The Wicked Witch E-Book

Russell Nohelty

• Herausgeber: Wannabe Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Ding dong. The Wicked Witch has fallen.

Nimue ruled the Land of Oz for a hundred years until Rose Briar and her band of misfits forced her into exile. Now, without Hera’s magic and with all the Dream Realm searching for her, she must find a way to survive and reclaim her throne by any means necessary. 

Back in the Emerald City, Rose Briar awaits being crowned the new queen of Urgu. However, the machinations of royal politics are circuitous and dangerous, with threats lurking around every turn.

Not everyone is happy about the coronation, either. Namely, Chelle, Rose’s girlfriend, who searches for a way to open the Obsidian Spindle so they can return to Earth before Rose’s body dies back in the real world and she is stuck in Urgu forever.

If you love mythology, fairy tales, magical fantasy adventures, political intrigue, high stakes action, and star-crossed romances, then you’ll love the second book in The Obsidian Spindle Saga.

Get it now.

Leseprobe

The Wicked Witch

THE OBSIDIAN SPINDLE SAGA

BOOK TWO

RUSSELL NOHELTY

Contents

Special thanks

1. Nimue

2. Rose

3. Chelle

4. Red

5. Chelle

6. Rose

7. Nimue

8. Chelle

9. Rose

10. Red

11. Chelle

12. Rose

13. Nimue

14. Rose

15. Chelle

16. Red

17. Chelle

18. Red

19. Nimue

20. Red

21. Chelle

22. Rose

23. Nimue

24. Chelle

25. Red

26. Nimue

27. Rose

28. Chelle

29. Nimue

30. Red

31. Rose

32. Nimue

33. Chelle

34. Rose

35. Chelle

36. Red

37. Rose

38. Chelle

39. Nimue

40. Red

41. Rose

42. Chelle

43. Rose

44. Red

45. Chelle

46. Rose

47. Nimue

48. Red

49. Nimue

50. Chelle

51. Rose

Epilogue

Author’s Note

The Fairy Queen Preview

Aine

Chelle

Rose

Also By Russell Nohelty

About the Author

Special thanks

Adriane Ruzak, Amanda Jackson, Angela, Anthony Bachman, Caledonia, Caspar Williams, Celeste and Bryan Cornish, Chad Bowden, Chris Call, Chris Meeson, Christopher C Epping, Christopher Prew, CJ Ives Lopez, Daniel Biittner, Daniel Groves, Dave Baxter, Dave Goldberg, David Chamberlain, David Drummond, David Straube, Desiree Duffy, DJ Inzeo, Ed S, Edward Nycz Jr., Emerson Kasak, Erin Congdon, Gabriella Farmer, Gary Phillips, Hannah Long, Hollie Buchanan II, Jeff Lewis, Jennifer & Charlie Geer, John C. Heller, Johnny Britt, Jon Tugan, Joshua Bowers, Joshua Pantalleresco, Juli, Kimberly Herout, Larry Gilman, Lincoln City Archery, Lisa Homolka, Lisa Lyons, Matthew Johnson, Maxi Organ, Melissa Showers, Michael Kingston, Michael Perler, Mike Jones, Monkey King Comics, Nic Nelson, Nick Smith, Paul Rose Jr., Per Stalby, Rachel Adams, Rhel ná DecVandé, Richard A Williams, Rob MacAndrew, Rowan, S.A. McClure, Salvatore Puma, Scott Kilburn, Stephen Ballentine, Steven "Waffles" Lane, Taiga Char, Talinda Willard (everfai), Victoria Nohelty, and Walter Weiss

The Wicked Witch

Book 2 of the Obsidian Spindle Saga

By:

Russell Nohelty

Edited by:

Leah Lederman

Proofread by:

Katrina Roets

Cover by:

JV Arts

Formatting by:

Turbo Kitten Industries

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental. The Wicked Witch. First edition. July 2021. Copyright © 2019 Russell Nohelty. Written by Russell Nohelty.

