Chapter 2

Two

The only outward evidence that Nick was held captive by a witch's enchantment was the steel color of his skin. He was flesh and blood most of the time, but from the moment Zolesha completed the Curse, a silver stain had remained indelibly, reflecting the sun those few times he wasn't shaded by the trees he was felling with the mystical axe hanging on his hip.

"I am sorry, Nicholas," Glinda said, as if she'd just knocked elbows with him on the street, not swiped the hope-rug out from under him.

Nick leaned against the tailor's counter—which was basically the Munchkin man's kitchen table as he did his tailoring out of his home—not knowing what to say. "Can someone make a wishing garment? Like, this guy?"

Glinda had just delivered the bad news that other than the one day of the year on the Summer Solstoz—when all Curses were smothered out from sunrise to sunset—or if they could find an extremely rare wishing garment, there was no way to break the evil enchantment on him without Zolesha's wand.

The Munchkin glanced up at him over the flat edges of half-moon spectacles, flashing Nick a withering look that was all the answer he needed.

"Stupid question?" he said.

The Munchkin nodded.

Glinda clutched at her chest. "No question is stupid, Nicholas. But… alas, no, a wishing garment cannot be made. If only it were so simple."

Nothing about the Curse was simple. He hadn't mentioned it out loud in front of the tailor, but he seemed to be able to talk around it in front of him. Glinda was the only person who seemed immune to his Curse's prohibition on talking about the magic itself. Maybe because the Good Witch was Zolesha's former master, maybe because she already knew about Nick's curse from a confrontation with Zolesha some years back. Whatever the reason, it was nice to have someone to talk to about it, even if it was only to get bad news.

"If only it were so simple, indeed," Nick muttered, cursing under his breath as a faint spot of true steel appeared on his forearm, agony pinching up to his shoulder. He tugged his threadbare shirtsleeve down over the hardened metal, taking deep breaths in the hope it would fade quickly back to silver flesh. Still, it was proof that a decade of perseverance had paid off. At the start of his Cursed life, that spot of steel would have been an all-body outbreak of shiny metal, glinting in the sun, leaving the tailor with a new mannequin for a day or two.

The shirt was the sole reason he'd ventured into the nearest town of Cornlet, though he did so rarely, only emerging from his hermit existence for supplies and to collect his pay from the lumberman or to sell the wooden toys he carved to buy new boots, or axe oil, or the occasional set of fresh clothes. He did his best to patch his old clothes for as long as possible before wasting his precious resources on new ones that were going to wear through at the seams every time his skin-hardening emotions made it to the surface.

But his current shirt was beyond salvation. Obscene, almost. He wasn't the type to wander around bare-chested in just pants and his long, leather coat.

"I really am sorry," Glinda said, as if that made anything better.

"I know," he replied, taking a steadying breath first.

For a while, he'd courted the idea of being mad at Glinda about Zolesha's actions, but the pain of showing the anger wasn't worth it, as no one could have really controlled Zolesha anyway. Glinda had even tried her best to help Nick along the way in his life. The magical axe on his hip was ensorcelled by the Good Witch to help him work faster, easier, and even defend himself—Oz could be dangerous, after all.

Glinda spoke into the long silence, her face genuinely pained with the news she was giving Nick. "Of course, there may be other fixes that I haven't thought about. I keep trying to have an audience with the Wizard in the Emerald City, but he never sees anyone other than the Emerald City mayor."

Glinda adjusted the wide leather belt wrapped around her tiny midsection as Nick looked impassively into her cornflower-blue eyes. Inside, though, he was roiling with disappointment, but his skin was reasonably human-feeling at the moment, and he didn't want to limp out of the tailor's with his legs half metal.

An impressive collection of wands clattered together in the enormous quiver-like carrier hanging from the witch's right hip as she pulled out a handful that had ridden up to the top and shoved them down in again. An equally impressive quiver on her opposite hip, this one empty, left the belt lopsided. Glinda's ethereal gown was parted on both sides by the decorative wand holders, the ruffled pink skirts poofing out around them as if the dress was trying to flower-bloom but was caught by its own stem.

