DISCLAIMER: The Wicked characters are not my creation or property.
AN. Do I know where this idea came from? No. Have I been trying to write this since 2018? Yes. Have I realised the mystery genre is not one I am good at? Also yes. But it is DONE.
Til Death Do Us Part
By Vinkunwildflowerqueen
Chapter 1
Elphaba entered her dorm room just after nine-thirty on a Saturday morning in February, tightly clutching a bag from the bookstore. Boq followed her inside, carrying an identical bag.
"Did you get them?" Galinda demanded excitedly, springing up from her bed.
"We did," Elphaba confirmed, reaching into the bag and handing her one of the books within. Galinda uttered a short squeal and pounced upon it with the most enthusiasm Elphaba had ever seen her display towards a book.
"Although I still don't understand why you couldn't just come with us and get it yourself," Elphaba continued, dumping her bags on the end of her bed.
Galinda looked to her exasperatedly, one hand flying to her hip as though to emphasise her point. "Elphie, I can't be seen buying a book!"
Elphaba rolled her eyes, kicking off her shoes. "Of course not. What was I thinking?"
"Besides," Galinda continued. "I had no desire to get up at six am on a Saturday to line up for hours until the store opened."
Boq frowned. "Didn't you do that a few weeks ago for that shoe sale?" he asked the blonde.
Galinda waved a hand dismissively. "That's different."
Boq shot a bewildered glance at Elphaba for confirmation of this and she snorted, hanging up her coat in the closet. "You're kidding, right? Don't look at me, I think she's crazy."
Galinda glared at her best friend. "I have a very popular shoe size, Elphaba. I have to get there early before all the good ones are gone! And may I remind you, your feet are only a size bigger than mine!"
"I have no idea why my shoe size is relevant here," Elphaba retorted, collapsing into her desk chair.
"Shoe size is very important," a deep voice said, and the three turned to see Fiyero standing in the doorway, nodding solemnly.
Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure to some people it is," she said archly. "What's your shoe size, Yero?" she added sweetly.
He grinned at her. "The appropriate size," he replied, raising his eyebrow back at her and winking.
Elphaba snorted, even as she felt her cheeks flush slightly.
Fiyero stepped into the room, leaning casually against the wall. "Did you get it?"
Elphaba reached over to the bed, drawing her own copy of the same book she had given Galinda out of the bag and held it up for him to see.
"Yep."
"Many other people crazy enough to get up in the middle of the night for a book?" Fiyero asked, taking it from her to look at it.
Elphaba tried to glare at him but failed as she was derailed by logic. "You do realise six o'clock is not the middle of the night, yes?"
Fiyero didn't answer before there was movement from behind him and Fiyero moved to allow Nessa to wheel herself inside.
"Did you get the book? You haven't started yet, have you?" she asked anxiously, as Fiyero shut the door behind her.
"Yes, we got it and no, we haven't started yet. Don't worry, you haven't missed anything besides Fiyero evading a conversation about his shoe size," Elphaba reassured her sister.
Nessa looked puzzled, but didn't ask her to elaborate.
That very morning, best-selling Ozian mystery author, Agata Vann, had released the final book in her series of The Kit Kappa Files which revolved around Detective Kit Kappa. The series were immensely popular, and this final book had been long-awaited for months. Galinda rarely read anything other than romance novels; and Fiyero rarely read anything at all- or so he claimed anyway, but even they were fans of the Kit Kappa Files. When Elphaba and Boq had announced their intention to go into town early on release day, Galinda and Nessa had both asked for copies of their own.
"The Murder at the Winery,' Fiyero read aloud from the title and handed the book back to Elphaba. "Sounds promising. Are you ready, Fae?"
Elphaba moved from the desk to settle herself on her bed with a sigh, while Fiyero and Boq removed their coats. Somehow, she had been elected to read the book aloud to the group so they could find out the outcome together. There had been rumours (partly spread around campus by Fiyero, who seemed to find the resulting chaos entertaining) that Kit Kappa was going to be killed at the end of the series. Agata Vann had been teasing a "big surprise for fans" in promotional interviews, and unless she was in on them, Galinda didn't do well with surprises.
"Read the blurb first, Elphie," Galinda ordered her as she got comfortable on her own bed, while Nessa moved her chair in between the space between the two beds.
"Wait, wait, wait," Fiyero said hastily.
He jumped onto the end of Elphaba's bed, kicking off his shoes and making himself comfortable. He directed Boq to sit in Elphaba's desk chair and then nodded in satisfaction.
"Man, I wish we had popcorn," he complained. "Why did no one think to bring snacks?"
