Page 43 of Ozma

Fuck.

There would probably be assassins lining up to kill her. And him too if she truly made him her king.Oh shit.He wasnotready for that kind of responsibility. What did he know about the world? He’d been confined to the farm and the market. At least Ozma had learned how to survive in the dark place and about the world from Reva. A king had to manage foreign affairs and … and … other things Jack had no idea about. Because they hadn’t been in their hidden adventure book and he was a fucking clueless farmhand. Aslave.

Jack’s stomach heaved. They could be caught at any moment and, though he hadn’t noticed until minutes after dressing, the ship’s movements weren’t settling well with him. The musty scent of the ship and the salty tang of the ocean swirled through him like poison. He couldnotbe ill here. The loud retching would undoubtedly bring attention below deck, as there were fae directly above them. A light shower of dust rained down with every metallicthunkof someone’s footsteps.

“Are you well?” Ozma asked, brushing the hair from Jack’s eyes.

He licked his lips. “Nauseous.”

“You’re sick?” Her palm pressed against his forehead. “Did you eat something strange before we left? Or did you use too much magic getting us out of the cave?”

“I don’t—” He paused to swallow the excess saliva flooding his mouth.Fucking hell.Jack shook his head, which only made everything worse. He lay back and closed his eyes. “How much longer?” he asked, fully aware there were hours ahead.

“It feels like less than a day by boat,” she said. “Do you need anything? Some fruit?”

“Shh,” he managed, but that was all he could force himself to say. If anything else left his mouth, it wouldn’t be words.

Ozma settled beside him and ran her fingers through his hair. “Perhaps it’s just the motion of the ship. Once, in the dark place, Reva and I thought to cross a lake using a giant lily pad. Turned out that they were attached to creatures beneath the murky surface. I think it felt us climb aboard because it started swimming in circles so fast that all we could do was hold on. We didn’t stop for nearly two days. I was sure we were done for.”

“What was it?” he whispered. Being trapped in this ship with danger above them was bad enough—he couldn’t imagine what she’d felt then.

“What was what?”

Jack cracked his eyes to look at Ozma. “The fae beneath the water. What was it?”

“I’m not sure the beings there were fae, but we never saw what it was. As soon as we passed close enough to shore, we jumped off and ran in case it was able to follow.” She smiled gently down at him. “Now, let me distract you with details of what our home will look like once the Wizard is dead.”

“Like a palace,” he said with a smirk.

“Hush,” Ozma said, playfully smacking his shoulder. “We might have to live there sometimes, but it won’t be our home. We’ll have a secret place away from the city with a short stone fence around the yard. There won’t be a gate, though—nothing to close us in. I’m going to fill it with flowers of every color and, outside the fence, we’ll plant vegetables and fruit orchards, butnotpumpkins. Any fae will be allowed to take what they need. We’ll plant everything far enough away so we have privacy. Inside, we’ll have a large bedroom and a library full of adventure books.”

Jack’s smile widened.A life.As they’d planned—only now, it was truly possible. “Just like the book we had before?”

“Like that,” she agreed. “But different ones too. All kinds of adventures.”

Jack closed his eyes and focused on Ozma’s gentle voice as she described in precise detail what else they would have. All of it sounded perfect … assuming they survived long enough for it to become a reality.

“Jack,” Ozma whispered. “Jack, wake up.”

He cracked his eyes open—when had he fallen asleep? “Hmm?”

“I think we’re here.” She stood and tilted her head to the ceiling. “They’re shouting.”

Jack forced himself to get up, his stomach a bit calmer than before, and listened. A deep voice called out to drop anchor and tie down the sails. Then a loudsplashhit the water on the other side of the hull. Feet pounded back and forth and wood scraped against wood. More shouts rang up, a mixture of voices, giving directions he couldn’t quite make out.

“How do you want to get out of here?” Ozma asked. “Once they unlock the door, they’ll probably start unloading all of this.”

And catch us.“Guess we’ll have to play it by ear.” There was little else they could do besides hide and try to get out of there unseen. If they had anything of value, perhaps they could’ve bribed a brownie or two to look the other way. Sadly, all they had was Ozma’s title and that meant nothing until she retook the Land of Oz.

Ozma yanked on his arm, pulling him behind a barrel with her. She quickly put a finger to his lips to stop his protest. “Shh. Someone’s coming.”

Jack’s heart thumped wildly in his chest as he crouched behind the fruit. Two sets of footsteps hit the stairs in tandem, one heavier than the other. “Grab the food first,” Tik-Tok ordered. “Make sure the fiends are fed so we can make it to the shelter without killing any of them.”

“Yes, sir,” a squeaky brownie replied.

“Get started and I’ll send the others down.”

Tik-Tok’s heavier feet thumped upstairs again and Jack peeked around the barrel. The brownie shifted one of the crates from the top of a pile. It tilted precariously and her small, withered hands struggled to balance it again.

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