The Shattering of Oz

by Straightjacketed

It would seem that a peaceful future is too much to ask when it comes to the Land of Oz, even with Glinda the Good ruling the country... Not quite a crossover, but not set entirely within Wicked's continuity.

36. The Endgame

A/N: Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the latest (and probably the second-last) chapter. It's been exhausting but impossibly enjoyable to write, and I can only hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

To GoodWitchesOfOz: Thank you for your forgiveness, and I hope the chapter meets and exceeds all expectations; and I made what Dorothy did with the Ruby Slippers a touch on the ambiguous side anyway (for reasons you'll discover in this very chapter) so don't worry too much.

Inbalwolf: No, you didn't spit on me in any past lives. In fact, the most I've been able to get out of my past lives is that they all arrived late for their own funerals; the hearse was delayed, the embalmer's parlour exploded, the Viking longboat was swept away before anyone could set fire to it, the coffin was knocked overboard and used by a convinct-turned-surfer to escape from the coast guard, the serial killer kept forgetting to dump the body in a lake... Sorry, don't know what came over me there. But in any event, I'm happy to fulfil most of the requests... key word being most- I have to stop the characters from dying of stress-induced heart-attacks somehow. But without giving too much away, I think I ticked off most of the essential boxes on the checklist. One might have to wait until the last chapter- you'll find out which soon.

Wile E. Coyote: Yep, that was exactly the trope I was aiming for. After giving the King so many successes, I felt it was time to even up the score.

Guest: Yes, you can quote that line, just make sure you mention the source in the A/Ns for that chapter. PS: A Star Wars/Wicked crossover? Consider my curiosity officially piqued. It'll be very interesting to see where it goes...

Now, without further ado, read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked. Not Mine. Return to Oz. Not Mine. Oz. Not mine.

---

In the few seconds before the King's spirit tore into him, Basalt felt time itself slow to a glacial crawl. He had no idea why: perhaps some of the Ruby Slippers' magic had escaped to contaminate the air around him, but it didn't seem likely; if anything, this was almost certainly an instinctive response to his imminent death.

After all, he knew without a shadow of doubt that he was going to die; after all, he had read the forefather's book from cover to cover, and in all the many thousands of years and hundreds of possessions that it had documented, no victim of the technique had ever survived with their personality intact. Escaping wasn't an option, either: once the process began, there was no way of escaping it unless the caster relented- and given Roquat's current state, the chances against him having a last-minute change of heart were beyond astronomical. And trying to fight off the possessing spirit was impossible, according to the book: no Nome could withstand the energies of the King's spirit or the personality-overwriting enchantments that surrounded it; an ensnared Nome could only resist for so long before being devoured.

But he had to try: even if it was pointless, even if there was no way of escaping the King's grasp, he had to resist. With Glinda and Elphaba struggling to breathe, Diggs and the others currently disarmed and a wall about to collapse on those still standing, there was nobody left to help him. Every atom of Basalt's rational mind told him that giving up was out of the question: if the King escaped death again, there'd be no stopping him; everything Elphaba had done in the last few hours would have been for nothing. And there was something else that screamed for attention deep within his being as the King's monstrous form spread its wings to envelop him, something that Basalt had often had to override in pursuit of his duties- but could no longer be ignored:

His self-preservation instincts.

Even though his body was still paralysed by the King's order, a mental alarm bell was ringing somewhere deep inside Basalt's psyche and demanding that he move- or fight back, or scream for help- anything, so long as it got him as far away from the King as possible.

He glanced down at the crumpled human shapes at his feet, still trying to recover their breath; for some reason, he felt the urge to say something to them. But what should he say? Should he call for help? Suggest that they destroy him before the King could take possession? Apologise for not being able to resist the King's orders?

"Glinda," he began. He wanted to thank her for everything she'd done for him, for trusting him with so much of her story when she'd had no reason to do so. And he wanted to thank Elphaba, too: without her guidance, he'd have never found the courage to do any of this. He wanted to say so many things in that moment- things that had never occurred to him before this instant, things that he'd probably never have the chance to voice again.

Then time returned to normal, and the King struck him head-on.

Instantly, Basalt's vision was flooded with blinding light as the energies of the King's monstrous spirit enveloped him; at the same time, he heard the noise of the avalanche as it descended on the room around him, and felt the sensation of rock and debris hammering against his body. It didn't hurt him, though- it didn't even force him backwards; he was now cocooned in a thick shell of magical energy and beyond all harm.

Well, beyond all physical harm.

A moment later, the blinding light in his eyes was gone, replaced by a pitch-black void yawning open before him, like a colossal maw waiting to swallow Basalt's psyche whole. The Forefather's book had mentioned this in its record on the technique: this field of nothingness was the Nome King himself- now visible only to Basalt's mind- readying to absorb every last facet of his personality.

No sooner had he realized this when something cold and daggerlike stabbed into Basalt's mind, brutally tearing through his thoughts and sinking deep into his consciousness. For a moment or two, Basalt could only stand there, paralysed by shock, all thoughts of resistance temporarily forgotten in the wake of the frost that was slowly colonizing his brain; he'd experienced pain before- but only briefly, and certainly not like this.

Then he felt the cold moving deeper, and heard the King's voice whispering the arcane words of the Forefather's technique; once again conscious of the threat, he struggled to force the presence out of his mind through sheer force of will, trying to grasp at the hand that was forcing the dagger of ice into his he couldn't: it was like trying to wrestle water; every time he thought he was close to shoving the blade away, it slipped clean through his mental fingers.

But he had to keep fighting; he had to, if only to buy time. And if nothing else, he did seem to be stopping the freezing touch from reach any deeper... maybe if he delayed the King long enough, his spirit would simply die from the poison-

Fresh pain tore through him, forcing his mental grip away from the dagger's hilt and back down into the depths of his mind. Reeling back in agony as he tried to claw his way back up, Basalt realized that the King could hear his thoughts; there was no way of keeping anything a secret from the King anymore- not now that the King was slowly ripping his way into his thoughts. And worse still, just as he was trying to recover his grip he felt something new- something that very nearly tore his fingers loose and sent him plummeting into oblivion:

Fear.

The King had just given him a new emotion; it now flooded his being, unregulated by any of the normal constraints that stopped a Nome from being overwhelmed by new emotion, and suddenly, Basalt was no longer interested in keeping his grip on his consciousness. He was now ducking and cowering with every new stab of pain, trying to escape them even though the few remaining rational thoughts in his head told him it was futile.

Another emotion struck him and burrowed deep into his soul, its blazing intensity nearly melting the ice of the King's invasion: anger. Suddenly, Basalt felt rage and hatred bubbling at the pit of his stomach – at first, only towards the King for betraying his people and for singling out Basalt for this futile attempt at a resurrection; then, as the anger grew, it turned on Elphaba- fucking green-skinned bitch! He'd told her that this might happen; why hadn't she done anything to stop the King before it was too late? Or what about Glinda? The vacuous little quim had led him into this with her endless weeping over her dead friend- it was because of her that he was going to die! And the Wizard too, the thieving old bastard!

Then the anger refocussed again, and Basalt suddenly found himself the target of his own rage: why had he bothered to turn and run when he saw that the King wasn't human anymore? He should have just slipped back into the earth before the King had been able to speak a single word! Why hadn't he been strong enough to resist the orders? He'd nearly killed Elphaba and Glinda- all because he'd been too weak to ignore the King. He was going to die because of that same weakness, and even worse, he'd spent the last few seconds pathetically blaming everyone but himself instead of trying to focus!

Peering through the haze of agony, terror and fury that now clouded his thoughts, Basalt tried one more time to fight back- only to be engulfed by a solid wave of emotions: dizzy and nauseous, he vaguely discerned sorrow and remorse among his new emotional range, followed by lust, greed, mirth, loneliness, envy, apathy, pride and far too many more to count. He was drowning in a torrent of information too complex and too numerous to properly assimilate; he barely understood half of the emotions that had just been forced on him- in part because he was experiencing all of them at once! And with every new feeling that rushed through him, his resistance to the King's invasion slowly eroded as he descended closer and closer towards madness.

Somewhere in front of him, the King laughed. "What's wrong, Basalt? Didn't you want emotions?"

"Not this way," Basalt whispered.

The only answer was a hiss of effort, as the stabbing pain descended once more; this time, he was too weak to resist as the King's mental fingers tore his defences apart, levering his mind open like a clamshell- allowing the King to feast on the personality within.

Basalt wanted to scream his last words, to try and make one last display of defiance; but he was too exhausted by the fight and the maddening influx of emotions to raise his voice above a murmur, and besides, his mind was now awash in the last of all the emotions he'd been granted: despair.

"I'm sorry, Glinda," he said wearily. "I wasn't strong en-"

One last jolt of pain shot through Basalt, and both his last words and the mangled remains of his psyche tumbled into the waiting jaws of the abyss.

---

"Elphaba? Elphaba!"

Somewhere under a thick mantle of dust and pebbles, Elphaba very slowly opened one eye and immediately regretted it: somewhere between the collapse of the wall and blacking out, she'd obviously been pelted with a few sizeable chunks of rubble, for she was now sporting fresh bruises across her arms and back, along with an especially painful one on the side of her head. On the upside, she'd been lucky enough to avoid the worst of the avalanche; she'd only been showered with the lighter debris.

"Where are you? Elphaba, if you can hear me, answer me! PLEASE!"

Come to think of it, what had become of everyone else? How many of them had escaped the chaos alive? And what had happened to Glinda?

She forced herself to remember, trying furiously to think past the thudding pain in her head. After a few seconds of trying to ignore both the headache and the distant sounds of screaming, Elphaba recalled that, in the last few seconds before the King had launched himself at Basalt and the wall had come crashing down on them, Glinda had been lying right next to her.

"ELPHABA!" screamed the voice- which, come to think of it, wasn't all that distant at all.

Suddenly wide awake, Elphaba sat bolt upright, dislodging several pounds of ashes in the process. Forcing both dirt-clogged eyes open, she found herself sitting in the middle of a massive cloud of dust, with no sign of any of the recognizable landmarks that had once composed the half-ruined ornament collection; and though there were vague shapes stirring in the piles of rubble around her, there was no way of telling if they were human or Nome. So, once she'd finished coughing, she turned in the general direction of the voice and managed to gasp out, "Glinda? Is that you?"

