocked out amongst the poppies, there'd be nothing and no one to stop him from putting Zo out of her misery, once and for all. It would simply be a waiting game.

"Nicholas, come to me!" Zolesha demanded.

"I'll stay right here, thanks!" he shouted back.

Zolesha shoved her companion. The young woman stumbled forward in surprise, the umbrella flying up for half a second, before she hurried to bring it down again. In that blink-and-miss-it glimpse, Nick saw the face of someone he recognized, as if in a dream. She was familiar, but he couldn't place her.

It nagged at him as the young woman made her way toward him on slow, uncertain legs. She was almost as unsteady as Straw.

"You remember Myrsina, don't you?" Zolesha called out, a crackle of amusement in her voice.

Nick battled against the punch of shock that socked him in the stomach. He hated surprises at the best of times, and right now, he couldn't afford to lock up completely. The queen of the bees was expecting a dance in exchange for Dorothy, Toto, and Lional's cure, not a new, metal tree to stand sentinel with the other ozpens.

"I thought you melted," he gasped, finding his voice.

The young woman stopped in the shade of the tree, tilting her umbrella back to reveal her face. Seeing her was a time machine, dragging him back nearly ten years to the first moment he set eyes on Zolesha, long before the green skin and withered, cruel heart. With her silky black hair, blushberry-red lips, and wide, dark eyes, she was an exact copy of the girl he used to know, aside from the glittering so-white-it-was-blue skin. Of course she was—that was the point; she'd been created in Zolesha's image.

"I was made again," Myrsina replied, with the kind of shining smile Zolesha's sunken, wasted face couldn't have hoped to create anymore. "I am always remade when my mistress needs to dispense with her difficult emo?—"

She shuddered, trickles of water suddenly streaming down her neck and arms, dripping onto the ground.

"You must come and speak with my mistress," she said, her eyes pinched in a manner Nick recognized all too well. She was in agony. Zolesha's doing. Leave it to the Wicked Witch to give her creation the ability to feel pain, for the sole purpose of making Myrsina feel it.

Nick's steely eyes found Zolesha, still hiding among the poppies. "Still as Wicked as ever, then!"

"Always the false flatterer!" the witch retorted with a cackle.

"You must come and speak with my mistress," Myrsina repeated, more water dripping to the mossy ground. She watched it fall, stricken.

Nick sniffed. "You come here if you want to talk so badly!"

"Please," Myrsina whispered, her smile so strained it veered into manic, the thin, glittering skin around her eyes cobwebbing.

He wouldn't pity her; he couldn't afford to.

"What do you want, Zolesha?" Nick shouted, staying put. Nothing could have made him move. He would hold his position over Dorothy if it was the last thing he did, which was likely what Zolesha had in mind.

"You need to ask? I suppose your skull has gotten a little thicker since I last saw you," Zolesha replied. "Bring me the girl! Those shoes on her feet belong to me, and I'll have them back, or I'll drop her from the same height I dropped her boat! Have you ever heard bones crack like kindling, Nicholas? You can't imagine it."

His ears filled with the phantom sound. He'd broken enough branches and twigs over his knee. Imagining that happening to Dorothy surged terror to the surface, forcing him to divert his mind to the steady buzz coming from the trees. That strange orchestra wiped out all other sound, real or otherwise, tipping the threat of metal back to a kind of equilibrium.

Wait… why isn't she coming over? It wasn't like the Wicked Witch to hide among the pretty flowers, denying herself the singular pleasure of tormenting Nick up close and personal.

"Why don't you just come and get her then?" Nick's spine quivered at the risk he was taking, the ripple of fear straightening his back as the skin hardened, undoing some of the good work the bees had done. "It's not like I can really stop you."

Even at a distance, he saw her attention dart toward the hive of bees. The bristle of her unease proved to be louder than the earsplitting drone that continued to thrum in the air.

"You're too kind," she said, "but I don't do the heavy lifting. Bring me the girl."