The wands themselves were as varied and eclectic as Oz itself—though he noted there were no black ebony wooden ones among their number. He counted a thin walnut wand with a small ball on its head, a bark-covered branch one that still had small green leaves sprouting from it, an oak one that curled and twisted as if trying to push the other wands away from it, a crystal one with a vein of red down its core, a metal one capped with a star, a frosted glass one, a curved tin one, a ruby carved one, and so on, and so on. There were so many wands jammed into the quiver it was surprising she could pull one out without them all getting scattered to the ground.

She tugged on the belt again, the weight of the quivers slipping the leather strap off her dainty hips and back up to her waist.

"Thanks for trying." Nick's flat voice in no way matched the stomach-sinking pull of his insides. Over the past near-decade, he'd figured out that saying something unrelated to something potentially emotive, all in the same monotone, helped to keep any feelings at bay so he added, "You could put half in the other quiver."

"That's for used wands," Glinda responded, tugging on the belt again. "We'll get you fixed, Nick. I'm not going to relent until we do."

Nick stopped himself from shrugging. Even showing that much emotion would have been enough to metal-harden his back for an hour.

"I understand you are trying to be a good witch here," he said. "But at some point, you just need resign yourself to the fact that Zolesha won this. They don't call her the Wicked Witch for nothing. She's stronger than you now."

The young girl she used to be had been right when she'd declared to Nick that she would eventually become so powerful she would rival Glinda the Good. Zolesha's infamy had become so renowned so quickly that she had earned herself that fiendish moniker… and didn't let anyone forget it.

"I'm not doing it just for Goodness's sake," Glinda urged. "I feel responsible for your Curse. If I had taken Zolesha with me to the Emerald City, this never would have happened. But she ‘accidentally' cursed the mayor's son when I first took her there at the beginning of her training, and I couldn't let Quadling Country get embroiled in a fight with the Emerald City if she felt like doing it again. Especially since we were dealing with the shadowy threat here in Munchkin Country."

The threat, it later turned out, was Zolesha's sister. He guessed the apple didn't fall too far from the Fighting Tree.

Two Wicked Witches. One of whom took over the western lands of Winkie Country, the other the mistress of the eastern Munchkin lands.

The only thing keeping them in check were Glinda and Gaylette the Good, rulers of the northern realm of the Gillikin Country and the southern realm of Quadling Country. In fact, it was dangerous for Glinda to be standing where she was, drawing the potential ire of Zolesha's sister, East. A title she had gained when she took over Munchkin Country, as few knew her actual name. But it was summertime and relatively close to the Solstoz, when all Good Witches were at their most powerful, plus it was the middle of a blue-sky day where Glinda had access to near boundless light.

When it became apparent Nick wasn't going to add anything to the conversation—what could he say, after all?—Glinda nodded solemnly and placed a hand on Nick's shoulder. He wished he could have given it a friendly squeeze and her a smile for trying, but it would likely just kick off his Curse again.

The tailor handed the bundle of sewing supplies to Nick. "One shirt, four spools of thread, a pack of needles, two thimbles. Anything else?"

"No, thank you," he replied, stuffing the supplies into his pack.

It was funny to think that he still needed a thimble when he could turn his fingers metallic with one emotional thought, but if he didn't use one and the needle poked his human flesh, Nick would find the "normal" rushing right out of his body, replaced by pain-induced metal skin.

"For your son," Nick said and pulled out a wooden toy chariot with matching horses he had carved out of a particularly nice piece of burled walnut. The lines were rough from skin-tightened fingers that always made fine carving a chore, but the detail was more than enough for the tailor's four-year-old boy to appreciate.

"Thank you, Tinman." The tailor used Nick's unfortunate nickname as he took the toy. It had been given to Nick pretty early on by a group of kids who had asked him if he was made of tin, and he had answered a little curtly that he was actually a man. A few barbed, child-clever, rusty-tin insults later and the name had stuck, no matter where he went.

