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Chapter Text

Everything in her room was arranged just so: the freshly cut and meticulously arranged pink flowers that bloomed with their hundred petals, the glass baubles and heavily illustrated books on her sparse shelves, the bed with its abundance of silk pillows—but mostly, herself. 

The Throne Minister of Oz stood in front of the looking glass, carefully painting her pale eyelashes, her lips pursing in a kind of kiss. She didn’t want to wonder why she bothered—plans for tea weren’t for another few hours, and she was likely to spend every moment of the meantime cooped up in her office puzzling over her papers. It didn’t precisely matter why she bothered to paint her lashes, anyway—Glinda had always been the kind of woman who just would. 

What she did wonder at this moment was just when the lines had laid themselves across her forehead and around her mouth. They were frowning, worrying furrows, which, though they disappeared when she wiggled her eyebrows or smiled broadly, hadn’t been there yesterday. Had they?

Alone, she was free to frown at herself in the glass. She wasn’t so old or so worn down to be wrinkling. And for someone like Glinda, someone who was very, very happy most of the time, she was startled by evidence to the contrary. She was very happy, wasn’t she? Most of the time?

She beamed at her own reflection, her white teeth gleaming and her blue eyes glimmering. 

Yes, she thought to herself as she made her way toward her office, down the beautiful hall with its crown molding and its Ozian landscapes. I couldn’t be happier. 

…

“My Lady?” The maid hovered in the doorway of the elegant offices, nervously wringing her hands. It was the second time she’d tried to alert her attention, but to no avail. The woman was a mass of pale blue skirts and blonde curls perched on the edge of a high-backed chair, bent forward over her desk with a magnifying lens. Lost in thought or whatever she was examining, it took a final prompting before she noticed she wasn’t alone. 

“Oh, Tilly.” Her throat was tight. “What is it?”

“Master Crope is here, My Lady.”

“Oh! Well, don’t just stand there, you fool! Bring him to me.” 

Snapped back to attention, Glinda waved dismissively at the woman, annoyed. At last alone she stood, smoothing out her skirts and stowing her papers into the top drawer of her desk, which she locked with a little silver key dangling from a ribbon. She slipped the cream-colored slip of satin over her head, tucking the cold metal key into the generous bust of her dress. 

In a moment Tilly had returned with her old friend. They embraced warmly. 

“Crope, darling! I thought we were to meet for tea?” She kissed his cheek. The maid was relieved to see Glinda returning to herself at the arrival of her friend. 

Crope made a theatrical gesture, kissing her on both cheeks before perching in the chair across from where she’d been sitting. Obligingly, she returned to her seat behind the large wooden desk. It was a handsome piece, carved with Gilikinese roses, ivies, and rosefern. It had been an enormous expense, but, as she’d justified it, with so much dull work to be done she deserved something pretty to look at while she did. 

“I had a haunch you needed saving from Ozian obligations.” He offered, studying her carefully as she settled back behind her desk. “I was right,” he determined. 

She tipped her head to the side with a smirk. “You often are, dear boy.” She laughed openly when he lifted her magnifying lens to his brow, distorting the image of his eye in the glass. He twisted its elegant metal stem between his fingers. 

“I’d call you a dear girl, but what—are you losing your sight, my lady?” She snatched it back when he wiggled it, his magnified eye shifting into oblong shapes. 

“Oh come, I’ve maintained my youth and you know it!” She laughed. “It’s for fine print. These trade agreements with Munchkinland are a nightmare.”

“How brutally boring. Shall we leave it for some other blonde with a tiara?”

“Yes, me. Tomorrow’s me.” She sighed, standing up. “Crope, be honest and tell me how fine I look so I don’t have to dress a fourth time. I don’t know what’s wrong with that woman, but if she tears another lace set—”

“You look perfect, Glinda. Any finer and they might assassinate you.” His eyes traveled over the Throne Minister—the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Had he had the predilection for women he would have tried to court her ages ago. 

Instead, the time they’d shared served to tether them, the unspoken heartaches and longings an undercurrent of commonality that kept them linked. He enjoyed setting eyes on her the way others admired rare birds or fine silks. And she was a very fine, very rare creature with her blonde curls and pink cheeks; a deceptively gorgeous creature with a shrewd, calculating current rushing beneath the surface.

“You mean to tease, but…” She frowned. 

As they made their way to the front vestibule, Tilly scurried out to assist Glinda with her matching blue travel cloak and stole. 

“It’s chilly out there, My Lady.” She murmured as she carefully resettled the weight of the garments on Glinda’s small shoulders. 

“Yes, Tilly, almost Lurlinemas.” Glinda said softly as Crope moved ahead to secure their way to the carriage. 

“I love traveling with you, darling. You have the finest-looking guards.” He was grinning, extending his elbow for her gloved hand. She responded with a playful hip check. 

“Take them with you, will you? It’s unbearable to me.” She whispered. 

“In which case we’d both have some satisfaction, wouldn’t we?” He called pleasantly as one of the handsome uniformed men helped her into the carriage. He tapped her bustle as he entered the carriage behind her. 

“Glinda, you glamorous creature, if your bustles get any bigger they will have to reinvent the carriage.” With no one else around to see, she shook her hips, laughing. 

Once settled, the carriage began to make its way downtown, toward the decadent little cafés and boutiques they regularly frequented. 

“Tea and cakes at the Oak Room? And then wandering the shops?” Crope asked pleasantly, but Glinda was leaning on her wrist, gazing beyond the little window, seeing only the various shades of green as they passed by the city. He chose not to repeat himself, only glancing every so often to find her lost in thought. At a particularly rough patch of cobblestones she shook her head, sitting up a little straighter. 

“Oh Crope, I am sorry. I’ve been thinking so much lately about…” she paused for just the length of the silent syllables, loud in her head: El-pha-ba. “...and about everything else beyond this city. There is so much to do and it all happens slowly.” She confided. 

“Deceptively heavy, that little bauble on your head.” Crope’s voice was low and soft. “You must continue to be patient with them, and never stop trying.”

“I won’t.” At that she turned to him with a bright smile. “I have never believed more in what I am doing. Though, it would be much more pleasant if everyone else did, too.” 

She was growing accustomed to the loneliness of her station; not only did her duties demand it, but her sensibilities, her beliefs, and her own private and interior emotions insisted upon it. To harbor what she held inside her, and to act from that place of love and ache set her apart from her political counterparts, her social circles, and everyone else in her court. Not only were they largely unaware of the workings of her mind and heart—they also had little knowledge of the little maneuvers she made entirely alone. 

There was one guard in the entire Home Guard stationed to her service who could be trusted to take the literal reins for these exploits. A member of the resistance called upon only when secrecy was of the utmost importance, Wes Pierce was an ambiguous, androgynous guard who could be at turns mysterious, flamboyant, or startlingly serious. Wes was unflinchingly loyal, fiercely protective, and yet somehow seemed to be the only person in her life to respect her as an individual. Wes often escorted her among the carriage crew, and while Crope knew the guard was her favorite, not even he was aware of Wes’ true place in her hierarchy.

As the carriage slowed, Crope watched the barely perceptible arrangements that marked Glinda’s transformation into Lady Glinda: the jut of the chin, the dash of perfumed oil at the wrists and behind her ears, the facial features flexing into a practiced vision of nobility. 

Crope hopped down from the carriage and extended his hand to Glinda, waving away the guard. 

“The usual, Hostar. We’ll be at the Oak Room and then in the little shops. If you all would give Lady Glinda a little elbow room I promise to keep her safe.” 

…

In all of her skirts and shimmering glitter, she immediately drew the eyes of the café patrons when Crope gently guided her inside. Always a relief to her, however, was the way they turned back to each other after warm greetings and waves. This was the upper crust, her “friends” who might fawn but could still be expected to behave at teatime. A waiter presented her with a seat drawn back from the best table, tucked into an inlet and backlit by the enormous window overlooking the palatial architecture of the finest buildings in the Emerald City. 

“Ooh Lady Glinda!” An excited brunette clicked over to them on her heels. She curtsied gracefully before leaning down to kiss Glinda’s cheek. 

“Gilly!” Glinda beamed at her. “Who else is here?” She asked as Gilly and Crope exchanged hellos. 

“Oh, Muffy Thornback, of course.” Gilly gestured to a table across the way from them. With a glance for Crope’s comfort, Glinda invited them to join their table. 

To the unobservant onlookers, their little society was a closed circle of enraptured attention, squealing over the strategic plans for a new Gillikin rose garden at the Chuffrey estate, the benefit ball just one night from now, and all the other inoffensive tidbits of their custom.