Chapter1

Nimue

I’m cold.

I flew for the better part of the day and late into the following evening after being chased out of Oz by the whelp queen Rose. The wind stung against my face until I shook all over from the chill, but I dared not stop for even a moment until I reached Hera’s keep far above the forests of the Dark Domain.

I could not risk traveling by foot for fear of being arrested. Even if my troops pledged fealty to me, I feared that their loyalties would now switch to the new queen. Teleporting would have brought me to Hera’s castle more quickly; too quickly, actually. I had failed to keep her prize and feared her rash temper. I needed to give her a chance to cool down so she wouldn’t pull me limb from limb the instant I showed up.

Ungrateful usurpers had no respect for what I’d built over the last century as the queen of Oz. I spent every waking hour in service to those ignorant hayseeds, and they had no appreciation for what I had done for them. Having my own subjects scream for my head was truly the end all of a rotten day.

The citizens of the Emerald City cheered my defeat as if I was a monster, and not their liberator. I would have brought them all with me back to Earth. We would have left the Dream Realm behind had I found a way through the Obsidian Spindle, but that wasn’t enough for Ozma or her sycophants. Ozma had no vision, except to sow deceit. She turned the whole city against me. Her ilk turned Rose—the Dreamer—and the Gorgon against me, and now, I was a queen without a land to rule.

Hera gave me her blessing, but not control over her Dark Domain. Most gods of Urgu had no interest in ruling their kingdom, but Hera was a micromanager. She needed to bend every blade of grass to her will…and did not abide failure. In the hundreds of years I worked in her service, she killed many for less.

I don’t even know how I failed. It all happened in a blur. One instant, my men were opening a portal back to Earth using the Dreamer’s soul to power our machine. The power of the Dreamer was working. I could feel the veil between our worlds breaking apart, and then in the next instant, Hypnos gave his blessing to that silly little girl, and she cast me out of the castle.

I looked back at the Gates of Droangor, which separated Hypnos’s land from Hera’s and the other gods: the Sandlands, where Sekhmet’s people roamed; the Mountains, where Agrona ruled; the Bogs of Insanity, where Loki kept council, and the Thatch, where Anansi kept his home.

In the distance, The Emerald City shone brightly over the Land of Oz, and behind it, the Obsidian Spindle stood tall, its gnarled black spire pointing high into the sky. It was there that the fates spun the destiny of men and protected the only door out of the Dream Realm back to Earth. One day that most precious resource would be in my control. I would unlock its secrets and find my way back to Earth. It was the only shred of hope I had left.

I looked across Hera’s Dark Domain and saw her keep, high atop the tallest hill. It was there I had received Hera’s blessing, and plotted to overthrow Ozma and rule the Land of Oz. Hera’s palace was where I kept my library, filled with the forgotten knowledge of Urgu. It was where I learned how to overthrow a queen and so I was returning so that I could plot my comeback.

The Land of Oz had hope now, in the Dreamer and her harem of misguided idealists. If I wasn’t careful, that hope could spread throughout Urgu. Hypnos made sure of that when he adorned her with his blessing and brought his magic back to the world. For decades, his magic had faded from the Dream Realm, making my plans easier to enact. Now, I would require Hera’s full force and support if I were to be successful. Somehow I would destroy Rose and her ilk once and for all.

To reach Hera’s castle, it was necessary to climb a sheer rock face. She did not want visitors. Her subjects lived in constant fear of her, which made ruling her kingdom all the easier. She did not care if they lived or died. She only cared about one thing: escaping her prison and finally returning to the universe once again. Any other purpose was inconsequential, which is why we worked so well together.

Her castle was made from the same obsidian that forged the Spindle. Hera insisted on it, even though it meant the death of five thousand dwarves when they mined the ore from the deepest caves in Urgu and carried it up the mountain by hand. Obsidian was one of the few objects in the universe which could not be affected by magic. That was precisely what made the Obsidian Spindle impervious to my efforts to open it, and to Hera’s repeated attempts to destroy it. When Hera made her own castle, she demanded the same level of invulnerability.

