Read Online The Wizard Returns by Danielle Paige - Free Book Online Page B

said quickly, “even if I’d had an invitation, I would have turned it down, I don’t care a thing about parties.” The wistful look in her eye belied her words. “But then Ozma changed somehow, and suddenly it was Dorothy this, Dorothy that. The Tin Woodman’s armies marching around and laying waste to villages. It’s like Oz has been wounded; the whole land is bleeding magic, and unless someone puts a stop to Dorothy, we’re all doomed.”
    Iris’s tone had grown more and more somber as she spoke, and even the weather echoed her mood: a huge thunderstorm was piling up in the distance, moving toward them rapidly, and the temperature was dropping. They were almost across the meadow; at the horizon, Hex could make out something bright and undulating that must have been the Sea of Blossoms. They were close then. Pete looked up at the sky. There was something unnatural about how quickly the storm was moving. Somethingalmost—magical. “You wanted to know what the third test was,” Pete said, looking at him. “It’s coming for you now.”
    Hex stared up at the sky. The thunderclouds, directly overhead now, swirled and coalesced, taking the shape of giant men who battled each other fiercely. As each blow landed, thunder cracked and boomed and jagged spears of lightning shot down toward the earth. Iris shrieked as a white-purple streak of lightning struck the ground just a few feet from where they stood. Hex recognized nothing about the meadow, and yet everything about this scene was familiar: the heaving purple clouds, the thunder, the color and sound of the lightning— he was in a basket, a basket floating in the air, while all around him a thunderstorm just like this one raged; he was fleeing something, or going somewhere. He was leaving Oz. It was so close —he grasped desperately for the tangled threads of memory, but they slipped away again, just out of reach. An earsplitting rumble of thunder followed another terrific crack of lightning that struck the earth in front of them so fiercely it split the ground open. Purple and gray smoke poured from the fissure, forming itself into a stairway that led down into the darkness.
    As quickly as it had come upon them, the thunderstorm dissipated into a few scattered clouds that veiled the bright sun and cast long shadows across the now-chilly meadow. Hex shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Iris gaped at the staircase, her expression so comical that Hex would have laughed if he himself had not been filled with fear at the sight of it.
    â€œThis is as far as we go,” Pete said calmly, as if nothing outof the ordinary had happened. “I’ll see Iris safely to the edge of the Sea of Blossoms, and then I must return to the palace. I’ve already been away far too long. Dorothy will be suspicious.”
    â€œWhat about me?” Hex said, his voice more plaintive than he would have liked.
    â€œ I wouldn’t go down there if you paid me,” Iris said vehemently.
    â€œYou’re not the one who has to,” Pete said to her. He pointed to Hex’s pack. “Change into the clothes you brought with you before you go,” he said. “You won’t need anything else.”
    Hex swallowed. “What if I refuse?”
    Pete raised an eyebrow. “If you refuse? Do you really want to wander around forever like the village idiot, never knowing who you are and where you came from?”
    â€œMaybe I do. Maybe I’m happy this way.”
    Pete shrugged. “In that case, you’re no help to us. I’ll take away your protection—and your disguise. There are a lot of people in Oz who won’t be too happy to see you as you are—and you won’t even know why, or who to protect yourself from.”
    â€œYou’d leave me to die?”
    â€œWe do what’s necessary for the greater good of Oz,” Pete said dismissively. “Nothing comes without