Despite Lang’s admonition that we needed to leave quickly, she didn’t want Madison going into the Nome King’s banquet hall completely unprepared. While Nox and I looked through her stash of weapons to see what we could hide under our clothes, Lang ran Mad through fight combinations in the main room until Madison’s face was shiny with sweat.
“Your friend’s a quick study,” Lang said. Madison beamed with pride.
“Show me,” Nox said. Unlike the two of them, he was serious. Deadly serious. It was like a cloud had descended on him, transforming him back into the battle-focused, emotionless warrior he pretended to be. I wondered what would have happened if I’d never learned there was a completely different person underneath the stony facade.
“Okay,” Madison said.
She faced Nox confidently, squaring off into a fighter’s stance. She was still in good shape, I noticed; her pre-baby aerobics regimen had given her toned arms and shoulders and muscular legs. Madison and Nox circled each other in the open space beyond the table. Madison already moved like someone who knew what she was doing.
But when Nox launched a lightning-quick jab, she was too slow to deflect it. To be fair, I probably couldn’t have deflected it either. I’d turned into an excellent fighter, but Nox had been training since he was a child. I doubted even Lang could fend him off for long.
Madison threw a punch and Nox dodged it easily, but I could tell from where I stood that there had been serious power behind the blow, and Nox nodded. “Good.”
“Not that good,” Madison said drily, “since I didn’t actually hit you.”
“You’re strong,” Nox said, lashing out again. This time, Madison was almost able to block the punch. “Very good.”
“I told you,” Lang said, the edge back in her voice. “Are you trying to suggest I need your help to teach someone how to fight?”
“Just making sure you did a good job,” Nox said. I almost groaned aloud. It was pretty much the worst thing he could have said, and he realized it a second after I did. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t mean to imply I wouldn’t?” Lang said icily. Madison swung a right hook at Nox’s jaw, but even distracted he knocked her fist aside. Madison gritted her teeth. I knew exactly how she felt. Fighting Nox could be infuriating. He made the impossible look effortless. Madison was no more a threat to his defenses than a mosquito.
He danced back and dropped his fists. Madison looked like she wanted to charge him and land a punch for good measure, but she put her hands on her hips and cocked her head instead. “Do I pass?” she asked.
“Your reflexes are good and you’re strong,” Nox said. “But you wouldn’t last a minute against a trained fighter. With time, you’ve got a lot of potential. But I want you to stay as far away as you can from any fighting at the wedding. Got that?”
“Is this your plan now?” Lang asked sharply. Nox looked at her in exasperation.
“You know as well as I do that you can’t turn an untrained novice into a fighter in an hour, and implying anything otherwise is setting her up for danger. She’s not safe in a fight. She has no experience.”
“She does, too,” I said, and Madison shot me an apologetic grin.
“Ancient history, Ames,” she said.
“Not that ancient.”
“I apologized!”
“Enough,” Nox said sharply. The rebuke stung. I’d thought we were past the part where he tried to boss me around. But I didn’t want to give Lang the satisfaction of arguing with him in front of her.
“He’s right. This is serious business,” I said. “We’re all risking our lives tonight. It’s nothing to joke about.”
Madison sighed. “I just wanted to feel a little more prepared,” she said quietly.
“Why don’t we try sparring for a few minutes,” I suggested. The last thing we needed was Madison freaking out. “Nox and Lang can pick out weapons instead of me. I’ll show you what I can.”
Madison looked between Nox and Lang with one eyebrow raised, but shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “If I’m going to die, at least I’ll get in a workout first.”
I ran Madison through a few new combinations, careful not to tire her out. Nox was right: her reflexes were great, and she knew how to use her strength and her weight. With a little time, she’d be an excellent fighter.
Too bad we didn’t have any.
There was something satisfying about finally being stronger than she was, more capable and more lethal. She’d terrorized me for so long, and while I’d forgiven her for the past, I didn’t mind showing off my new skills in the present.
“You’re really good at this,” she said when I feinted and jabbed, breaking through her defenses to land a light tap on her jaw that would’ve been a ferocious punch if I’d been in a real fight.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You never were before. This place has really changed you.”
“It does that.”
She sank down to the floor with her back against one wall and her legs stretched out in front of her. “We’re not getting home ever, are we?”
I sat down next to her and stared at my knees, not wanting to meet her eyes. I knew she’d see the truth all over my face. “We might get back.”
“Do you even want to go home, Amy? Now that you have this hot magical boyfriend, or whatever?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said automatically, and Madison laughed.
“Whatever you say, Ames. He’s your something, though. You seem really happy.”
“As happy as I can be considering the circumstances,” I said.
“Yeah, well.” She picked at a loose pebble on the cavern floor. “You have stuff here. People. A history already. I don’t have anything. If we get through tonight, what happens next?”
There was no point in lying to her; she’d see right through me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We find a way back to Oz, I guess.”
