He flicks them out suddenly, and dozens of glowing light orbs spiral into the darkness of the forest, illuminating every corner, sending creatures scattering. There’s so much light in here now, it’s like the sun’s finally broken through the thick canopy of trees.
“He’s either being tortured, or is strapped to the faerie queen’s bed,” Stryker says, sadness coloring his words. “We should hurry. It’s at least a two day walk from here before we arrive at her court.”
“And which court might that be?” Taavi asks, but Stryker doesn’t answer.
For several hours more, we walk in silence, and I start to get this paranoid itchy feeling in my hands, like the woods might never fucking end. Like we’ll be trapped in them forever.
I don’t even know what time of day it is, and that bothers me. There’s nothing to mark the passage of time, nothing but our steady footsteps on the yellow bricks.
“What’s the purpose of these Ruby Trials anyway?” I ask, when I feel like Stryker might actually answer me. He blinks, as if coming out of a deep sleep, and turns to look at me.
“Dorothy is looking for someone to kill the Wicked Witch of the West, of course,” he says, and Taavi stiffens up a bit.
“Why would Dorothy care about a cardinal witch?” he asks, sounding perplexed. “She rules Central; she owns the Emerald City.”
“Dorothy wants more than just Central,” Stryker replies grimly, shaking his head. “She wants to rule the whole of Oz. The Ruby Trials provide two key things for her: the first is to ferret out all the wizards in Oz, and gain control of, or kill them. The second is to find someone strong enough to go after the Witch of the West. He’s been a thorn in Dorothy’s side since she showed up with a basket of bread, and that awful, awful little guardian of hers.”
“If she’s so strong, why doesn’t she just go after the witch herself?” I wonder, swerving away from the edge of the path, and a cluster of purple-topped mushrooms with little beads of black liquid on their caps. Anything that looks like that is clearly marked trouble in my mind.
“Dorothy and Thyer—that’s the Witch of the West—are too evenly matched. She might win, but she might not. She won’t take that risk. Instead, she started the Ruby Trials, and passed a law that any wizard passing through the land of Oz must register at the City of Emeralds.”
“What if I don’t want to register?” I ask, already annoyed with this Dorothy person, despite the fact that I haven’t even met the bitch yet. “What if I don’t want to fight in her trials?”
“Then you, my friend, must be strong enough to fight back when her morality police come for you.” Stryker’s gold gaze darkens with memories, and I have to wonder what, exactly, Dorothy did to his fiancée. It’s a question I don’t dare ask. He seems mild enough, but I’m not sure I’m willing to stir up his temper. He promised not to hurt us for three days, but it’s already been one and a half. After that time period is over, we’ll be at his mercy. He knows I can’t use my magic. I know he’s afraid of fire.
It’d be a lose-lose situation.
“Dorothy has no dominion over other wizards,” Taavi scoffs, and Stryker gives him a sympathetic sort of look.
“You’ve been away from Oz for some time, haven’t you?” he asks, pausing briefly at the sound of footsteps. Taavi and Stryker exchange a look before the former grabs my arm, and the three of us take cover behind some of the massive trees, all of Stryker’s light orbs blinking out and throwing us into darkness.
There’s a tiny house with a smoking chimney near my foot, and I do my best to scoot away from it. God only knows what sort of creature lives inside.
“The C.R.O.W.S.?” Taavi whispers, but Stryker shakes his head slightly.
“Worse.”
We sit in silence for several, agonizing minutes before a good two dozen soldiers come marching around the bend in the road. They’re all wearing white and green gingham from head to toe, their hair slicked back into matching braids under their billed caps.
And even as new as I am to this world—this delusion—I can feel it.
They’re brimming with power.
“The Emerald Corps,” Stryker says in a low voice, mouth turned down in a frown. “Also known as the morality police. My guess is that Isaac is continuing his quest to please Dorothy; he’s tipped them off about your presence in Oz.”
“I detest being right all the time,” Taavi says blandly, giving me a look that I return with a blank one of my own. Okay, so rescuing Stryker sort of brought this crap to our doorstep, I get it. Taavi was pressuring us to head to the City of Emeralds, to speak with Dorothy about Aunt Em. And until now, I’d sort of considered her my ticket home, too.
