AN: So...

EmeraldElphaba: Thank you so much! :) The death... it will either be the next chapter, or the one after that. *sniffles*

PocketSevens: I wish I could take credit for making up the lines, but I can't. The song is called Everytime We Touch (slow version) by Cascada ;).

Elphaba'sGirl: ... I'm not saying anything.

Fae Tiggular: Thank you, too, so very much! I love you (in a non-creepy way, as always) :).

Musicgal: I love you, too! (Also in a non-creepy way!) And I really, really love reading your favourite lines :D.

BlueD: ... I'm not going to put the chords of an entire song here! :P BUT I taught myself the song by using the following tutorial, watching it and writing down the chords and notes: watch?v=3jg-GV15_vI.

Lexie, interesting theories... xD And trust me, I'm just as crazy in real life as you are, if not worse. Thank you so much for all your reviews on Wonderwomen, by the way - that was great :D. I was like, 'HOW many new reviews? :O' and then I saw it was you and they made me very happy ^_^. I study Psychology, by the way :).

Chapter 35. Wizard

The moment they arrived at the Palace, a woman in a green suit approached them. 'Prince Fiyero Tiggular and his friends?'

Fiyero nodded. 'Yes.'

The woman gestured for them to follow her. 'Come with me, I'll take you to His Ozness.'

They followed her through the Palace, up some stairs and through a few hallways, until they stopped in front of a door. 'He's in here,' the woman said. 'Good luck.' With that, she left.

Fiyero looked at his friends. 'Ready?'

They were all unusually quiet, even Glinda. They all knew that this wasn't just some exciting meeting with the Wizard; they had a mission to accomplish, and everything depended on this single meeting.

Fiyero looked at Elphaba, noticing that she looked like she was going to be sick. 'Fae?'

She swallowed. 'I'm fine.'

He took her hand and squeezed it softly. 'Everything will be okay.'

'I hope so.' She took a deep breath. 'Okay. Here we go,' she said, and she pushed open the door.

They were greeted with the sight of a huge mechanical head that came to life the moment they entered the room. The eyes lit up and the head started booming. 'I AM OZ!' the head roared, and Glinda immediately started screaming like a piglet being strangled, a long, incredibly high-pitched sound.

The head suddenly stopped moving and the human man they had met the night before hurried out from behind it. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!' he hastened to reassure them. 'I wasn't sure if it would be you!'

Cohvu was holding a still trembling Glinda. Elphaba slowly removed her fingers from her ears. 'Oz, Glin.'

'He scared me to death!' the blonde wailed in her own defence, and Boq grimaced. 'Yeah, we figured that much.'

The Wizard bowed before them. 'Welcome, friends. I'm really sorry about that,' he apologised to Glinda, and Cohvu muttered under his breath, 'Tell that to my eardrums.'

Nessarose scowled at him. 'He's the Wizard of Oz!' she hissed. 'Be polite!'

Cohvu's cheeks flushed. 'Oh… Right. Sorry, Your Ozness.'

The Wizard laughed. 'It's fine. Take a seat, please – would you like anything to drink?'

'Coffee, please,' said Nessa immediately, and Elphaba nodded. 'Me, too.'

Cohvu rolled his eyes at them. 'Haven't you had enough already?'

'No,' said Nessa cheerfully, while Elphaba said at the same time, 'Never.'

The Wizard had drinks brought in, then sat with them. 'So… tell me. Who are you and how can I help you?'

'My name is Elphaba Thropp,' the green girl began. 'You already know Fiyero Tiggular, and this is Glinda Upland-'

Glinda already opened her mouth to add 'of the Upper Uplands', but the Wizard was quicker. 'Upland?' He studied the blonde girl. 'Are you related to the Duke of Gillikin?'

She made a face. 'Yes. He's my uncle.'

The Wizard nodded. 'He was looking for you at the ball yesterday. He said he thought he had seen you, but he wasn't sure. Have you talked to him?'

Glinda was blushing furiously. 'Well,' she said defensively, 'no one could know that we were here to talk to you… we're on kind of a secret mission, you know,' she confided in a whisper. 'So he did come up to talk to me, because he had recognised me…' Her cheeks became even redder, and the Wizard looked amused. 'So what happened?'

Elphaba snickered. 'He asked, 'Glinda?' and she screeched, 'I'm not Glinda!' in his face and ran off.'