By way of an answer, something in the dust cloud let out a choked sob and hugged her fiercely; it was indeed Glinda, and if she'd looked uncharacteristically bedraggled before, now she was almost unrecognizable: powdered from head to toe in dust, her brilliant blonde tresses turned grey and her dress torn to rags by the avalanche- had she been in the mood to laugh, Elphaba would have found the image utterly hilarious. As such, she could only check Glinda for injuries, frantically asking her if she was unhurt.

"I'm fine," Glinda assured her. "I just got the wind knocked out of me. But what about you?"

"Don't worry; it's only a few bruises."

"A few bruises? Elphaba, look at your leg!"

As it happened, the leg itself wasn't what Glinda was looking at; after all, what with the cloak Elphaba had been wearing, she wouldn't have been able to see any wounds down there if there'd been any- one of the downsides to wearing black. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the trickle of blood oozing from just beneath Elphaba's knee. As it turned out, a large chunk of filigreed ceiling had landed squarely on her left leg during the avalanche, puncturing her calf muscles in at least four places. And for good measure, it seemed as though the brickwork the filigree had once been attached to had landed heavily enough to-

"Aaaaaargh!"

"For Oz's sake, Elphaba, don't try and stand up!"

"I wasn't; I was just trying to see if I could move it."

"Well, can you?"

"No. I think it's safe to say that something's broken down there." She laughed. "And here I was, thinking it was just another bruise. Can you stand?"

"I didn't have any trouble a minute getting up a couple of minutes ago. Question is, where are we supposed to go, anyway?"

"Anywhere out of this mess would be nice; I just need to bandage this wound, and we'll get going..."

Thankfully, Elphaba's bag and its small cache of medical supplies hadn't been swept away or crushed in the collapse of the wall, so at least she was spared having to use her cloak for bandages (which might just guarantee a lethal infection, given that her clothes could probably stand up on their own by now). It took several minutes of screaming, struggling and swearing for the two of them to properly clean and bind the wounds, but eventually, the blood was finally staunched and Glinda was able to help Elphaba to her feet. By now, the dust cloud had cleared, allowing the two witches an unimpeded view of the carnage around them.

When the wall had collapsed, it had brought with it a huge landslide of masonry from the upper floor of the palace that ended up almost erasing the remains of the ornament collection: the entire chamber was filled almost to the ceiling with rubble, the lowest point of it being almost right in front of them. As for Basalt, Diggs, Rasp, Brollan and Woolwax, there was sign that any of them had survived the impact; the sea of wreckage before them remained entirely undisturbed, with no indications that anyone beneath it was still moving- or breathing, for that matter.

As for the King, the remains of his body were lost among the pebbles and dust.

"Do you think any of them are still alive?" Glinda asked quietly.

"I don't know: it all depends on where they were standing when the wall came down." Elphaba shook her head. "We only survived because we were back here; if they were at the front of the room-"

Before Elphaba could finish her sentence, someone to the left groaned loudly; it came from one of the few doors that hadn't been blocked by the avalanche, where something vaguely recognizable as Brollan was slowly clambering to his many feet. Wherever he'd been standing when the landslide has hit him, he'd clearly caught the brunt of the debris: most of his limbs looked twisted out of shape, and his already-distorted hide was covered with jagged wounds from bricks, ceiling fixtures and broken ornaments; the rest of the damage was almost impossible to examine under the thick arterial blood that was now oozing down Brollan's misshapen flank. In fact, the only reason why he was standing at all was because Woolwax, Rasp and Diggs were supporting the few of his arms that weren't broken, with Javelin doing his best to support the mangled Gillikin's legs.

These other three survivors looked none the worse for wear, despite having been in almost the exact same position as Brollan: true, Diggs' support frame was now broken in several places, Rasp's limp was much more pronounced than usual, and Woolwax was sporting a bloody nose, but that was the extent of their injuries.

"Christ almighty, Elphaba," Diggs gasped. "Your leg-"

"Never mind that; how did you survive?"

"You can thank Brollan here for that; he shielded us-"

"-nearly suffocated us too," Woolwax added sarcastically.

"What?"

"There's no other way to explain it, Elphaba: he just jumped on top of us before the wall collapsed. Once cave-in was over, we climbed out, and we've wandering around the cellar for the last few minutes looking for you."

Elphaba could only gape incredulously. "Sweet Oz," she muttered. "How the hell is he still alive? How is he even standing?"

By way of an answer, Brollan laughed weakly and slipped free of his supporters' grasp, hitting the ground with a loud, meaty thud. Immediately, everyone crowded around him, hastily gathering together what little medical supplies they could find as they hobbled over. It was immediately obvious that Brollan's condition was grave; on top of the various dislocations and fractures throughout his distended skeleton, he was bleeding very heavily and possibly concussed. Elphaba and Glinda did their best to stabilize him, but with their limited repertoire of healing spells and the Gillikin's mutated physiology there was only so much they could do.

"We'll just have to carry him until we can find someone who can help," said Woolwax.

"Like who?" Elphaba snapped, as she hastily sealed a gash across Brollan's shoulder. "Do you think there's anyone in a thousand miles who could treat injuries like this? Do you think anyone knows how to deal with them on someone with a body like this?"

"Why do we need to bother looking for someone?" said Rasp. "We've got the Grimmerie, haven't we? There's apparently a healing spell in there that-"

"You seriously want to use the same spell that made Brollan like this in the first place?"

"I'm just saying- if you say the words clearly and concisely, and nothing interferes with the process, everything should be fine."

"Rasp, look at our track record: something is guaranteed to go wrong."

Glinda looked up from the pile of semi-human limbs at her feet, opening her mouth as if to say something; however, as her gaze drifted over Diggs' shoulder, she almost immediately lapsed back into silence, her eyes widening in astonishment. "Diggs," she said after a moment of voiceless shock. "While you were explorifiating the cellar, did you happen to see Basalt anywhere?"

Nobody answered; they could already guess at what was now standing behind them. For what felt like millennia, the six of them stood there, their minds collectively hijacked by an entire legion of horrifying questions: had Basalt somehow managed to survive the onslaught, or had the King absorbed his soul? Was the Nome standing behind them really Basalt, or was it Roquat? If so, was he trying to fool them, or was he just waiting for them to turn around so he could look into their eyes as he finished them off?

Elphaba was the first to break the stalemate and look up: she was ready for violence at that point; she was ready to smash rock into vapour if she had to, and she was so agitated (from both nerves and the keening pain in her left leg) she was on the verge of launching everything she had at the intruder.

The sight of the figure behind them almost immediately disarmed her.

As far as she could tell, the Nome looked completely identical to Basalt: his build was the same, the stone that comprised his body was the same, his face was the same... in fact, it wasn't until she and Glinda had hobbled closer that she realized that this last fact wasn't entirely true: Basalt's face was no longer frozen in his usual expressionless mask; his mouth was now downturned in a grimace, his brow furrowed in concentration, eyes clenched shut. The change expression didn't stop at his face, either: he wasn't standing to attention as he'd always done- he wasn't even upright; he was now sitting, half-slumped against the wall, clutching his skull as if in agony, his body periodically wracked by twitching, shivering fits.

"Basalt?" Elphaba whispered.

He didn't respond.

"Roquat?" she asked, a touch experimentally.

The Nome- either Basalt or the King in disguise- refused to answer, and indeed gave no indication that he'd even heard her. However, as Elphaba limped closer, she noticed that Basalt's lips appeared to be moving, as though he was trying to speak; whatever he was saying, it was almost inaudible, and it wasn't until she'd hastily shushed Diggs and the others that she finally heard the catatonic Nome's fevered mutterings.

"Oh no no no no no no," he whimpered. "The gaping jaws slammed shut and I'm still caged behind them..." Even at the volume he was speaking at, the change in his voice was immediately obvious: one moment it was a perfectly ordinary Nome voice, thick with pain and fear though it may have been; the next, however, it had taken on the deep, rumbling bass of the Nome King. "I tried, I tried, it wasn't enough," he carried on, louder and more insistent than before. "I'm sorry, Glinda, I tried, but he didn't let me he just tore me open and..."

"Basalt," Glinda hissed urgently. "I'm right here- tell me what's wrong..."

Basalt's eyelids shot open, and for a second or two, Elphaba thought that the eyes beneath them were actually glowing. But then she looked closer and realized that- in much the same way that the King had a few short hours ago- Basalt was crying tears of molten lava.

"It hurts!" he moaned. "It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts... There's too much of it, too much to take in, it's crushing me- I can't separate what happened then from what's happening now! There's too many of you here, Elphaba; he was watching you for so long... Gods, he lived for so many thousands upon thousands of years- why did I ever think I had a chance of stopping him alone?" He laughed hysterically, his voice briefly awash with mirth; then he began to sob again. "I'm sorry, Glinda, I'm so sorry I tried I tried but I wasn't strong enough and I should have tried harder I shouldn't have hurt you and Elphaba but I was weak and stupid and-"

Over the course of the last minute or so, Glinda had been trying to get the traumatized Nome's attention, without much success; whatever had happened to him, he was in no fit state to respond. Unfortunately, Basalt's silence- or the boiling tears coursing down his face- didn't do much to discourage her. "Basalt," she said gently (one hand drifting unconsciously towards Basalt's face), "Everything is going to be alright: whatever's happened to you, we can help- Elphaba and I are witches, don't forget. Just take a deep breath, calm down and explain what AAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Glinda, not recognizing lava by sight, had made the mistake of trying to touch Basalt's face in some desperate attempt to calm him down; she hadn't actually touched one of the tears- she'd noticed the searing heat long before she'd actually made contact- but judging by the smell of burning meat in the air, that hadn't done her any favours. Elphaba didn't see what happened next: because Glinda was now clutching her injured hand in a desperate attempt to smother the burning, this had left Elphaba unsupported just long enough to send her crashing to the ground.

Seconds later, Glinda landed next to her, staring at her hand in shock and disbelief: from the fingertips to the wrist, the skin had been seared a livid purplish-red, and was now weeping blood and other less identifiable fluids. "Oh Oz," she muttered deliriously. "I... that was... pretty blonde of me, wasn't it?"

"Nevermind that," said Elphaba, trying to ignore the renewed pain in her leg. "I think I might have something for third degree burns in the bag somewhere, if I can just reach it-"

"Third?" Diggs echoed. "Only third degree burns? Christ, you're luckier than I was, Glinda. When the King used lava on me, he actually made sure that I didn't have any skin left on-"

There was a loud rumble of shifting rock as Basalt slowly rose to his feet; his face was still streaked with incandescent tears, but the expression on his face was no longer clouded with fear and pain. If anything, he looked light-headed, almost sleepy. Slowly, he raised his hands, and with a thrill of horror, Elphaba realized that his fingertips were swarming with magical energies; before she could retaliate, before any of the others could duck out of the way, the energy in Basalt's hands rippled outward in a wave of blinding green light.

