Yellow Brick War (Dorothy Must Die, #3)(27)

She sighed and shook her head. “The Nome King,” she said. “I think what you saw was the Nome King. But if it was . . . we are in a mess of trouble indeed.”

“What’s a Nome King? It sounds like a kind of mushroom.”

Mombi snorted. “Who, not what,” she said. “Who. The Nome King is a king of the Nomes,” she said. “That’s nome with an n not a g, mind you. Don’t screw it up. He gets very prissy about the spelling. He pulled one of his diggers limb from limb while he was still alive just because he pronounced it with a g.”

I swallowed. That fit pretty well with the creepy dude who’d magically dropped in on me in the library. My interest in meeting up with him again was at—well, let’s say an all-time low. “Diggers? He digs stuff? What is he, like some kind of a troll? Don’t they live in mountains?”

Mombi gave an exasperated sigh. “All that time Glamora spent teaching you the difference between a scone and a crumpet, and no one ever bothered to teach you about the Nome King. Typical.”

“Well, don’t blame me,” I said.

Mombi spoke through gritted teeth like it hurt her to have to explain something so elementary. “A troll is a big, stupid monster. You bop it hard enough over the head—no more troll. A troll is easy-peasy. A Nome is more like a cross between a fairy and a demon. Nasty things. They live in the underworld of Ev, across the Deadly Desert.”

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“Frankly, it’s not much to write home about,” Mombi said. “The point is, the Nome King tried to invade Oz, ages ago, but Ozma stopped him. Made him swear an oath to leave Oz in peace as long as she ruled . . .” Mombi trailed off and looked at me as she let it sink in.

“Ozma isn’t in power anymore,” I said. “Congratulations, teacher’s pet.” I ignored her witchy sneer. “But if he’s trying to invade Oz, what’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know yet. But at least part of it makes sense. If he’s the one who erased any proof that Dorothy was a real person, he must know about the shoes. It’s possible he’s using them to travel back and forth—or he has some other power of his own. Magic in Ev isn’t like magic in Oz. It doesn’t follow the same rules. Ev is as different from Oz as the Other Place is. What exactly he’s up to is impossible to guess, but there’s no way it’s good news for us.”

“He said something about how I was stronger than the ‘other one.’ I think he meant Dorothy. And he told me not to trust anyone,” I said, remembering.

“Oh dear,” Mombi said quietly. Her leathery face went white. That’s when I knew we were in serious trouble. “He knew who you were? That’s not good at all.”

“You’re not being very reassuring.”

“It just means we have to find the shoes before he does anything else. Do that, and we may be back in business. Maybe.” She frowned. “But I don’t like the sound of that, little missy. You be on your toes. If he’s using Dorothy somehow and decides you’ll make a more valuable pet . . .” She didn’t have to finish. I didn’t want to think about the rest of that sentence. Not here, in the one place I’d almost felt safe for the first time in months: the frilly little pink bedroom my mom had created as she held out for my return. I knew the safety was an illusion. I’d learned in Oz that safety always was. But I couldn’t help it. Some part of me wanted to pretend it was enough to protect me. That I could just stay here and go back to being ordinary. That I could check out of this never-ending mission and let someone else take over for a while.

But I couldn’t tell the old witch any of that—even though, from the way she was looking at me, I was pretty sure she could guess at least some of it. I turned my thoughts back to the mission. Which was, after all, in pretty serious trouble on its own.

“Mombi, I don’t know how to find the shoes. I thought I could find something in the library, but that turned out to be a dead end.”

“Why would the Nome King descend on you in a pool of darkness if you were looking at a dead end, Amy?” She had a point there.

“But I didn’t find anything. Just this old blank notebook.”

“Let me see it,” she ordered. I dug through my bag and pulled out the notebook, handing it to her, but it passed through her hands. “Goddamn projecting,” she muttered. “I always forget. Turn the pages for me.” Yet again, I flipped through the book as Mombi’s keen eyes watched the blank pages turn.

“I can feel the power in that book. Can’t you?” I closed my eyes, concentrating on the weight of the book in my palms. And once I paid attention, I understood what Mombi meant. It was barely there, but unmistakable—like the charge on a television screen after you turn it off. “You’re right,” I said. “There’s something there.”

“I’m going to funnel my magic through you,” Mombi said. “It should work—you won’t need any power of your own, you’ll just need to be a conduit. But it may be too much for me to unlock whatever that book is hiding and keep projecting myself here. If I disappear—you’re going to be on your own again. And if there’s no clue about how to find the shoes . . .”

She didn’t have to finish. If I didn’t find the shoes, we were screwed.