When Crope ordered a round of bubbly alcohol before the tea was finished, Glinda playfully swatted his arm. “You are a terrible influence,” she told him affectionately, taking a sip as soon as the drink was in hand. 

The feathers in the ladies’ hats vibrated with their laughter. Inwardly, Glinda had been reflecting on her morning’s reading, slipping inside her mind amid the comfortable din of polite society. 

“It’s been all the talk at the Card Room,” Gilly was whispering to their group. Her tone of discretion caught Glinda’s attention, and she focused her hearing on the attractive woman across the table from her. “It’s the latest thing. Of course, I haven’t. But Muffy did, didn’t you, Muffy?”

Muffy had always been a woman of import; not large, but solid, plain-featured, but charming in her own way. While Gilly could be more soft-spoken and polite, Muffy was honest and bold, if not a bit sharp. She could be crude or calm—it was all about how any given moment struck her. She had been raised well and educated thoroughly. Glinda had often wondered as to her leanings, resolved to play the long-game to pry it out of her. Perhaps the woman could be more impactful than even she had yet to reveal. 

Over her drink, Muffy seemed to be snickering, her green eyes dancing. 

“Of course I had to try it—I had heard enough from Lolly. All the ladies of the sewing circle were talking about it. Obviously, Florinda was scandalized and threatened to end our last meeting if anyone brought it up, the bore. Sometimes I swear she’s a eunuch.” 

“A woman eunuch!” Glinda laughed.

She could not help but feel unbearably curious; she’d failed to catch the secret that spun through their conversation. Even Crope’s smile was secretive. She cast him a puzzled look. 

“I don’t see why it should be such a scandal, sex.” Crope pondered. “Or its associated activities. Tell us, Muffy, how was it?”

“Crope, you devil. You mean you haven’t been to a place like that?” Gilly was still whispering, glancing around the room. 

“Get a grip, Gilly, of course he has. I know, darling, you’ve settled somewhat now that you’re grown.” Muffy smirked knowingly at Crope, who laid a hand on his scarf in mock disbelief. 

“Rather a thrill, I must say.” She said, in answer to his question. “But to tell the truth, I don’t believe it’s a match for a constitution like mine. I’d rather meet my conquests out in the field than schedule them by appointment. What is it they say? Something about spearing ducks in a barrel?” 

“I don’t think so.” Crope laughed tipsily. 

“What I still don’t understand is how it’s any different than a brothel.” Gilly wrinkled her nose.

“Well, for starters it’s clean, darling.” Muffy drawled. “It’s highly upscale, and it’s completely about one person giving you your heart’s desire, not a whore or an oiled-up man with their vulgar performative tousling, unless you care to request something like that.” 

Glinda sipped her bubbly drink slowly, the hint of a smile on her lips. Crope, meanwhile, cackled with abandon. 

“Oh, Lady Glinda, you should go!” Muffy said then, leaning toward her conspiratorially. “It really is the latest thing. Imagine, anything you want—however you want. No judgment, no nosy servants or palatial obligations…something just for you.” She shrugged one shoulder with a pointed look at the blonde. “I don’t think old Lord Chuff would even mind.” 

Glinda worked to temper her rising curiosity, her cheeks pink. “You do know how to tempt the spirit, Muffy.”

“Darling I’ll say no more, but you’re far too lovely a creature to go unsatisfied. And we are young, still, aren’t we?”

“And was I not just saying that before you joined us? We are young, yet!” Glinda tossed her curls, carefully skirting Muffy’s remarks lest she provide an eavesdropper with a scandal. She took another sip of the bubbly drink, enjoying how silly it had begun to make her feel.

Crope cocked his head, eyeing Glinda thoughtfully. 

…

Once the two were alone again, drifting through his favorite luxury scarf shop, Crope cleared his throat. Glinda trailed her fingers through the fabrics distractedly, her mind wandering to Muffy’s suggestion. 

“Lady Glinda?” He called, his voice pitched high with an affected formality. When she glanced up he beckoned her over to an empty corner of the shop, pretending to eye some emerald-colored kerchiefs. 

“You seemed quite curious about that one little subject. What do you think of Muffy’s suggestion?” He fingered the fabric, rubbing it softly between his thumb and forefinger. There was a current of hope in his voice. 

“Of course I’m curious, it’s an absolute scandal.” She whispered. “What does it matter what I think of it? I’m the Throne Minister. Not only am I unspeakably busy but I am also already the subject of gossip and intrigue. Hell, my own ministers watch my every step! Do you have any idea the lengths one must take for a moment of privacy?” She hissed, tilting her head toward her nearby guards. 

“More than you give me credit for, undoubtedly. Glinda, let me help. I could make all of the arrangements, and you can keep your secrets.” His soft, brown eyes were sincere.

“Darling, I do trust you more than anyone in this territory, I just can’t imagine how…” She trailed off quietly as a shop girl passed, immersing herself in a set of silks. Her eyes wandered to the girl’s straight dark hair, her narrow hips. 

“The how would be for me to worry about. The why and the what would be yours. Don’t you know how difficult it is to watch a dear friend’s heart hunger? Hurt?” She watched his gaze travel to the shop girl. 

“Is it really so obvious?” She sighed. 

“Only to me, because I was there then and am here now. You are far more complex than they’ll ever know—as are the desires of your heart. And haven’t I always been a reliable steward of secrets?” He gave her his most charming smile. 

“I shall sleep on it.” She whispered. “Now let’s shop for this ridiculous ball I’m hosting before my minders get suspicious.” 

…

At long last they returned to the carriage, Crope and a few guards carrying their wares. There were hat boxes, shoe boxes, garment bags, floral bouquets, and trinkets, the two having managed to comb through seven different shops within the two hour window they’d given the guards. As the men busied themselves with the geometry of fitting it all into the carriage, she announced that they would need to visit the Children’s Home before they departed. 

By now the downtown district had been alerted to her presence, and the streets were full of a citizenry eager to see her. Glinda was the very image of benevolence and grace, her cornflower blue eyes wide and sparkling with genuine delight as she greeted them, maintaining a tactful distance as her group made its way around the corner to the orphanage. Inwardly she shivered, wrapping her powder blue cloak tighter around her small frame.

“Ozians, it is good to see you!” She announced at the threshold. “I shall be addressing you all tomorrow, before our benefit ball. I do hope to see you all there!” 

Inside there was little difference, the children eager for her attention and for the sweets she perpetually supplied her guards for the purpose of such occasions. The Director met her at the entryway and the two slipped down the narrow hallway as Crope and the guards took over the task of greeting each child and administering the little pink paper-wrapped treats. 

“The bread supply should be here tomorrow.” She was murmuring to the Director, a pale, middle-aged woman in maunt’s robes. “Have you enough until then?” 

“Yes, Lady Glinda, by your generosity the children will not go hungry this month.” 

“And the teachers? How is the schooling going?” 

“Good, My Lady, as good as can get in the current moment.”

Their interaction had a performative air to it, were anyone to be listening. The concerns were genuine, but all the while they talked there were exchanges of thinly rolled parchments from one woman’s warm sleeve to the other. 

“Anything at all that you need, here or at the mauntery?” Glinda asked, her forehead lowered toward the other woman. 

“The ink supply has dried. For the children’s calligraphy.” 

“Ink, yes.” 

They embraced delicately when the Director noticed the guards’ attention returning to their charge. 

“Thank you.” Each whispered to the other as Glinda kissed the woman’s cheek. 

…

Deep in the bowels of the manor kitchen, the staff were furiously preparing trays of fine desserts; evidence of their endeavors spilled over every possible surface, powdering the room in the shimmering pinks of the pastries, the luxurious scents of berries and roses and sugarfrost.  

“Perhaps we wouldn’t need benefit balls if the snub-nosed wretches would cease with the extravagance.” The red-faced, red-haired young baker bemoaned, her stomach grumbling as she carefully spread purple munchkinberry jam over a yellow cake. 

“Imagine wasting so much gold coin only to ask for donations of gold coin…” The gray-haired soup woman agreed grimly. 

“But have you seen Lady Glinda’s new ball gown? It’s bound to be the talk of the city!” Tilly squealed as she was shooed off her perch on the countertop. 

“It’s just another occasion for Oz’s whore to bare her tits, you idiot.” The soup woman gave Tilly a look of disdain. “I don’t know why you idolize her.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that, Winnie.” Tilly whispered, horrified. “What a horrible thing to say!”

