“She’s a wizard of moderate talent, but a woman? Whether she is or not I cannot tell, for she spends most of her time deceiving, lying, and in general, being a total bitch. I was certain she was a howler monkey or a banshee.” He pretends to swipe some imaginary dust from his shoulder with a glittering hand.
“How can I get there then, to this Emerald City place?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You must walk,” he replies saucily, glancing over his shoulder with a look of such pure smugness that I feel my temper boiling beneath my skin. “And it’s a long journey—obviously—through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will—quite graciously, I must add—use all the magic arts I know of to keep you safe from harm.”
“Oh, really? And how do you plan to do that?” I ask as he turns around and stalks toward me, putting his palms on either of my shoulders. “By escorting me there?”
“Not a chance in this hell we call Oz,” he replies smoothly, leaning down to put his mouth near my ear. “But I will give you my kiss, and no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of the North.”
Before I get the chance to pull back, the witch puts his hot lips against my own, kissing me with a flash of sharp heat, his tongue diving into my mouth and tasting me. He tastes like honey and coconuts, I think, the softness of his mouth and the breathlessness I feel briefly blinding me to the situation.
Did this fucker just kiss me without my consent?
The witch moves his lips from my mouth to my forehead, kissing me briefly there before stepping out of swinging range of my fists.
With a flick of his cap off his head, he changes the hat into a mirror, and I can see that there’s a round, shining mark on my forehead, like a six-pointed golden star.
“The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow bricks,” the witch says with a smirk. “Even someone as dense as you cannot miss it. When you do find Dorothy, don’t be afraid of her; she’s too full of her own morality for her own good, or the good of this kingdom. Good-bye, my dear.”
The last three remaining Munchkins bow to me as the witch gives me a naughty little wink, whirls around on his left heel three times, and disappears, just in time for Toto to stumble to the doorway and see.
“Bain!” Toto shouts out, growling loudly enough that the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “You piece of shit! Get back here!”
Somehow though, knowing what little I know of that asshole, I’d sort of expected him to disappear in just that way.
I’m not surprised at all.
Not in the fucking least.Taavi Toto Kills a Kelpie“There’s nothing left,” I grumble, checking through the cabinets for food. “The cyclone must’ve swept it all away.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Toto says—and yeah, it really is weird as hell to hear my dog talk. Glancing over my shoulder, I find him slumped at the table, his head in his hand, blood oozing from his right shoulder. He doesn’t look fine to me: Toto is pale and shaky, and even those intense brown eyes of his seem dimmed.
“You need to eat and drink something, at least,” I say, narrowing my own eyes and turning back around. With a bit of effort, I manage to shimmy Aunt Em’s bread drawer open, exhaling with relief when I see the two freshly baked sourdough loaves at the bottom. The fridge door is open, hanging crookedly off to one side. The only things left in there are some smashed jars, and a bit of butter tucked underneath the liftable plastic cover. I take that out and start buttering the bread.
“We need water. You think that pretty little creek out there is safe to drink from?”
“Nothing in Oz is safe,” Toto says, and I turn around, a slice of bread in one hand, a buttery knife in the other. He watches me carefully before standing up and running his fingers through his ebony hair. Underneath, I see a hint of brown, a mimicry of the pattern he had on his fur. “But you’re right: we’ll need water if we want to reach the Emerald City. I’ll get it.”
Toto starts toward the door, and I move to block him, noticing as I do that he’s still very much wearing his leather collar and tags. It looks … weirdly good on him. At the very least, I was able to find him some jeans to put on. They were in Aunt Em’s darning chest, a client’s jeans. She earns quite a bit of money fixing up other people’s clothes. Of course, Henry keeps all the money for himself and drinks it away, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment.
