Page 27 of Ozma

Jack stared at her, cocking his head like he didn’t fully understand. Behind them, the crackles of Mombi’s burning home sounded, the smoke curling into the air, the flames ripping through the hut to the outer layers.

“Thelia is Dorothy, remember?” she pointed out. “Anyway, I promised Reva that once I defeated the Wizard I would meet her back in the Emerald City. You don’t know Reva—if I don’t go there, she’ll come looking for me. But I understand if you choose not to go.” She would just have to hope that the spells from Mombi’s books would be enough.

“If you had magic, I’m assuming Tip did too, and Mombi did the same thing to all of us.”

Ozma slowly nodded.Truth.

“You’re not telling me something.” Jack took a step closer. “I still feel like you’re leaving out information.”

“Do you want to come or not?” There were some things that Jack still didn’t know the truth about, but she wasn’t going to tell him. One day he would learn she was a queen, but she was too far into the lie to tell him that she was Tip.

“Yes,” he finally said. “I’ll come with you.”

“You do know you’re free now, though,” she whispered. “Free, Jack. Just because I’m asking you to come doesn’t mean you have to. Mombi’s dead—you aren’t bound to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I was never very good at taking orders.” He smirked. “From the bitch, anyway.”

Ozma turned from that face she yearned to touch and walked away from him, toward the wagon.

“When did Mombi get a wagon?” As she tugged open the door and lifted one of the spell books, Jack stopped at the opening with his arms crossed.

“After Tip died, she sent me out of the barrier to collect one. She used it for the last couple of years when she journeyed out more by herself.” He watched her flip through two of the tomes before asking, “Are you going to pass one over or hoard them all?”

She picked up a tattered sickly-green one and tossed it at Jack. He stepped out of the way and the book landed on the ground with a plop.

“You were supposed to catch it.” She rolled her eyes and threw him another.

He easily caught it then picked up the one from the ground. Licking a finger, he turned a few pages before meeting her gaze. “What am I looking for here, Blossom?”

“Just anything that might help us.” Ozma bit the inside of her cheek—nothing so far appeared useful.

“I’m pretty sure making fae lust after pumpkin pie isn’t going to save anyone.” He crawled into the wagon and sat across from her.

Ozma let out a huff and sifted through more pages. Raising the dead, putting someone under the spellcaster’s command, shifting someone into an animal. She tore out those pages and set them aside to stick in her satchel. The rest of the books didn’t seem like they would be worth anything, unless she wanted to rot herself from the inside out while using dark magic or cheat fae at the market.

The note from before, about Lurline’s baby being stolen, caught her attention again when she thumbed through its book one more time. Something in her didn’t want to put it back in between the pages, so she stuffed the note inside her bag too.

The night started to darken and Ozma hadn’t realized so much time had passed. She peeked out at the twinkling sky, at Mombi’s smoldering, collapsed hut across the field, and stretched her arms. When a book hit the wagon floor with athump, her gaze darted to Jack.

“How about we get some rest and head out in the morning?” he asked.

Even though she’d been up for most of the night, watching over Jack, she wasn’t tired enough to sleep. “Go ahead. I’m going to stay out here a little longer.”

“All right.” Jack hopped out of the wagon and walked off toward his hut, leaving Ozma to wonder if she’d said something wrong.

Shrugging off the odd feeling, she slipped out of the wagon, trekking over vines and around the large pumpkins Jack had created with his magic the night before. In the middle of the pumpkin patch, she lay down on the grass, letting the fruit surround her, and the stars hover above. This was something she’d always liked to do—count the stars, connect them with an imaginary line to make shapes, while hoping to one day escape the patch.

Footsteps sounded and she sat up, spotting Jack with a lantern and a bowl of something in his hand.

“Here,” he said, giving her the bowl filled with pumpkin-seed brittle and two plums. “You know, Tip used to like lounging in the middle of the field at night too.”

I know. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“Hmm.” She took a piece of brittle and bit into it, surveying the shifting silhouettes of trees in the dark. Jack sank down beside Ozma, the pumpkins practically cocooning them closer together so that his thigh brushed hers and his pinky finger grazed her wrist. Neither spoke as they both gazed up at the sky.

Her heart thumped, harder,harder, her chest tightening at his nearness, his scent. She couldn’t breathe, her body aching as a warmth spread through her. There were times she couldn’t control herself as Tip, just as she couldn’t now. Seized by her old reckless habit of needing to kiss him, she grabbed his face and pressed her lips to his. Soft. His mouth was always soft, perfect.

---