“Tilly, can’t you hear? She’s home. Best go take her coat.” Cook spoke to her gently. She’d barely finished speaking before Tilly had scurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time. 

“You know, Winnie, you are a wretch.” Cook drawled, her fair hair drawn high and tight from her brow. “Is your salary not three times higher now than it was under the Tenmeadows’? Did Lady Glinda not pay for your mother’s burial?” 

“Still far less than that lot’s got.” Winnie mumbled, her red face darkening with embarrassment. 

“You’d do well to remember who has helped you and who hasn’t. And you,” she waved her boneknife at the baker. “Would do well not to model yourself after miserable old women like Winnie.”

…

“Tilly!” Glinda scolded. “What kept you? And why do you come cantering down the hall like that?” She peered at the woman over her shoulder, one delicate eyebrow raised in question. She had removed her own cloak, which Tilly took from her sheepishly. 

“I’m sorry, My Lady,” she bowed. “Preparations for the ball have begun in the kitchens and I was assisting.”

“I know these things excite you, Tilly, but mind that you don’t slip with your own duties. Would you please help with the floral arrangements? They’re bringing them to the ballroom now. After dinner I would like to take my bath.”

“Yes, Lady Glinda.”

Glinda was not sorry to be—at last—alone again, her footsteps falling soft on the stonework floor of the hall outside of her office. She sank into her desk chair with relief, running her hand over the glossy wood surface, the fine floral detailing that had captured her affection for it in the first place. 

She reached into her dress to remove the silver key, quietly turning it in the lock to unlatch the drawer. An old habit, she glanced around the room before opening the drawer, stopping to slip the latest parchments from her sleeve. 

Like a starving child at a feast she began to unroll each piece, her eyes traveling quickly over the lines of text. 

No news is good news, read one note simply, the font small and tight as if its writer had held the quill in a closed fist. 

The children learn Well; the maunts work through the night. We do Always require ink for the lessons. The four-legged remain weary. Overall the spirit is in suspense; the Tide is slow to Change. These Hearts of Ours are always with you, Under The unifying skies.

The handwriting was feminine—sloping and looping by a careful hand experienced in the aesthetics of the craft. Glinda reread, knowing to follow the font for the message hidden within the erroneous capitalizations. Her heart banged in her chest. Of whom or what ought she to be wary? The four-legged? And eastward? Westward? Perhaps she was due a visit at the Mauntery. 

She unfurled another page to find an old hand-drawn map marked by a collection of disparate, meaningless symbols. Or so they were made to appear. She ran her finger over the trail of crow’s feet bisecting the map. 

In recent days a smoldering trouble brewed through Oz. The regime change had been abrupt and incomprehensible, her own status a suspicion for some of those outside of the city. To her luck and by the blessing of bouncing blonde curls and fluttering blue eyes, she’d done well in her visits to the territories; the charm undeniable in person. But she had neither the time, resources, nor desire to personally meet and persuade each Ozian to her favor. 

The open courts, the philanthropy, the constant travels and ministerial appointments had so far to suffice, but for how much longer? It was not the citizenry she was concerned with as much as it was the local leaders, those who had risen to the top of the cream in the wake of turmoil. The opportunists. The mandate was always to act quickly and with certainty, and accept the inevitably slow execution of her orders, but it left her wary and wired, perpetually nervous. 

Glinda was no fool. While public opinion was largely in her favor and her popularity a certainty, rumblings of a coup had begun on the first day of her appointment and had yet to cease. Her ministers, the old whiteheads with their bureaucracy and their politics, had invested resources into uprooting the power-mad revolutionaries, but with so far little luck, or little they were willing to report. 

She sighed, allowing her gaze to fall toward the open drawer and the collection of paper scraps it contained. She knew she would need to burn them soon; cryptic though they were, they held potential to endanger not only her position and her person, but each one of the writers scattered through Oz, who had worked and written with such earnestness and strength of spirit. How the papers pile up so fast! She’d only just burned a box of them a fortnight ago, drawing the ire of her staff for the smoke that billowed from the back garden. For now, she slid the day’s pages into the drawer and locked it with her key. 

“My Lady?” Tilly’s voice came tentatively through the door. “Cook has prepared your dinner. Shall I tell her to wait?”

“Is Lord Chuffrey home?” She called, knowing the answer. 

“No, Your Goodness, I’m afraid Lord Chuffrey sent word he would not be returning until rather late this evening. He did ask that you be assured of his presence for the benefit ball tomorrow evening, that he would not miss it.”

“Oh.” Glinda sat back in her chair, wishing she’d asked Crope to stay on for dinner, knowing the slim chance her husband would be eating with her. 

“Tilly, would you please ask them to save my portion for when he returns? I’ve decided I’d rather take my bath now instead.” She heard Tilly’s nervous twitching, the little squeak of agreement, and the woman’s feet as she hurried off, first to inform the kitchen and then to set the bath. 

Glinda wondered just how long she had before the kitchen staff put poison in the food for all the inconveniences she caused them. 

A short time later she was relieved to be immersed in Gillikinese rose oil and a generous spread of soap bubbles, full enough to the brim of the bath that when she slid down they tickled her chin. 

It had taken some convincing to send Tilly away, who seemed to take it personally that Glinda did not need or want her scrubbing services. She’d almost giggled at the way the woman pouted as she left. Tilly, fallible and flustered though she often was, had an eager sense of loyalty and propriety that tickled Glinda. 

No, tonight she wanted to be alone as she luxuriated in the pretty scents and considered her earlier conversations. Poor Crope seemed so invested in her heart’s satisfaction, though she’d rarely expressed anything akin to a complaint. So what if the other women in her society had found a new trend in sexual adventure—was it truly something she craved or could even handle at present?

She inhaled deeply, allowing herself to be momentarily soothed by the floral aroma, the water’s warmth. With her eyes closed she unintentionally conjured the image of the shopgirl, with her flat bust and narrow hips. Glinda could just imagine her own jeweled hand cupping the girl’s cheek as she leaned to kiss her. In her mind white skin gave way to green as her hand slid between her thighs under the water’s surface. 

She moaned softly, pressing up into her own touch. Oz! She clenched her eyes closed tightly. Since when did she fantasize this way? A sense of shame seeped into the periphery of her mind, never failing to arise with her arousal. Still, her hand worked to caress the soft, neglected space between her legs, the phantom verdant face of her old friend, lips parsing “Lady Glinda?” and she had reached her peak, tumbling over the edge with a sob. 

“Lady Glinda?” It sounded again, and a second knock. Glinda splashed back into awareness, sitting up. Of course she hadn’t heard Elphaba’s voice. 

“What now?” She implored, her clean face flushing. Hadn’t she asked to be left alone? “Come in, Tilly.”

Tilly slipped easily into the room, shutting the door behind herself. 

“Master Crope has sent word.” She said quietly, waiting while Glinda dried her hands on the little towel draped beside her. She leaned forward to take the letter from Tilly, unbothered by the exposure as she raised her top half out of the tub. Tilly had seen her nude several hundred times over the years, helping her to dress and undress and bathe as her primary lady’s maid. Still, Glinda had yet to see the maid manage to remain entirely unaffected by the sight of her unclothed. Even now, Tilly’s eyes cautiously tipped away from Glinda’s chest as she delivered the page. 

“Thank you.” She said, unfurling the paper as Tilly slipped back out of the room. 

See you tomorrow, darling. 

Sleep on it. —C.

was all he’d written on the little parchment, wrapped around another square of paper.

Plum & Pip: 

To Each, Their Own.

Private Services 

for Private Desires.

It was a scrap of violet, the text embossed in black so thoroughly that she could run her finger within the divots of the letters. On the front was the lineated illustration of a sliced plum, its pip at the center. On further inspection she could see the way the plum blossomed into the nude body of a woman arching languidly around the round center. 

She felt again the smoldering embers of curiosity inside of her, a dark and twisting smoke of interest billowing upward through her chest. She tucked the little card back into Crope’s note and reached to slip it into the pocket of her robe, which hung on a metal hook behind her. 

Perhaps…

…

She awoke in her nightgown and robes, her cheek pressed against the hard surface of her desk. It was nearly completely dark save for a couple of candles lit at the far corners of her office. She lifted her head sleepily, her curls falling in front of her eyes. Outside, the moon hung low and heavy over the Emerald City, its reflection bright and round in the waters of the canal.