Elphaba looked at him. "Do we need to wait while you go get snacks?"
Fiyero made a face. "I'd have to go? You girls don't have anything here?"
"Well, there's Galinda's secret-"
"No!" Galinda cut Elphaba off quickly. "We have nothing."
Elphaba and Fiyero both met her with sceptical looks.
"Glin, do you really want us to have to wait while Fiyero goes to gets snacks? Even though he really should have known better and brought them with him, or at least had breakfast before he came?"
"I don't have anything," Galinda insisted.
When Elphaba's head tilted slightly and her eyebrow rose pointedly, Galinda crossed her arms over her chest.
"I'm not sharing anything," she said stubbornly, jutting own her chin.
Fiyero heaved a heavy sigh, sat up and put his shoes back on, muttering under his breath all the while.
"Do not start without me," he warned Elphaba as he shrugged his coat back on.
"Bring me a tea," she instructed.
"Oh, and a muffin!" Galinda added.
Fiyero nodded and left the room.
Only when Fiyero had returned with drinks and snacks for them all, and he had resumed his earlier position on Elphaba's bed, did he nod to Elphaba.
"Ok, Fae. Go for it."
Elphaba sighed but complied. "Kit Kappa is on vacation. Her cousin, Flysa Allee has opened a vineyard in Wiccasand Turning, and is throwing a grand party to festivate."
"Wiccasand Turning would be a terrible place for a vineyard," Boq interjected. "The land east of The Madeleins would be much better."
Elphaba looked up from the book.
"Boq, it's fictional. She can put a vineyard anywhere she damn well wants," Elphaba reminded him.
"Oh, like you didn't complain for like a week after you read Merchant of Death because he survived that fall," Fiyero retorted.
"That's just physics!" Elphaba protested. "He should have died!"
"Artistic license," Fiyero said dismissively. "You can fudge things slightly for the story if you want."
"I don't care about any of this," Galinda cut in impatiently before Elphaba could reply. "Elphie, just read."
Elphaba sighed deeply, but obediently continued.
"The festivations end abruptly however, when Flysa's fiancé and vineyard manager, Gilias Baten is discoverated murdered in the wine cellar. Now Kit's vacation has become a working holiday, and she must solve the murder.
Was it rival vineyard owner, Titan Cullon, who accused Gilias of sabotaging his own grape harvest? Was it Jeb Drudope, who may have secrets Gilias threatened to spill? Or, and Kit hopes this isn't the case, was it Flysa herself in a lover's spat gone wrong? Only Kit can solve the mystery, in the final book of the Kit Kappa Files series."
"It was totally Flysa," Fiyero declared confidently.
Galinda and Nessa both looked at him, scandalised.
"No!" Nessa exclaimed. "It couldn't be."
"Yeah, it's obviously that Titan guy," Galinda agreed. "What woman murders her own fiancé?"
"I'm not saying she did it on purpose," Fiyero defended himself. "I'm just saying she did it."
"Why Titan? Why not the Jeb guy, if he has secrets?" Boq asked.
"Why don't we read the book and find out?" Elphaba said with an exasperated roll of her eyes, before they could get too deep into the debate of who committed the murder. "At least let's get a few chapters in before we have this discussion, yes?"
They agreed, Fiyero somewhat reluctantly, and Elphaba looked at him pointedly. She was fairly certain he had no real idea about who the murderer was, he just liked to stir up Galinda and Nessa.
He grinned at her innocently.
"Chapter One?"
Elphaba sighed again. "Chapter One," she agreed and opened the book.
And so she read, stopping every so often when someone had a question or a new theory about who had committed the crime. They all took turns reading after a while, save for Galinda. She would get distracted by what was happening on the page and start reading silently to herself; resulting in Elphaba banning her from reading, after the third time she lapsed into silence and gasped at what she read on the page- without telling the others.
By Chapter Six, Fiyero had changed his tune, but was no less confident in his answer.
"Titan did it," he sang out.
"Why?" Boq asked. "Jeb has a way stronger motive with the blackmail."
Fiyero shook his head insistently. "Nope. Titan had to sell off half his land because the grape harvest was so poor, and his vineyard had been going for four generations. Gilias did something to the land, and Titan found out. He did it."
"The murder weapon was a corkscrew… that would make sense," Nessa agreed thoughtfully.
"Because you can't own a corkscrew if you don't own a vineyard? That doesn't make sense," Boq argued.
"It was an antique corkscrew," Elphaba countered. "It could have been passed down through Titan's family."
Galinda frowned. "I still think it was Flysa. I got bad vibes from her and Gilias at the party."
