Yellow Brick War (Dorothy Must Die, #3)
Danielle Paige
ONE
The witches were waiting.
The fire blazed behind the three cloaked figures like a scene from Macbeth—if Macbeth had been set in a bombed-out trailer park. Shadows flickered eerily across the uneven ground. A chilly wind whipped dry dust into tiny cyclones and sent a shiver down my spine. I was standing in the Dusty Acres trailer park—or what was left of Dusty Acres anyway. A fire blazed in the concrete barbecue, the only thing that remained of the place I’d once called home.
Home was nowhere now.
A trio of women faced me, each of them wearing a heavy cloak in a different color: red, gold, and blue. A purple cloak lay on the ground at their feet, glittering with rich gold embroidery. The witch in red was Glamora. The witch in blue was Mombi. And the witch in the gold cloak was hooded so that I couldn’t see her features.
“Rise, little witch,” Glamora said, picking up the purple cloak. “Take your place among us.” I stepped forward. The witches were right. It was time for me to fulfill my destiny. To defeat Dorothy once and for all—with the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked at my back. I took another step forward and reached for the cloak Glamora held out to me.
“You’ve been training for this your whole life,” she said. “You knew we’d ask you to join us. It’s time.” A second later, her words registered. What did she mean, I’d been training my whole life? I’d spent my whole life in this exact trailer park in Kansas, right up until the moment a tornado airlifted me out of Dusty Acres and into a world I thought only existed in books. Then, I’d trained with the Order, learning to fight in the underground network of caves where they housed new recruits, but I’d hardly spent any time at all with them before I’d jumped right into battling Dorothy. Now I realized—Glamora wasn’t looking at me—she was looking past me. At someone else.
“I know,” a familiar voice said behind me, and Nox stepped forward. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be for a while.” He met my startled look with a weary smile.
His face was tired and his eyes were sad. He looked exactly as he had when I’d left him, what felt like a thousand years ago. I’d followed Dorothy into the maze behind the Emerald Palace, leaving him behind. I’d found Dorothy—and the Wizard. And then the Wizard had opened a portal to Kansas, and Dorothy had killed him and pulled both of us through. Dorothy, I thought with a flash of fear. Where was she? If Nox and I had come through the Wizard’s portal, she had to be close by. I closed my eyes, reaching for my magic. And . . . nothing. It was gone, like something had scrubbed it out of me.
“You’re ready,” Mombi said to Nox firmly. She wasn’t looking at me either. What was going on?
“I’ll never be ready,” he said in a low voice. Slowly, painfully, he reached forward and took the cape out of Glamora’s outstretched arms, wrapping it around his shoulders. He looked at me. “I’m sorry, Amy,” he said.
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was sorry for, and then I realized. The witches didn’t want me to take my place among them. They wanted Nox. After everything I’d been through, all my training, they were pushing me aside. “Why did—” I began, but I never got the chance to finish my question.