“Oz…” she groaned, realizing she’d fallen asleep with her quill in hand, some of its ink soaked into the side of her palm. She would now almost certainly have to wear gloves for tomorrow’s ball—not even Tilly’s determination would be able to lift the stain from her skin. And where was that girl, anyway? Why had she been left to slip off into sleep? 

She lit the oil lamp on her desk, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the harshness of its light. The sealed envelope she’d written to Crope rested on the desk, surrounded by drafted thoughts that read incoherent—the first few purposefully so, the last of which was a thought only for her.

The Quoxwood tree Begins its Early, Small life As a pip in the Falling Early dark.

The finest architectural feat of the chapel is the nave, like a ribcage over the heart. That is where you will find me.

Desire and sorcery are the same: nothing, then a spark.

She crumpled the last in her hand, then on second thought began to tear it little by little until there was nothing left but a pile of parts. 

The hallways were empty though well-lit, and she rubbed her eyes as she made her way to the modest parlor adjacent to her chambers. 

Chuffrey sat on a feminine sofa of pink velvet, a newspaper splayed out on his lap. Beside him at the table were the remains of his dinner, the empty plate and used cutlery, empty wine glass, and stained napkin. Her own plate sat beside his, cold and untouched. She wrinkled her nose at it. 

“Glinda.” He almost sounded surprised to see her as he glanced up from his reading. He patted the seat of the sofa beside him, and she obediently came to him, kissing the spot of cheek above his white beard and settling down beside him. 

“Chuffrey, darling, I’m sorry…” She gestured to the ink on her hand to imply she’d been in her office. 

“Oh dear.” He dwarfed her small hand with his two large ones, holding it in one as the other rubbed the ink stain affectionately. “Glinda, I don’t even think you can make fashion out of this.” He released her hand. 

She peered over his shoulder down at the newspaper. The headline story was in regard to the ongoing trade negotiations with Munchkinland. A sideline story about the financial toll of the Glikkus export taxes caught her eye and she frowned. The little paragraph about the benefit ball barely registered until he tapped on the illustrated image of Glinda waving from the palace balcony.  

“I believe you’re looking for this.” She knew he didn’t intend to patronize, but she felt herself bristle all the same. “Says you’re to give an address tomorrow evening?” 

“Yes, dear.” She patted his chest kindly, admiring his fine jacket. Chuffrey did know how to dress, he did love to dote on her, and at one point he had been a generous listener. Of late their opposing schedules stood in the way of any quality moments they might’ve had, and she was too often in too much of a rush or too exhausted to share with him any deeper considerations. Now as she looked at him her primary thought was just how old he had begun to look, his white hair and whiskers colorless against his paper-white flesh. Was it wise that he still traveled?

“Will you tell me, tomorrow maybe, how negotiations are going in the Glikkus? I’m worried that hostilities are rising. The trade can’t exploit them, you know…” She rested her head on his shoulder, eyelids heavy. 

“Tomorrow, darling girl. Tonight, you need your rest.” He placed his hand against her head softly, kissing her forehead. “I’ll ring Tilly to put you to bed.”

“There’s something else I want to talk to you about…tomorrow…” she murmured, her eyes closed, memory drifting to the little square card currently stowed in the pocket of her robe. 

“Tomorrow.” He agreed. 

Chapter Text

While the manor was in a state of preparation and expectation for the evening’s ball, Glinda’s entire morning had been consumed by ministerial obligations at the People’s Palace. 

First had been the briefings, those dreary closed-door proceedings in which the table full of older men with facial hair treated her like an unruly daughter whose dowry they didn’t care to pay. 

She’d sat bored in her stiff chair while a whiskery, white-haired minister chided her. 

“The barons feel that their support goes unappreciated; you have failed to inform them of your trade initiatives with advanced notice enough that they may prepare.” He’d said gravely. 

“Which barons? What preparations?” She’d asked, adopting the mannerisms of mock innocence. “You might remember and remind these profoundly rich friends of yours that it is quite illegal to play the trades. Why should I conspire with them to exploit the market and thus the pockets of the poor?” 

“Exploit the markets?!” He’d sputtered, offended. “Certainly not! Why, the Wizard—”

“Hardly the paragon of corruption.” She’d cut in icily. 

“Oh, but Lady Glinda,” soothed the minister to her right, his heavy hand on her shoulder. “No, it isn’t anything like that. You must understand…” he droned on in his saccharine tone, explaining the convoluted arrangement—painfully obvious in its deception—all the while stroking her upper arm so that the knuckles of his hand grazed her breast. She shuddered. 

“There will be no more of this practice. Inform your barons.” She set her chin. The men had begun to grumble at once, a low droning sound that made her head hurt. She allowed them their moment of dissent, her eyes traveling up the dark panels of the walls to the gallery of portraits that surrounded her. The Ozmas were her sole comfort, but their portraits were affixed to the wall behind her. The rest of the room aimed to honor the lineage of ministers who had thus far served as advisors to the throne since the conception of Oz itself. All men. Their portraits looked down upon her with disdain. 

“There is another matter.” This came from down the table at her left so that she had to lean forward an inch to lay eyes on its speaker. She didn’t bother, knowing who spoke so formally and with such an air of authority. “These addresses of yours to the Ozian public.”

“Please, sir, do tell us the matter with that matter before I expire from anticipation.”

“Lady Glinda, please.” She could practically hear his eyes close with disgust. “The matter is the growing…shall I say, enthusiasm? This increase in public-facing appearances and the way you speak to them seems to be building up a frenzy.”

She wanted to laugh. “I believe it was my… popularity that once convinced the ministers of my capacity for leadership. Has this changed?”

“Well, no. Not precisely. But, you see, it is a strain on security, the courts are overrun. There is a struggle to contain them, you understand.”

“Oh, I do believe we’ve found a patch of common ground.” She said with some satisfaction. “Rescind some of the Home Guard, if it is such a strain to provide them. I haven’t the need.”

“That would not do, Your Goodness. It would be unwise at this juncture to remove protection, much to my displeasure. Believe me that I would quite approve reallocating the guard for the militaristic duties for which they have been trained, but were something to happen and it was revealed the guard had been revoked…”

“Is something to happen?” She asked sharply, her blonde curls whipping with the sudden turn of her head. The ministers shifted uncomfortably in their seats. “Well?” She implored, an octave higher. 

“Oh, no, Lady Glinda. Of course not.” The old man coughed with a horrible rattle. 

“How do you propose to solve the matter of my popularity’s expense, if not a reduction in my security service?” 

“The ministers believe a reduction in public appearances might quell some excitement.” Answered the man with the white whiskers. 

At this she did laugh, sending the ministers again into their nervous twitchings. 

“I fail to see the issue in having a leader in whom Ozians trust, one who is well-liked. Your shortsightedness is disappointing, gentlemen.” She stood then, an act which forced the rest of them to their feet. 

“You seem to forget that my appointment as Throne Minister was always to be temporary. I had hoped we might align on the objective of a renewed sense of trust and faith in the throne during such tumult. Instead you are frightened that…they like me?” 

A guard quickly handed her her jeweled scepter and she began to move toward the door.  

“Ministers, I shall be eagerly awaiting your advisement. In the meantime, it would behoove you to remember the needs of Oz, and those values we had once agreed upon as her stewards. I shall not be sitting through more of these poorly devised plans.” She glanced back at them over her shoulder. “I have a public address to prepare for.” Her upturned nose was the first thing out of the room. 

“Lady Glinda!” A man’s voice echoed down the palace’s grandiose hallway, ricocheting off the stone walls. Glinda paused, her hand stilling on the scepter at eye level. The guards who circled her stopped, too, breaking formation to reveal the speaker at the other end of the hall. She turned to look. 

“Lord Avaric, the very Margreave of Tenmeadows himself.” Her hand moved to her chest, her smile showing every tooth. 

He bowed respectfully as he approached. He’d changed little since Shiz beyond inheriting his father’s title and estate, as fine in dress and charm as ever. Her spine remained rigid. 

“A sight as ever, Lady Glinda, if I may say.” He brought his hand to his heart as if to prove he meant it. 

“You may.” She tilted her head, her smile pulling to one side. 

She did not need a looking glass to know that it was true, as groomed as she was on an ordinary day she spent twice as long preparing herself on mornings she met with the ministers, always ensuring it was an imposing, intimidating beauty she arrived with. The cut of her dress accentuated her bust and narrowed sharply at the waist, billowing out into a sea of pale blue skirts. She smirked when she caught his eyes lingering below her chin, tapping the scepter lightly until his gaze rose again to meet her own. 

“Might I escort you to the court?” He asked, extending his arm. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a slight movement from Wes in her periphery. 