As much as the insult rankled Nick, he knew better than to let the annoyance surface. Besides, he hadn't even learned the tailor's name. He didn't want any emotion-inspiring friends.

"You'll be back before Summer Solstoz day, I hope?" the man asked. "My wife and I have been embroidering a Sumsol cloak this past year and want everyone to wear it during the dance."

"My dancing days are behind me," Nick quietly replied.

All he did, these days, was keep to himself and chop wood, living up to his last name: Chopper.

People needed lumber, and trees didn't talk back to him or make him have metal-skin feelings. Except the Fighting Trees, of course, which would talk your ears off if you didn't wander close enough to them to get attacked by summer-rough bark branches. But those were down near the Munchkin River, and he gave that whole place a wide berth.

"Nonsense," the tailor replied with a wide and caring grin, his gray whiskers curling at the edges of his mouth. "Look at how old I am. I can still dance the lolli-pop and give my wife a good evening, thank you very much, and all of that with my arthritis. You're young. You'll do fine. Plus, there are plenty of nice unmarried girls in the village who wouldn't mind swaying in your arms, despite their odd color. Your arms, I mean, not the girls."

Once upon a time, he would've laughed. But those days were long gone. Gone were the joys of hearing a joke at a tavern and letting loose a hearty belly laugh, as that would only have weighed him heavy and unmoving in the chair. Gone were comfortable nights—for going to sleep now held the dread that he would wake up from a nightmare and find himself frozen in place, his skin metallic and tightened to the point where he could barely breathe. Worst of all, gone were the days of holding beautiful young ladies in his arms, silver or otherwise, and play-whispering sly intentions to gather up their cheek-flushing responses.

"Thanks again," was all Nick could think to say as he achingly slung his pack on his back over Curse-taut shoulders and followed Glinda outside, grabbing his leather duster off the coat-stand on his way.

The day was darker than it had been the few minutes before Nick had entered the colorful, chocolate-box cottage-slash-shop with the candy-shaped adornments on the sills and doorways, that reminded him so keenly of the township and the people he had been forced to leave behind eight years ago.

Normally, Blue Country had sunny days until four in the afternoon when the regular rain clouds would roll through and water Munchkin lawns and feed cornrowed fields.

Before he could dwell on it for longer than it took to notice, the reason revealed itself. Or more rightly, the reason revealed themselves.

As if they had been magically summoned by his earlier thoughts, the two Wicked Witches now stood on opposite sides of the small village, one at each end of the yellow brick road that ran straight through the main drag. Black wands drawn, they aimed at the Good Witch standing halfway between them. Nick still only had one foot out of the tailor's cottage, and he had half a mind to take that foot, and the rest of him, back inside.

Glinda sagged like a wilted flower, her summer sunshine skin a fear-paled white.

To her credit, the Good Witch had managed to draw two wands from her crammed quiver and had one in each hand, aiming them back at the other two, her arms stretched out limp and reluctant like the scarecrow in the field on the opposite side of the yellow road.

"…meddling with us," Zolesha was saying as Nick mustered some courage and stepped all the way out of the tailor's home.

The look of surprise, followed by wicked amusement, that rolled across the Wicked Witch's hat-shadowed face told him she had not expected him to be in the no-name town.

This is a bad idea… His joints already groaned in anticipation of hardening, agonizing metal. He had trained himself, year on year, to keep almost every emotion from bubbling to the surface—from toe-stubbing pain to flower-smelling joy. Was he happy? No. But at least he had a modicum of control over the Curse. Facing the one who put the Curse there, however—how could anyone keep their cool?

Zolesha had changed a lot since he had last seen her eight years earlier when she originally laid the Curse upon him. Her prominent nose hung like the downturned branch of a gnarled old oak in her sunken face. Her once-shiny black hair was spun-sugar-brittle and blacker than her heart. She had always been tall, but a pair of onyx slippers with thick heels gave her even more height. Her unburnt-coal eyes, however, were the same dead black, but with the promise of fire.

