Chapter 20

Twenty

Getting into Wicked—formerly Wicker—Castle was the easy part. Lional had been born and raised there after all. He knew every secret entrance and every hidden stairwell in the place. Being inside and finding Dorothy was the issue. The most immediate one, at least.

The reduced quartet passed through the frosty glazed courtyard, crowded with snow-covered apple trees. Toto ran up to a few, sniffing in confusion. No one needed to mention what they were really passing through—a suspended graveyard, the life or death of the old servants yet to be decided.

After two days of walking and ceaseless thinking, Nick hadn't been able to unburden himself of what felt like his own death sentence. Being encumbered with the Curse with the hope of it one day being removed had been manageable. Being encumbered with the Curse permanently, without hope, didn't seem like much of a life at all. To add insult to injury, he'd tasted what life could be like, free of it, with Dorothy… and it had all been taken away. Literally.

"My apologies, kind souls," Lional murmured to the branches and the swollen apples in perpetual fruit.

Even Straw had lost some of his cheer, as though the grim moods of his two companions had become a contagion of misery. Toto seemed to be infected too; he hadn't wagged his tail since the monkeys came.

"My apologies to you too," Lional said unexpectedly, casting mournful eyes at Nick. "I should have made an exception when I had the opportunity. My actions… or lack thereof, have had ripples of consequence that I could not comprehend. Seeing it… is sobering."

Nick didn't respond. He couldn't talk about the broken wand, didn't want to believe that eight years had finally transformed into forever, all in the span of a second. If he did, he'd start wallowing, wishing he'd never left his solitary woods, wishing he'd never met the woman who'd made him crave his former self like never before.

"Yes," Straw said, doubly unexpected, "I think you made a big mistake. You didn't do your job properly. I know what that's like."

Toto mustered a low growl, but whether he was agreeing or disagreeing, Nick didn't know.

Lional's trudging steps grew heavier as he led them around the front of the towering, black stone castle, through a narrow iron gate—lockpicked with a pointed claw—and down a passageway that ran alongside the castle and then, unnervingly, deep into the mountain.

"What can we expect?" Nick asked flatly.

"There will be servants," Lional replied, his tone matching Nick's. "Not many, but some—those who voluntarily chose to serve the witch, pledging themselves in return for being protected under the umbrella of her power. Though, seeing those trees, I wonder if it was just a matter of survival." He shook his head. "Either way, I am no friend to them anymore. No one will help us, so it would be better for us to avoid them at all costs."

Coming to a door built into the lantern-lit passageway, Lional bent down to the keyhole and sniffed sharply, as he and Toto had been doing all the way up the mountain path. All two days of their journey up into the highest peaks, Nick's bones and muscles protesting the entire way, seizing in the cold.

"Beyond this door are three passages," Lional explained. "One, a stairwell to the upper reaches. Two, a tunnel down to the dungeons. Three, a path to the kitchens, where I suggest we go to thaw out. It is late, and the scent of people is hours old. I suspect everyone who might hinder our progress has already retired for the night."

Of course they'd arrived in darkness, when the Wicked Witch's power would be at its greatest. There'd been no helping it.

"Where is Dorothy likely to be? A bedchamber somewhere? Forget us thawing out—we can do that when we have her and the wands," Nick said, insides twinging at the knowledge that his Curse wand was no longer among the collection.

The search for the wands would have been easier if they'd brought Bellina with them, but after the monkey attack, they couldn't afford the delay of doubling back to town. Plus, what if she had decided to stay stubbornly put again? It would have been too much wasted time.

"As long as we retrieve Dorothy, her wand, and the wand that doomed my servants, I shall be content," Lional said quietly, almost to himself. As if he was starting to think he deserved every bit of his punishment.

Frankly, Nick was just happy that Lional had agreed to come. It was a monstrous risk for the prince-turned-beast. Upsetting Zolesha was likely to get his own Cursed wand snapped, and possibly his former servants' as well. Just like Nick's.

"The library, perhaps," Lional mused aloud. "Or the treasury."

"Do you have an infirmary?" Straw offered, having heard the word for the first time during his Solstoz day in Scwarf. He'd been slipping it into conversation ever since. "If I was a Wicked Witch, I'd put Cursing wands where tender care and medicine is supposed to be, just to be extra Wicked."