“Certainly.” She breezed, her touch light as she laced her arm through his, her other hand resting on his bicep. Under his fine jacket she felt him flex his muscles. 

“Quite keen for my attention this morning,” She pursed her lips, gazing at him as though thoughtful through her painted eyelashes. As they began to walk slowly she could sense Wes’ disapproval. 

“A woman would wonder whether you didn’t aim to seduce—if she didn’t know better.” He laughed with her. “So tell me why the handsome Margreave wanted to walk with me this morning.” 

He made a sound as though she’d presented a difficult question, the sound of their steps slow and steady against the slate floor, her heels louder than his boots. 

“Would you rather tell me what the old boys have been saying about me? Or are the two one and the same?” Her tone was carefully light. 

“Lady Glinda, I am sure they’ve already raised the question of a reduction in public appearances…”

“They have.” 

“...and you declined.”

“Naturally.” This laugh was authentic. “Lord Avaric, we have known one another a great many years. Have you ever known me to decline public presentations? Especially to the crowds of Ozians who long to see me?” 

“But of course not. And who would? If I were the most beloved in all of Oz I wouldn’t hide from it either.”

“So…?” She asked, genuine curiosity creeping into her voice. He stopped walking. 

“Lady Glinda,” He began to speak again, suddenly very serious. His hands moved to her upper arms, startling her. “Go on with your public appearances, but darling,” He spoke with enough force as to unintentionally shake her shoulders, her tiara sliding. He moved to fix it when she slapped his hand away. Her other hand moved in warning against his broad chest. Behind her a flicker of movement as the guards followed her lead, prepared to intervene. 

“Darling is a bit forward, even for a Tenmeadows.” She frowned. 

“The matter of the trades is less flexible than your fawning audiences, I’m afraid.” Ignoring her hand, he reached again toward her arm when Wes stepped forward. 

“That is the Throne Minister you are manhandling.” Wes growled, a hand moving toward the hilt of a sword at the hip. Avaric took a step back, making a show of clutching his hands to his front. Glinda set her chin, watching him from under a furrowed brow. 

“Oh, it isn’t I who is the threat, to be sure.” His eyes met Glinda’s. “I apologize for any offense, My Lady, but you must understand the severity. There are consequences for choices that declare a threat to a man’s wealth. Not I, no. I wanted only to warn you. I shall leave you to your court session.” He bowed his head. In return she nodded dismissively. 

Glinda watched with narrowed eyes as Wes shepherded Avaric down the hall. Once out of sight she adjusted her curls and tiara, rotating her chin to stretch her neck. It wasn’t even noon. 

…

Overseeing the court had been only the littlest bit more successful. It had been her idea, after all, to initiate the open proceedings where disgruntled Ozians might have an audience with the ministers to seek justice or compensation. When it didn’t exhaust, she quite liked the spectacle of it, and the opportunity to intervene with calming diplomacy. 

One by one the Ozians had come down the line to the panel of ministers, with Glinda at the center in the carved seat of the Throne Minister. She smiled until the muscles in her face gave, then continued to smile, encouraging and bright as she could manage to be. 

By the time Wes escorted her into the manor she felt she might collapse, but instead allowed Tilly and Wes to unload her extra layers, helping her to settle on the striped chaise lounge in her parlor with a bolster at the small of her back. 

“Lady Glinda?” Wes asked softly from the doorway. Glinda opened one eye as if in the midst of a clumsy wink. Wes hesitated. “Are you alright?”

“I am dreadfully tired, Wes. I think I shall go to bed for an hour or two while I can steal it.”

“I meant about—”

Glinda swatted the air dismissively, both eyes shut again. “It’s nothing. Always the same men and their same methods.”

…

It was as if all of Oz had gathered in the square outside of the People’s Palace, just under the balcony where Glinda the Good, Throne Minister of Oz, was known to make her public addresses. The afternoon was chilly but bright, a cold pleasantness like an empty smile from a beautiful woman. The Ozians shivered in their fine clothes, dressed up for the occasion in hopes of catching her attention and her favor. 

When the small woman in the enormous ball gown stepped lightly forward onto the balcony, the crowd erupted. In spite of—or because of—the earlier threats of the ministers, Glinda greeted the people with a brilliant, dazzling smile. Her face was painted for the evening’s festivities, lips a deep rose, cheeks pink, and eyelashes dark and sultry. Her blonde curls were coiffed into an elegant and elaborate updo beneath her more imperial evening tiara, a few well-placed curls falling around her delicate ears. 

She waited for the mass to quiet, one hand poised carefully around her scepter, sparkling jewels atop each finger. When the noise continued far past the standard din of such a gathering she giggled, placing her hand atop her heart and curtsying daintily. 

“Oh!” She laughed with embarrassment. “I love you, too!” Women and men alike were charmed, transfixed. “Fellow Ozians, I couldn’t be humbler to stand here with you all—now really, please, this is too much…” she interrupted herself to mutter, tapping her scepter patiently. 

“Thank you. Now, really, I am so happy to see your happy faces; I know everything isn’t always so easy all of the time, but you do see what happens when we persevere? Every day we are—all of us—making strides toward a better Oz. One that takes care of all of its people—er, beings—where each of us has opportunity, and love, and the ability to make our lives all that we want them to be. Yes, how wonderful!” She paused, beaming, while they celebrated this. 

“We are here to take care of each other!” Her voice broke with passion, her hand returning to her heart. “We must be kind, generous, and civil. Sometimes we must make sacrifices for the common good, and when we do it is with faith that we, in turn, will be taken care of. There is strength in unity, strength in the collective, in community. We have seen the dark times of disunity, when we lost trust and turned against one another. We don’t want to return to those times, do we?”

“So have faith, my Ozians, and know that as your Throne Minister—however long I am here—I intend to serve you justly, humbly, and with great regard for the quality of each one of your lives. I do want to say that trade negotiations continue—” the mass below her groaned loudly. She winced at the few unkind words directed at the territories.

“Please listen to me.” She asked gently, quieting her voice so that the crowd, too, would need to quiet theirs to hear her. “Negotiations take time. Diplomacy is delicate work, and I am dedicating so very much of my time to ensure that it is fair and just. Please be patient, and understand that everything I do is for you. I do care so much for you.” She ended the sentence with a lilting, emotional tone, and by the reactions of the people below her she knew that she had reached them, however temporarily. 

“I must go now. You know that we are holding a benefit ball this evening to raise funds for the building of the public school and library! I hope that I will see your beautiful faces there, and that you will feel so generous as to support such a worthy cause!” She blew them a kiss, tapped her scepter, and turned away, frowning to have ended with a lie. Of course they would not all be there—only the wealthy had been sent an invitation. 

Crope waved dramatically from the carriage, making a spectacle out of bowing to her. She laughed to herself, doing her best to ignore him so as to look as noble and elegant as possible on her public departure. She stopped suddenly when a young boy crossed her path. 

“Hello there.” She said with a little smile, tilting her head. His brown eyes went very wide, overwhelmed by the billowing, glittering ball gown and the jeweled tiara atop her head. Noticing the effect she’d had, she sank to her knees beside the boy. 

“Hi.” He whispered softly. “I just wanted one of those pretty flowers.” He pointed at the field of multicolored poppies off to the distance, miles down the yellow road. 

“Oh, they are pretty, aren’t they?” She sighed, looking out past the city. “But they are very, very far away. Why don’t we look at these, here? Aren’t they lovely, too?” She reached over to finger a patch of small, purple flowers. The boy reached to touch them.

“Glinda, your dress! Your white gloves!” Crope groaned loudly, gawking. 

“Glinda?” The boy asked in amazement, recoiling back into himself. She shook her head, plucking a flower for him anyway and extending it like a peace offering. 

“Yes, my name is Glinda.” She said gently, pleased when he took the flower from her hand. “What’s yours?” Over her shoulder she caught a flash of color, and she turned to see a dark-haired woman running across the field toward them.

“Mama, it’s G-Glinda the Good!” He called loudly, so suddenly that it startled her. The woman approached them, red with embarrassment as she dropped to his side, keeping her eyes low. 

“My Lady, I am so sorry—”

“Don’t be. Please.” Glinda said softly. “We were just admiring the pretty flowers, weren’t we?” 

The boy nodded, hiding his face in his mother’s shoulder. He whispered something, holding out the flower. 

“Lady Glinda gave you that flower?” She whispered back to him. “That was very generous of her, did you thank her properly?” He shook his head and she clucked her tongue. “Felix,” She groaned with a sigh, turning back to Glinda. 