Even the Queen’s castle in The Emerald City was not so impermeable as Hera’s lair. Hypnos had created magical wards to bar Hera from coming and going as she pleased. During my reign I had disabled or reduced many of them to allow Hera and her shadow demons through my halls. Every piece of information about the wards was locked up in my library vault, and I killed anyone who knew anything about them, but I knew the Dreamer brat and her merry band would surely find a way to reinstate the protections against me and Hera.

I had to find a way back to the castle, and through the Obsidian Spindle, before the magical wards were raised again. Our retaliation must be swift and brutal.

The black shutters above Hera’s throne room were open when I reached the castle. She knew I was coming.

Of course she knew that I was coming.

She was a god. There was not much in Urgu that she couldn’t predict. Perhaps the last thing that truly surprised her was the return of Hypnos’s power to the land, and how quickly the Dreamer used it to cast her out of the Emerald City.

The moment I flew through the windows they slammed closed behind me, and I fell to the ground, tumbling on the plush carpet in front of Hera’s throne. Blue lights flickered along every wall, but otherwise the room was dark, which was how Hera wanted it. She could move freely through the shadows. In all my decades in her service, I had only seen her true form twice.

“You have failed me,” Hera’s stern voice boomed. Her violet eyes blinked in front of me, and that was all of her that I saw in the dark.

“I’m sorry, my queen. You must know that I tried my best. You couldn’t expect me to know⁠—”

“Silence!” Hera shouted. “I do not wish to hear your excuses.”

“I’m sorry, your majesty.”

“Yes,” Hera replied with venom in her voice. “You are, aren’t you? You are sorry for your existence.”

I looked up, trying in vain to meet Hera’s eyes. “You must know that I couldn’t predict Hypnos coming back. Even you, in all your greatness, couldn’t foresee that.”

“Hrm.”

I balled my fists up under me. “We were so close to victory, my queen. I believe that if we can simply retake the Emerald Ci⁠—”

“There is no simply now, Nimue!” Hera roared. “Nothing is simple with the return of Hypnos. I told you to act quicker, but you chose to delay.”

I bit the side of my lip, trying to control my anger at her accusation. She would not tolerate insolence, and my voice could not betray me. “It was not my choice. The pieces had to fall into place, and they had, your majesty. We were mere moments from glorious victory.”

Hera sighed. “And yet, you ended up failing me in the most awful way possible. Not only did you fail to open a portal to Earth, but you also brought the magic of Hypnos back to this land. Unacceptable.”

“Please,” I begged. “Give me another chance.”

“Why?”

I took a deep breath. Project confidence. “Because I am your best chance of getting back to Earth and you know it.”

Her purple eyes blinked open and shot toward me. “If that is true, then there truly is no hope. Goodbye, Nimue. May your failures haunt you all your remaining days.”

Before I could speak, Hera snapped her fingers and the blackness collapsed around me. I drifted away. The last thing I saw was a sly smile cracking through the darkness under Hera’s eyes. She was savoring the moment of my banishment.

Chapter2

Rose

“Ow!” I shouted as Chelle’s blast singed my hand for the second time in the last hour. The throne room had become our makeshift training academy where we practiced magic between the stream of well-wishers waiting to kiss the ring of the new queen—me.

I hated the throne room. Every moment I spent there was an unwelcome one. Nimue, the despot queen who ruled before me, wanted to project an element of fear in any who entered and so she kept the place dark and menacing. Thick black tapestries blocked the light from the stained-glass windows behind the throne.

Since I took over the throne, at least, I had insisted the floor-to-ceiling windows leading to the balcony remain open at all times. I used them to look out upon the Emerald City, and the Land of Oz. Even in the rain, the breeze brought the warmth of nature into a castle that for too long had been cold and hollow.

I turned my face from the wind and gave Chelle an eyebrow. “Go easy on me, all right?”

