The Wicked Will Rise Read Free Page A

said—Ollie screamed.
    â€œRocs!”
    I looked up and saw what he was talking about: two dark, giant birds were speeding straight for us, beating huge black wings and shrieking in an earsplitting chorus.
    So much for the cheery little birds that Oz was supposed to be home to.
    â€œAmy!” Maude barked. “Can you . . .”
    I was already on it, mumbling a spell under my breath, trying to gather up a fireball in my hands as Maude and Ollie wove and zigzagged to avoid our attackers.
    It was no use. The birds were on top of us before I could summon more than the tiniest flame. They screeched madly and circled over our heads, their big black wings blocking out the sun, and then they dove for us.
    All I saw was their fearsome, strangely human faces as they slashed their long, razor-like beaks into Maude’s and Ollie’s wings, ripping them from their backs with the ease of someone tearing open a bag of potato chips. Then, as quickly as they’d appeared, the birds were speeding off into the distance, their work done. The air was filled with shredded bits of paper that had held us aloft, scattering on the breeze.
    For a moment we all hung in the air like Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon. Then we were falling.
    The ground was getting closer by the second. Ozma whooped with joy. This was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that I’d found myself plummeting toward certain death, and I was getting kind of sick of it.
    But I didn’t scream. Instead, I felt strangely calm in a way that I can’t really describe. It was like everything outside of me was happening in slow motion while my brain kept on moving at normal speed.
    Once upon a time a girl named Amy Gumm had come to Oz on a tornado. She had fought hard; she had been loyal and fierce. She had done things she’d never in a million years imagined that she would.
    She had learned magic; she had been a spy. She had lied, and stolen, and been thrown in the dungeon. She had killed, and she had not regretted it.
    She had been both good and wicked and everything in between. She had been both at once, too, until it was hard for her to even tell the difference anymore.
    That was my story. Well, I figured as I tumbled from the sky toward certain death, at least the ending will be killer.

TWO
    Full disclosure: I’m sort of a witch.
    Fuller disclosure: I’m a pretty crappy witch.
    Not like crappy as in wicked , although, hey, maybe I’m that, too. Who knows?
    But really what I mean by crappy is, like—you know—not very good at it. Like, if there were a Witch Mall, Glamora would work at Witch Neiman Marcus, Mombi would work at Witch Talbot’s and I would work at the Witch Dollar Store, where people would only come to buy witch paper towels, six rolls for ninety-nine cents.
    I just never really got the hang of the whole spell-casting thing. For a while I thought it was because I’m from Kansas—not a place known for its enchantedness—but lately I’ve started thinking I just don’t have a talent for magic, just like I don’t have a talent for wiggling my ears or tying cherry stems in knots with my tongue.
    Sure, I can do a few spells here and there. For instance, I can summon a tracking orb with not too much trouble. I’ve managed to teleport without accidentally materializing inside a wall or leaving any body parts behind. I have a magic knife that I can call on at any time. I can finally throw a decent fireball. (It took forever to learn, but fire spells are now my specialty.) And I’ve actually gotten pretty good at casting a misdirection charm that makes people ignore me as long as I tiptoe and don’t draw too much attention to myself.
    It’s not as good as being invisible, but, hey, it’s saved my ass on more than a couple of occasions. That’s sort of how it goes: my magic is strictly the in-case-of-emergency kind. In nonemergencies, I prefer to do things