Elphaba had just enough time to hug Glinda goodbye and regret that they hadn't been able to spend more time together before the wave struck them head-on.

But instead of erasing them from existence altogether- or burning, petrifying, electrocuting, melting, vitrifying, disintegrating or killing them in some other particularly horrific way- the wave simply passed clean through them and swept onwards to Diggs and the others. For a moment, Elphaba wondered if she'd just been exposed to something horribly toxic- if any minute now, she was going to start vomiting blood or shedding chunks of necrotized flesh.

However, as she checked herself for injuries, she noticed that the pain in her leg had inexplicably faded; a quick glance under the bandage revealed that the wound had vanished, leaving only a faint scar on her calf, as if it had been healing for weeks. The burns on Glinda's hand were fading away into old scars, too; even Brollan's gaping wounds were beginning to seal shut, his broken limbs straightening and mending as he slowly clambered to his feet.

Trembling, the two freshly-healed witches stood, Glinda turning to Basalt as if to thank him- only to find that the look of dreamlike serenity on the Nome's face was gone. If anything, he looked even more terrified than before.

"OhGods, the spells too," he mumbled. "So many tomes of magic committed to memory from the moment he was made assistant librarian and even more with every promotion... whole libraries trapped within my skull... it hurts..."

"What do you mean?" Elphaba asked, suspecting that she already knew the answer. "What happened to the Nome King?"

"He's gone. Gone and dead and ashes. But not quite. Not in here." He tapped the side of his head, a pained smile arcing wildly across his face. "He... he couldn't... he was too weak to finish the process; he faded away before he could consume me altogether."

"Then what's the problem?" Glinda asked. "If he's dead, then-"

Basalt laughed. "He's still here, Glinda!" he cackled mirthlessly. "He's dead but still in here. He tore me open and poured himself into my brain- he mightn't have been able to replace my consciousness but he filled my mind with his emotions, his memories! Everything he saw and felt is in here- every book, every conversation, every battle, every murder, EVERYTHING! Oh gods, there's not enough room for all of them and they're crushing me, Glinda... and it feels as though... as though I'm still experiencing those moments; I'm reading those spellbooks, I'm speaking the words, I'm watching Elphaba at Kiamo Ko, I'm casting a spell, I'm tearing people apart with my bare hands and it's all happening at once!"

Glinda looked from the shivering figure in front of her to Elphaba. "Is there anything we can do to help him?" she asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Elphaba grimly; from the moment Basalt had started describing the symptoms, she'd known that this wasn't going to end happily. True, it was certainly better than having the King devour Basalt's soul, but having the King's entire memory forced upon him wasn't much better considering the number of spells that could be used to alleviate the crushing pressure on Basalt's psyche (ie: zero).

"You mean there's nothing?" Glinda whispered.

"I'm didn't say that; I'm just saying that if there's any spells that can to take the strain off Basalt's mind, I don't know any of them."

"But we can't just leave him like this- not after what he did to help us! There's got to be something we can do; maybe we can erase the memories or drain them into a bottle or something..."

Elphaba thought for a moment. "From what he told me about the palace, there's library somewhere on the upper floors. Maybe there's something up there that can help us; if this has happened before, the Nomes would have probably documented it."

"Why bother with that?" said Rasp. "If the King really did memorize that many spellbooks, then maybe there's a solution in Basalt's mind and he just hasn't found it yet."

"Not to sound callous or anything," Diggs began, "But whatever we do, we're going to have to find a way out of here sooner or later, and I don't see too many exits. More to the point, what's going to happen to Basalt if we can't find a solution?" He thought for a moment, and then rephrased the statement: "What's going to happen to Basalt?"

"We shall be the judge of that," said a quiet voice.

As they turned to face the source of the voice, the ground shifted, and suddenly the already-battered walls of the ornament collection began to dissolve into air, taking the heaps of rubble with them. In a matter of seconds, the cellar and all its innumerable broken contents were gone, and the seven of them were standing on bare rock and gazing into the cathedral-like interior of the vast cavern that surrounded the palace.

Gazing back at them from every single wall and every single outcropping were Nomes- hundreds of thousands of them.

If not millions, Elphaba thought numbly.

More were pouring into the cavern by the second, filling up every single available space as they hastened to surround them; to Elphaba's eyes, it looked vaguely reminiscent of a crowd hurrying to find their seats at a theatre. Oddly enough, though most of them were unarmed; most of them didn't appear to be soldiers or even guards. True, the few hundred thousand Nomes that were now emerging from the ground closest to them were undoubtedly soldiers if the weaponry and armour-plating was any evidence, but the rest looked to be civilians. Judging by the fripperies on some of them, there were even a a few nobles among the crowd. Was the arrest of seven fugitives really such a spectator sport in Nome society?

"Holy shit," Woolwax muttered. "How many do you think are out there?"

"God only knows," said Diggs. "I'd say they've called in the entire army- and the guards, too."

"All of them."

"... what?"

Basalt's eyes very slowly slid shut as he tried to focus on his answer. "It's an automatic response one of Roquat's successors established five years ago- five? That was ten thousand years ago... no, what am I talking about? It's still being written!"

"Basalt," said Glinda soothingly, "Please- try and concentrate for just a moment: why are all these Nomes."

"When the Nome King dies, all Nomes are alerted within the hour so that they can journey to the King's deathbed and pay their respects. It's strange, though; it's unlike soldiers to abandon their posts in wartime." He blinked. "What? No, the war ended two centuries past. Sorry- it's getting really difficult to think... er, as we are not presently under threat of invasion or war, the army and guards have automated the border defences and returned here to mourn."

"And they probably think we killed the King," finished Elphaba.

Rasp put his head in his hands. "We're fucked, aren't we?" he sighed.

"Hang on!" Glinda whispered excitedly. She turned to Basalt, a look of enlightenment suddenly dawning on her face. "You're technically the King's successor, aren't you? I mean, you told me the last time he tried the body-snatching thing on someone, he used it to pretend he was his own successor-"

"But I'm clearly not-"

"Did the King actually have any successors?" Elphaba asked.

"Not anymore; the last one died fifteen years ago-"

"Then just pretend," hissed Glinda. "If you've got his memories, then you can play the part easily, can't you?" There was a pause, as Glinda put a hand on Basalt's shoulder (clearly doing her best to ignore the fact that her entire hand barely covered a quarter of the Nome's rocky shoulder-blades). "You can do this, Basalt; you can do this."

Basalt's face underwent a very brief spasm of undisguised terror, his stone skin rippling wildly as he tried to control his newfound emotions. "I... I don't know, Glinda, I-I-I'm still seeing things, and I can barely concentrate and and and... what if they suspect something-"

"You can do this," Glinda insisted. "For the last few days, you've been playing the subterfuge game so well that even the King didn't suspect a thing: if anyone can pull this off, it's you."

For a moment, it looked as though Basalt was about to argue. Then, he took a deep breath that he probably didn't really need, wiped a few stray droplets of lava from his face, steadied his expression as best he could, and then stepped out towards the waiting multitude of Nomes.

"My fellow Nomes," he proclaimed solemnly, his voice echoing majestically across the cavern. "His Majesty the King has-"

"Died," a voice interrupted. "Under circumstances which your allies in the palace helped to engineer. I am well aware of the situation, Basalt- including your current mental state: I have had the spies listening for the past twenty minutes, and I am more than apprised of what happened- including the use of the Technique upon you."

Basalt's entire body sagged in despair. "You know?" he asked quietly.

"As Lord Chamberlain, I am required to know." And at last, the speaker stepped forward from the crowd. He was clearly a nobleman, judging by the silver decorations about his shoulders and the iron skullcap atop his head; he was also considerably taller than Basalt- who had to crane his neck in order to make eye contact- and made entirely of black marble. And, as he drew closer, Elphaba realized he was wearing that same grim, businesslike expression most commonly worn by executioners.

He turned to the squad of guards that had emerged from the crowd alongside him, and nodded; immediately, the guards surrounded Basalt on all sides, the first six of them training their weapons upon him while the other three went about restraining him with an impressive set of enchanted manacles.

"What are you doing?" Glinda yelled. "He was trying to help stop the King from-"

"I am well aware of the subterfuge that has been perpetrated on our society: the manipulations of the War Council, the King's own private schemes- which I only discovered thanks to Basalt's delving into the King's personal effects- and commendations are due to him of course. For the last fifteen years, we have had to endure countless deprivations at the hands of a small group of corrupt generals, along with the more apocalyptic designs of the King; now both he and the War Council are dead. I speak for all Nomes when I thank you and Elphaba for ending the King's reign of terror, but I do not wish to see his insanity continue- even if it is only through a proxy." He eyed Basalt meaningfully.

"But he's not a proxy! The King wasn't able to -"

"No? Then he hasn't been imbued with the King's memories?"

"Well, he has but-"

"And he hasn't demonstrated any signs of mental instability?"

Glinda desperately turned in the direction of Basalt, who was muttering helplessly to himself and clearly on the verge of tears.

"I'm sorry," said the Chamberlain, "But there are simply too many variables in this situation to simply let this Protector go free: armed the King's memories and - by extension- his motivations, he may very try to take the same path as the King-"

"But I won't!" Basalt protested. "I was trying to stop the King! Why would I try to continue his work?"

"Do you feel you can trust your own mind, Basalt? You don't feel overwhelmed by memories that don't belong to you?"

For the second time in as many minutes, the Nome protector's body sagged; Elphaba didn't have to see the look on his face to realize that he had no answer for the Chamberlain's interrogation- he was trapped, and he knew it.

"But what are you going to do to him?" Glinda asked softly.

"That has yet to be decided; incarceration would be the most logical option. Nonetheless, as Chamberlain, I am more than capable of resolving internal matters-"

Elphaba- who'd been listening to the political pomposity accumulating in the air over the last minute and getting angrier with every word- finally lost her temper. "Oh really?" she exploded. "Like you "resolved" the War Council? Or way you "resolved" the Ruby Slippers fiasco? You're doing a wonderful job! I can't imagine what political crisis was keeping you occupied when the King was having my father tortured in the dungeons of the palace- and don't say you didn't know he was here; you would have seen him arrive. Did you say anything to stop the King or the War Council when they waged war on Oz? Did you even get this job on your own merits, or did you just play toady to the Council until they gave you the position to shut you up?"

"Is there some point to this?" hissed the Chamberlain, brow furrowed in anger; she'd clearly hit a nerve.

