Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The door is a depressing shade of beige. At its corners, flakes of paint have chipped or are blistering into cracks, each gap showing its decrepit metal composition. The walls themselves fade into the same stale plane, washed of volume by the dreary off-white. The effect is dizzying, making the room appear at once claustrophobically smaller and uncomfortably surreal.

There is still something diffuse—like light attenuated by the haze of a paper lantern—about her perception. A fog clouds her senses, though a heavier weight holds her down still. An apathy, of sorts, not to say a bone-deep fatigue which pinions her onto the thin mattress that uselessly covers the cot. She stares blankly forward—she observes door, paint, metal, all in a chronic loop of passive consideration. Her cheek is pressed to the threadbare fabric of the standard issue pillow, surely gaining its imprint in the form of bisecting red lines pressed into her skin.

She gained consciousness not too long ago. It had been an unremarkable affair, an almost imperceptible change between the hazy dissociation of dreams, and dreamlike dissociation, only marked by the slight quiver of her eyelashes, fluttering like a butterfly disturbed in a field of spring wildflowers. It has been hours since then, or perhaps minutes. Time seems unimportant in this cell, and her perception of it is impeded accordingly.

The fingers of her right hand twitch. She feels them contract ineptly over her leg. She releases a small whimper, almost inaudible. There is something deeply wrong with her arm, a frailty originating from the area where she is sure five finger-shaped bruises ring her shoulder. She can’t bear to think on it for too long, as the dogged thought that this might be permanent—to be marked, in her very bones, by the regime—weighs on her heart and leaves her breathless.

Glinda takes a long deep breath; it's of the fortifying kind that leaves her eyes closed and her shoulders tense. Her muscles clench in anticipation of pain as she moves her arm up to her neck, but none comes—only a discomfort originating from deep within, and a strange form of disconnect between herself and the world which surrounds her. She slides her hand over her left shoulder, slipping it into the small space between her body and the cot, and reaches her fingers under her shirt. She can just barely feel the raised skin where her body still rebels at the sigil pressed upon her, though her fingers—clumsy and thick—seem almost unable to discern its texture, like a glove impeding true contact between her fingertips and their intended destination.

Her heartbeat reverberates in her skull—a thrum, thrum, thrum of blood coursing through her temples with an all encompassing intensity. It is deafening, muddling the difference between the silence around her and the cacophony of her insides. It’s persistent, repetitive, regular, lulling her with its steady tempo until—as if tripping over itself—it skips a beat, retakes its refrain, and jumps into a hurried drumming. The hammering is insistent, stopping every so often before starting anew with the same urgent vigour.

Glinda furrows her brow. What?

She forces her eyes wide open, pushing herself up on her elbow. The hammering isn’t her own—she doesn’t recognise the trapped-bird-scrambling-to-break-free quality of her own heart in it. This one is more rhythmic, more controlled, and completely alien to her senses. These knocks aren't hers, they are coming from the door. She can see dry paint falling from where it clings precariously to the corroded metal, shaken from their place with the urgent beating at the cell door.

The knocking stops for a lingering moment and to replace it comes a pressing whisper.

“Glinda?”

She shoots to her feet. Her vision fails her momentarily, robbing her of her balance, but it returns swiftly.

“Glinda, can you hear me?”

She ambles disjointedly across the cell, stumbling until she is pressed against the door, her heaving chest pushed close and her ear settled on its surface.

“Ye—” Her voice comes out strangled. She coughs and tries again. “Yes. I’m here, Fiyero, I’m here.”

She hears sounds of moving metal from across the gate and, soon enough, a rectangular hatch—just above her eye line—slides open, revealing the shadowed pools of Fiyero's eyes, pupils fleeting anxiously in search of her.

“Fiyero,” she blubbers, “Fiyero.”

“Glinda,” he echoes. He reaches through the small opening, hooking his fingers on the ledge. “Are you alright?”

Glinda reaches for his hand, touching his skin reverently, almost disbelieving. She presses her forehead to it, still clinging to his fingers.

“Are you alright? Please say something.”

“I…” She hesitates, unused to the taste of honesty on her palate. “I don’t think I am.”

“I need to get you out of here.”

Glinda nods frantically.

“I don’t have a key, but you can do something with your magic, right? Break the lock?”

“Yes, I should be able to.” Her hand reaches for the bolt, but she falters. “As long as there are no warding charms.”