She laughed. I loved her laugh, even when it was mocking me. “I’m sorry. It’s just—you’re so bad at this.”

She was having a ball teaching me magic. For most of our relationship, she was the gorgon with incredible magical powers and I was just the normal by her side, but now we both had magic; I had recently been blessed by the god Hypnos himself and charged with carrying out his will on Urgu.

Unfortunately, Hypnos vanished into the ether before he could teach me how to use my powers. I could not find, or feel him, anywhere in Urgu. I had to rely on Chelle to teach me. It was not going well.

“I’m not bad. I just don’t understand. You’re telling me to speak a bunch of gibberish and then my powers will work, but they just keep…not working.”

“You’ll get it,” Chelle replied, walking toward me.

I shook my head. “I doubt it. You’re a terrible teacher.”

Chelle picked up my singed hand and kissed it, the snakes on her head cooing sympathetically. “Better?” she asked.

“No,” I chuckled. “Too bad you didn’t learn any healing magic.”

The snakes on her gorgon head flicked my arm with their forked tongues. Even little Albie, our old favorite snake who had lost a tooth, seemed happy, despite the fact that Chelle was miserable in Urgu and had been ever since we arrived a month ago.

We locked eyes for a moment, then Chelle said, “I just like smashing things too much to bother with healing.”

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her deeply. I could feel the sadness coursing through her. She hated Urgu. She wanted nothing more than to go back to Earth, but in the weeks since we’d banished the Wicked Witch, we hadn’t gotten any closer to finding a way to open the Obsidian Spindle and speak with the fates. They were the only ones who could send us home.

Of course, I wasn’t trying that hard to open the tower. I was perfectly happy as the Queen of Oz. Back on Earth, I was just a girl in a coma, a nothing burger from nowheresville; here in Urgu, I was one of the god-touched, and arguably the most powerful one, since my power came from the god of dreams, Hypnos, rightful ruler of the Dream Realm. Here, I had magic. Here, people looked up to me.

“Are you hungry?” I asked Chelle as she walked me back toward the gnarled black throne that Nimue vacated after we defeated her. In time, I hoped to learn how to bend the metal to my will, as she and Ozma had before me, but I hadn’t been able to figure out the right spell yet. Chelle couldn’t help because she was only skilled in offensive magic, not transfiguration.

If I didn’t learn how to unlock my more powerful magic soon, then we risked another invasion, and my inevitable death at the hands of Nimue’s formidable abilities. She’d had hundreds of years to develop her powers. I’d had a few weeks. I hated even more my lack of progress since that initial conflict. Part of me wished that Nimue would return, so I could feel the anger swell through me again like it did during my first encounter with her. I wondered if that would unlock something within me and give me control of the awesome power Hypnos had entrusted with me.

“Have you had any luck contacting him?” Chelle asked.

“No,” I said, letting go of her hand and climbing the stairs to my throne. “Wherever he came from, he seemed to return there once he blessed me.” I sat down. The metal laid uncomfortably beneath me, and the seat numbed my legs after only a couple of minutes. I hated the throne more than Chelle hated Urgu.

Unfortunately, I was stuck there sometimes eight hours a day, as people from all over the kingdom came to bend the knee and swear fealty to me. Their hollow platitudes were welcome, but they came from fear—fear of my power, which meant that I had to reflect power lest they realized I was unable to force their allegiance.

I had no interest in doing so. Fear might have worked for Nimue, but I had no desire to rule by it. Before Ozma disintegrated in a pile of dust, she told me that her goal for the kingdom was to bring equality to all her people, noble and peasant alike, and introduce technology into the world so they could move past their medieval era and into the industrial revolution and beyond.

I came from a world full of technology, and I could help people move into the future. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to do so if the denizens of Urgu feared me. I needed them to embrace the new world I planned to build. If they didn’t, I would be deposed, like the nobles had deposed Ozma before me. I had to show them the way into the future was best for all of us.