“I am sorry, My Lady. He didn’t ruin your gown, did he?” 

Glinda was rising to her feet, shooing away a guard who had come up behind her. 

“Of course he didn’t. Felix was a perfect gentleman, and I am very grateful that he let me look at the flowers with him.” When he waved goodbye, his smile broad and white, she waved back with the most genuine smile she’d shared with anyone that day. 

On the carriage ride home she was in a considerably better mood, even with Crope bemoaning the bit of dirt on her dress, spitting into a handkerchief to dab at the imperfection. 

“Don’t you dare!” She laughed, swiping her skirts from his hand. “You’re worse than a mother sometimes.”

“But your gloves!” He pointed to the soiled fingertips, edged purple by the petals. She slipped them off her hands and slid open the carriage window, cackling with glee at the look of horror on his face. 

“Damn the gloves!” She tossed them out of the window, watching the wind carry them off toward the poppy fields.

…

Her joy was short-lived. The morning’s hostilities were still on her mind by the time the manor had filled with guests for the benefit ball, and a certain tension was sewn through her shoulders as she tottered about the crowd in her enormous dress and small, sparkling shoes. 

Chuffrey sat in one of the grand chairs overlooking the ballroom floor and its activities, smoking his pipe while his booming laugh harmonized with the barons he was engaging. Glinda stood on the opposite side of the room, occasionally glancing over her chalice at the little circle of ancient men who hoarded all of the wealth in Frottica. 

In moments like this one she recalled her own origins—humble, compared to the scene in which she found herself surrounded. She should be pleased—and sometimes she was—but from the moment she’d ascended by way of marrying Chuffrey she began to find a certain distaste for the crowds her tastes attracted. 

Of course she appreciated the finery and always would, but she had also always believed in the existence of a path that would bring the most good with the least amount of harm accrued, if only she could find it. Instead, she seemed constantly to stumble into the thickets of others’ poor choices; their greed and willingness to take in order to receive, leaving her with the weight of making amends. Where had she gone wrong to be so surrounded by such spoiled souls? 

“Glinda!” Crope hissed by her ear, drawing her focus back to him and the group of women who murmured animatedly to one another. 

“What did she say?” Glinda whispered, jutting her chin toward Muffy, whose brilliant red dress was almost as enormous as Glinda’s emerald green one. 

“They’re talking of the Plum & Pip again.” He answered quietly, taking a long sip of his drink. “Which reminds me…”

“You received my note?” She asked, her eyebrows raised. She harbored some small sliver of hope that he hadn’t, that it had gotten lost in transit. She was surprised by the greater part of her that hoped he had. 

“I did. I’ve already made the arrangements. Day after tomorrow…” She did not hear what followed, for Avaric’s name had been announced, and he had just appeared at the ballroom’s entrance, scanning the crowd for her. 

“Did you hear?!” Gilly had rushed to her side, unable to contain her bubbling excitement. “The Margreaves himself is here, and he’s donated an enormous sum of gold to the benefit!” The women began to gasp and giggle over him. Glinda turned to Crope. 

“I need to take some air. Can you be sure I’m not followed?” She asked confidentially. 

He bit back the desire to ask but agreed, receiving a peck on the cheek and a breeze of perfume as she skirted past. 

Glinda had slipped through the crowd to her parlor, relieved at its still silence. Outside on the balcony in the quiet solitude she patted her handkerchief at the corners of her eyes where a few tears had escaped. On nights like this she could not help but scan the skies in hopes she might catch the brief motion of flight…

With the familiar, bitter taste of disappointment she watched the moon’s reflection in the waters of the canal, the bits of twinkling light reaching toward her through the dark city. She shivered, whether at the sight of the palace or the chill of the night air she couldn’t be sure. 

“Here, My Lady.” 

Glinda startled with a little gasp of surprise. “I told Crope—” but when she turned it was only Wes, extending an arm to offer Glinda the jacket of the Home Guard. 

“I slipped right by him.” Wes smirked. “Here, Your Goodness, it’s quite cold out here.”

“Oh, Wes.” She whispered. “Always so thoughtful. I couldn’t…”

“I promise, there’s no one to see. You’re shivering…”

Glinda allowed Wes to drape the jacket over her shoulders, smiling gratefully up at the tall guard who now stood in only a crisp white shirt and dress pants. She found her eyes wandering over Wes’ body and forced herself to turn away again, looking out over the water. 

“Does it truly work, that disguise of yours?” She asked quietly, sipping her wine. 

“It isn’t a disguise—it is my uniform.” It seemed to Glinda she might have wounded Wes’ feelings, so she tried again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said more softly. Wes only looked at her curiously. 

“I just meant, does no one truly notice?” She turned so that her back leaned against the iron railing.

“You can’t hurt me, Lady Glinda.” Wes assured her. “You are the only one to have known me for what I am. Well, you and one other in my circle.” 

“Remarkable, really. Even without the jacket you manage it. Your body—I could never—” she bit her lip when she realized she had referred to her own bosom. “I don’t mean to be vulgar.” She said apologetically. 

“I’m flattered, My Lady,” Wes replied quietly, beginning to blush a bit. “It’s quite alright. And anyway, it was I who intruded upon your privacy. I was just—”

Glinda gripped the railing, breathing in the night air. “Worried I might jump?”

“Only when you say such things…but I don’t believe you would.” 

“How did you know to find me here?” She asked then. Wes tilted her head. 

“You often come out here when…you need privacy.”

They looked at one another for a moment until Glinda’s gaze drifted again to the crisp white shirt. 

“Are you not chilled to the bone?” Glinda asked, her own teeth beginning to chatter. 

“No, My Lady.” And though her lips were beginning to blue, she did seem quite comfortable and solid beside the smaller, shivering woman. 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Wes.” Glinda said thoughtfully, unable to bring herself to look at the woman as she said it. “I—has Master Crope arranged things with you for tomorrow? I want to be alone, and your company is the closest thing to it. Please do believe me, in my world that is a compliment.”

“Yes, My Lady. Tomorrow afternoon.”

If Wes understood the object of the arrangements she did not let on, her face unreadable as she stood beside Glinda, the two lapsing into a comfortable silence over the noise of the gathering as it spilled out onto the street below them. 

Chapter Text

The building was barely noticeable, carefully crafted against drawing attention to itself. There was no one else around but the cloaked woman who had slipped discreetly from her carriage and through the alleyway to the sleek stone building just beyond it. Behind her, the dark-clad driver of the carriage watched carefully. A slit in the wall opened, revealing only a set of dark charcoal-lined eyes. With one glimpse at the hooded woman at the threshold, the eyes disappeared, the slit was sealed, and a heavy door was opening.

When the cloaked woman passed through the alleyway entrance it was clear all details had been prearranged precisely. With the exchange of one word the young woman with dark eyes who greeted her nodded impassively, gesturing for her to follow down a few steps, through a lengthy hallway, and into an intimate sitting room where she was left to herself. The whole place was dim from start to finish, but not dingy. Mostly marble and a kind of slate, the interior was sleek and modern; there could be no doubt of the caliber of clientele whose needs were met here. 

Glinda opted not to sit in any of the seats provided, instead wrapping her travel cloak tighter around herself, looking about the room. It was more intimate than the exterior hallways, but still gave no sign of that kind of intimacy. She felt a chill. The stone walls were bare, only interrupted with inset lighting fixtures that cast the room with a slight bit more warmth than the hallway. 

Beside the seat she supposed was intended for her, there was a beautiful dressing divider woven with intricate images of rivers and valleys, trees and flowers, and here and there a nude woman in recline. She hadn’t expected to find something so lovely here. The curious piece was well-crafted, the detail stunning. 

Glinda leaned forward, running her finger over the fabric figure of a blonde with generous breasts. She prickled with embarrassment at sensing some resemblance between herself and the fabric woman. She trailed her finger over the blonde curls—

The sudden sound of a throat clearing somewhere behind the curtain frightened her. She gasped loudly, clasping her hands together as though the one to touch had been burned. 

“Do you intend to sit down? We don’t have all day,” came a woman’s smoky voice. It seemed to be smirking at her. Just barely she could glimpse the silhouette of a person sitting casually behind the divider, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. She seemed to be wearing pants.

“I beg your pardon!” Glinda gasped, as alarmed at the presence that had been concealed behind the curtain as she was with the tone in which it addressed her. 

“You will, but not just yet. My apologies, Your Goodness, there are some formalities I must adhere to as we familiarize ourselves with one another.” 