“And when that happens?” Madison persisted. “Like, I get that all of this is going to be hard, and we’re probably going to die, or whatever. I get that. But let’s say for the sake of argument we don’t. We make it through, Ozma wins, the Nome King goes away, Dorothy dies, everybody’s happy, blah blah blah. What about you and me, Ames? We take up, like, corncob farming?”
“The Scarecrow’s dead,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. “I don’t know, Madison. We figure it out, I guess. I don’t even know how you buy a house in Oz. Or get a job. Or, like . . . any of the stuff that goes into a normal life. Nothing’s been normal since I got here.”
“In the books Dorothy just wishes herself home,” Madison said.
I looked down at Dorothy’s shoes. Madison didn’t know what they were. I’d never told her.
“She had her shoes,” I said. “She needed those.”
She followed my gaze and her eyes widened. “Your boots are those shoes? The ones that took her back to ? They’re real? You’ve had them this whole time and you didn’t even try and use them?”
“It’s not that—” But she had jumped to her feet and was staring at me, her eyes filling with tears.
“This whole time all I’ve talked about is how badly I want to go home, and you’ve had the way back all along and didn’t think to mention it? I get that you want to stay here forever with your hot little boyfriend, but did you think for a fucking second that maybe other people could use a free trip home? I have a kid, Amy. I have a life. And you hid this from me?”
“It doesn’t work like that!” I said desperately.
“How do you know? Have you even tried? Why don’t you give me the damn shoes if you want to stay here so badly?”
“Because I can’t. I can’t take them off, Madison. I can’t use magic unless I’m wearing them, and apparently it’s too dangerous for me to do magic here.”
“So you’re not going to help me?” She looked at me, her mouth twisting between fury and tears. “You’ve never really forgiven me, have you, Amy?”
“What are you talking about?” I cried. “High school? We are so far beyond that, Madison.” I thought that Madison and I had struck an understanding where we would not speak of all those years that she had tortured me. But she had dusted off Salvation Amy and brought her back out for us to deal with. And since she’d brought it up . . .
“Are we really doing this right now?”
She nodded. “I have apologized and apologized, but what Nox said about me ruining your life—”
“Madison, you were awful to me. My life at home was hell, and you made school, the one place that was my refuge from my mom and the trailer, hell, too. But when I got to Oz, there were bigger bitches in Oz than you ever were, and I have been fighting alongside them and against them for months now. I actually used my memories of you to make my magic work in the beginning. So I guess I should be thanking you.”
Madison’s face fell.
“I’m glad that you’re sorry. I’m glad that it still bothers you. Because if it didn’t, we couldn’t be anything. I can’t erase our past but I don’t live in it. I am not ruined. I’m just done with it. What you did to me . . . it’s a part of who we both are, and I carried it for a long time. But if you still carry it, that’s for you to deal with.”
I knew it wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, but I couldn’t lie to her, and I couldn’t absolve her—the girl I was at nine who had her birthday party all by herself with her mom wouldn’t let me.
“I get it, you’re a great person and I am an awful one—” she bit back defensively.
“No, I don’t get it. I never got it. I never understood why you hated me so much. Why me?” I could feel my face burning. And it was true. We were now friends, more or less. But since she’d brought it up, I had to ask.
She frowned. “I don’t know. It was almost like a game. You know how when you shoplift it isn’t about the junk you steal, it’s about seeing if you can get away with it. And after you’ve done it once, you do it again. I could get a whole cafeteria to call you a name, Amy. Or pretend you weren’t there. I kept waiting for someone to stop me, but no one ever did.”
Madison had spent years seeking out my weakest places and striking at them with words, but hearing this description from her about why she did it almost stung worse than any name she’d ever called me. “Madison, I wasn’t some pair of earrings you stole,” I said firmly.
“I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Amy. And I’m different now. I have a kid. I know I have to be a better person. The second I saw Dustin Jr. a switch went off. I looked at his little face and knew I had to be different. Better. Because I didn’t want him to have a mom like me. I know that doesn’t change what I did to you. But I do mean it.”
I looked at Madison for a long beat. “I believe you,” I said quietly.
“So will you help me, Amy? Will you help me get home?” she said, her tone pleading. There was a time I would have killed to have Madison Pendleton on her knees begging me for something. Today it was just another thing that hurt. “Please, Amy . . . you could just click your heels together and drop me off and be back here for your war or whatever. From what I can see, everyone here can take care of themselves. My kid can’t.”
“I am sorry, Madison. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk doing magic when we don’t know what will happen,” I said, and I meant it.
Madison’s lip quivered and her eyes flashed. “Fuck you, Amy. I thought we were something like friends. But you can go to hell for all I care. I’m stuck in this horrible weirdo universe, and it’s all your fault.”
It was no use. She was already stalking away from me and back into her room. She slammed the door behind her with a reverberating crash. I put my head on my knees, fighting back tears, and wondered if anything else could go wrong in the last few hours I had to live. And I still needed to find a costume.