The horns blew outside the throne room and I placed my head in my hands. “Christ. Can I get not one moment’s peace?”

“What?” Chelle said with a smile. “You’re popular. You’re the Kristen Chenowith here, just like you wanted.”

“I don’t get it.”

“When we get back to Earth, I’ll take you to see Wicked. You’ll love it. After this whole thing, it will probably even have a deeper meaning.”

She insisted I was going back to Earth with her, despite my constant objections to the contrary.

A young squire rushed into the throne room. His puffy black and green shirt was embossed with a peacock, the sign of Hera and sigil of the Wicked Witch. I hadn’t had time to choose a new uniform, so they all wore the garb of Hera and Nimue. It made me uneasy every time I saw it.

“Your majesty, your majesty,” the squire said in a thick cockney accent. “A guest comes to have an audience with you.”

“Who is it?” I asked, sitting as straight and regally as possible.

“Your grace, she says she’s Queen Aine, the fairy queen from the Enchanted Woods.”

“The queen of the Unseelie? Here!” Chelle said, her hands glowing with flames. “Send her away before I blow her to bits.”

“No!” I shouted. “That would cause an incident. She is one of my subjects, and I am obligated to speak with her. I might need her help in the days to come.”

Chelle whipped around to face me. “You can’t be serious.”

I nodded. “As a heart attack. Show her in.”

Chapter3

Chelle

How many times can you tell your girlfriend she was making a dumb mistake before you just stood back, smiled, and let her make it?

Ten?

Twenty?

A hundred?

Rose was the queen after all, and even though the whole castle was still draped in the tapestry and colors of the wicked witch, Rose tried her best to act like she was in charge. It wasn’t working. The level of indignation permeating through every meeting Rose took could be cut with a rusty butter knife.

Of course, it wasn’t easy for her. Rose wasn’t decisive, or much of a leader. She had many wonderful qualities, but steadfast determination wasn’t one of them, nor was faking bravery in the face of the unknown. Nobody expected Rose to slip seamlessly into the job after a single month, but they did expect a certain level of confidence.

Before she met me, Rose had drifted through most of her life just trying to keep her head above water. I wasn’t a bastion of rock-solid strength, but I gave her something to latch onto in the ferocious storm that was her life, even if I was sinking, too. Rose, for her part, prevented me from drowning in the torrent of pressure that smashed against me every moment of every day. Somehow, together, we buoyed each other up. Both of us were flawed, broken, and incomplete, but somehow, together we formed a singular, functional human. She became the warm, loving caretaker I never had in my youth, and I became the protector she needed against enemies big and small.

It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was one that worked for us. Or it did, before Urgu. Now, it splintered and fractured under our new roles. I could only protect her so much. She still had to be out in front, leading, and every time she let go of my hand and took the throne, my heart jumped into my throat.

Her being queen forced us into a different dynamic, and that was a bitter pill. She was the queen, and though we used to make decisions together, deferring to whoever had the stronger opinion, now every decision boiled down to her decision, even if it was misguided or foolish.

Who was I to argue? I was just a gorgon monster. Even the fact I was allowed in the castle had caused a mini scandal among the royal court.

Rose was queen of the Emerald City, the capital of the Land of Oz, the most important land in all of Urgu because it housed the Obsidian Spindle. The fates were the most powerful beings in the Dream Realm aside from Hypnos—the only ones with the power to send someone back to Earth—and they lived there.

I couldn’t call her out in front of the whole kingdom without fracturing her tenuous grasp on power and threatening my precarious acceptance among the courtesans. Even though I kept my distaste for her policies to the confines of our bedroom, it rocked our foundation. She wanted so badly to matter, and now she mattered so much that all eyes were on her, and I feared she would break under the pressure.

If only I could find a way to open the Obsidian Spindle and speak to the fates this could all be fixed. Rose and I could go home and in time her memories of this place would fade. We could carve out a life for ourselves, together, away from the madness of Urgu.