There would be no cure for Nick inside the castle. He knew it. Zolesha knew it. And knowing the Wicked Witch, Dorothy probably knew all about it as well. Zolesha would love nothing more than to brag about the Curse she had put on Nick and the fact that, short of a miracle wish, he would never be free of it. But that wasn't his goal. Nor was revenge on his mind—although he wouldn't pass up the chance if given it.

What Nick hoped to do with this final gesture of his freedom was to give Dorothy her own. He would get her home, where she could live out her life with the love and happiness Nick would never be able to show her.

"I suspect," Lional said, in a growly whisper as he picked the lock, and pushed open the door, leading them into the tunnels, "they will have Dorothy in the dungeons below, and the wands as far away as possible. Zolesha undoubtedly knows we are coming; she will want to split us up and split our time."

"Hold on." Nick realized Lional had mentioned it twice, but he'd missed it the first time. "You have dungeons?"

"Of course, why wouldn't I?"

"Well, it's just that you're… you know." He broadly gestured at the lionman. "It's just that you're so against violence in any form, so I assumed you would never lock someone up."

Lional nodded as if he expected no less wisdom from Nick. "You forget, I did not build this castle. It has stood for thousands of years. I used the dungeons for storage, but I suspect they have been given their more archaic use again now that the new mistress has taken my home and made it this devilish place."

"Well, it makes sense to me," Nick said. "But I also agree that Zolesha wants us to split up. We can't do what she wants. So, I say we go after the wands first. That way, when you, Toto, and Straw can get out of here with Dorothy, you'll have a cure for yourself and your people."

Toto barked once in approval.

Lional raised an eyebrow at the lack of Nick's own name in the list of survivors but did not push. He nodded instead.

There would be no leaving the castle for Nick. The metal of his Curse was taking longer and longer each time to become flesh again. He wouldn't last the month without eventually turning into such hardened steel that he wouldn't be able to move again. It was why he suggested that they should go for the wands first. Nick knew that if he were to see Dorothy, there would be no discipline left in him to hold back his emotions, and he would become a statue right on the spot.

"The wand room!" Straw blurted out. "Of course, that's where she'll be keeping the wands!"

The scarecrow had become fascinated with the naming of things as he learned more and more. When he had been told the bathroom had a bath in it, and the bedroom had a bed in it, he'd become all sorts of confused when the living room didn't have a "living" in it. And that wasn't nearly as bad as the concept of a TV room had been.

"An excellent notion, but I am afraid there were no witches amongst my family, friend scarecrow," Lional answered. "As such, we had no room dedicated to magic that we would have entitled the wand room."

"You mentioned a library," Nick said.

Lional nodded his maned head. "The library is the most likely culprit. There are shelves and desks that a witch would likely find useful."

"Which way?" Nick prompted.

The lionman stooped to scoop up Toto, so he wouldn't run off in another direction. "Do growl if you scent her, Sir Toto."

Toto sniffed in reply.

Sure enough, four floors and two near misses with green-face-painted guards later—avoided easily by Lional's sense of smell and keen ears—the three friends were standing in the converted library.

The room had floor-to-ceiling bookcases that had been stripped of all their books. Three desks made a loose triangle in the center of the oval room, littered with vials, bowls, and bright bottles of mystical reagents, and neatly folded articles of magical clothing. There was even a small herb garden under a sun-like globe, full of miniature trees no larger than a handful of cut orchids. Each was laden with full-size golden apples and violet pears weighing the small limbs down to what should've been snapping point.

But all of that was secondary to the piles and piles of wands.

Some were racked, more armory than library; some were in glass bell jars on the bookless bookcases; some were tied together in bundles like dry wooden cigars. But they were also brimming from woven baskets, crates, boxes, strewn on tables and in drawers, scattered in piles and organized like logs of wood. They covered every square inch of free space.

It wasn't dozens or even hundreds of wands. There were thousands. It reminded Nick of the Wizard's collection, but where his were neat and lovingly exhibited, these were stored with all the chaos of their possessor.

Toto quietly barked a few times to Lional. The lionman nodded his head, fists on hips, and stared at the mess around him.

"It seems," the former prince said, "that this is not going to be a task so easily accomplished."

Nick agreed, although mainly because of the witch's taste in coloring everything black and gray.

"I mean no offense, Sir Toto," Lional said, "but I rather wish you were a sorcerboar at this juncture."

Straw scratched his burlap chin. "A… what?"