Glinda’s throat felt tight, but she was determined to withhold any sign of vulnerability from the stranger.

“Do you know who I am?” The arrogance was a thin veil, but the authority was real; she had summoned it as though drawing power directly from the emeralds and crystals atop her head. 

“I do.” The voice was sober and grave, acknowledging the serious implications of this truth. 

“Now. Will you sit?” The presence asked again. There was something familiar about the voice, but Glinda cast away the outlandish thought as soon as it came. 

She knew she would, but some bit of defiance shot through her—she did not want to abide by this stranger. Instead, she pushed back the hood of her cloak and ran her hand over her curls. With the moniker it was clear this person knew her identity, and with the door closed she felt liberated to unveil herself. Determined to keep the presence waiting, she adjusted her various layers of dress, smoothed a loose ringlet, and checked her face with her pocket glass before lowering herself to the seat. 

“All the curls in their places, princess?” The haughty tone scolded. “It’s not my time you’re wasting.” 

“I am not a princess.” Glinda carefully corrected, readjusting herself. 

“You make every appearance as one.” 

“It’s a wonder you can see anything through this gorgeous thing—I can’t see much of you at all.” She craned her pale neck, jutting out her chin. The figure was sitting just a few feet away, her elbow resting on the arm of the chair. The colors and shapes of the divider confused the image in the dim lighting, obscuring much beyond the outline. 

“This is just the process, My Lady.” The woman’s voice had softened. “Formalities, for your benefit I assure you.” Glinda had settled into a comfortable position, her head tilted to listen attentively. 

“All kinds of people come here for all kinds of reasons and needs; we are sure to start with a set of very clear, well-communicated expectations established by these opening sessions. Your associate did assist with some basic opening parameters, but now it is time for you and I to get to know one another for a more explicit understanding.”

“I see.” Glinda said primly, hardly knowing what to say. It was not often she was left speechless.

There came a rustling sound from beyond the barrier between them, and with a light crackling sound the room began to fill with a variety of aromatics—smoky and musky, something floral but not sweet. She breathed deeply, feeling relief in her nerves as she allowed the scents to soothe her. There was something arousing about them as well, underscoring the tension in her body deliciously as she became aware of her senses.

“It’s normal to be nervous. I imagine nervousness has a place for you, being who you are. But here, you are safe. Nervousness is a kind of excitement, isn’t it? A sort of energy in the nerves? Perhaps there is some potential for pleasure there…”

Glinda felt her heart beating hard and fast in her chest, a kind of throb. What had she done? What was she doing? The woman’s voice sounded so impossibly similar…no. This is dangerous, isn’t it? Subconsciously she had taken a bulk of her skirt in her fist. 

“You are here because…” She heard the woman returning to her seat. She felt an urge to press through the fabric between them, to lay her eyes on that mysterious face, touch her skin. She wanted some tactile evidence that this was real at all. “Someone recommended this place to you?”

“Many women in my circle seem to be clients here.”

“And you think…you know just enough to be here, but you still feel there is much you don’t know.” The woman wasn’t asking—she was telling. 

“How do you…?” Glinda trailed off, looking around the room. The dim lighting, the candles, the deep musky scents…“What is it? Some new religion? Some magic they don’t teach at Shiz?” Her voice sounded small despite herself, but the woman only laughed. 

“It must seem ritualistic, I imagine. No, this has nothing to do with a god. Some find it spiritual, but that’s a personal matter. I, myself, do not believe in souls.”

Glinda stopped breathing. 

“You asked how. Well. This entire art is about being in tune with one another. It rests on my ability to anticipate you, and you, me. Your little circle of friends may not have told you much, but part of that is by design. This is a personalized experience; what one client experiences will not be the same for another. What one client desires is not the same as another.” The woman was calm, precise in her wording and manner of speaking as if it mattered very much to her that Glinda understood. Glinda, in turn, had found her lungs again, but her breathing was shallow. 

“Did my associate request any of these customizations, any…desires, to begin with?” She barely managed. 

“To begin with? He insisted it be with a woman, though he was not sure you would be startled by one. In fact, you don’t seem surprised at all.”

“Without expectation it is hard to be surprised by what one does find. Although, he knows enough to know I would not come here seeking male attention.” For this being only the second time admitting it to herself, the words came easily to her. Of course she would not come here for a man.

“Have you much experience with women?”

“Experience…I suppose the way you intend it, no.” 

“You are married to a man.” It was neither telling nor a question, but almost a point of curiosity in the way the voice shaped the words. 

“I do not have much experience there either.” Glinda felt a bit of heat in her cheeks. When silence followed she dared to elaborate. “He is…considerably older. It has not interested him since our wedding night. He is at present much more like a dear friend to me.” 

“And he knows that you are here?” The subtle, sultry way the woman’s voice carried titillated Glinda, as though the right answer might be the wrong one.

“I intend to tell him—I wanted to. I think he…would probably be pleased for me, to tell you the truth.”

“This arrangement is by your design; you are clever. But you do feel lonely, don’t you? Because what you want is to be with women.” It wasn’t unkind, though it stung. 

“A woman.” She corrected. The admission was unexpected even to herself. Her tone was raw, leaving a hint of a warning in the air. The woman would not press on that wound. 

“Many women—well, many of the few who are—in positions of authority or power appreciate the exchange of dominance…someone to tell you no, someone to withhold what you most want and give it only when you’ve proven you deserve it…Your associate thought you might find…fulfilment through such a dynamic.” 

Her knuckles had gone white as her fist clenched around her skirt. 

“Yes.” It was all she dared to say. 

“It arouses you…the thought of being a good girl?”

She knew the woman heard it when she inhaled sharply. 

“Out loud, My Lady. Verbal agreement is essential. Do you think you’d like to be a good girl for me?” 

“Yes.” She squeaked. 

“The thought arouses you?”

“…Yes.” She whispered finally. 

There followed another silence in which Glinda silently scolded herself for her excitement. She couldn’t remember a previous humiliation as striking as this one.

“There are very exact things one must do to be good in a place like this.” The voice said, finally. 

“Your pleasure, your punishment—it would all be in my hands. You must trust me, and submit to me. Being who you are, this will require complete honesty between us. We need to be able to say no to one another when it is appropriate. It is…rather unusual to even consider spanking a throne minister without consequence. You understand?”

Glinda wondered briefly if the other woman could hear her heartbeat, or the rush of blood throbbing at her pulse points. 

“I need to hear you.” The voice was soft. “Perhaps you do not wish for this?”

“I-do-I understand.” She stammered. “And I do wish for it.” A hint of petulance had emerged, like a child whose toy was being dangled in front of her. 

“You understand that here pain and pleasure are interwoven, submission and dominance are always the present forces? That there is not a question—I will hurt you, and it is because you want me to?” 

“I do.” Glinda breathed. 

She could hear the woman shifting in her seat. 

“You will—at all times—maintain the power to stop things if you need to. Usually the client will propose a very obscure, out-of-place word that will serve as a code should you need things to stop. Is there a word that suffices for you?”

“Is stop so insufficient?” Glinda asked, confused. 

“My dear girl, yes.” The woman’s laugh was throaty. It confused her that she didn’t find it wholly unpleasant to be laughed at. 

“You’ll find that the throat easily says stop before the mind wills it. The point of selecting a very specific word is that you will only be speaking it because you very clearly intend it. And I will very clearly understand it to be the line you do not wish to cross. Perhaps it is a word you do not enjoy saying.”

“Ah, well.” Glinda sighed. “Might as well be Munchkinland.” She muttered. She could hear the woman scoff. 

“Oh, I don’t mean to offend you—it’s just…” She faltered. This woman wouldn’t want to hear about matters of state, would she? Not that they should be spoken here, anyway. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“What you say to me is confidential. Under no circumstance will I repeat anything you tell me. I do think that’s important for you to know.”

“In that case, perhaps a code word for “Matter of State?”” Glinda asked coyly. The woman laughed. “Well, it can’t be Munchkinland, we’ve used that already.” She answered. 

“Maybe palace, then…” Glinda said self-consciously, beginning to wonder if the woman was growing bored with her. 

“I want to know what the obvious limits are, what you do not want me to do.” She was pivoting to other matters. Glinda thought for a moment. Not knowing the extent of the woman’s imagination or skill, it was difficult to imagine what she wanted, much less what she wouldn’t want. 

“Well, my appearance is sensitive. The people of Oz have certain…expectations. Even the maids’ eyes wander.” She looked down at her dress, remembering the morning’s process of Tilly’s clumsy hands. 