Nick left Dorothy where she was, within range of the bees. He hated every trudging, grinding step away from her, fearful that this was part of a trick and Zolesha would come and take her. But the risk of Dorothy dying in a stalemate was higher. He had to choose the greater of two evils.

"I'd forgotten how beautiful you were," he said, approaching the line of poppies. Myrsina followed him, leaving glinting dew on the grass where she walked.

Zolesha stood a few yards into the blooms, dark eyes flaring. "Myrsina, come to me."

The enchanted snow-woman did as she was told. Nick watched, breath held, as her umbrella almost knocked the large, cup shape of the nearest petals. And as he did, the hope seized his face in a slow corruption of broken-glass tightening.

Zolesha frowned at the change, no doubt wondering what had caused it. He leaped on the opportunity.

"Sorry, Zolesha," he said stiffly, working his jaw, "it's hard to… look at you. So many memories. And I've had… nothing but time to think… about each one. Honestly, it was a… shock to see you again, in that village. I never thought… I would. Not our village though, was it? I guess I've been… reminiscing. And seeing Myrsina—it brings… a lot back."

The Wicked Witch tucked her brittle hair behind her ear. A surprisingly girlish movement. And her cheeks turned a splotchy, darker shade of green.

She's flustered. Nick reined in the relief before it could wreak greater havoc on him.

"I always liked the… tin soldiers you sent… me," he continued, mouth numb like he'd been out in the winter cold for too long. "Ironic now, though. Or was that always the point—to have me… march to the beat of your drum?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but he got in ahead of her.

"If so, I'm… following. I've resisted for so long… but when I saw you again the other day, I… realized I don't want to… resist anymore." He paused, noting the ever-darkening patches on her cheeks, now spreading down to her neck. "Maybe I never did. Playing… hard to get, and the game… went too far."

He strained his voice though he had his pollen-resistant shell in perfect balance. He needed her to think that talking about her, with her, was difficult in an emotional way. That it pained him to think of all the precious time they might have wasted, when really he wanted to rid Oz of her and get back to Dorothy and the dance that might save her life.

"I've… learned my lesson, Zo," he said thickly, raising a creaking hand to his heart. "I toyed with you because… I was an idiot boy who… liked you too much and had no idea… what to do with that. Haven't you ever been afraid of… a feeling like that? A feeling so… huge it's unbearable? The milkmaid was a… challenge I didn't even want to… win. I was too stupid to… understand that love is… meant to be easy. It's meant… to be shown."

Zolesha seemed unsteady, smoothing shaky hands down the front of her night-black robes, tucking and untucking that same lock of cobweb-frail hair, her wand hand sneaking behind her back, like she wanted to hide it from Nick. "Why is it so Wizarding hot?" she muttered, touching her knuckles to her cheeks. "Myrsina, put your hand on my brow."

"You always hated summer," Nick said softly, as the woman of snow and ice obediently placed her palm on the witch's forehead. "Zo, let me… show you my love… now. What I should have done… a decade ago."

"Stay where you are!" Zolesha warned.

Nick ignored her and shambled forward, unhooking his axe from the leather loop against his thigh. It only took one strike to cut through the poppy stem. Carefully cupping it like an oversized wine glass, desperate not to spill a single grain of bright-orange pollen, he made his way back to Zolesha and Myrsina.

His heart hammered as he stepped forward, making his way through the poppies to the big green thorn in his side. This time, she didn't ask him to stop or step back, her dark gaze bright with curiosity… and something else; a softness that had not been there in years.

"A pretty bloom for a rare beauty," he said. "It's not an olive branch, but… I would walk all the way… to the groves… of Winkie Country if you asked me to."

Zolesha reached for the poppy, her arm halting sharply mid-stretch. Nick discreetly swallowed—had she figured out the trick? She seemed to sense something, her eyes narrowing, her lips flattening into a grim line.

She snatched her hand onto Myrsina's arm, gripping it below the elbow, where her bare forearm glistened like virgin snow in dawn's first light. Myrsina squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her free hand into a fist, a whimper squeaking mouse-like from clamped lips. More pain. More needless, heartless pain.

