Free The Wicked Will Rise by Danielle Paige Page B

she made all the monkeys into her slaves. So that got rid of Lulu, and then the Wizard could do what he wanted.”
    â€œI never realized the Wizard was such a total dick,” I said. “Although, I guess by now I should know better.” Pete just gave me a look, annoyed.
    I settled back in my seat and willed myself to shut up. I was sort of glad I did, because it was a good story. Crazy, but good. This is what he told me:

    Once upon a time and long ago (but not that long ago), in the land that may by now be familiar to you, there lived a fairy princess who, like every fairy queen before her, had been born from a flower that grew from the center of an ancient fountain that sat in the center of a maze where the land’s magic was at its strongest. Because of certain unbendable principles of this very magic, the kingdom was the girl’s to protect and rule.
    Her name was Ozma, and, the fact is, she was far too small to be much of a leader.
    Despite this deficit, the princess was beloved by all, and most of all by her loyal nanny, a flying monkey by the name of Lulu. Lulu doted on Ozma and cared for her fiercely in the absence of parents, governing Oz herself as Ozma’s proxy until the day that the little princess was old enough to take over the job.
    Lulu was pragmatic and fair, and although all was not perfect, all should have at least been well. But it was not, for there were other forces at work. Yes, there were witches involved—if there’s something to be involved in, you can be sure that witches will always be lurking nearby. But in this case, the witches were not the real problem. The real problem was a newcomer to the kingdom who had arrived in a strange, colorful flying machine and took to falsely calling himself a wizard.
    At first, this false Wizard went unnoticed as he traveled through the wondrous kingdom, exploring its customs, its outlands, and, naturally, its magic. And when he had decided that the time was right, he journeyed to a city made of emeralds to seek an audience with the queen.
    It wasn’t until he saw Ozma that he realized she wasn’t much of a queen at all. He had heard she was young, but this, he thought, was ridiculous.
    The Wizard could see that Oz was in desperate need of a true leader. With no one minding the shop except a monkey and an infant, he was certain that the kingdom would quickly fall into disrepair. So he considered it his solemn duty—perhaps his destiny?—to save this strange and beautiful fairyland from itself.
    Why shouldn’t he be king? he wondered. (Never mind that, in all its history, Oz had only had queens. The Wizard was from a place called America, and to him, a female ruler was a strange and unsettling notion.) Other than the witches, who were too consumed with squabbling with each other to be incharge of anything, no one seemed much interested in leadership, least of all baby Ozma.
    So the Wizard hatched a scheme.
    Before we get to that scheme, let us return, for a moment, to the witches. There were four of them. Two were evil, two were good (supposedly), and all of them were silly and petty, if fearsome. The wickedest of them, the Western Witch, was also somewhat less silly than the rest, and so it was she with whom the Wizard chose to conspire. Through this conspiracy, the Wizard snatched Princess Ozma from the monkey Lulu, and conscripted the poor beast, along with her winged brothers and sisters, into the Western Witch’s enslavement.
    Then, because the Wizard knew that the people of Oz would never accept him as their king so long as they believed the princess was alive, and because the Old Magic that courses through everything in the land would not allow him to kill the princess outright, he sent her north, to the hag Mombi, who had her own motives for taking the baby in. To ensure that Ozma would remain safely hidden, it was decided that old Mombi would enchant the child and keep her far away from the eyes of the