“Well, are there?” Fiyero asks, anxious.

She brings her hand forward again, hovering over the site of the lock, extending her perception. She feels nothing.

“Did you find anything?”

She frowns. It can’t be this simple. She looks deeper, searching for a hidden spell or lingering effect, but she is greeted by an absurd vacuum. “No. Nothing.”

Fiyero sighs in relief. “Thank Oz. Let’s get this over with.”

Glinda takes a step back, biting her lip. She avoids looking at Fiyero’s expectant gaze, nodding to herself encouragingly. She comes to kneel in front of the lock, and with a deep breath, she extends her hands in front of her, forming a loose triangle with her fingers and thumbs.

She can see her own hands tremble involuntarily as they frame the latch, but she forces herself to look past her own frailty and focus her gaze firmly upon the intended recipient of her spell. This manoeuvre is not particularly complicated, simply a modified play on simple telekinetic theory used to work the bolts of the door, but one she has not performed too often; only Elphaba’s bad influence at Shiz was ever able to make her break into locked rooms in search of fun or adventure, so she hasn’t practised much since then. She licks her lips, starts the incantation—a lush tumble of syllables and pauses, resonating in her ribcage and through spaces beyond the physical realm—and pitches her arm in a controlled circle, twisting her other wrist in a graceful flurry.

She starts curling her fingers, bending them at the rhythm of her own heart—at the rhythm of the drumming pulse of magical energy which flows through the very land of Oz. The rhythmic cadence of power streams down rivers, and rains down alleyways, flies on the wings of birds, and drips down the foreheads of farmworkers under the midday sun. It is everywhere, and now, Glinda extends her fingertips to reach this intangible force, stretching farther, and farther, and farther still until she touches—

She touches the cold metal door. It is solid, bolted shut, and painfully real.

Glinda blinks slowly. With a hurried anxiousness, she waves her hands around, grasping for a thread of that powerful pulse only to come upon nothing but insignificant air. She feels like a child—once again waving a wand uselessly during her freshman seminar, her cheeks heating in mortification.

“Did you get it?”

Glinda breaks from her trance. She sits back on her haunches, letting her left arm support her as she looks up to the small rent where she can glimpse a slit of Fiyero’s forehead. “No,” she whispers, “I don’t think I can.”

She wonders suddenly if the mythos around Southstairs hangs so heavy—it is a pit of disenchantment, they say, where twisted minds go to be straightened along a razor’s edge—that it has weighed down any light, any brilliance which is led to its gluttonous maws, and with it her magic. But the thought dissolves immediately when, on the skin of her shoulder blade, an itching starts with vigour. With a gasp, she claps her stiffened hand onto the offending area. Even with the muted perception of her ailing skin, she can feel the grooves of the dreaded sigil upon her skin. Of course.

“Are you alright?” Fiyero asks at her sudden inhale, getting on his toes to catch a glimpse of her through the hatch.

“I…” She swallows, raising her voice so he can hear. “I can’t cast right now. There’s something keeping me from accessing magic. For all I know, there is a warding spell on the door,” her voice trails off into a frail sound. “It’s not like I can tell in this state.”

“Fuck… What should I do then?”

“You can’t break the lock, not if the door is charmed. You’ll need a key if you want to get me out.”

“That’s…” Fiyero exhales. “That might take a while. Things are pretty heated out here.”

“I can wait. Just get me out of here.”

“I’ll have to close this, okay?”

Glinda nods, pressing her eyes closed. “Just… Be quick, please.”

With a nod, Fiyero slides the hatch shut. She can hear his receding footsteps echoing down the corridor.

Alone, Glinda deflates, resting her forehead against the door and curling over her enfeebled limb. She lets out a long trembling breath into the stale air of the cell and lets herself be lulled by the melodic quaver of distant action.

꧁ ꧂

She is startled from dormancy—a pitious state of unconscious consciousness—by the accusatory echo of a gunshot, barreling down the prison corridor with reverberating gravity. A small whimper escapes her. She staggers upward in alarm, straightening up with the help of the door behind her, and the rest of the hall rises with her. Like lingering shockwaves, a tide of cries surges across the hall, swelling somewhere to her cell’s right, and travelling past her till the howling crests far to her left. Glinda shivers. She can distinctly hear the voices of dozens upon dozens of Animals. She recognizes the distinct quality of a beastly roar flowing freely into a hominal shout, fearful words heightening into a bleat, all voices of a frightened chorus answering the gunfire’s challenge.