"I'm just saying- if you want to prove that you're capable of handling things once the dust's finally cleared, I wouldn't start by pretending that you hadn't stood by and done nothing through the worst of the crisis... or," Elphaba added sharply, "By pretending you know what's right for everyone- by locking up a sick man!"

"Nome, actually," Diggs corrected, but he was almost drowned out by the storm of applause from the crowd: several of the Nomes were clapping- not all of them, but certainly enough to surprise the Chamberlain.

"The decision will not be mine alone," he admitted grudgingly, once the applause had faded. "But it will not be yours: we have endured human interference in our culture before, and it nearly cost us everything." He glared at Diggs, his black marble eyes briefly glittering with anger. "We shall handle our own affairs from here on; again, you have our thanks for ridding our society of damaging influences, but that does not entitle you to decide our future course. Good day."

He turned and marched away. A moment later, the guards finished manacling Basalt, and began escorting him through the crow; Basalt had just enough time to whisper, "I'm sorry, Glinda; I tried, but-" before the grip on his lead tightened and he was dragged away,.

Elphaba or Glinda tried to follow him, but the front franks of the army quickly moved to block the path. Elphaba briefly considered blasting her way through the crowd, but the thought died almost as soon as she considered it: she was outnumbered, and flying off the handle would likely Glinda and the others killed- along with Basalt and maybe even Nome civilians too. So, her options exhausted, she could only watch as the Protector was led into the depths of the audience, his head lolling back and forth from gods only knew what delusions were besetting him.

Then, from the ranks of the soldiers in front of them, a duo of Nome magicians emerged, immediately recognizable by the talisman-draped spellbooks they were carrying. After studying the rag-tag group before them and consulting their books for a moment or two, they began tracing the gestures of what could only be a teleportation spell about the seven of them. "This will send you back to Oz," one of them explained. "For the moment, this is all we can offer as reward for your aid."

"Could you be specific? I mean, where in Oz are you sending us?" Rasp asked.

"The Emerald City was judged to be the safest location," the magician replied curtly, and refused to answer any further questions- or suggestions, for that matter.

As the spell began to pick up energy, it belatedly occurred to Elphaba that, against all reasonable expectations, they had managed to achieve some kind of victory: the Nome King was dead his armies were out of Oz for the moment, Glinda was alive and – surprisingly – didn't hate her, and their team hadn't suffered any further casualties. It certainly didn't feel like a victory though: quite apart from the fact that they'd just lost Basalt and none of them had any idea of they were going to do next, after the last few hours of wild magic, battles, strenuous injuries, unconsciousness and angry shouting, the only thing Elphaba could feel at that moment was exhaustion.

Swaying on her feet, she found herself glancing around at the people around her, trying to get some idea of how the others felt: Glinda looked almost as weary as she felt, and a great deal guiltier; Woolwax wore an expression that suggested dogged optimism (or possibly a concussion); Rasp was eying the magicians nervously, as if he suspected foul play; Javelin looked amazed to be alive after the events of the last few hours- not to mention bizarrely discoloured thanks to the mixture of red paint and brick dust that now coated his hide; Brollan's expression was as unreadable as always. And as for Diggs, he was-

Elphaba tapped him on the shoulder. "What exactly are you grinning about?" she asked pointedly.

"You called me 'Father'," said Diggs, still smiling beatifically.

And then the teleportation spell activated and sent them tumbling into the ether.

---

Moments later, Elphaba opened her eyes to find herself standing in the middle of a vast marble hall, lined with intricately-sculpted columns and enormous mullioned glass windows. She briefly entertained the idea that this might be some kind of temple, until she looked closer and realized most places of worship she'd seen weren't this extravagantly decorated; they didn't sport diamond chandeliers, brocaded drapes, rolls of vivid red carpet dividing the room in two, or gold-plated double doors. And the velvet-cushioned chairs and mahogany desks that Glinda and the others were now leaning against looked out of place in this sanctified atmosphere. No, if anything, this was some kind of audience chamber.

Where had the teleportation spell deposited them? The Nomes had told them that they were going to send them back to the Emerald City, but this hall didn't look as though it belonged to any building there: along with the unfamiliar decorations and furnishings, the place was completely intact. Most of the buildings of the City had been destroyed or looted; unless this was actually some kind of underground sanctuary hidden from the Nomes and the Wheelers- which didn't seem terribly likely, given that she could see through the windows- this place couldn't possibly exist in the Emerald City.

"Where are we?" she asked blearily.

And quite unexpectedly, Glinda laughed. "You don't know? You don't recognize this place?"

"Should I?"

Diggs was chuckling too. "It looks different with the drapes open," he admitted. "But you really can't miss the..." He shook with laughed for a moment. "Just turn around," he said at last. "You'll know what I'm talking about when you see it."

Sighing deeply, Elphaba turned and found herself almost nose to nose with a familiar face squatting against the wall behind her- a gigantic mechanical head sculpted from brass and steel, coated with almost as much dust as Elphaba herself. At last she understood: she was standing in what had once been the audience chamber of the Wizard's palace; this was where she'd first defied the Wizard all those long years ago...

"But how is this hall intact?" she asked suddenly. "When I was last here, the Nomes had just about ripped the palace apart and left only one of the towers standing. I mean, this place shouldn't even exist anymore."

"Something tells me there's going to a lot of "shouldn'ts" in the next couple of sentences," said Rasp, smiling mysteriously. He'd been gazing out the window for the last few minutes, and what he'd seen had clearly had some effect on his disposition. "For a start, assuming my watch is right, it shouldn't be nighttime- it should be early afternoon. Secondly, there shouldn't be fireworks in the sky right now." There was a distant explosion, and a series of green, red and blue lights shone through the windows. "And thirdly, the city shouldn't be intact, and it shouldn't be full of people. But it is."

As if hypnotized, the seven of them slowly turned in the direction of the windows: outside, the Emerald City was no longer a blasted ruin of petrified citizens and crumbling masonry; instead, the towers and spires stood tall once again, each gigantic building now shining through the night with over a hundred thousand lit windows. Even the emeralds that the vengeful Nomes had torn from the walls of the buildings were now back in place.

The streets below had been cleared: the rubble had been meticulously swept away, and the corpses of those killed or petrified in the initial attack were gone as well; and now the boulevards and avenues of the restored Emerald City were thronged with people, all of them celebrating just as they had after Elphaba had faked her death.

"How is this possible?" Glinda whispered amazedly.

Elphaba could only laugh. "Dorothy you magnificent bitch," she said at last. "Oh well, at least we know what she was doing with the Ruby Slippers."

"Speaking of which," said Diggs, "Where is she?"

Before anyone could begin to speculate in this direction, there was a loud creak from the opposite end of the room as one of the enormous double doors slowly opened: judging by the neatly-trimmed green uniform, the man now standing in the doorway was a servant of some kind- probably one of the few who hadn't left the palace to attend the festivities outside. "I heard voices," he announced carefully. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but this is a restricted-

His eyes abruptly focussed on the closest of the group- which, thankfully enough- was Glinda; true, she looked decidedly bedraggled after all almost a week of barely-interrupted work and she was covered with dust, blood and other things best left unexplored, but there was no mistaking that face. "Lady Glinda!" he exclaimed. "Most of the palace staff have been looking for you since the city was restored- are you alright? You seem..."

The servant trailed off: he'd noticed the figures standing behind Glinda. His gaze quickly swept across the group: he barely noticed Rasp, Woolwax and Javelin; thanks to the scars and disfigurations, he didn't recognize Diggs; and while his eyes bulged in horror at the sight of Brollan, it was clear that the lion's share of his attention belonged to Elphaba.

For twelve whole seconds, he stood in complete silence, jaw flapping aimlessly as he tried to find a suitable response; then, he let out a piercing scream of terror and flung himself back through the doors, shouting at the top of his voice, "SHE'S BACK! SHE'S BACK! THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST IS BACK FROM THE DEAD! NOBODY IS SAFE! WE'RE DOOMED! DOOMED!"

As the servant's howls of terror faded into the distance, Elphaba very slowly hid her face in her hands. "So much for secrecy..."

---

For the second time in her life, Dorothy found herself returning to an Emerald City in the throes of a fully-fledged victory celebration; the guards had opened the city gates for her almost as soon as they'd seen her trudging up the path, and now, scant minutes after they'd stepped through the open portcullis, the six of them were hurtling along the crowded streets, forced along by the rising tide of celebrating citizens.

Much like the last time the city had been swept up in celebration, most of these people felt the need to congratulate Dorothy every other second of the journey towards the palace. However, what she found alarming was that none of them knew what had happened after the Nomes had attacked the city, how they'd suddenly sprung back to life, or what had been happening in the meantime; the moment they'd heard that Dorothy had returned, they'd just assumed that it had been her doing and started heaping praise on her.

She wanted to tell them that they were wrong, that if anyone was responsible for the victory, it was Bilina- and the Witch, too, for giving Dorothy the clues to make it through the Nome King's game; she even wanted to tell them that the Nome invasion had been her own fault for letting the Ruby Slippers fall into the King's hands in the first place. And there were other things she wanted to explain, things she'd glimpsed in the journey back from the Nome King's mountain, things that could only mean that Oz might not be completely healed. But she couldn't: something about the faintly desperate smiles around her silenced her before she could voice those doubting thoughts.

Then, just as she was starting to feel sad, there was a loud clanking from her left, and she turned to see the Tin Man hurrying towards her, closely followed by the Lion. Heart leaping and her doubts temporarily forgotten, she hugged them both, too glad to see her friends alive again to think on her misgivings. Once the hugs and the greetings were over with, the two of them helped Dorothy and the others from of the depths of the crowd and into a side-street where they could catch their breath for a moment.

"Sorry we're late," the Tin Man panted. "I was too busy trying to figure out what happened while I was petrified. Speaking of which, how did you get the Nomes to leave Oz and put everything back the way it was?"

Dorothy sighed. "It's a very long story," she said wearily.

"A very, very long and complicated story," the Scarecrow agreed. "Speaking of which, what was it like being petrified?"

The Tin Man frowned gloomily. "Worse than rust," he shuddered. "At least I could fall asleep when I was too rusted to move; when Mombi petrified me, she botched the spell so badly that even though I was a statue, I was still aware of everything going on around me."

"Really?" Dorothy gasped. "So you saw me when I finally got here yesterday?" And you weren't able to tell me that you were still awake, she thought with a fresh thrill of horror.