They all laughed at that, breaking the ice a little. Elphaba took a sip of her coffee. Maybe this had been the right decision after all.

The Wizard then looked curiously at Nessa, Boq, and Cohvu, and Elphaba quickly introduced them as well. 'My friends – Boq Parlone, Cohvu Daline, and Nessarose.' She purposefully left out Nessa's last name. She would still try to protect her sister in any way she could, and for now, the Wizard didn't need to know that Nessa was a Thropp – nor that she was a Keeper.

He smiled and nodded at them all. 'Nice to meet you all.' He looked at Elphaba again, and she asked him, 'How much do you know of Keepers and Shadows?'

He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that reminded Fiyero an awful lot of Elphaba herself. 'Pretty much everything there is to know,' the Wizard admitted. 'If you're a Keeper, you probably already know that I have the Grimmerie in my possession. The Shadows of the Fish tribe had taken it from the last Keeper, and I took it back from them to protect it. If it falls into the wrong hands…' He shook his head, and Elphaba nodded. 'I know.'

She then told him her story – she told him about her mother giving her the locket, the way her parents had died and how she had fled her home with the Shadows right behind her. She didn't go into too much detail, especially not where her friends and Nessa were concerned, but she made sure he got the main lines of it. 'So that's why I'm here,' she finally finished, looking up at the man in front of her. 'I want to kill the King of the Shadows, and I think I'm going to need your help to do it.'

The Wizard was silent for a while, processing everything she had told him. 'Do you have your Object of Power with you?' he asked finally, and she nodded, but didn't reveal it to him.

She saw realisation dawning in his eyes and he nodded. 'You don't trust me.' It wasn't a reproach, more of a statement.

She remained unmoving. 'I'm just being careful.'

'A very important trait for a Keeper.' He smiled at her. 'I understand you don't want to show it to me, and I don't blame you for it, but can you tell me which one it is? The locket or the ring?'

'It's the locket,' she said, and he nodded again. 'And your mother gave it to you?'

'She did, almost ten years ago,' replied Elphaba. 'It's been passed down in her family for ages, mother to daughter. My mother, Melena, had kept it safe for years as well – only the Shadows never found her and so never came after her… why are you looking at me like that?' She shifted a bit uncomfortably under the Wizard's intent gaze – it hadn't escaped her notice how he had paled at her mentioning her mother's name.

He swallowed. 'Melena?'

'That was my mother's name, yes,' said Elphaba, not understanding. The Wizard looked at her strangely. 'And you said your last name was Thropp?'

She nodded. He brought a hand to his head. 'Sweet Oz.' He looked her up and down as if he only now saw her for the first time. 'How old are you?'

'Eighteen,' she said. 'Almost nineteen. Why?'

'Sweet Oz,' he muttered again. 'It's been nearly twenty years… sweet Oz. This can't be true… yet it makes so much sense!' He got up and started pacing the room.

'Your Ozness?' asked Glinda, confused. 'What's wrong?'

He kneeled down in front of Elphaba, taking her hands in his. 'Elphaba,' he said solemnly. 'I have to tell you something.'

She eyed him warily, resisting the urge to pull her hands back. 'What?'

He shifted a little to look her in the eye. 'Twenty years ago, I arrived in Oz,' he said. 'As you may know, I am from another world, and I didn't know how I got here. I started wandering around Munchkinland, the place where I had crashed my balloon… and one day, I met a beautiful woman in a village.'

Elphaba suddenly had a sinking feeling that she knew where this was going. But no, that can't be true, she told herself. It just can't be.

'She had just been forced into an arranged marriage,' the Wizard continued, and Elphaba nodded. She knew that; Melena and Frex hadn't chosen to get married. Their marriage had been arranged by their parents, but despite that, she also knew that they had truly loved each other. Frex would have done anything for Melena, and Melena had loved him deeply.

'She wasn't happy,' the Wizard said quietly. 'Her husband was often gone for weeks on end, and she was lonely. She offered me shelter in her home, and… um… one thing… led to another.' He looked her in the eye solemnly. 'That woman was Melena Thropp.'

She had figured that much as soon as he had mentioned the beautiful woman, but it still felt as if the room suddenly started spinning. She could hear Nessa gasp and Cohvu swear under his breath, but she was solely focused on the Wizard. 'That… that's not possible,' she choked out. 'Are you saying that…'

'The timing is right,' said the Wizard, almost apologetically. 'Elphaba…'

'Are you trying to tell me that my Mom cheated on my father with… with you?' She could barely believe it… yet she could. She knew her mother had been unhappy the first year or so of her marriage with Frex. She also knew that even if Melena had cheated on Frex, that didn't change anything about the fact that she had grown to love him later. Her parents had had a good marriage. This didn't change that.