Glinda’s mouth forms into the first letters of Fiyero’s name, but the word decays in her mouth. She can’t call to him. Someone might hear it and suspect conspiracy, no matter how worried she is for his livelihood.

Fortunately, she doesn’t have to linger in agonising doubt for too long, as the beating of hurried footsteps resurfaces again, stopping right at her cell door before the sliding hatch is opened once more.

“Fiyero! Thank Oz you’re alright,” she exhales. “Did you get the key?”

Fiyero’s demeanour is sombre. He does not answer verbally, simply nodding his head.

Her brows furrow, a string of worry strumming within her. “Can you… Can you get me out?”

“Of course,” he mutters, though his words are quiet—toneless. His troubles don’t hold him back long as, before much time, he is hunched over the lock and slipping the key inside it.

When at last the latch releases with a click, something strangely euphoric blooms in Glinda, threatening to bring her to tears once more.

The door creaks open, revealing Fiyero’s sturdy silhouette backlit by the fluorescent lights of the corridor. He looks solid as the fortified walls of castles, his sloping shoulders the crenulated fronts of bastions holding off offensive armies—Glinda wants to surround herself with him and curl up, safe, in his embrace. Glinda doesn’t hesitate for long; her legs move her forward before she realises their intention, and her chest hits Fiyero’s before she notices that, once again, tears pool in her eyes. His steady arms settle around her, his hand cradling her head into the crook of his neck. She can feel his heavy breath sway her haggard curls as she presses her eyes closed.

“It’s alright,” he whispers, caressing her back with small, controlled movements, “It’s going to be alright.”

Glinda nods, though the movement is arduous—the conscious decision to believe his words is difficult, a strain she must undergo to maintain her own sanity.

Fiyero leans back to look into her eyes, still holding onto her. “Are you hurt?”

Glinda face falls into an almost startled expression—words don’t come at first to describe the amorphous numbness of her arm. She is momentarily caught by the strange sensation of only feeling half of Fiyero’s gentle hold, but she is shaken from it by his expectant gaze. “Yes? I don’t…” She struggles. “I’m not hurting, no. But there’s this… This thing keeping me from casting. I need it gone.”

Fiyero’s face furrows in worry. “Oh?” His eyes scan her, seeking an outward sign of her injury.

“It’s—” she fumbles with the fabric at her shoulder, dragging it down to expose the sigil. The act is casual—unguarded—intimate despite its detachedness. “This. It doesn’t hurt, per se. It’s a sort of… existential itch, more than anything.”

His eyes are dark as they glide over the exposed skin of her shoulder; it is a strange echo of their time together, though the weight of the silence between them is tinted in care rather than guilt. “That looks awful,” he mutters, voice tinged with sympathy. The tone worries Glinda—she had not realised it could be that bad—enough to make her glance over her shoulder despite the twinge of pain which flares at the base of her neck. The eruption is an angry red, a blaze of irritated skin. Fiyero’s solemnity rears its head once more. “We have to get this off of you. How do we solve this?”

“I need Elphaba.” Glinda winces. That was embarrassingly honest. 

“What?”

“A caster. I need a caster to remove it,” she mumbles. “Elphaba is more than powerful enough for…”

“Of course she is. That’s not the question—she might be the best for the job, but she is also the most elusive woman this side of the Deadly Desert.”

Glinda bites her lip, a contrite grimace on her face. “Don’t worry, finding her won’t be an issue.”

His face falls. “What do you mean by that?”

The meeting of their gazes is charged. The friction between Fiyero’s heavy earnestness and the bubbling of guilt at Glinda’s core creates an electrified force. Above them, the light of the corridor flickers. Her eyes shoot to its quaver, an excuse to avoid their magnetic standoff.

“We should be leaving, Fiyero.” 

“Do you know where she is?”

Glinda doesn’t answer.

A veil of realisation settles over Fiyero’s face. “You’re working with her. That’s why you just did…”

She frowns. “That’s not exactly—”

“And after Brox Hall, all the things you were saying… ” His words trail off, apparently of their own accord. The same power that guides him to silence seems to, brick by brick, erect a barrier between them. An unseen wall behind which Fiyero retreats despite her clinging fingers. “How long have you two been in contact?”

“We should go, Fiyero.”

“How long?”