"No, no... after the first day or so, I..." the Tin Man's brow furrowed with the effort of remembering. "I think... well, I remember someone finding me and sending me to sleep. For the last few days, I've been as fast asleep as everyone else who was petrified in the attack."

"But who helped you?"

"I don't know; I'm pretty sure I must have been imagining things by that point, because she looked like-"

Not too far away, someone screamed.

A moment later, a small cluster of green-uniformed men and women (most of them instantly recognizable as palace guards and servants) emerged from one of the nearby alleyways, wearing near-identical expressions of fear and terror; upon seeing Dorothy, they immediately thundered to a stop and hurried towards her. It took a moment for them to calm down enough to explain themselves, but eventually, one of them- a harried-looking man in a valet uniform- managed to choke out the words, "She's back; the Wicked Witch of the West is back."

Over the exclamations of shock or disbelief from the others, the Scarecrow asked, "What do you mean? Where did you see her?" As he spoke, Dorothy couldn't help but wonder if the Scarecrow didn't accept this information a bit too readily; Dorothy hadn't told him about how she'd met the Witch back in the Nome King's palace, so why had he taken the servant's testimony so unquestioningly? More to the point, he didn't seem terribly worried at learning that the Witch was back, either; unless he'd somehow managed to overhear the secret meeting back at the palace, he should consider her just as dangerous as she had been a year ago.

"She's in the palace," the servant gasped breathlessly. "She's holding Glinda the Good hostage in the Wizard's old audience chamber." His gaze swept back and forth across Dorothy and the others, as if only just noticing the Tik-Tok and Jack for the first time. "Dorothy, please, you... you need to stop her somehow... before she kills someone... we've got buckets of water ready, but nobody's willing to get too close- they're too scared of her magic..."

He lapsed into an exhausted silence.

Dorothy looked from the wheezing servant to the Scarecrow, who was now contemplatively stroking his chin. "How far are we from the palace?" he asked thoughtfully.

"About half an hour away," said the Tin Man.

"In that case, let's get moving; we've got a hostage situation to negotiate!"

"Negotiate?" the servant yowled in disbelief. "With the Wicked Witch of the West?!"

But the Scarecrow wasn't listening: he was already sprinting towards the nearest coach.

---

Just outside the audience chamber, the deathly silence that had been gathering for the past few minutes was suddenly split by a low, spine-tingling creak as one of the great double-doors slowly rumbled open.

"Hello?" Glinda called. "You don't need to be afraid; everything's okay in here! I'm not being held hostage, and the Witch isn't going to hurt anybody." She thought for a moment. "Or kill anybody for that matter. Or destroy the city. Or take over Oz..."

"I don't think they're listening," said Elphaba quietly. "And even if they are, they probably think I forced you to say that last sentence."

At this, Glinda all but slammed the door shut. "Well, if they're actually brave enough to send guards in here, they'll find themselves proved wrong, won't they?"

"Yes- and then they'll decide that I've bewitched you or something. And if you keep it up, they'll accuse you of being a traitor and have you imprisoned and executed along with me. I think it's time we figured out some kind of escape plan..."

---

Less than ten minutes later, the coach skidded to a halt in front of the palace, having broken almost every single traffic law in the city (and possibly the sound barrier) in order to reach it ahead of schedule. The wheels were on fire, the reins had snapped, the coach's roof had been torn off, the driver had fainted from nervous anxiety, and both horses were now sporting heavy nosebleeds- but at least Dorothy and the others had managed to arrive in one piece. As a team of firefighters went about dousing the wrecked coach and resuscitating the driver, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion and Tik-Tok clustered together on the steps of the palace to debate strategy.

"How are we even supposed to approach this?" the Lion asked. "I mean, how are we supposed to get into the audience chamber without the Witch noticing us? There's only one door."

"I-Have-Been-Informed-By-The-Guards-That-They-Are-Examining-The-Palace-Blueprints," said Tik-Tok. "It-Is-Rumoured-That-There-Are-Several-Secret-Entrances-And-Exits-Throughout-The-Building, With-The-Audience-Chamber-Being-No-Exception. This-Way-Guards-Can-Enter-The-Room-And-Disarm-The-Witch-Without-Being-Detected."

"But that'll take too long," the Tin Man insisted. "We've got to find a way of getting in there now, before someone gets hurt."

"We could always try negotiation."

All eyes turned in the direction of the Scarecrow.

"As a distraction," he said hastily. "To keep her occupied until the guards can find their way inside. But you never know, negotiation might actually work..."

"Are you sure you're alright?" the Tin Man asked sceptically.

"I'm fine. Look, if it worries you so much, I'll handle the negotiations." Over the incredulous yells of the others, he added, "Look, it makes perfect sense when you think about it: the Witch probably still has a grudge against Dorothy; if she sees Tik-Tok, the Lion or the Tin Man approaching, she'll think she's under attack and do something rash; I'm the only person here who doesn't pose any obvious threat and hasn't been singled out by the Witch before today- making me only logical choice."

There was a long pause, as Dorothy considered volunteering herself for the negotiations- after telling the others about the meeting she'd had with the Witch back at the palace, of course. In the end, she decided against it- partly because she doubted anyone would believe her, but mostly because it would have taken too long.

Eventually, Tik-Tok admitted, "His-Highness-Does-Have-Some-Semblance-Of-A-Point."

The Tin Man didn't look convinced. "And if the Witch tries to incinerate you again?" he demanded.

"Well, I'm a lot quicker on my feet than I used to be. Besides, someone needs to head in there and negotiate before the guards get trigger-happy; even if they manage to catch the witch off guard, they might just end up hitting Glinda too. Do you want that to happen, Tin Man?"

The Tin Man's shoulders slumped. "Fine," he snarled. "Go- but if you get out of there alive, you and me are going to have a long chat about how much you actually know and why. Clear?"

"Crystal. Don't wait up for me!"

And with that, he was off and running, dashing up the steps and through the gates of the palace.

Meanwhile, the Tin Man was massaging his temples with a sound like a wire brush being scraped along his metal skin. "I'll give him five minutes," he grumbled, "and then I'm heading in after him."

"That makes two of us," said Dorothy quietly.

---

Several minutes on, and nobody had managed to make any progress.

Elphaba, Glinda and Diggs had been arguing strategy, trying desperately to figure out some way of escaping the palace without anyone getting hurt or killed: Diggs thought that Elphaba should blast a window open and fly off into the night before guards were posted at the walls; Elphaba- who knew that the windows were too close to the ground to avoid getting shot- wanted to find a decent hiding place in the palace until the guards could be convinced that they'd been hallucinating; Glinda didn't think there were any, and thought that the only option was to leave by broomstick from the topmost tower of the palace, where there'd be no chance of being shot down. And in the meantime, Rasp and the others had questions of their own: what would the guards make of Brollan, for example? Would they really hold their fire on his account? And what about Javelin- would he fare any better with Elphaba's reputation of gaining the sympathies of "rebel Animals?"

Just as they were on the verge of giving up, the doors abruptly swung open: there, standing under the gleaming light of the chandeliers, was Fiyero.

In that moment, Elphaba forgot anyone else was present in the room; joyfully flinging caution to the wind, she covered the space between her and the doors in an instant and flung her arms around Fiyero, kissing him passionately. For the next minute, they simply stood there, lost in the depths of what had to be the longest kiss of their entire lives. Elphaba didn't care that the audience chamber would soon be attacked by guards, or that they might kill her; after having almost lost Fiyero to the Nome King's ritual, she wasn't willing to let him go again anytime soon.

Eventually, they separated- and reality immediately surged back into place as the two of them suddenly realized that Glinda was staring at them.

"Ah," said Fiyero quietly.

"I'm sorry," said Glinda flatly, "but is there something I should know about you two? I mean, the last time I looked, you two were enemies- I think you actually ended up setting him on fire at one point, Elphaba. So please, what the hell have I missed?"

It took a while for Elphaba to respond: the moment reality had gone flooding back into the world, the guilt over hiding the truth from Glinda had returned with it, and now the tightness of her throat made it almost impossible to speak; besides, what could she possibly say to explain this? Even her desperate confession back in the dreamworld seemed easier by comparison. Eventually, though her capacity for speech finally returned: unfortunately, it wasn't in the soothing, reassuring tones she'd wanted to convey; all she could manage was a halting, guilt-muddied whimper.

"Glinda," she began, instantly hating herself for not being able to raise her voice above a mumble, "Do you remember how I promised to explain everything to you once we were out of Nome territory? Well, I'm going to start now. I know you're going to hate me for keeping this secret- you'd be more than justified in hating me for everything I've done. Do you..." She stopped; she couldn't work out what to say next.

And in that moment, Fiyero stepped in; his face was creased with the same guilt that Elphaba felt in that moment, but when he spoke, his voice was as steady and solemn as a funeral procession- as if he'd been rehearsing this moment ever since he'd become a scarecrow. "Glinda," he said, "It's me: I'm Fiyero."

Glinda blinked. "... You can't be serious," she said quietly.

"But I am: I'm the same Fiyero you met at University; the same Fiyero you fell in love with- the same Fiyero you thought was killed in Munchkinland over a year ago." He sighed, and explained himself: he told her of everything that had happened to him from the moment that he'd been dragged off into the cornfield by his former guardsmen- his transformation, the befriending of Dorothy Gale, his many failed attempts at getting Elphaba to recognize him, the voyage into the west of Oz, and how- in the same letter that revealed the truth to Elphaba- he'd helped fake her death. He even told her about the life he and Elphaba had made for themselves beyond Oz, and described his ordeal at the hands of the Nome King as he'd waited to be rescued; he kept no secrets, left no detail unexplained- every single aspect of the double-life he'd been living over the last year was brought into the light and dissected for Glinda's benefit.

At long last, he fell silent. By now, the look of shell-shock on Glinda's face was beginning to fade into an expression that looked not entirely unlike anger. "So," she said, "That's what that letter was about."

"Yes."

"And that's how you knew my original name- and how you knew that I'd been keeping the Flying Monkeys."

"Yes."

Deathly silent, Glinda walked over to Fiyero; for a moment, she studied his face under the light, as if comparing his burlap features to those he'd possessed before his transformation.

Then, without saying a word, she drew back her fist and punched him in the head.

"Okay," said Fiyero, once he'd clambered upright again. "I definitely deserved that-"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Glinda shouted, slapping Fiyero across the face. "Damn it, why did you have to keep everything a secret from me- from Elphaba too up until the last minute!"