Zolesha's visible skin turned an even darker shade of green than Nick's blushes had inflicted, while Myrsina seemed to glow for a moment, all of her sparkles pulsing in bright constellations.

As the glow faded, Myrsina's eyes fluttered open, brimming with such vulnerable, warm affection that water began to trickle down her cheeks. She was looking straight at Nick, and for a moment, he was in the past, on the first day Zolesha had blustered into town.

Meanwhile, Zolesha herself had lost any hint of girlish softness, all hard edges and twisted bitterness, her black eyes burning with furious fire. She drew her wand out from behind her back and pointed it at Nick.

Too slow… He lurched forward, blowing across the poppy's top with all his might.

Pollen sandblasted into her face, vivid orange crumbs clinging to her hair, her eyelashes— stuck in the creases of her haggard green skin, sucked up her nostrils, latching to the moisture on her lips.

She swooned on her feet, and Nick lurched again, swiping at the wand that was just within his reach. His hand was half a second from closing over the pointy end when Myrsina's glittering fingers grasped Zolesha's wrist and yanked her arm down, out of Nick's grasp. The snow-woman moved robotically, apologetically, as if she couldn't help but guard her mistress and her mistress's belongings, putting herself between Zolesha and Nick.

"I'm sorry," Myrsina whispered.

"Get out of the way!" Nick didn't have it in him to punch his way through the cursed creation. She was suffering enough.

"I'm sorry," Myrsina repeated.

Zolesha staggered backward with a yawn, her wand lazily raised. Red smoke shot out, beginning the spiral that would snatch away Nick's chance. He had a choice: try to dive into the smoke and go wherever they were going to make a last-ditch attempt to grab the wand, or stay for Dorothy.

It wasn't a choice at all.

He forced himself to retreat as the smoke swallowed up the witch and her nostalgic companion, waiting a moment longer to make certain they were gone.

As Nick returned to the creek bank, he stooped to put his metallic fingers under Dorothy's nose. Two faint puffs of condensation phased in and out against his deliberately hardened skin. He breathed a tight sigh of relief, the air lodging in his throat as he realized something was amiss.

It was quiet. Eerily quiet.

The thrumming of the bees had stopped.

A single bee, obviously the queen, crawled out of the topmost hole in the mound. She was larger than the already large bees, but smaller than the wasps which were still watching from above. Oddly, she was about the size of a mouse.

Unsure of what to do, and more than a little flustered after his confrontation with Zolesha, Nick helplessly bowed to the queen then stood straight again. He began asking for help and was five words in when the buzzing started afresh, and he was ten words in when the agitation of the bees became so angry that he knew he was traveling down the wrong path by trying to speak to them. The mouse had been clear: when they wanted honey, they danced.

Looking around him and feeling ever the fool, Nick Chopper started to dance like no one was watching. It was clunky, mechanical, and more than once he stumbled and fell, but he pushed through the skin-hardened pain with small glances down at the woman laying at his shuffling, tapping feet. She would have laughed harder than she had at Straw's crane joke. He could almost hear it.

The angry buzzing slowed. It started to pulse in time to his plodding dance, the bees leaving their trees.

Nick felt as if he'd danced for hours but knew it was only a matter of minutes. How long was he meant to dance for? Would the queen let him know when she'd had enough? Surely, she'd had her fill of his awful coordination already.

He finally came to a stop at the crescendo of the buzzing wings of the thousands of bees that were now floating and flying around him in an unsettling confetti of sweet nature. Clumsily, he put out his arms in a ta-da stance, praying he'd done enough.

The queen bee bowed her head, a tuft of orange fluff forming her crown, and came to the edge of the mound. She danced in a small circle, humming through her spiracles, pulsing her abdomen and thumping her legs. Every full circle, she turned and wiggled her backside left to right, before beginning the dance again.

Unfortunately, he had no idea what her complicated dance meant.