She hesitates—an acrid taste playing across her tongue—but words do come, though they leave her in a whisper. “Summer rising.”

Fiyero’s mouth falls open—a delicate gap, barely wide enough to be considered that—a breath escaping him. His expression is earnest, uncalculated—he does not seek to hide his hurt. “All that time… Don’t you trust me?”

Glinda hikes up the hemline of her collar, covering the raw skin of her shoulder. “This is not about trust.”

“You’ve been seeing Elphaba for months—” Glinda hides a wince at his phrasing— “and you’ve never even considered telling me? Glin, I’ve been looking for her like a madman.” He scoffs self-deprecatingly. “I should’ve just turned to the other side of my bed and asked! How stupid, I don’t know how I never considered it.”

Something bitter coats Glinda’s vocal chords. The nerve of him—when had they ever agreed to transparency in their relationship? She had certainly never expected it of him. 

“I’m sorry, Fiyero,” she says, voice soft, almost condescending, “I truly am, but I couldn’t have told you. It was too much of a risk.”

He keeps quiet. She can see him bite the inside of his cheek.

“We didn’t even know each other’s loyalties, don’t you understand? You thought me a collaborationist as recently as last week, for Oz’s sake.”

He scoffs. “I didn’t know. I find it unlikely that you couldn’t at least take a guess at my politics. I’m not especially subtle.”

“Exactly.”

He frowns at her.

“You would’ve made a bad double agent, Fiyero,” she says, though her tone is tender—almost pitying. The same voice one employs with hopeful children on their way to meet the harsh realities of the world.

“But I’m here, aren’t I? I’m helping.” There’s a desperation to his words—a strange shine to his eyes.

Glinda sighs, settling a consoling hand on his bicep. “You are. You really, really are, and I am so very grateful. But from your position? With your set of skills? I don’t think bringing you in would’ve been the right move.”

“I could’ve, though.” Glinda notices the crimson turgidity of his veins which run through the white of his eyes, his pupils gleaming with a maddened misery. “I could’ve helped Elpha—” He stutters and falls to silence.

There is such vulnerability in his words that it makes Glinda stop in her tracks.

She’s not sure if her response has been a fair one: she rebelled at the presentation of their past relationship as deserving of the honour of honesty, but she realises the impulse is petty, rooted in the self-serving loamy soil of her guts. They were distant back then—when his arms wrapped around her waist, and her fingers clinged to his bicep—but they had been friends once, and close ones at that.

She might not have owed him complete transparency, but he is not unreasonable in his feelings of betrayal.

“I… I do think you could’ve, but not without leaving here,” she starts, careful. “I know you wouldn’t have wanted to—”

She meets his eyes and suddenly realises he would've.

Left the palace.

Left the privilege.

Left her.

The glimmer in his gaze doesn’t falter, though its quality changes. It seems to beg her to understand. “I love h—”

She cuts him off. “I know.” And because she cares for him she adds, “Me too.”

He does not seem shocked, neither does he seem guilty. He does, however, remain reproachfully silent.

“We should be leaving,” Glinda whispers, retaking her refrain to fill the dead space between their bodies.

Fiyero nods. He takes her by the hand—he is painfully gentle in a way that makes her wonder if she deserves it—and leads her down corridors, driving them towards supposed safety.

The overhead light bulbs seem to flash as they run past them and come upon the next, dazzling them to the rhythm of their frenetic flight. The flaring of the lights leaves her dizzy, and the brusque beating of their footfalls on the unpolished cement floors makes her aware of her own frailty, though she knows each percussion takes them closer to freedom. She lets herself be dragged despite the nausea that overtakes her or the daze which leaves her oblivious to her surroundings.

Fiyero’s hand in hers is solid—a static point in a world which seems unwilling or incapable to slow down for her—grounding her as they rush past corners and down halls. The frenzied run comes suddenly to a halt as Fiyero stops in his tracks. Glinda, still blind in her nausea, crashes into him; he barely seems to notice. He stands at a doorway pensively, looking impassively into what seems to be a warden’s office, though his broad shoulders bar Glinda’s view of the room. Fiyero steps forward carefully, eyes scanning the place in search of something. 

Glinda doesn’t linger outside, something within her—instinct perhaps?—recoils at the thought of having her back unguarded, and presses the door closed behind her. The anxiety of once more being in an enclosed space rears its head, but it is easily subdued by the security of locking the door herself, carefully twisting the key with the tips of her fingers.