Now it was Elphaba's turn to feel utterly bewildered. "Glinda, just calm down for a minute," she soothed. "Why are you angry with him and not me? I kept the same secrets he did-"

"You didn't plan it out! When you got that letter, you didn't have a choice: it was either follow the plan or die fighting the witch-hunters." Once again Glinda rounded on Fiyero. "You could have sought me out when Dorothy first visited the Emerald City, and we could have helped Elphaba together- why the hell did you have to do it alone? Why did you have to keep everything secret, even from her? She thought she'd killed you by mistake- you broke her heart!"

Ducking under the next swing of Glinda's fist, Fiyero held up his hands in the best placating gesture he could manage. "I'm so sorry- but I tried," he said contritely, "I really did try to get word to her before it was too late, but every time I set out to make contact, it all went wrong: she didn't even believe I was still alive, remember? And I didn't want to hurt you more than I already had; I mean, I saw just how upset you were when me and Elphaba ran off together-"

"You idiot!" Glinda snapped- but her voice had softened considerably. "I was hurt, but I'd learned my lesson: I'd gotten Nessa killed just because I was jealous and wanted to get even with you and Elphaba! I wasn't going to let anything like that happen again! I mean, if you'd just looked for me in the Emerald City and told me the truth, I'd have..."

She trailed off, breathing heavily for a moment; then, without warning, she hugged Fiyero. "You bastard!" she cried.

"You're mixing the signals just a tad, Glinda," Fiyero remarked bemusedly.

"Just shut up and let me hug you."

Elphaba shook her head, not bothering to hide her smile. "I've been a terrible influence on you, haven't I?"

"You too," Glinda shot back, grabbing Elphaba by the shoulder and drawing her into the embrace. "I don't care anymore," she said tearfully, "I don't care what either of you did- I'm just so glad you're alive..."

The hug that followed seemed to last for centuries, even though it logically could have only lasted a minute at the most; it ended quite abruptly at the sound of the doors loudly creaking open, and a familiar voice mumbling, "Wha?"

For a second or two, they held the embrace; then, in perfect unison, the three of them parted, turning in the direction of the doors. In the last few minutes, it seemed that almost every ally Dorothy had been able to gather during her journey through Oz had made it into the palace, and all of them were now standing in the doorway: Boq, the Lion, Tik-Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead, Bilina, the Gump (his head, in any case)- all of them had lined up behind Dorothy, some of them ready to attack, others still too shocked by the sight they'd just witnessed.

Dorothy was clearly one of the latter: thanks to their meeting before the ritual, she wasn't surprised to see Elphaba alive, but the sight of her hugging both Glinda and the Scarecrow had taken her completely off-guard; she now stood perfectly still, her face frozen in a wide-eyed open-mouthed mask of incredulity- in fact, she actually looked about three seconds away from fainting, but then again, Dorothy had proved she was tougher than that in the last few days.

Tik-Tok and the Lion were clearly readying to fight- one brandishing an iron mace in his articulated fist, and the other tensed as if to pounce; but while Tik-Tok's oxidised copper faceplate betrayed no emotion, the Lion's face was caught in a morass of different emotions- fear, hatred, suspicion (likely towards Fiyero) and utter confusion. Jack Pumpkinhead, meanwhile, knowing he'd have nothing to contribute to any battle that might ensue, had moved to the back of the group.

As for Boq, to Elphaba's surprise, she saw none of the hatred she'd learned to expect from him a year ago: his face remained inscrutably blank, his eyes scanning the room without a hint of emotion. And even though he was brandishing his axe in one hand, it seemed more as a precaution than anything else.

The shocked tableau held for about twelve seconds, with nobody entirely sure what they were going to do or say next.

Then, to the immediate right of the giant face, a hidden panel in the wall slid open: Elphaba didn't have time to see the passage beyond it- all she could see from the moment the door opened was a steady stream of guards pouring into the room, shouting warcries and death threats at the top of their voices as they moved into formation. By the time the passageway had finished disgorging troops, she counted at least forty guards crammed into the back of the hall, all of them armed with a long-barrelled Gilikin-made rifle- not extraordinarily accurate, but with that many gunman firing at once, they wouldn't need to be.

As one, they aimed at Elphaba. They showed no signs that they'd noticed anyone else in the room apart from Glinda, Fiyero and her; they didn't seem to care that they might end up hitting Dorothy and the others gathered at the opposite end of the hall- they didn't even seem to realize that anyone was there. They simple raised their guns and prepared to fire. "RELEASE YOUR HOSTAGES!" roared the only officer among the guards- safely position at the back of the platoon. "LOWER YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"

Could she deflect so many bullets at once?

When was the last time she'd seriously had to deal with massed gunfire? A year ago? A year and a half? In any case, she was almost certainly rusty after all that time.

"LAST WARNING: RELEASE YOUR HOSTAGES OR WE WILL FIRE!"

Elphaba glanced in the direction of Glinda and Fiyero, who were still standing beside her. "You heard him," she hissed.

"What?"

"They think I'm holding you hostage; if you stay here, they might just end up shooting you too."

"Let them try," said Fiyero confidently.

Sighing furiously, she turned to Glinda, who shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere," she said, voice calm and resolute.

"YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO COMPLY!" the officer bellowed. "FIVE..."

Elphaba glanced back in the direction of Dorothy and the others: Tik-Tok and the Lion were now hastily moving Dorothy out of the line of fire, Jack obediently following them. Boq, meanwhile, stood perfectly still, his expression unreadable.

"FOUR..."

She glanced back towards the guards, and realized with a jolt of shock that Diggs, Brollan, Rasp and Javelin were still standing in the path of the guards' rifles, and had yet to move. Perhaps they simply weren't willing to abandon her, perhaps they knew they'd be singled out as accomplices to Elphaba, Brollan knew he'd be next to be killed regardless of what he said or did- either way, they refused to budge.

"THREE..."

Scanning the room, Elphaba took a deep breath: if she was going to act, if she was going to do something that could save her life and the lives of everyone else in the room, now would have to be the time; she had the broomstick in her hand by now, and she was ready to take off. She'd just have to hope that she wouldn't get too badly cut flying through the window- that she'd be able to find her way back to Glinda one day- that she'd somehow survive the witch-hunt that would ensue...

And then, just as the officer was about to yell the second-last number of the deadly countdown, a voice rang out: "Stop!"

Elphaba recognized the voice immediately, but she was still taken aback by the sight of Boq stepping into the line of fire, face grim and unsmiling, one hand held out in the universal gesture for "stop," the other holding his axe. "Lower your weapons and stand down," he said. "The Lion and I have the situation under control."

Now it was the officer's turn to look surprised. "Mr Tin Man- I wasn't aware that you were here-"

"Of course not. You were too busy focussing on shooting anything in range- including Dorothy Gale." He gestured to the entrance behind him, where Dorothy was peering hesitantly from behind the door. "Would you have shot Glinda and his Majesty the Scarecrow too?"

"The Witch -"

"Already surrendered- while you were wasting time with secret passages, I might add. The Scarecrow kept her distracted while Tik-Tok, the Lion and I surrounded and disarmed her; Miss Glinda was making sure that she wouldn't be able to cast spells while in prison. You, on the other hand, almost screwed up the entire operation!" He took a deep breath, and considered the sheepish guardsman for a moment. "Just how many people know that the Witch is back?"

"About twenty-five, sir- not counting us, of course."

"Where are they at present?"

"Most of them returned to the palace; they're probably back at the servants' quarters-"

"Then get back to your duties," Boq snapped. "I don't want any word of this incident getting to the public; make sure it's in their best interests to stay quiet. Is that clear?"

"Yessir."

"Good. Now get moving."

Galvanized by the look of blood-freezing hatred on the Tin Man's face, the guards cleared the room with impressive speed; most simply filed back down the secret passage- the few too slow to join them before the door slammed shut being forced to leave through the main entrance (barely hiding their terrified expressions from Elphaba as they jogged past). In a matter of seconds, the chamber was entirely empty of guards.

As soon as the door had shut behind the last guard, Boq had Tik-Tok stand guard outside while he went about securing the locks. For good measure, he also blocked the secret entrance with a sofa that had been resting against the nearby wall. Once he was certain that the panel was well and truly braced shut, he let out a sigh of relief. "With any luck, that's the only other way in," he muttered.

At long last, he turned his attention to the tiny knot of figures at the centre of the audience chamber. "Tell me," he said, voice cold and probing. "Did you and Fiyero really die a year ago, or was that a hoax?"

In spite of himself, Fiyero smiled. "So you finally figured it out. Were you listening in on the conversation before we entered?"

"No... But after all the hints you dropped earlier, I'd have to be an idiot not to make a few guesses. And now this." He turned to Elphaba. "I didn't think you just a hallucination when I saw you the last time..."

It took Elphaba a moment or two to realize what he'd meant: thanks to all the chaos and confusion in the last few days, her return to the Emerald City and the rather disjointed conversation she'd had with the petrified Boq had been almost lost in the quagmire of nightmarish sights and sounds she'd experienced afterwards. "You remembered that?" she asked.

Boq laughed, a harsh, metallic sound that rattled the windowpanes. "I doubt I could forget it if I tried." He shook his head, sobering rapidly. "After what happened between us, I didn't think I'd be able to forgive you; I thought killing you would be enough to make everything right with the world. And for a while after you died- if that's what happened- I thought everything was right, even if I couldn't tell... her... who I really was." He sighed. "I know you think it's pathetic that I'm still obsessed after all this time- and it is... but it's all I've got left, and for a while I was happy with it. Being petrified changed all that: up until then, I'd been working so hard I hadn't really been able to think too deeply about my life, and I hadn't wanted to, either; once Mombi petrified me, I couldn't ignore everything that had happened to me.

"I spent a very long time alone with my thoughts; time-perception distortions made it even longer. When you found me, I was almost insane- and I would have gotten worse if you hadn't helped me. But while I was still paralysed and hallucinating, I had time to think about how badly my life had gone after Shiz- and how much of it was my fault in the end; I even had time to think on how much I'd hated you... and how you'd have good cause to hate me too. I know it's strange, but I never even imagined it was possible until then, that you'd think anything of me. But in spite of everything I'd done- breaking Nessa's heart, blaming you for saving my life, leading a witch-hunt against you- you still helped me... so I... decided to repay the debt- some of it at least."

Elphaba considered this. "We forgive each other, then," she said at last. "But what about Glinda?"

"What about me?" Glinda asked perplexedly. "What happened between you two? How did you break Nessa's heart? I mean, who are you, really?"

For a moment, Boq looked as though he wanted to explain everything, to confess his true identity in much the same way as Fiyero had; maybe he thought that Glinda would finally accept him, maybe he didn't care and just wanted to let her know who he really was.