A whispered, "Nick?" traveled clearly up the road despite the distance that separated them. Her wand dipped down a tick, but then shot up again and practically danced when she started to cackle. "So, you're still not quite a statue yet? How have you found the cold-hearted life, my tinman?"

Apparently, the first question was rhetorical, a show of her disappointment. It was obvious she had been checking up on him enough to have heard the nickname.

Nick wanted to say something clever, or hateful, or belligerent, or even foolish, but all he could see was the ebony wand in her hand and the freedom it represented. She was only forty feet away. Maybe fifty. Could he make it to her before she killed him?

It was the delicious thought of being free of the Curse that stole his chance to have it. He was so surprised by the idea that the emotions rolled through his body without warning, plastering across his face, and with that adrenaline thrill, pain followed. His legs stiffened and his hips suddenly creaked with a metal-on-metal grind, shrieking down the yellow brick road. He could still move, but the lumbering gait would have taken so long that she would have been able to kill him three times before he got within spitting distance.

"Who is that?" Zolesha's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, called out. Unlike her green-skinned counterpart, she had porcelain-white skin and blood-red lips. The only thing that marked them as related was the severe cut of the high cheekbones, the chisel of the nose, the strings of oil-black hair. That, and the soulless black eyes. "Don't let your guard down, Zole! The bitch of the south will pop you in a glass bubble or worse."

Glinda's head turned left and right in measured glides, her attention split between her two opponents.

"What do you two hags want?" the Good Witch called out. "You're taking quite the risk to confront me in the sunlight."

"And you took twice the risk coming to my lands without Gaylette," the east witch replied.

"Perhaps you've failed to notice the storm clouds rolling in," Zolesha added, sneering at her former teacher.

"There is still enough light for me to use," Glinda warned them.

"One on one, maybe," East said. "But two? You'll find that my sister and I are going to put an end to your meddling one way or another."

"If you kill me," Glinda said, "Gaylette the Good will come for you."

"Oh, I'm sure she would… if she weren't already dead," came East's cold reply.

Even Nick's emotional control couldn't stop him from feeling his chest tighten with the Curse—or maybe it was the shock itself—as the words clattered in his ears like a pyramid of toppled cans. He hoped it was a lie, prayed it was a bluff. Not just for Glinda's sake, but for all of Oz. If it were true, there would be nothing and no one to curb the Wicked Witches' thirst for power.

Glinda's face showed her own shock. And not a little amount of fear.

"As for you," East continued. "Even if my sister or I lose to you, the other will have you broken at her feet."

Glinda's hands tightened on the wands. "Then let's find out which of you loses everything first," she said. Her magical weapons began to glow even as East's sliver of wood pulled the summer sunshine from the air around it.

Through it all, Zolesha stared hatefully, not at the pink opponent caught in the black web between them, but at Nick's silver face.

"Mister Tinman," a little voice called out from the side of the tailor's cottage. A toddler followed the words, waddling unaware into the street, clutching his new wooden toy happily to his small chest, the wheeled chariot dangling on its leather harness, smacking his knobbly little knees with each step. "Papa told me come say thank you."

Glinda roared out the most colorful curse Nick had ever heard as the little child stepped directly between the Good Witch and the beast from the east.

Nick's legs felt like they were going to break in on themselves as he catapulted forward and snatched the child up, knees scraping and screeching as he forced himself toward the cottage door, arms locking up around the toddler. Even as his hips squealed in rusty pain, Nick's side burst in agony as an errant spell sliced against, but did not cut all the way through, his hardening metal skin.

It was only by the luck of Oz that the child had been on Nick's other side.

Roiling clouds raged over the house as Nick got the tailor's son out of sight of the fray. Darkness washed down like rain, and the terrified face of the thrashing child in Nick's arms flashed lightning-white and then fell thunder-dark as both the conflict and the storm gathered.

When the mystical battle between the three witches began in earnest, the first to scream was the sudden, howling wind.