Yellow Brick War (Dorothy Must Die, #3)(35)

“Amy?” Nox’s voice was tentative behind me. I didn’t turn around.

“I want to be alone, Nox.”

But I heard footsteps, and a moment later he was standing next to me. We were both silent for a long time.

“I used to think it was so beautiful,” I said, still not looking at him. “Even when things got really bad, it was still beautiful, you know? It was still, like, amazing. Now, though, it’s like it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is. It’s just more stuff for someone to ruin.”

“You’re right,” he said.

Now I looked at him. He seemed much older than he had when I’d first met him, even though it really hadn’t been so long ago.

“I don’t want to be right,” I said.

“What do you want me to say?” He brushed a strand of hair from his face. “You’re right. Everything got so messed up. And you know what I wonder sometimes?”

“Do I want to know?”

“Sometimes I wonder if it’s even Dorothy’s fault, or if this place was just rotten from the start, underneath everything. If maybe that’s the price you pay for magic.”

“My world doesn’t have any magic, and it’s pretty messed up, too.”

“Is it? It seemed okay to me. Better, at least.”

“You didn’t see much of it.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “But you know what I liked about it?”

“What?”

“It reminded me of you. Everywhere I looked, I couldn’t stop thinking, This is where Amy’s from. This is the dirt that she walked on. This is the sky that she grew up under. It’s the place that made you who you are. And that’s what made me like it.”

“It’s made Dorothy, too.”

“Oh, screw her,” Nox said. And we both laughed. But just a little bit, because it really wasn’t that funny at all.

“I wish I could see where you came from,” I said.

“You’re looking at it, aren’t you?”

“No, I mean, like, where you really came from. Your village. The house you grew up in. All that stupid little stuff.”

He winced. “It’s gone,” he said bitterly. The pain in his voice shot through me like it was my pain, too. At this point, maybe it was. “You know that. Burned to the damn ground.”

“I know,” I said. “I wish I could see it anyway.”

“The rivers were full of sprites who sing to you while you go swimming. In the summer, you could walk through the Singing Forest and watch the mountains rearrange themselves . . .” He trailed off, with a sad, faraway look in his eyes.

“Maybe . . . ,” I started. Maybe what? Maybe everything will be okay? Maybe things aren’t really so bad? There was no way to finish the sentence without sounding faker than the knockoff Prada purse that my dad sent me for my thirteenth birthday, with the label misspelled to read Praba.

I didn’t need to finish, though, because Nox did it for me. “Maybe it’s not worth fighting for,” he said. “Maybe we should just give up.”

“No!” I said. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. It’s what I meant. I don’t think I’ve ever said it aloud, but it’s what I really think sometimes. Like, maybe it would be better to just let them all kill each other off. Mombi, Glinda, Dorothy—everyone. Let them keep fighting until they’ve destroyed every single thing. And then maybe it would all grow back. I bet it would. Eventually, I mean.”

“No,” I said. “I mean, maybe you’re right; I don’t know. But we can’t give up. Not after all of this.”

A minute ago, I had been ready to give up myself. But hearing Nox say it made me realize how wrong I had been to even think about doing something like that.

“Look,” I said. “Things aren’t all they’re cracked up to be in my world either. You think wandering around Kansas camping on the prairie for a couple of days was good? Yeah, so it’s beautiful out there, but our planet is freaking out. The oceans are rising, people are fighting more and more wars every day, plants and animals are dying out, every other week some kid takes one of his parents’ guns to school and starts shooting. . . .” I stopped short at the look on Nox’s face. “The world I grew up in is gone, too,” I said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on it. Because if you give up—then what is there left to live for?”

We were both silent for a long time, looking deep into each other’s eyes. He was so close to me. I could smell his faint rich sandalwood smell. I could have reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes. I could have leaned in the barest amount and our mouths would have met. And I wanted it so badly my heart was thundering in my chest.

“How about this?” Nox asked, not looking away from me. The purple-pink light from the setting sun reflected in his gray eyes, making them look practically neon. “How about you and I just leave. Let them have their war. We’ll just find a place to hide, just the two of us, and then, when it’s all over, we’ll climb out from the wreckage, and start the whole thing all over again. We’ll rebuild it all. Together.”

He reached forward and took my hand, and my heart nearly skipped a beat. It sounded so beautiful. Just him and me. On our own. No more war, no more suffering. No more running. It was like a beautiful dream—except that it was impossible, no matter how much some part of me wished it could come true. I couldn’t sacrifice the people I loved just to be with the boy I wanted. And I knew Nox well enough by now to know he’d never be able to do it either. It would tear him apart. And then we’d just be two bitter, brokenhearted people in a dead and ruined world. I knew it. And so did he.