But then the moment passed, and the familiar expression of crippling shyness clouded Boq's features.

"Nobody," he said quietly. "And I think its best I stay that way."

Without meeting Glinda's eyes, he strode over to the entrance, unlocked the door and left in silence. Against her better judgement, Elphaba followed him; it wasn't too difficult to catch up with him, given that Boq wasn't so much walking as ambling directionlessly through the corridors. Nonetheless, she waited until they were well out of earshot before speaking.

"You're going to have to tell her eventually," she pointed out.

Boq sighed. "I know. And she'll hate me for it."

"Well she forgave me and Fiyero for it-"

"And that's because she loves the two of you- you're both her friends. Me? I'm nobody; she doesn't remember who Boq was, she doesn't remember our time at Shiz, she doesn't even remember that I courted Nessa at her request. I'm not even sure if anyone in Oz remembers that Boq even existed- and truth be told, I'm not sure if anyone should."

Elphaba disapprovingly crossed her arms, remembering Boq's mad tirade at the head of the witch-hunter army- how he'd sworn revenge for transforming him into a heartless tin simulacrum of the man he'd once been. "You like being the Tin Man, now?" she asked coldly.

"It took a long time," he admitted. "In the early days, I was even thinking of forcing you to change me back into a human. But I realized that when you can't be hurt, you stop thinking about all the little aches and pains and worries most people suffer from. For a while, I thought I was invincible in every way, that there was nothing in the world that could possibly hurt me, that there was nothing left to be afraid of... right up until I tried to tell Glinda the truth." Boq hung his head in shame, and it could have been Elphaba's imagination, but she thought she saw the faintest hint of tears in his metal eyes. "Mombi was right," he said sadly. "I am a coward- and I don't think being human... or loved... would make me any better."

He offered a weak smile. "Thank you," he whispered. Then, without another word, he shuffled away, disappearing around the corner.

Elphaba returned to the audience chamber in a daze: it seemed that the week could only get more eventful by the minute, she reflected, and in ways even she couldn't predict. After all, she'd told herself she'd never return to Oz, and yet here she was, wandering the corridors of the Wizard's former palace and sending maids and valets scurrying for cover with every step. Somehow, she'd ended up being forgiven by both Glinda and Boq; somehow, the Nome King had been defeated; and somehow- impossibly enough- the future looked surprisingly optimistic.

While Elphaba been talking with Boq, Glinda had been conducting the various introductions as best she could: the confusion in the room was still so thickly layered you could probably cut it with a bread knife, but on the upside, the two groups now knew each others' names.

"But how do you and the Witch know each other so well?" Dorothy was asking Fiyero. "You were hugging each other a minute ago."

"That," said Fiyero, "Is a very long story."

"And I don't think that's the only question you have, is it?" Elphaba added. "You'd best get comfortable-"

There was a knock at the door: it turned out to be one of the palace servants, bearing a message for "Dorothy Gale and the other Heroes of Oz" from some of the more prominent residents of the Emerald City. Once the messenger been reassured that the Wicked Witch wasn't about to attack him, he tentatively announced that "Dorothy Gale and her allies" were hereby requested to attend the official victory celebration in the palace ballroom, where refreshments would be available, along with numerous accolades for those heroes who had once again saved Oz, and many important decisions would be made regarding Oz's future-

"I think we can all attend in some fashion," said Fiyero cautiously, "Provided of course that the staff don't end up telling every single party guest that we've got the Wicked Witch in custody."

"I have assurances from the captain of the guard that almost every servant in the palace has been apprised of the situation and sworn to secrecy, Your Highness." The servant coughed, risking a quick glance in Elphaba's direction. "Uh, what do you wish done with the Witch in the meantime? I can summon the guards if you wish to have her escorted to the palace dungeons-"

"No thank you. For the moment, I'd like you to prepare one of the guest rooms for her- that'll be her cell for the moment. Make sure she won't be disturbed."

Over the bewildered gibbering of the servant, the Lion very quietly exploded. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded. "First you and Glinda hug her, then the Tin Man lies to the palace guards to save her, now you have her jailed in a luxury bedroom. What has she done to deserve all of that?"

"She saved my life," said Dorothy quietly.

A thick, leaden silence descended upon the room, crushing all attempts at discussion for the next fifteen seconds as Dorothy explained how Elphaba had given her those few crucial hints on how to win the game, even facing petrifaction to do so.

"And why did you do that?" said the Lion, eyeing Elphaba suspiciously.

Once again, the servant coughed loudly for attention. "I-I think that the answers may have to wait for later, Mr Lion; my orders insist that you and the others be made presentable for the celebration within the next hour." The words "because you clearly aren't presentable now," remained tactfully unspoken, but it was clear from the look on the servant's face that he didn't think much of the group's current look: Glinda, her hair a bird's nest, her eyes tired and blue-ringed, her dress in tatters and covered in layer after layer of dust, dirt and blood; Tik-Tok, badly tarnished and squeaking loudly whenever he moved; Javelin, still painted bright red and also covered with dust; the Lion, mane tangled and matted, his paws soaked with dried blood... even Dorothy was looking a bit worn around the edges. "Baths will be made available," the servant continued, "along with new clothes for those in need of them. There will also be a polishing service available for the Tin Man, Tik-Tok and," he coughed again, "Anyone else in this group with other metallic... accoutrements."

Elphaba, who hadn't been within a mile of heated water or any other fixture of indoor plumping for the last week, stepped forward eagerly. "I know I'm not going to be attending this party, but I don't suppose it'd be too much trouble to arrange a bath for me too?"

The servant- along with Dorothy and the Lion- could only gape in bewilderment.

"No, I'm not allergic to water," Elphaba sighed. "I never have been and I never will be. My death last year was a hoax from beginning to end. Now can you please run a bath and have someone launder my clothes before they grow legs and walk away on their own?"

---

Elphaba found the bath impossibly luxurious: it wasn't just the fact that she'd spent the last week or so wandering through ruins, wastelands, forests, condemned buildings and charnel houses without washing or changing her clothes; back at the house on the edge of the Deadly Desert, bathing had been a bit of trial even after she'd learned how to make her own soap and heat the water via magic, mainly because the bath had had been little more than a cheap tin washtub. Here, in the gleaming en-suite of her new luxury apartment, she had all the comforts one could ask for in a bathroom- and then some.

By now, the dirt and filth caked on her body was almost a second skin, and washing it all off at long last brought a relief that she could only compare to her brief stint as a reptile back in the Nome King's study; up until she finally rid herself of it in the perfumed waters of the bath, she honestly hadn't realized what a horrendous stink she'd managed to acquire in the last couple of days. The waters themselves were something of a miracle: she didn't know what alchemical compounds had been added to the water, but her body seemed to forget everything it had been afflicted with over the last few days- to the point that after a while of soaking, she was so relaxed that she very nearly dozed off- and probably would have if the distant sound of fireworks hadn't roused her.

Eventually, she rose, drying herself with a towel that felt more like a badly-disguised animal pelt and donning the clothes that had been provided for her (all of them black, appropriately). For the next few minutes, she drifted about the massive apartment, quietly unpacking her belongings and setting them out on shelves and desks. Thanks to the public's overwhelming terror at their return, quite a few of the freshly-resurrected Flying Monkeys also taken up residence here, and were now joyfully capering around Elphaba's heels, happy to see their keeper and friend once more.

However, Elphaba wasn't exactly in a mood to join in the festivities.

It hadn't quite registered with her yet that this room was likely going to be her new home from here on: there was something curiously illusory about the place, not to mention virtually every single event that had led her here- a sense that she'd was about to wake up any second. And even once the reality of the place began to hit home, a few quiet doubts continued to gnaw at her: after all, just because she was now under the protection of the King of Oz didn't guarantee her safety in the apartment; people still hated her- as if they would ever really stop- and when the servants weren't cowering in fear, they were glowering with hatred and frustration. How long would it take for someone to decide that the Scarecrow and the Tin Man had been bewitched, and that the only way to break the spell was to kill her? How long would it take for someone to leak the story to the public and send an angry mob marching towards the palace? And what about the Nomes? The Emerald City was readorned with the jewels that had caused the invasion in the first place; did that mean that the Nomes had lost their national treasures all over again? Was there going to be another invasion because of that? And what had happened to Basalt? Would whatever happened to him have any impact on Oz in the future?

Elphaba sat down heavily in an over-cushioned armchair, and briefly toyed with the notion that everything would be fine. It didn't work, of course: having spent so much time expecting the very worst to happen at a moment's notice, the habit was too ingrained to be rid of very easily. On the upside, Fiyero had talked the guards into letting her keep the broomstick, so at least she still had a measure of freedom.

And then, as she was considering a walk through the palace halls- just to test how far the guards would let her roam- someone knocked at the door. Padding through the improbably thick carpet, she opened the door, half expecting to find an angry mob of servants armed to the teeth with pitchforks and torches.

Instead, she found Dorothy.

Judging by the trails of conversation fading away on the breeze, the guards stationed by the door had been trying to convince Dorothy that she shouldn't talk to "The Witch" or even get within thirty yards of her. The appearance of the Witch herself killed the warning and almost all nearby sounds, making Dorothy's whisper of "Can I come in?" sound like an explosion in the cryptlike silence of the hallway.

Elphaba nodded, stepping aside to allow Dorothy into the plush apartment and gently shutting the door behind her. She was vaguely aware that the girl was holding something behind her back, but truth be told, she was too tired to look for herself.

For about thirty seconds, the two of them stood in silence, neither of them sure what to say or do next except perhaps stare at the floor. Eventually, though, Dorothy worked up the courage to ask, "Why did you help me?"

This wasn't exactly unexpected: from the moment she'd seen her standing in the doorway of the audience chamber, Elphaba had been waiting for this particular question to crop up sooner or later. "Because you were the only person who could have stopped the Nome King," she said simply. "If he'd won the game, there'd be no telling what he'd do with the power he'd gain from it."

"But you... you hugged me," said Dorothy. "You forgave me, you said that what the King did with the Ruby Slippers wasn't my fault, you... if you only wanted to stop the King, you wouldn't have needed to do all that."

"No, I don't think I would have."

"Then why? A year ago, you hated me, you wanted to kill me; what made you change your mind?"

"Do you know why I hated you in the first place, Dorothy?"

"Well... you blamed me for what happened to your sister and for having the Ruby Slippers-"

"Exactly: as far as I could tell, you were the only person I could hold responsible, and you were wearing the only thing I had left to remember my sister by." She sighed. "And then the Wizard's guards caught Fiyero..."