Every hour I was away from Rose’s side I spent rummaging through the library, though my attempts at searching for answers were in vain. I was no closer to finding a way to open the door, and without access to the Spindle, I could not petition the fates to get us back to Earth. Without a break soon, I feared that Rose and I would splinter and crack until we drifted apart forever.

In the meantime, Rose was in danger. She needed a lot of training before she could wield her newfound powers, but I wasn’t much of a trainer. She had regressed since the night she banished the Wicked Witch Nimue, and if she didn’t soon learn how to control the awesome powers bestowed to her by Hypnos, then Nimue would surely return, more powerful than ever, and destroy her like she had destroyed Ozma.

Pastiche, the tubby herald, ran his stubby legs into the throne room. Two bugle players stepped inside the grand entrance and lined the edges of the grand doorway that reached nearly to the top of the painted ceiling, decorated with twisted visions of monsters and fairies torn limb from limb on a bloody battlefield.

Once the bugle players were locked into position, two more stepped inside, and then two others, until a dozen bugle players lined each side of the room.

“Your royal highness,” Pastiche shouted. “May I present Queen Aine of the Enchanted Woods, regent of the Forbidden Forest, Protectors of Fairy Kind, and Royal Duchess of the Unseelie.”

My jaw clenched. I did not like Queen Aine. The last time we met, she imprisoned both me and my companion Red and used Rose in an experiment to destroy the veil between the Dream Realm and Earth. Only a daring escape from our cell saved us and Rose from certain death at the hands of the fairy queen.

There were two kinds of fairies: the kind-hearted Seelie, and the dreadfully wicked Unseelie. Queen Aine was the bad kind—the only kind left after she murdered the Seelie and took control of the Woods. There was no good in her heart, though I wondered if any queen could be truly good while they sat upon the throne.

I looked up at Rose, her back straight, feigning the strength she desperately wished she could project. Her right pinky tapped the edge of the black throne faster and faster as her panic grew, yet her face remained stoic.

I didn’t want her to be strong. Her power was in her vulnerability. She was open and fragile and even after a few weeks on the throne I could see her new position chiseling that from her and replacing it with the hardness that a queen must possess.

Four silver, glittering fairies flew into the room carrying a golden palanquin between them. They were three apples high or slightly shorter. However, they held themselves with such power and confidence that it seemed like nothing could hurt them.

Without a word, the silver fairies placed the palanquin down and pulled open the pink curtain along its side. A faint purple glow emanated from inside of the chariot and lit the black carpet with the queen’s glow. From behind the curtain, a purple fairy burst forth, shimmering brighter than her palanquin bearers, wearing a golden headdress adorned with jewels, and trailing a pink cape behind her.

“My queen,” the fairy said, flying toward the throne. “What a great honor it is to see you.”

“Stop right there, Queen Aine!” I shouted, stepping into her path. My eyes burned with fire. “You are no friend to the realm or its protector.”

Queen Aine snarled. “How dare you speak to me this way?” She looked at Rose, who was seated on her throne, shifting uncomfortably. “I come in friendship and this is how you treat me?”

“You are no friend to us,” I reiterated, sternly. “The last time⁠—”

Queen Aine put up her hand and spoke over me. “I do not speak to commoners.” She turned her head again to Rose. “This is not very queenly, your highness. I know you are new to the throne, which is the only reason why I let this slight stand without declaring war on the Emerald City. However, tell your witch not to address me again, or I shall take it as a great affront.”

“You little b—” I snarled.

“Chelle!” Rose shouted. “That is enough.”

I spun on her. “Are you kidding me?”

Rose’s eyes went wide. I could sense her frantic, silent begging. She pleaded wordlessly for me not to cause a scene. “That will be all. Step aside.”

My face contorted in every direction, trying to hide my disgust and anger at Rose’s decision. I had to be supportive. It was only for a little while. Soon I would find a way home for the both of us, and this nightmare would be over.

“That’s better,” Aine said with a slight smile.