Only there were other implications of his words… implications she wasn't sure she could face.

Fiyero reached out for her. 'Fae?' She shrugged him off, however, eyes locked on the man in front of her. Her eyes were blazing. 'Tell me the truth.'

He bit his lip. 'Elphaba, I… I think I'm your father,' he blurted out.

Silence filled the Throne Room. Nessa was holding her breath, eyeing her sister and the Wizard with wide eyes, and the others were staring at the two as well.

Elphaba took him in silently. She didn't want to believe him, but did she have a choice? She could see it. Now that she studied him closely, looking for the signs, she found them everywhere. Frex's hair had been brown, as had Melena's; but the Wizard's had clearly been as black as Elphaba's own once, though it was streaked with gray now. His nose was almost identical to hers, and he even had the same nervous habit she had – running his fingers through his hair in the almost exact same way.

Slowly, she started nodding. 'I… I think so, too,' she choked out, and he smiled a bit sadly at her. 'I'm sorry, Elphaba,' he said. 'I'm sorry about your parents, and… and I'm sorry about… this.'

She shook her head. 'It's not your fault.' She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She looked at Nessa, who was dreadfully pale. 'Nessie? Are you okay?'

The girl nodded, then shook her head, then said in a small voice, 'I don't know, really.' Elphaba kneeled down in front of her and hugged her. 'This doesn't change anything, Nessa,' she whispered in her sister's ear. 'Not anything. Do you understand?'

The girl sniffled and nodded, and Elphaba squeezed her hand once more before returning to her seat, exhaling audibly. 'Okay. So you're my father.' She blinked as the full implication of that hit her. 'The Wizard of Oz is my father.'

'It does explain a lot,' Cohvu brought up carefully. 'I mean… your magic powers, for example. Why they are so strong.'

Elphaba nodded again. 'It does, I guess.'

The Wizard leaned forward in interest. 'What kind of powers do you have, Elphaba?'

She thought about that – more to distract herself than for any other reason. She could deal with this new information later. Right now she needed to store it away and focus on the main problem.

'I had… outbursts, when I was younger,' she said. 'I could freeze people, or suddenly make it rain. I accidentally started a fire once. Later, when I started taking lessons, I learned how to control my magic. I learned how to create energy balls, and force fields… flashes of lightning. Things like that.'

The Wizard seemed satisfied with that. He smiled at her. 'That's good. It's good you learned how to defend yourself.'

'It sure is,' she muttered, 'or I wouldn't be standing here today.'

'I still can't believe he's your father,' Glinda spoke up, and Nessa shook her head, still baffled. 'Me, neither.'

'Could we… talk, for just a second?' asked Fiyero, who saw that even though Elphaba was trying to hide it, she was having a rough time accepting this. The Wizard looked at him, then followed his gaze to Elphaba, and his eyes softened. 'Of course.' He rose to his feet and gestured towards a door in the corner of the room. 'I'll be in there. Take your time. Just knock on the door when you're ready.' With that, he disappeared into the other room.

Elphaba looked at Fiyero questioningly. 'What was that for?' she queried, and he held her gaze. 'Fae… are you alright?'

She sighed, her shoulders slumping. 'Honestly?' she said. 'I'm having kind of an identity crisis right now.'

Cohvu chuckled softly. 'I can't blame you.'

'Elphie…' said Boq, looking at her as he was holding Nessa's hand tightly. 'This is pretty huge. I mean… Frex wasn't your father.'

A soft sob escaped Nessa's lips at that and Elphaba bristled, rising to her feet. 'Yes,' she said firmly. 'Yes, he was. He raised me, Boq. Him and Mom, they loved each other, and they are my parents.' She looked at Nessa, who was looking back with huge, tear-filled eyes. 'And you are my sister, Nessie.'

'Half-sister,' whispered Nessa, but Elphaba shook her head. 'I meant what I said,' she said gently. 'This doesn't change anything for us. I'm still me. We're still sisters. We grew up together, we're part of the same family. Frex was my father, Nessa, just as much as he was yours.'