Dorothy's eyes lit up. "The Tin Man called the Scarecrow that a while ago- is that his real name?"

Elphaba nodded quietly. "At the time, I thought they'd killed him- or that I'd killed him by casting all those spells while trying to save his life. The grief and rage I felt at everything that day almost drove me mad: it had to go somewhere, it had to find a target-"

"Me?"

"Sad but true. It wasn't until later that I learned the truth about who was behind Nessa's death, that Fiyero was still alive; by the time I left Oz, most of the anger I'd targeted at you was gone. A year rebuilding my life outside Oz swept away the rest. And when I finally saw you again, you weren't my enemy anymore; you were being used by the Nome King, just like I was."

There was a pause, as Dorothy appeared to consider this. Then, she held out the objects she'd been hiding behind her back: the Ruby Slippers, still glittering with magic, but no longer surrounded by the same malignant glow they had back in the King's study.

"I'm sorry I had to take them again," she said quietly.

"It's alright..." Elphaba began, reaching out to take the slippers; however, as her fingers tightened around the bejewelled fabric, she felt the magic contained within them once again, and realized that something had changed. The last time she'd seen the Ruby Slippers in the presence of the Nome King, their energy had been overpowering, almost tangible, and there'd been enough of it to lend some credence to Roquat's self-deifying claims. Now, the energy was more akin to a jolt of static electricity; there was still magic here, but there was barely a quarter of it left. True, it was growing again, but there was no sign that it would reach the apocalyptic proportions that it had possessed before- not within the next year or two. A cursory examination of the Slippers revealed a slowly-healing wound in their thaumaturgical make-up- as if something (likely the Nome King's death and the collapse of his spirit) had torn them open on a purely metaphysical level and allowed the magic within to spill out all at once.

Probably the only reason why the magic didn't drive the girl as mad as the Nome King, she thought bemusedly.

Meanwhile, Dorothy had sat down in one of the armchairs, and was now staring out the window, her gaze tired and unfocussed. "I tried to use them after the Nome King died," she said quietly. "I mean, I thought if he'd been able to take over Oz with the Slippers, maybe I'd be able to put things right with them. And it worked: on the way back here, I saw it work, I felt it work- the Emerald City's back to normal, whole other cities and towns are back to normal, the forests are gone, the people are alive again, Mombi's caged up in the dungeons- but the work's only half-finished. I tried to fix all of Oz, but halfway through, the power just trickled away. Out there, it's still night even though it should be daytime; out there, whole cities are still in ruins; out there, there's places where rivers have turned to blood, the air's turned into oceans, the earth's crumbled into nothing, and people have been turned into... monsters... there some parts of Oz where people are still petrified, where there's these..." She stopped, grasping for the right word. "Rips," she decided at last. "Rips in the air, and they keeping eating people alive, and and and..." She blinked rapidly, and took a very deep breath. "You can see the fires in the distance," she said, voice shaking with mingled grief and anger. "You can smell the blood in the air if you stand at the top of the battlements. Oz is still burning- it's happening right outside the Emerald City and... and nobody cares! They're still celebrating!"

She took another deep breath.

"That's nothing new to Oz," Elphaba murmured sadly. "When I faked my death, the celebrations carried on for days on end- even though nobody knew what they were going to do now that the Wizard had left the country; halfway through my rebellion against the government, they stopped everything for a day just to celebrate- just to show that they could in spite of how scared they were. And when Animals were being fired from their jobs and vanishing off the streets, the people kept celebrating the reign of their glorious Wizard just because they didn't want to imagine that anything could possibly be wrong. This country celebrates only when it wants to divorce itself from reality a little further."

Dorothy looked at her curiously. "I never asked your name," she said thoughtfully. "When I was here last, I just thought "Witch" was enough- I don't know why."

"Not your fault: few Ozians know I even had a name."

"What is it?"

"Elphaba Thropp- or "Elphie" as Glinda prefers it."

Dorothy's eyebrows rose: clearly "Elphaba" hadn't been on her list of suspected names for the Wicked Witch of the West. "How did you become a witch?" she asked tentatively. "I mean, you make it sound as though there's a lot more than I ever thought there was, and... well, you're not exactly as wicked as I thought you were."

"Are you sure you want to know? It's a very long story."

"Well, it's either that or I'll spend the rest of my life wondering who you really were."

Not for the first time, Elphaba was slightly taken aback at how readily she decided to tell her story: maybe it was just a simple urge to explain herself which had been denied for too long by the rest of Oz; maybe it was just Dorothy starting to grow on her. Whatever the case, she sat down and started to tell her the story of her life.

Just as Fiyero had back downstairs in the audience chamber, Elphaba kept no secrets: she told Dorothy almost everything that had set her on the path to becoming a witch; she told her of how she'd been born green-skinned thanks to the Wizard's affair with her mother; she told her a little of her childhood, of her early sparks of magical power and her duties in protecting Nessarose; she told her about her time at Shiz, her tentative friendships with Glinda and Fiyero, and her discovery of the Animal Rights crisis; she described her first visit to the Emerald City, her first meeting with the Wizard and the rebellion that had followed; and she described how things had all gone wrong- Boq's transformation, the near-collapse of her friendship with Glinda, Nessa's death, the loss of Fiyero, and her faked death. And at Dorothy's urging, she continued the story, finally ending with her battle with the Nome King.

It took almost an hour.

And then, as she sat back, tired and thirsty, Dorothy began to talk: she told her a little about her life in Kansas- a world as strange and alien to Elphaba as Oz was to Dorothy; the twister that had taken her to Oz and left the farm a shambles in its wake; the mounting poverty of her family; her waking dreams, fits of insomnia, and obsession with Oz- which eventually got her sent to a mental institution for "electric healing," as the doctors called it; she even told her of how she escaped the facility, only to be swept away by a flooding river and washed up in Oz.

With both of their stories told, the two of them lapsed into silence- a silence which was almost immediately broken by a servant knocking on the door to tell them that the celebrations would begin in the next ten minutes.

Gumbling wearily to herself, Elphaba handed Dorothy the Ruby Slippers. "You'd best wear these," she said- unable to disguise the reluctance in her voice.

"But they're yours-"

"And the crowd saw you arrive in the city wearing them: if they see you without them, they'll ask questions- and now that I'm meant to be keeping a low profile, I've got to keep away from unwanted questions."

Dorothy bit her lip. "I'll give them back to you afterwards," she said, as she hastily buckled them on. "I promise."

However, as she passed the guards on her way out of the room, she asked one of them, "Is there any way for Elphaba to watch the celebration without anyone knowing? I'm just saying if it's as important as everyone's saying it is..."

---

Minutes later, Elphaba was standing in an observation chamber overlooking the crowded ballroom below, watching the partygoers take their places about the room with only a two-way mirror between her and discovery.

According to the guard posted at the entrance to the chamber- once she'd been able to coax a response out of him, of course- this place had been specifically designed to allow the Wizard's spies to keep a bird-eye-view of suspicious guests at diplomatic functions. Now that the Wizard was gone (or so the guard thought) and the spies weren't often used, it was now used almost exclusively for storage, which probably accounted for the boxes that Elphaba was now surrounded by. On the other hand, there was no denying that she had a perfect view of the goings-on below.

If the city had been restored to its former glory, then the ballroom (which had been almost untouched by the carnage of the Nome Invasion) now looked even more beautiful than before, especially since it was no longer being used as a throne room by Mombi- and Mombi herself was locked in a cage and being dragged into position at the back of the room by a crowd of jeering citizens. Not long after that, Glinda hovered into view, surrounded by hordes of adoring fans; after a brief return to her normal grooming regimen and a change of clothes, she was almost indistinguishable from her bubbly, pre-Kiamo Ko days.

The procession of heroes came next, filing into the room to thunderous applause from the gathered crowds: at the head of the group was Dorothy, smiling as best as she could for the masses, the Ruby Slippers on her feet, and Billina clutched in her arms; Fiyero, as King, marched alongside her; Tik-Tok and Boq took up the second line, whilst Jack and the Lion took up the third rank; much to his amusement, the Gump's head was now being carried around on a cushion behind the others. Even to Elphaba it was a dazzling display- in part because almost everyone had made to look as grandiose as possible: Boq and Tik-Tok looked especially impressive with their metal bodies polished and shining brightly under the chandeliers.

Eventually, they reached the front of the hall, where Mombi's old throne still sat; and as Dorothy took her place in front of it, the crowd began to yell: they weren't just cheering her- they were shouting a very specific message.

"DOROTHY FOR QUEEN!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Elphaba growled quietly.

Were they booting Fiyero off the throne already? He'd been King for less than a week, and they were replacing him with a girl who didn't want the job, wasn't a native of Oz, and wasn't all that qualified for the post anyway.

Thankfully, Dorothy seemed to be intent on voicing those sentiments as well: it was difficult to hear her over the roar of the crowd, but most of her statements seemed to be along the lines of "I can't be queen, I have a family back in Kansas to return to," or "I can't be queen, you need someone better than me."

And then, even from her position high above the crowd, Elphaba saw the Ruby Slippers on Dorothy's feet suddenly glow.

The room fell silent.

In the mirror behind Dorothy, something was moving: at first, it was little more than a shimmering, indistinct shape, more akin to vapour than anything else. But as Dorothy turned, it began to slowly coalesce into a shape that looked almost human; then, with another brief flicker of energy, it was human- a reflection in the mirror and little more, but still recognizably human. It was a girl, not much older than Dorothy, dressed in a magnificent emerald gown. Slowly, she reached up towards the surface of the mirror, as if she were on the opposite side of a window and begging to be let inside; then, Ruby Slippers glowing with what little magic they had left, Dorothy reached out, into the mirror itelf, the surface instantly as permeable as water. Tentatively, she grasped the child's hand, slowly drawing her out of the mirror and into the real world.

Bowing to Dorothy in thanks, the girl looked out at the surrounding crowd, her angelic face and the blonde tresses instantly captivating them. Maybe it was the way her eyes seemed to glow a vivid emerald as they swept across the room, maybe it was the look of unnatural calm on her face, but Elphaba knew that whoever this girl was, she wasn't entirely human.

And then she finally announced her name.

Jack let out a yelp of "Mom!" and collapsed backwards into the crowd.

Mombi backed into the furthermost corner of her cage and covered her face with her hands.

And Elphaba could only watch in disbelief as Ozma, rightful Queen of Oz, returned to her throne.

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A/N: Next Up: THE FINAL CHAPTER.