“I’m very sorry for our rudeness,” Rose said with a nod, annunciating each syllable. “It’s been quite hectic here in the last days since—well, since the transition from Nimue.”

The fairy queen floated forward. “I understand. After all, you haven’t even had time to redecorate. Of course, that assumes you do not like these ghastly decorations. We fairies convey power with our actions, not the adornments of our castle.”

Rose looked around at the hall. “Yes, it would be nice to get rid of this decor. Everywhere I look, I only see Nimue, and I am reminded of her trying to kill me…twice if I recall.”

Rose emphasized the word “twice,” making her implication clear to everybody in the room. She had not forgotten that Queen Aine had tried to kill her.

“I’m sorry for my part in all of that,” Queen Aine replied, dropping her voice. “You must understand that the temptation to side with Nimue was great. However, since she has left the throne, it’s like a great fog has lifted and my judgement has been restored.”

Rose gave a slight, but careful smile. “That is nice to hear because we will not have any more of that unpleasantness moving forward. There will be no more breaking of the Veil, or siding with Hera’s minions, yes?”

Aine nodded. “I can agree to that.”

The Veil was the barrier between the Dream Realm, and the rest of the universe. The thin shield was how Urgu became a prison for gods who irritated the pantheons, and breaking through it became the great mission of Nimue, Hera, and her sycophants from the moment they realized they could not open the Obsidian Spindle and entreat with the fates themselves. Destroying the Veil would obliterate Urgu, and dreams, forever, leaving humanity with nothing left but nightmares for the rest of eternity.

Rose lifted her eyebrows in question. “So I can count on your allegiance?”

“You can.” The fairy queen bowed her head.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The vitriol boiled up through my stomach and out of my mouth. “And how can we trust you?”

“Whelp!” Aine barked.

“My apologies for Chelle’s outburst,” Rose said, directing the queen’s attention back to her. “But she asks a good question. How can we assure your allegiance?”

“My loyalty has never been questioned before.”

“What a load of crap,” I whispered under my breath.

“Chelle,” Rose said sternly. “Do not make me ask you to leave.”

“You can’t—” I started, but Rose held up her hand.

“However,” Rose continued, staring daggers at the fairy queen. “I’m afraid I’ll need some assurances from you.”

Queen Aine held her hands out. “What can I give?”

Rose straightened her back in a regal show. “A show of support.”

“What would you ask?”

“We know your people helped Nimue escape Oz. We want to know where she was headed.”

Queen Aine thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Very well. But I would like to have your assurance that the Enchanted Wood will remain under fairy control as long as you sit on the throne.”

Rose stood up, and nearly looked foreboding. “I have no interest in your woods, except to ensure that travelers can pass through unmolested.”

Queen Aine breathed deeply. “That will be hard to accomplish. My people⁠—”

Rose held up her hand and finished Queen Aine’s sentence. “Are under the protection of the crown, and the crown demands their devotion.”

It was the most confident Rose had sounded since she sat on the throne, and it was hard for me not to grin with each passing word, especially as the scorn on Queen Aine’s face grew more pronounced.

“I will tell my people that travelers are off limits, but if any seek us out, then I cannot guarantee their safety.”

“Fair enough,” Rose said, seating herself once more and gripping the edges of her throne. “Then you will have my protection until we can find Hypnos and bring him back. Then, it will be up to him to decide what to do with you.”

“And is that your intention? To bring him back?”

“Of course. He is the rightful ruler of Urgu, and the only one powerful enough to keep the other gods in line.”

The shadow left Queen Aine’s face. “Very well. Your assurance is acceptable to me. Nimue wished to leave the Land of Oz and enter the sanctuary of Hera’s kingdom in the Dark Domain. However, she knew she could never make it through the Gates of Droangor without capture, since the whole kingdom was on high alert. So, she asked me to bring her through the doors. Most magic cannot penetrate the Wall of Itherium that surrounds our kingdom, but fairy magic does, so we brought her through the gates, as a favor to an old friend. After that, we washed our hands of her, and turned our attention to helping the new queen.”