Fiyero rummages through the office, sifting through dark mahogany storage cabinets.

Glinda approaches him carefully, arms wrapped around herself, peering over his shoulder. “What are we looking for?”

“I'm looking for a map of this place. A complete map.”

She doesn’t even catch the pointed pronoun choice, too caught off by the actual content of his sentence. She frowns, confused. “Do you Gale Forcers not have access to that?”

“No,” Fiyero explains, head inside a drawer crowded with papers. “Most of us are kept in the dark. No one person is supposed to know more than they need to; it's a safety measure, and it doesn't hurt that it fuels all the superstitions that hang about the place.”

Just like the resistance, she wants to say. It's an instinct—a natural urge to connect details, and phrases, and topics of conversation all in an easy stream of flowing dialogue—but she arrests its impulse hastily. She is sure her being privy to this kind of insight into the inner workings of the resistance might be salt in Fiyero’s wounds, so she holds her tongue.

“This does mean, however,” he continues, “that I only know of one entrance to this awful place, and—believe me—you do not want to go back through there.”

“What do you mean by that?” She takes a step closer to him, coming to lean against the dean’s desk.

“No need to worry about that,” he says, pulling his rifle from where it hangs over his shoulder. With a concise gesture, he brings the butt of his weapon onto the latch of one of the locked compartments of the cabinet. Glinda tries not to flinch at the action, but does a poor job of it. Fiyero does not notice it, or is polite enough to pretend not to.

Her eyes fleet to the newly opened compartment. It’s a mess of documents and papers and loose items, though the ordered chaos is lost on her, completely washed away as her gaze is inevitably fixed upon one particular object. A squat, shiny, black box. It looks so innocent there, set aside, unremarkable. Something primal within Glinda—like the urge to remember the markings of the snake which just bit you—makes her step towards it and take a hold of the offending stamp. It is so light in her hand—smooth and ordinary—but the urge to keep it to herself and away from hands which might harm her is irresistible. However, while her instinct wills it, her body seems resistant. As she stares vacantly upon it, she almost crumples upon herself, her knees faltering, her descent only stopped by Fiyero’s side against her, holding her up.

He casts a worried glance her way. “You should sit down. I know you must be tired.”

She wants to argue—to wave off his unsubtle show of worry—to allow him the dignity of still being plainly mad at her, but he is right. She is tired; she feels like she hasn’t slept in days, her recent brushes with unconsciousness a mere pause in the unrelenting condition of wakefulness. So, she concedes, pocketing the stamp while nodding her head diffidently, looking for a place to sit. Behind the desk, she sees a toppled chair, surely fallen during a previous struggle.

She makes to round the desk—from his position at the cabinet, Fiyero seems to move towards her in an arrested motion—but she stops.

Her white canvas shoes are streaked in red.

Beyond her extended hand, reaching for the toppled seat, is a pool of blood, coagulated into the tassels of the carpet and insinuated in the empty spaces between floorboards, and beyond that pool of blood lies a body, prone, fractured head seeping blood like a lazy faucet.

Glinda screams.

She tries to, at least, but as she stumbles backwards, she meets Fiyero’s chest, and his tight hands which press her mouth closed. She struggles further. Her shoulder aches, and she can’t feel her right hand, and she feels lightheaded enough to be someone else entirely—a simple observer to her body as opposed to its puppeteer.

She is turned in Fiyero’s hands, still forcibly silenced, as he whispers, “It’s alright, it’s alright. You’re safe, you just need to keep quiet.” Glinda’s wide glistening eyes meet his. There is an aura of calmness to his gaze, something between natural lethargy and an artificial soporific. Its sedative qualities seem to bleed into her, her heartbeats slowing and her vision sharpening back into focus. He takes slow, deliberate breaths which Glinda can’t help but mimic, relaxing into his rhythm. “You won’t scream?” He asks, quiet, eyebrows raised in worry.

She hesitates for a second—her body is still racked with shivers, but the bone deep urge to wail has left her—Glinda nods.

His shoulders relax, and he lets his hand fall away from her mouth.

“Is he…? Did you…?” She stumbles over her half questions, the words whispered in an effort to prove her compliance to his demands.

Fiyero still holds her tight. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did the body appear out of nowhere?” 

“I don’t know if he’s alive, Glinda. I didn’t check.”