"A rare breed of boar, raised to sniff out spells and such," Lional explained, sighing. "Thought to be extinct these days, in no small part because of my own ancestors. They found the… meat particularly delicious." He turned up his feline nose, his stomach betraying him with a loud rumble.

On closer inspection, the wands actually had notches cut in different patterns near their bases, but the almost identical shape, size, and small variations of color were going to make it impossible to figure out which one had been used on Dorothy, if any of them, and which two had cursed Lional and his people.

If they had been searching for one of Glinda's wands, it would have been easy enough. She used a different material, shape, and design for every single spell. It became obvious to Nick as he looked at the overwhelming overabundance of wands around him why the Good Witch had such radically different wands for each spell.

It took supreme effort for Nick not to allow his frustration to surface.

"We should've groveled at Bellina's feet," he mumbled.

Lional nodded slowly. "I certainly should have."

"What now?" the scarecrow asked. "Can we take them all?"

"If we had two weeks to pack them," Nick absently replied, "and a few more helpers to carry the load."

Straw pulled his thinking face and wandered off to the nearest window, either to seek inspiration or to become immediately distracted. The miniature trees made his decision for him, his painted nose pressed to the glass globe.

Meanwhile, Lional and Nick were poking around in the various crates and baskets, trying to figure out the madness of the place, when Toto pattered up to Nick and sat on his hind legs, batting his front paws against Nick's shin.

"What is it, boy?" Nick asked. Toto glanced back at the doorway.

Standing inside it was a person who made Nick's stomach lurch so badly that his chest hardened around his front and up to his shoulders.

It was Zolesha, but from ten years earlier. Pale skin, black haired, and as deceptively friendly looking as ever.

No, not Zolesha, he reminded himself, relaxing.

"Hello, Nick," the snowy creation said. "Dorothy said you would come. I knew it was true. I felt it when she touched me." She paused for a second longer before her legs jerked forward as if propelling her against her will.

"Myrsina," Nick replied. "It's good to see you whole and alive. I can't deny, I was worried you'd be a lot flatter and wetter after the poppy field."

"Sort of alive, and reasonably solid," she said with a smile, though she seemed to be hobbling, her right ankle wobbling every time she put weight on it.

She had a long leather bandolier in one hand, every loop in it empty, and a wicker basket with a long wire handle in the other, full of what looked like new ebony wands.

"I thought for sure she would melt you down." Nick couldn't stop looking at that malfunctioning leg.

"She did. And then it happened again during the Summer Solstoz." Myrsina shrugged. "I can't say you ever get used to it. Although, it's sometimes easier if it's a full melt."

Nick could guess what had happened to Myrsina's leg. Even then, he probably didn't have a Wicked enough imagination.

"Still, I think I got off lightly," she continued, sighing and walking past them as if she was being puppeteered, looking more than a little scarecrow-esque when he got too excited to remember how to walk properly. "Do you know about the orchard outside?"

Nick and Lional nodded gravely.

"They became human again during Solstoz," Myrsina said, as she jerkily walked over to a table that still had a little space left, put the basket on it, and began feeding them one by one into the leather sling. "I heard their cheers of celebration while I was melting. They must have thought they were free. The cheering stopped so abruptly… or maybe I was water by then. I don't remember. I heard later that some tried to run, but the guards caught them. One or two escaped, or so I'm told, but when night fell, there they all were again. Not a single tree missing."

Lional turned his face away, paws tightening into fists.

They won't cheer next year… If Nick and the others weren't successful, those servants would awaken with the Solstoz dawn again, and it would be as quiet down there as if they had never transformed back. He'd been through it himself, but never again.

"What are you doing?" Straw asked, providing some welcome distraction.

"I've been ordered to retrieve more wands," Myrsina simply stated, "and I must obey Zolesha's orders at all times. I hope you don't think me rude." The girl seemed somewhat embarrassed at the admission.

Nick cautiously stepped closer to the friend from his youth. Sure, she had initially been created eight years ago to spy on him, but she had been so gentle and sweet and apologetic that Nick had just taken her everywhere that winter to make her job easier. If Zolesha had acted even 1 percent as nice as Myrsina did, the whole Curse thing would never have happened.

"How can I help you?" the girl calmly asked, obviously struggling to not put the wands in the bandolier, attempting to stall as best she could.

There were thirty loops on the wand holder, and she had already filled half a dozen of them, leaving two dozen to go.