“And we’re just supposed to believe you?” I nearly spat.

Queen Aine turned to me. “I don’t care what you believe, but to allay your fears I present a gift.” She pressed her hands together and whispered an incantation under her breath. Then, she slapped her hands together and her hands glowed a bright yellow. A black key materialized between them.

“Do you know of Hera’s library?” Queen Aine asked me.

I shook my head. “No.”

“She has the greatest library in all of Urgu. It used to be rivaled by Hypnos’s, but once he was gone and Nimue took control of Oz, she raided his library and took its greatest books to Hera’s castle. In the back of that library, behind a locked door, rests the most powerful book in Urgu, bound in gold and forged from dreams. A book that can only be read by the one blessed by Hypnos, it contains the greatest secrets of the Dream Realm, including how to open the Obsidian Spindle. This key opens that door, and if you bring that book back to the Emerald City, your paramour can read it. In fact, she is the only one who can.”

I stepped forward, watching Rose, whose brows were furrowed with dread. I knew she sensed, just as I did, that this was a trick from the Unseelie queen, but it was also an answer to the puzzle that plagued my every hour in Urgu, and now I was given a way to end it all. To what end was unclear, but to an end, and that was more hope than I had since the night the Wicked Witch was defeated.

“And you will give it to us?” I asked.

“As a coronation gift,” Queen Aine said.

“Coronation?” Rose asked.

“Of course.” The fairy paused. “Have you not planned your coronation yet?”

“I mean,” Rose said, shifting in her seat. “I…am the queen. I’m sitting on the throne. So, I figured…”

Queen Aine placed the key in my hand and flew toward Rose. “No, no, no. You must make a show of power to demonstrate, without a doubt, that you are the true queen. Nobody in Oz will accept you as their queen until the coronation has been given by the High Majesty Pious of the Church of the Six. Has nobody told you that? What of your advisors?”

“My…advisors…don’t know much about the royal court, unfortunately. They barely look at me, except to sing my praises and then vanish back to their homes.”

“No, no, no. This will not do.” Queen Aine paused for a moment. “I will grant you a second gift, which is my council in this trying time.”

“You want to advise the queen?” I said.

“Well, somebody has to. She can’t keep taking advice from uncultured swine like you. She won’t last another month.”

“And she’ll last longer with you?” I walked up the stairs, closer to Rose.

“This is what I mean,” Aine said. “Were I a lesser queen, such a tone from a monster would be a declaration of war.”

“Chelle,” Rose said, swallowing. “You should go.”

“But—”

“I will talk to you later.”

“I—”

Rose exhaled loudly. “That will be all.”

She was making the biggest mistake of her life, but I couldn’t force the issue in front of Queen Aine. Instead, I gripped the black key in my hand and spun away with a glare. I had to get out of the castle and recover the book as quickly as possible and hope against hope that Rose would unlock its secrets and come home with me.

And that she wouldn’t hate me too much for abandoning her. I took one last look at the two queens and could have sworn I saw a smirk across Queen Aine’s tiny face. I wanted so badly to end her, but she had given me my first lead in weeks, and I had to give her credit for that.

Chapter4

Red

“How confident are you that Queen Aine is telling the truth?” I asked Chelle after she finished debriefing me about her meeting with the Unseelie queen. I’d had run-ins with Queen Aine many times before in my centuries in Urgu, and I took everything she said with a grain of salt and a pinch of distrust.

“Twenty percent, give or take,” she replied.

I had just returned from a scouting mission to Critterton, because my intel told me the Wicked Witch had been spotted, but my trip proved fruitless. Though I liked being away from the castle, it pained me to keep missing on Nimue, following dead end trails.

“That’s not very much,” I said with a rueful sigh.

“It’s not, but it would explain why nobody saw her leave the kingdom, either by flight or by crossing the Gates of Droangor.”