“A wise Scarecrow on the throne?You? ” said Liir, incredulous. “Sorry, I don’t mean to imply—”

“I,” said the Scarecrow, “or someone like me. Frankly, to human beings, all Scarecrows look the same, which is odd, since we seem to be much more individual than humans.

But we’re made in their image and likeness, so all they see in us is themselves, and one mirror is as good as another, I guess.”

“Do you want to be king? Now that you’re so smart?”

“Now that I’m so smart, I know enough not to let on what I want,” said the Scarecrow.

“We should move away from here, you know.”

Liir roped the heavy cape around his arms and took the scorched broom. “Any ideas?”

“Just—away. This is all so unseemly.” The Scarecrow indicated the throng. “You’re very young for all this.”

“You’re younger than I,” said Liir.

“I was born old,” said the Scarecrow. “That’s how I was made.”

“I don’t know how I was made,” said the boy. “That’s part of my problem.” They crossed a small canal into a quieter street and came to rest on a fundament to which ranks of small private barges and blunt-boats were tied up for the night. The smoke of cooking fires, the smell of boiled beans and potato stew hung in the air.

“I miss Dorothy,” he said.

The Scarecrow replied, “It’s the Witch you miss, isn’t it?”

“I hated her too much to miss her.”

“That’s what you think.”

“You think your own thoughts, and leave me mine.” He was outraged at the presumption. “What did you know of the Witch? Auntie Witch? Elphaba Thropp? She was my…she was my witch!”

The Scarecrow paid no attention. “It’s starting, listen,” he said. He held up his hand. The sounds from Dirt Boulevard had altered; a percussion of horses’ hoofs, hundreds of them, came thrumming forward, a scatter of shouts turning into screams. “I waited too long,” the Scarecrow said. He bundled Liir onto the nearest canal boat. A bearded old coot with a sawed-off hand turned and raised a hot skillet at the Scarecrow, but the Scarecrow deflected it with his gloved fist, and the man tumbled into the filthy water. “Loosen the mooring, push away,” said the Scarecrow, “the neighborhood will be in flames by dessert time.”

2

CANDLE PUT DOWNthe domingon to rest. Her fingers were swollen with long red welts. She’d been working hard. The young man—they called him Liir, was it?—

breathed shallowly, but regularly. And he hadn’t twitched a muscle in the hours since Candle had started playing to him.

At the sound in the doorway, she turned. She expected the Superior Maunt, but it was her grouchy kitchen boss, Sister Cook.

“Someonelanded a cushy job where she can sit all day,” said Sister Cook, without real resentment, but she had eyes only for the victim. Hardly nightfall the first day, and the maunts in the cloister of Saint Glinda couldn’t curb their curiosity. “He’s not much to look at, is he?”