Nessa sniffled, but nodded, rising to her feet to wrap her arms around her sister. Elphaba held her close and looked at Boq over her sister's shoulder. He smiled at her. 'You're right, you know.'

She nodded. 'I know.' She let go of Nessa and sighed, running her fingers through her long raven hair. 'But even though I know that… it's still confusing.'

'That's understandable,' Fiyero said quietly, touching her arm. When she didn't pull away, he drew her in closer, and she let her head fall against his shoulder. 'I don't know what to make of this,' she confessed in a whisper. 'The Wizard of Oz is my father, and he's also a Keeper…' She fell silent when it dawned on her what this meant and she let out a short laugh. 'They really did keep this Keeper thing in the family, didn't they?' she sniggered. 'My mother, my father, and my birth father were all Keepers.' She blinked. 'Do you think the Wizard can die?' she asked suddenly, and the others stared at her, confused.

'I guess,' said Cohvu slowly. 'I mean, sorcerers die, too, right?'

Elphaba wrinkled her nose. 'And if he does… do you think he's going to pass on the Grimmerie to me?' she asked. 'You know, me being his only child, and all? That would get me stuck with two Objects of Power…'

Fiyero slipped his arms around her waist, stopping her rambling. 'I know this is a lot to take in,' he said to her. 'But those are things you don't even have to think about right now, okay? You were right before, a chroí – it doesn't change anything, and you shouldn't let it, either.'

She leaned back against his chest, closing her eyes for a moment. 'I know,' she mumbled, before opening her eyes again. She heaved a sigh. 'Okay. Very well then. Let's do what we came here to do, okay?'

The others agreed, and Cohvu knocked on the door in the corner. 'Your Ozness?' he called. 'You can come in now!'

He did, and he took back his seat across from Elphaba. He looked around the circle. 'Is everything okay?' he asked, his gaze resting on his daughter, who flashed him a faint smile and nodded. 'Yeah… I guess.'

He returned her smile. 'Good.' He leaned forward. Elphaba did, too. 'So… are you a Keeper?' she asked him, and to her utter surprise, he shook his head. 'Not officially,' he said. 'I do keep the Grimmerie, but that's only because the last Keeper was killed.'

Elphaba's face fell. 'So… so you can't do the ritual with us,' she said quietly. 'The one that reveals the true identity of the King.'

'If that's the one that requires three Keepers working together, then no,' he said honestly. 'I'm sorry.'

Cohvu swore under his breath again, earning him a whack in the arm and a glare from his girlfriend. Elphaba seemed to deflate a little. She bit her lower lip. So far her plan. She couldn't help but imagine what this meant for her future – if she couldn't find the King, that meant she couldn't kill him, and thus she couldn't kill the other Shadows… which meant she would be their prey for the rest of her life. Which probably wouldn't last a whole lot longer, given that the Shadows had her on their radar already.

Fiyero reached out to squeeze her shoulder and Nessa asked in a small voice, 'Does that mean they'll come after me now, too?'

Elphaba's heart broke at the sight of her younger sister. She was not even sixteen yet, and now the Shadows would, indeed, come after her… and all because of Elphaba.

'Nessa, I'm so, so sorry,' she whispered. 'I never wanted to endanger you, and now I've done it anyway… I'm so sorry.'

'It's not your fault, Fabala!' said Nessa, shocked that her sister even thought that. 'It's just…' She bit her lip. 'I'm scared.'

The Wizard was following their conversation with interest. 'Are you two related?' he asked, and Elphaba, seeing no point in denying it anymore, nodded. 'We're sisters,' she said quietly. She sighed.

'I'm a Keeper as well,' said Nessa softly. 'Only most Shadows didn't know that.'

'Not until I let them know,' said Elphaba bitterly, earning her a stern look from Cohvu. 'Stop blaming yourself, Em,' he told her firmly. 'It wasn't your fault. You didn't know that sharing dreams was dangerous.'

'I should have known,' she snapped back at him. 'If I'd known, I wouldn't have done it, and Morrible wouldn't have known about Nessa!'

'Children,' the Wizard cut in, his eyes suddenly shining. 'I might have a solution. Nessarose, did you bring your Object, too?'

Nessa nodded, and he smiled. 'That's very good. We have all three Objects in one place… which means there is something we can do.'

Elphaba eyed him warily. 'Even with one true Keeper missing?' she asked suspiciously. 'How?'

The Wizard's smile widened. 'By using all three Objects… together.'