"To the point where she'd stab him?" Fiyero asked doubtfully.
"Well, they say statistically women who commit murder are more prone to stabbing than men; but the data is skewed, because most men use guns. Or their fists, which is harder for women for basic biology reasons," Elphaba said thoughtfully.
Fiyero stared at her for a moment.
"I do not want to know how or why you know this," he said. "Here, I'll read the next chapter, shall I?"
And so the day passed.
The murderer, as it turned out in the end once Kit Kappa had found all the evidence, was Flysa. But not in a crime of passion as was believed, but rather in desperation.
Plotting to kill her fiancé after discoverating he was drawing up a plan to unite with Titan and take credit for the business- and had in fact sabotaged Titan's grape harvest in order to manipulate Titan into agreeing with the union; Flysa had put arsenic into the baked goods she would send off with Gilias to the office for his morning tea. But the poison didn't work fast enough.
When she overheard Gilias and Titan discussing the deal at the party and agreeing to sign the paperwork the next day, she had panicked, luring him into the wine cellar and stabbing him with the antique corkscrew Titan had loaned her as a gesture of good luck.
Fiyero and Galinda both crowed triumphantly about accurately picking the murderer, although Elphaba couldn't help but point out that Fiyero had changed his mind with pretty much every chapter that was read.
"Still counts," Fiyero insisted.
The twist that no one saw coming, however, was that Titan confessed to the murder before Kit could confront her cousin. Doubting her conclusions, Kit was packing to leave the vineyard at the novel's end, planning to retire from detective work to Lake Chorge and set up a painting studio. Only to be interrupted by Flysa dropping off a small gift basket for all the guests, as a thank you for coming and apology for the drama that had ensued.
Including a few powdered doughnuts.
And there the novel, and the series, ended.
"Oh my Oz, Flysa's going to kill her cousin!" Galinda positively screeched.
"Oi!" someone banged on the wall from the room next to theirs. "No spoilers!"
"Read faster!" Galinda yelled back, which made Fiyero snort with laughter and almost choke on the mouthful of chips in his mouth.
Elphaba facepalmed as Fiyero proceeded to cough up a lung, still laughing. "Galinda…"
"She's not going to kill Kit," Boq said reassuringly, handing Fiyero a glass of water he'd thoughtfully fetched from the bathroom. "Why would she?"
"Because she knows the truth!" Galinda insisted."She obviously got Titan to take the fall for her, but she can't risk Kit telling the police about the evidence she found of the poisoning."
"One dose of arsenic isn't going to kill Kit," Elphaba pointed out. "Gilias was eating them daily for months and still wasn't dying. That's why he got stabbed."
"Wait," Nessa interrupted. "If the doughnuts are poisoned, is it just the ones Flysa gave to Kit? Or to all the guests?"
Fiyero's face lit up as he put the water glass aside. "Like a mass murder situation?"
"Do not look so excited about that prospect," Elphaba advised.
That turned into a whole other debate between the group. Fiyero and Glinda insisted the doughnuts were poisoned, Boq and Nessa thought otherwise. Elphaba thought there simply wasn't enough evidence to say either way and perhaps it had been intentionally left up to the reader to decide for themselves.
Within two days, the debate of the powdered doughnuts had spread like wildfire over campus. Even those who didn't read the Kit Kappa books knew about the ending and many still had opinions on whether it was likely Flysa did plan to poison her cousin (and possibly her other guests) or not.
Agata Vann herself, in interviews released the days immediately following the release of the book, would not say definitively if the doughnuts were poisoned or not, which fuelled speculation even more.
And it drove Galinda absolutely insane that they'd never know the answer, as Vann was at least firm on the point there would be no further Kit Kappa books.
She took to poring over the book, looking for the tiniest detail that would support her theories. Elphaba was both amused and impressed. Fiyero was just amused.
"I think Fae's been a bad influence on you, Glin," he teased her.
"Yeah, if she was taking Kit Kappa 101 this semester, she'd be acing it," Elphaba said dryly, not looking up from her own book she was reading.
"I just want to know!" Galinda exclaimed in frustration.
"I think the point is that Agata Vann doesn't want anyone to know," Fiyero pointed out. "Let it go. Find something else to obsess over."
Elphaba did look up that time, with a groan. "Don't tell her that," she said to Fiyero. "Because her next obsession is likely to be me and my wardrobe."
"Don't be silly, Elphie," Galinda said to her. "Your wardrobe is always an obsession. It's terrible."
Elphaba rolled her eyes.
AN. This is just a short one- 5 chapters! But I hope you enjoy it regardless.
What do people prefer in terms of an update schedule these days? Two days or three?