“So you did do it!” She struggles feebly to get out of his embrace. She suddenly stops in realisation. “That gunshot! It was you, wasn’t it?”

Fiyero winces, bobbing his head from side to side ambiguously.

“Fiyero, did you shoot a man?”

“No!”

She stares at him blankly.

“I didn’t! He figured out I was here to break you out, Glinda, and he pulled a gun on me.” He gestures behind himself. Glinda’s eyes jump to a cavity in the wall. A bullet hole. Fissures spring from its centre, leaving the bland wall undeniably marred. Glinda thinks of Fiyero’s unblemished flesh and almost chokes. “I did what I needed to do.”

She shakes her head, expunging the blurry images dancing behind her eyelids. She forces her gaze away from the wall, instead focusing on the red blot which stains her shoes. “And what was that? A bloodletting?”

“I just knocked him out.” She stares at him. “Head wounds bleed a lot,” he says blandly.

A furtive vision of a body—hands, arms, legs—crumbling under the butt of a weapon flashes across her mind.

“Oz,” she croaks, pressing mouth into her own shoulder, “this is making me nauseous.”

Fiyero leans back, a coldness coming over him, a burning frostbite seeping into his voice, “Not everyone has the opportunity to keep their hands clean, Glinda.”

Instinctually, her hackles raise. “I wasn't..!” She cuts herself off. His implied accusations are legitimate, she knows. She exhales a breath, tightening her grip on Fiyero’s upper arm. “I didn't mean anything by it. It’s just… I genuinely don’t think I can handle this. Not like you—” the word is so charged that Fiyero can feel the plurality of the pronoun in his bones—“can. It’s… a lot,” she finishes lamely.

There is a frustration to the furrow of his brows, but Glinda is able to glimpse traces of softness which underlie it. “I know.” His words are almost solid in the space between them. A tangible token promising that everything will be alright, in time. “I think I know of a way to get us out of here.” 

Fiyero steps out of her hold—his absence is just as tangible as his implied promise—and moves to the desk towards the pile of documents he’d compiled. From the disordered heap, he grabs two folded sheets of glossy paper which he spreads across the desk. Schematics. They’re maps of this Ozforsaken prison.

A jolt of hope rips angrily through Glinda’s insides. She forces herself to stay in place, keeping her distance as she watches the limit of the pool of blood widen, moving into fractals like the shifting borders of a country at war.

She swallows with difficulty. “So,” she starts, eyes still glued to the carnage, “they know that you’ve defected as well? Will this make it harder to—” she stutters “—to escape?”

Fiyero seems unbothered. “I doubt we’re their top priority.”

That surprises her. Genuinely. Enough to pull her eyes away from the pooling blood. “What?”

Fiyero’s eyes drift to the ceiling, looking almost penitent, a bearing like that of maunts in prayer or Saints in asceticism.

“It’s a mess out there, Glinda.” 

“You said.”

He sighs. “The riots haven’t really stopped since you were taken yesterday. They tried not to show it, but the Gale Force was in over their head.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“There was a raid in the lower quarters at sunrise.”

Glinda feels her heart stop, staggering for a moment before returning with a frantic drumming that sounds much too close to traitor, traitor, traitor. 

“Oh?” It slips out of her, though the strangled garble barely counts as a syllable.

In her mind, worlds are crashing into each other. Specks of dust suspended in rusted sunbeams as if in amber suddenly disturbed by the frothing revolt of red slick cobblestones, the worn butt of a shotgun, and five pinpricks of gripping fingers.

“It was a waste of their time, don’t worry, they didn’t find anything of value. The place had been evacuated before they got there.”

Glinda releases her breath and with it part of her tension. Of course. Of course they would be discerning enough to expect a weak link to break.

“The whole mess did keep the special forces busy enough for a time. Before they even got back the telecom system in the whole city was down.”

Her mouth drops open. “What?”

A small smile dances into the corners of Fiyero’s mouth. “I know right? Kumbricia may work fast, but rebels work faster.”

“So, the landlines are down… And the telegraphs…?”

He nods his head. “They thought of everything.” 

Fiyero pauses, humming to himself as his eyes drift to a map of the Emerald City hanging behind the desk. With a nod of his chin, he gestures vaguely towards it. “Last I heard there were roadblocks at every gate. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve detonated the railways as well.”

“Oz.” She takes a fortifying breath, tightening her fists. “We need to get back upstairs. Can you get us out?”

