That's … an interesting bit of information.
“What's up with these glasses?” I ask, wondering how much information I might get out of this girl. Anything is better than nothing. As it is, I'm going into this meeting completely blind.
“Because if you did not wear spectacles, the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you,” she intones, as if reading from a script. “Even those who live in the city must wear them night and day.”
I glance back at Taavi, but he just sits upright on the bed, panting, looking ridiculous with those glasses stuck to his long-muzzled face. Goddamn it.
“Wow, you sure are a fount of knowledge,” I snap, noticing that the girl cringes and draws back from me. While I'm not entirely lacking in self-esteem, I'm also pretty sure that I'm not all that intimidating either. “Fine, cinch me into that awful corset.”
I tug the satin nightgown over my head, leaving myself completely naked in front of both Taavi and the green girl. The latter is clearly too scared of me to look directly in my direction anyway, and the former ... Well, Taavi didn't look at me when I was naked in the woods, and he was human. Now that he's a dog, I guess the curve of my hips and the small mounds of my breasts mean even less.
The servant offers me up some underclothes to shimmy into, and as I do, I realize that the wound on my thigh isn't hurting nearly as much as it did the night before. Peeling the bandages back, I find what might very well be the most shocking thing I've seen yet: my skin, unblemished and smooth.
“The wound is gone,” I whisper, stumbling over to the mirror in green panties and nothing else. Looking at the back of my thigh, I see that the exit wound is healed as well. There's not even any scar tissue to show where it might've been. “Are you seeing this?” I'm talking to Taavi, but the servant girl doesn't bother to answer me either.
Instead, she clears her throat politely and waits for me to move back over to her, holding my arms up so that she can slip the pretty dress over my head.
While she ties up the laces—cinching me in so tightly that I can barely breathe—I stand there, mind spinning. This land they call Oz is weird, a little bit strange, a lot fucked-up. But nothing's shaken me quite so much as seeing my own body betray me with such a trick. Then again, I did send lightning bolts crashing from the sky with a simple flick of the wrist, didn't I?
The difference is: I didn't know that it was all real then. I do now.
“You're ready,” the servant girl declares, nodding her head and exhaling with relief, like she wasn't sure she'd be able to tame my tangled brunette locks or fit me into the ridiculously tight corset that's crushing my ribs. “Dorothy will be pleased.”
“Just so long as Dorothy's happy,” I reply snarkily, and the girl smiles, like she actually thinks that acidic tongue of mine is speaking truth. She raps her knuckles once on the double doors and they swing wide, revealing the same guardswoman with the wings.
I snap my fingers, and Taavi leaps off the bed, falling into step beside me as I trail behind the servant girl into a cavernous hallway. The entire wall opposite my opulently appointed jail cell is covered in floor-to-ceiling windows. Down below, I can see the sprawling grounds of a well-kept garden, including a hedge maze. Just beyond that, the city extends to the edge of the woods. I can see the Yellow Brick Road from all the way up here, even tinted green as it is from the glasses.
“Right this way,” the servant girl says, gesturing for me to follow after her. Swiping my palms down the front of my brocade green corset, I suck in a deep breath and keep pace with her. What else can I do? I've got no weapons, no access to that crackling energy that makes up my magic. And Taavi ... he trots alongside me, glancing up every now and again, just to make sure he's doing what he's supposed to.
I sure as hell hope we don't end up in some supernatural prison in another world. Wouldn't that be the pits?
The servant girl takes us through seven passages and up three flights of stairs until we come to a great hall, filled with the ladies and gentlemen of the court, all dressed in rich costumes. Male or female, it doesn't seem to matter. Some people are wearing ballgowns resplendent with jewels of all shapes and sizes, sewn in the hems of their dresses or along the necklines of their bodices. Others are wearing coats encrusted with jewels that look impractically heavy as they hang off the shoulders of the courtiers.