"Is there any way you can help us get Dorothy out?" he asked.

"Not right now," she answered, her pale skin hued with a glacial blue. "My last instructions were to fill this bandolier with new wands from the Turner and bring them immediately to Zolesha. I'm sorry, but as you can see, I am unable to deviate from her commands."

The servant girl continued the repetitive task of drawing out a wand and slipping it into the holster. There were twenty-two gaps left.

"How can you trust this witchcraft?" Lional asked, as Toto cocked his leg at Myrsina's calf, thought better of it, and lowered it again. "If she was made by Zolesha, surely she is a Wicked thing."

"If Nick trusts her, I do," Straw immediately said, hurrying to pull his hat off his head and hold it against his chest. "What you're made of doesn't make you," he added quietly.

"Do you know where we can get a key for the dungeon?" Nick asked.

"Yes, but Dorothy's not in the dungeon," the girl stated. "There's nothing in the dungeon but the Turner's quarters and guards."

Lional, not quite ready to give up the bone in his mouth, interjected. "Once again, I feel compelled to ask why we should so readily trust her. She has already intimated that she cannot do anything but obey the Witch's command."

"Because," Nick said, "like Straw just said, what you're made of doesn't make you. I know her. Knew her. She's not got a bad bone in her body. She's everything Zolesha isn't."

The moment the words were out, it relaxed Lional's hackles.

"Of course." He nodded regally to Myrsina. "Apologies, demoiselle."

Myrsina waved it away, continuing her work.

"If not the dungeon," Nick said, "do you know where they're holding her?"

Nineteen empty slots left.

"In the old root cellar," she replied. "They have a couple of guards on her, but not nearly as many as are lying in wait for your group down near the dungeon."

Seventeen slots left.

"Do you know which of these wands Cursed the servants outside, or which ones the Witch used on the day her sister died?" Lional interrupted. Nick kicked himself for not thinking to ask. "And the one that turned the former prince into a beast, mayhap?"

Fifteen slots left.

"I don't really know," Myrsina said, putting another wand in the holder. Fourteen. "I only know which are the unused ones. They're all in these baskets." She pointed at the woven wicker baskets that were identical to the one she had carried in. They were scattered around the room on the various pieces of furniture.

Thirteen.

"Do you know which wand might be the one that brought Dorothy here to Oz?" Nick asked, being a little more specific than Lional, unable to keep the hope directly out of his voice. His throat, like a dented copper pipe, began to close in response.

"I actually do know that one," she answered, and his heart took off again, followed by a deep ache threshing its way down his legs. "The mistress thought it best to keep it on her person so it doesn't get lost or taken. Rumor around the castle is the mice have been rebelling, and more than a couple of wands have been chewed on here and there. She has even protected it in a special brass tube."

Eleven empty slots left.

"Well, what do you expect? That is what happens when you starve even the least of us," Lional said, bristling as if he'd forgotten he was talking to Myrsina and not Zolesha herself.

Nick looked at him, wishing he could chastise the prince for his sharp tone. They needed her help, and they didn't have the luxury of giving their opinions on things at that moment, especially if those opinions could cause problems with the person they wanted the favor from. They'd made that mistake with Bellina.

There were eight empty wand loops left to go.

"Where is Zolesha?" Nick asked.

"She's in the crystal-glass room."

Nick looked at Lional.

Six slots left.

"The stargazing room, top of the top tower."

"Can you tell me how to get there?" Nick asked Lional, but Myrsina answered.

"I'm heading to her next." She smiled shyly. "If you want to follow me, I have not been commanded to stop you."

Four.

"Oh, but you probably don't have a command to take us to her, either," Straw interjected. "You might be disobeying by accident!"

"Don't be silly," Myrsina replied. "Follow me and stay hidden. As long as you promise you're not going to hurt Zolesha, that you're only going to get the wand from her, I can do this. I want to." Her dark eyes were misty all of a sudden, her voice thick as if she was in pain.

Three.

Nick knew what he was planning to do wasn't technically hurting the witch, so he nodded once. He turned to Lional. "Alright, you and Toto, go get Dorothy and get her out of here. Scarecrow, you're with me."

Two.

"Perhaps I should be the one to go after Zolesha and the wand," Lional said, his bushy eyebrow raised. "That way, you can rescue Dorothy. She will be more heartened by that, I think."