Fiyero once more scans the blueprints of Southstairs, the furrow of his brow denoting worry rather than confusion. He does know a way out, Glinda can tell.

“Are you worried about encountering more Gale Forcers on the way out?” She asks.

His hands tighten into fists. Yes, then.

“If we’re lucky, news of this whole mess hasn't spread too far,” she reassures him. “We’ll be able to slip through. And if we’re caught, there’s still the possibility of encountering someone sympathetic.”

“The secret police still completely supports the Wizard, there’s no way a—”

“That’s one division, Fiyero, not the whole world. There must be at least a couple Forcers with some basic decency, right?”

“Well, a few of my Generals and their divisions have given support to the rebellion.”

“Exactly!” She forces more cheer into her voice. Both of them have heard enough of her public speeches to make it sound hollow. “That’s enough to give us a chance.”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing, Fiyero,” she snarls, “nothing.” 

He looks at her uneasily. Glinda releases a heavy breath, pressing her fingers to her eyes.

“Just…” It comes out vulnerable. Frail. “Just get me out of here.”

There is silence for a few seconds before Fiyero complies, voice tender and soft. “Of course,” he says. “Of course I can do that.” 

And with that, their frenetic run through damp and disordered corridors begins once more, though this time with true direction. The arrangement of each hall seems random, almost organic, like each new passage is collated messily atop the older building, leaving a patchwork of smooth cement and ancient stone to watch over their escape. Fiyero’s hand is in Glinda’s, leading her back to their flight from the grasping shadows of the prison which seem to extend and grab at them as they pass each darkened corner. The obscurity is viscous as tar as it embalms the two of them in a lethal but safe hold, hiding them from prying eyes when Fiyero’s sharpened senses detect the mechanical steps of guards.

Their bodies press into one, and that unit presses into the wall in turn, becoming just another irregularity of the ancient stones of this unholy prison.

Before long, the danger passes, and the race resumes.

They climb up stairs, each stone step worn by the footfalls of the ages, sinking into a sloping divot at their centre. Their slant downwards seems but an additional trap of the prison, as if the dungeon itself wants to keep them inside its bowels, willing them to slip back down to its stomach, deep beneath the earth.

But they do make it. Up stairwells and down corridors, past whimpering cells and through once-locked gates, they make it.

With each floor they ascend, the light seems to gain a purer clarity—tinted in tones of limpid blue. Glinda feels it in her lungs, the incremental release of pressure from tons upon tons of Ozian soil slowly disappearing from above her.

They eventually reach a gate. It is clearly the newest of all additions to this patchwork prison—solid, and clean, and state-of-the-art. Its pristine metal surface seems impenetrable to Glinda, an observation which rises from deep within her instinctual core despite her awareness of the set of keys held firmly in Fiyero’s other hand.

Her eyes scan the door. They linger on its hinges, its lock, its metallic casing, and—She stops. The bottom rail, though set flush to the floor, seems to neglect its purpose; through the infinitesimal space under it spills forth a steady stream of water. It trickles from the imposing gate, tumbling down the small flight of stairs in a poor imitation of the sublime grandness of natural waterfalls to settle dumbly at their feet, diluting the blood which sullies Glinda’s shoes.

“Is this it?” She asks, reverent.

Fiyero doesn’t answer, instead pulling her forward. Each of their steps is accompanied by the incongruously innocent sound of splashing water. His hand releases hers, instead occupied with the tortuous turning of a heavy steel key. The absence of its soothing presence aches, until the glorious sound of creaking hinges—as Fiyero pushes the double gates open—rushes to act as a substitute to its comfort.

A deeply pathetic sound escapes Glinda in abject relief. The gates are open. She’s free.

She steps onto the cobblestones of the Emerald City.

The sky is falling.

The lightness in Glinda’s ribs is pressed down once more as the torrent of rain falling down untempered from the heavens makes its weight felt on her. It’s a deluge.

She whispers, choked, “Morrible.”

Fiyero steps to her side, intertwining his hand in hers. His head is raised high, large drops of rain burst as they hit his skin, his gaze fixed on the horizon. Glinda follows his line of sight.

Muddied by the continuous rivulets of rain, the shapes in the distance seem phantasmagoric, half-dreamed, but still perceptible. Unmistakable despite everything, she recognizes the Wizard’s Palace, its highest spire bright in the darkened sky, burning in a blaze of petrol fire.