"Great," Nick mumbled to himself. "Now what do I do?"

His own backside had no hope of wiggling like that.

"She says she is greatly pleased by your dance," an old mousy voice chirped up from behind him. He turned to see a large horde of field mice sitting and resting on patches of moss, some others clustered on the boughs of the nearest ozpen tree, even more perching higher in the distant poppy cups, having obviously watched his absurd dance.

"And you'll excuse me for watching along with the bees," the old mouse said. She reached up and tilted a small poppy petal crown adorning her head. "But my servant told me that you needed honey and that you would be dancing, so I came to watch this miracle for myself. And in thanks, if you will allow me, I will ask on your behalf, for it has been so long since I have been so greatly entertained."

"Please," Nick replied with a bow to her, grateful that his silver skin made blushing easier to hide.

The gray mouse queen hobbled forward on obviously arthritic legs and did a low, circular dance of her own, occasionally patting her tail to a fallen tree branch and smacking her hands on the loose top of an acorn, poking up through the tree undergrowth.

The queen of the bees thrummed once and reentered the hive. Most of the swarm followed after her, although some small groups broke off to continue their workday in the fields.

It seemed their entertainment was over.

The wasps relaxed, lounging on their branches.

"What was her answer, my queen?" Nick asked the elderly field mouse.

"She says she'll part with four thimbles of honey for you and your friends." It was the exact amount he would need to cleanse his body and revive his friends. Perhaps his dancing hadn't been the bees' only amusement, enjoying entertainment of a more macabre kind.

Nick exhaled in relief before addressing the mouse queen again. "I know that the mouse kingdom likes to stitch and make outfits for those who are in need, so I imagine you know the answer: Is she speaking of a mouse-sized or a human-sized thimble?"

The queen of the field mice smiled as she said, "A human-sized one."

As luck would have it, Nick had that very thing. He dug into his pack and pulled out his two thimbles from the tailor. "Am I allowed to cross to receive the honey, my Queen?"

The old mouse rolled her tiny paw, as if to say, Go ahead.

He carefully crossed the calf-deep creek to the mound, stretching against his hardened and aching body to put the thimble near the entrance, where the queen bee had crawled out.

Within seconds, a group of bees grabbed it and dragged it down into the dark.

A moment later, the first of the four thimblefuls of honey arrived.

Nick left the second and hurried back the way he'd come, falling to the ground beside Dorothy as the mice watched on. There was still more entertainment to be had, apparently, with some of the mice even scuttling back so as not to miss it.

Concentrating only on her, Nick cradled Dorothy with one arm, careful not to injure her with hard metal of his silver skin, and tilted her head back. Her lips parted as if she were ready to drink in a kiss.

He poured the honey into her mouth, taking care not to spill a drop. But a golden bead stuck to her lower lip, and not knowing what else to do, he gently ran his thumb across that soft, sweet flesh as if he were slicking on a balm. Her mouth glistened with the sticky honey, and he willed her to lick her lips to take in that last bit of the cure.

Lional… Toto… Me… He shook his head and groaned back to his feet, stumbling back to the mound. He drank his thimbleful down in one go, putting both empty thimbles back at the entrance. The group of waiting bees took it and disappeared down into the dark for refills three and four.

He'd sloshed back through the creek, ready to go hunting in the poppies for the lionman and Toto, when a sound stopped him in his tracks.

Dorothy stirred, running her tongue lazily over her honey-sweet lips. Her eyelids flickered open, and he went running back, carefully holding the remaining two thimbles. She peered up into his face, her head slightly tilted on the moss pillow beneath her head. A sleepy smile spread across her honeydew mouth, and she licked her lips again with a satisfied smack.

"Did you give me a honey kiss?" she asked, in slumbering confusion.

Nick breathed out a back-tightening sigh of relief, and wished he could answer that yes, he'd given her a honey kiss, with a promise that all his kisses would be just as sweet.

Instead, he shook his head. How could they ever kiss when he couldn't even share a smile with her, after all?