"I don't want to give that witch a reason to break the wand to punish you," Nick argued. "You get Dorothy out. We'll get the wand to you so she can get home."

One.

"Nick." Lional narrowed his eyes, calculations obviously not adding up in his mind—or not coming out with the right answer, anyway.

But Nick wasn't lying. Nick was going to get the wand to them. It was just not going to be in his hands.

The last empty wand slot filled with the wispy sound of wood against leather, and Myrsina turned mechanically and started walking from the room.

"It seems I must return now," she said to them. "I wish you the best in rescuing Dorothy. She has been a friend to me, though I can't say I've been the same to her. But I have done my best where I could."

Lional bowed to her as she went by. "And I wish you good luck," the lionman purred, before turning his attention back to Nick. "Just as I hope to see you again."

There was a lot unsaid between the words, with or without the clump of iron filings in Nick's throat. And many more things that both of them likely needed to hear to soothe their respective jagged woes, but their time, like Myrsina's, was up.

"Go!" Nick waved him toward the doorway.

Lional headed out first. Toto seemed confused about who to stay with, pattering back and forth on the oaken floor.

"You too. Go fetch, Toto! Fetch Dorothy!" Nick gestured for the dog to follow Lional.

Toto whimpered once, taking a defiant step toward Nick before Lional doubled back into the room, scooped the dog up, and the pair slipped cat-quiet from the library-turned-wand-emporium.

With a steadying breath to give the other two the lion's share of a head start, Nick finally left the room. Myrsina was already halfway down the hall, forcing him to push his aching legs into an almost-jog to catch up, while Straw breezed alongside, light on his feet.

"When we get in there," Nick instructed the scarecrow in a hushed voice, "I'm going to get the wand from Zolesha and hand it off to you. You run your fire-kindling rear end right out of this place as if someone's chasing you with a match."

Straw stared in dismay. "Will someone be chasing me with a match? Why would they do that? You shouldn't run with fire or scissors."

"No. Just imagine it."

The scarecrow looked very perplexed. "I don't think I know how."

"Run really fast, then. That's all you have to think about—getting the wand out of the castle. Keep running, don't stop for anything but Dorothy," Nick explained, with what he hoped were simple enough instructions.

"I'm not a good runner, Mr. Nick," the scarecrow whispered back. "But for my friend Dot, I'll do my best." He started practicing, darting backward and forward, his arms pumping faster than his legs—something that had continuously confused him since he first learned to walk.

Nick shook his head, muttering, "If it comes down to it and we manage to get the wand, I'll throw you out the stained-glass windows if I have to."

Straw somehow managed to hear anyway. "Can I fly? I thought Dot said that was a bad idea—me flying?"

"No, you can't, but you won't die when you land."

Straw beamed. "Then feel free to toss my fire-kindling rear end out the highest window!"

"Just make sure you protect that wand if it comes to that." Nick looked at the scarecrow's face to make sure he understood how serious the instructions were. They could not afford the butterfly chasing, humblebee lullabying, tapestry tracing, friendship making, bright light mothing soul getting distracted.

"I'll let every stick in my body break before I let the wand snap!" Straw promised, standing as rigid as a soldier, before he started his short sprints back and forth again.

They were just coming to a wide spiral staircase, like the helix of a snail shell that Nick had seen once, half-pecked by a bird of some kind. His entire body groaned in unison, his legs already battered by the climb up from the hunting lodge, his iron lungs wheezing and grinding. But with Dorothy's freedom fixed in his mind, conjuring images of a far-off place he'd never seen and never would, he knew that every cog and gear of his being would hold out for as long as his hope for her future did.

"Straw," Nick rasped.

The scarecrow skidded to a stop. "Yes, Mr. Nick?"

"You might just be the best of us."

Straw's circular pupils swelled until they took up the majority of his triangular eyes. "That's… the nicest compliment I've ever gotten in my whole life."

"All eight days of it," Nick replied wryly. "But here's hoping you, Dorothy, Lional, and Toto have all the days you ever want."

The scarecrow nodded happily. "And you with us, of course."

"Me? Oh, I suspect I'll be around forever."

You're going to have to learn to like the number "two," Straw, because if my plan goes right, Dorothy and Toto will be back in Kansas, and I'll be a solid statue for the rest of eternity, right here inside these walls.Nick snuck behind Myrsina, heading up into the great unknown, and what might be the last stretch of Cursed life as he knew it.