“I suppose in your position that would matter. We’ll just have to get creative there. What else?”

“I’m not sure, except…well. It has been a very long time, you know. My body—I may need a period of grace.” It was embarrassing to admit such a thing. 

“That is only natural. My role requires intuition and attentiveness to you and to your body.”

“What shall I call you?” Glinda asked then, her eyes trained on the silhouette between threads of fabric. 

“Most call me “Mistress.” I typically insist. But if something else suits My Lady—”

“It would suit me if you would simply call me Glinda, please.” 

“If it pleases you…Glinda.”

“It does please me.” Glinda whispered. “This is the most privacy I’ve had in…ages. I’m afraid it won’t last.”

“And me?”

For half a second, Glinda almost had the nerve to ask permission to call her Elphaba. But something about it felt inappropriate, risky, and she had the sense the woman wouldn’t agree to it. 

“What is the first letter of your name?” She asked. There seemed to be some hesitation, and she was about to agree to Mistress when the answer came:

“L.”

“L., did you say? Or El?” Glinda was taken aback. “El–”

“Glinda, I’m going to remove the divider, unless there is anything else you wish to ask, or tell me?” The woman was standing now. Glinda could see a gloved hand reaching for the divider’s siding. 

“Do you see a lot of clients?” She asked quietly, emboldened by their growing intimacy. “Are you ever…privately retained?”

“There are those of us who do that…I would, for an expense. I have one other client currently.” The woman answered. She paused for a moment, and then the divider was shifted until it ran parallel with the wall. Glinda remained seated, looking up at the dark figure. 

The woman was tall and impossibly slender, clad entirely in black from her riding boots and tight riding pants to her slim-fitting gloves. She wore a black cloak tied at the neck, the hood masking her face. Glinda was disappointed; the woman’s finer details were as obscured now as they had been behind the divider. Still, she couldn’t help the way her eyes lingered over the attractive hips, the long legs. The hands looked so handsome in their tight gloves. The woman scoffed at her. 

“Your lust for women is barely restrained. I hope you have the good sense to divert your eyes in palace proceedings.” Glinda flushed. “Stand up, come closer to me.”

It was refreshing to be treated so differently from how her maids and ministers approached her. It felt bold and honest in a way interpersonal matters rarely felt. She stood immediately. 

“Take off your cloak—you can leave it on that chair.”

Glinda nodded, her mouth running dry. She untied her cloak and quickly folded it, leaving it in a tiny square on the seat. 

“Come.”

Tentatively, Glinda brought herself forward, stepping up so close to the woman that their hands nearly brushed. She closed her eyes when a gloved hand took her chin, turning her head to the right and then to the left as if inspecting her. Glinda felt as though at any moment she might turn to liquid. No one had ever done such a thing to her before. 

“When I give you a command, I want you to acknowledge me. You can say, “Yes, Mistress,” or “Yes, L.” but you cannot just nod like a horse. Understand?”

Glinda bit her lip. “Yes, Mis—El . I’m sorry.” She tried to determine which name might feel more natural to her tongue, caught on both. She tried to tuck her chin but the gloved hand held it in place. Her cheeks were burning. She felt like an utter fool playing dress up, as if the very weight of her tiara mocked her. She swallowed the rippling nervous giggle that threatened to escape her. 

“I know this is new to you, Glinda.” L.’s voice dripped with pity. Up close, the woman’s resemblance to Elphaba made her feel faint, but right or wrong she dared not risk being sent off now. Not while that gloved thumb was stroking her bottom lip. She could feel herself trembling. 

The other gloved hand ran over her hair, grasping a handful and tugging hard on the golden locks for good measure. Glinda gave a sigh of pleasure, moaning when the woman continued to tug until it almost felt the hairs would be torn from her scalp. Again the woman scoffed, releasing the curls. She made a point of looking down at Glinda’s body.

Self-conscious, Glinda looked down at her own condition, fingers settling over her skirt. She’d worn her “simplest” dress, a long-sleeved cobalt-colored robe with a low-cut square neckline falling just at her chest. It lacked her usual generous bustles, though the skirts extended from her waist like a soufflé, accentuating her trim middle. She’d foregone any jewels with the exception of her day tiara, and the shoes she’d slipped over her small, stockinged feet were cobbled with a flat gold fabric, simple but pretty. She had no way of knowing if the woman would approve. 

“I need to inspect you, test your responses. Take off your dress.” The woman took a step back from Glinda, her long legs moving into shadow. Glinda suddenly felt very small and seen, and she hesitated for a moment, slipping back behind her public mask. 

“Inspect me? Is it not I hiring you?” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back on her heels for emphasis when she made a point of scanning her eyes over the other woman, who seemed immune to intimidation. 

“It is a mutual arrangement. It is just as necessary that I select you as a client as it is you selecting me. Are you quite finished? I’ll not disrobe for you, if that’s what you’re waiting for. I’m not your plaything.”

“But h-here?” She asked, a bit deflated, looking wide-eyed around at the empty room. “Mistress?” She tacked on contritely, folding her hands at her waist. 

“I imagine you learn quickly, when your pale little backside is at stake. Yes, here. Then I’ll take you to the chamber.” She laughed when Glinda shivered. 

Her own hands fumbled behind her, grasping for the hooks at the nape of her neck. She managed to unfasten the first few clasps, struggling as the dress began to slide heavily from her shoulders. She let out a huff of frustration when she reached for the clasps at the center of her back, between her shoulder blades. 

“Oh, you’re never without help, are you?” The woman came up behind her, shaking her head. 

“I suppose I can’t even trust my assistant with disrobing the Throne Minister. And I can’t even instruct you how I want you to dress for me, with so many eyes on your…stylistic choices.” Glinda bristled as the gloved hands roughly released her from the dress and petticoat, already moving on to her corset. 

“I don’t normally do this, you know. This’ll just have to be another one of our special exceptions.” 

“Thank you.” Glinda responded softly. “H-how would you have wanted me to dress for you?”

The hands stopped moving as the woman seemed to consider the question. 

“Something more revealing, I imagine. At the very least, something easy to remove.” 

Glinda couldn’t help but sigh with relief as her corset fell open. Her nerves vibrated as it was unhooked from her bloomers, the strappings dangling at her hips. 

“It would be my preference that you would arrive looking like a little harlot, without this ridiculous costuming. Although,” the woman extended her arm, admiring the fine bone corset still warm with the heat of Glinda’s body. “I imagine I’ll enjoy tying you back up in this.” A thrilled shiver went up Glinda’s spine. 

The woman continued to remove her many layers until she wore nothing but her thin chemise, bloomers, and stockings held at the thigh by her garters. The stripped layers were laid lengthwise atop her travel cloak, and she waited while the woman appraised her. 

“Your…” The woman gestured to her tiara. “I have a place where we can store it safely in the chamber, if you’ll follow me.” 

As the woman opened the door on the opposite end of the room, Glinda followed her toward the dark egress, realizing just how much danger she could be in. The woman could harm her, lock her away, starve her, take over Oz, all for the trade off of sex! Glinda heard the door click closed behind her. 

They descended a series of stairs in perfect silence, save for the sound of their feet. L.’s boots struck loudly against the stone stairs, while Glinda’s stockinged footsteps padded along behind her. At last the stairs gave way to a dimly lit basement room, the walls covered in the same inset lighting. The room was made of the same shaved stone, but there was something more intimate in the design. Here there were panels of fabric on the walls, which at a distance looked to be the same sort of woven fabric as the divider. They were beautiful. It appeared all of the furniture had been pushed to one side of the room, beside a large wardrobe carved from a dark oak. 

“Is there…a contract, Mistress?” Glinda whispered, shivering in the dark room. 

“You are finally feeling just how very vulnerable you really are.” The woman’s voice sounded curious from under her hood. “That would have been next had you been patient.” 

She crossed the room to a small shelf unit, rusting around some papers until she returned, balancing a quill and inkwell and an elegant scrap of parchment. She pushed them into Glinda’s arms as she turned to pull over a small table, gesturing for Glinda to lay the items down upon it.

“This is…very fine paper.” Glinda admired, fingering the page. L. grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t touch.” She scolded. Glinda shrunk back as the hooded woman leaned over the table, the quill in her right hand scratching over the page. Her eye caught the nearest fabric panel, and she wandered over to it. Here there were patterns of the same woven blonde. In one image she was undressing before a looking glass. Glinda reached to touch, gasping when the figure responded to her. She scanned the panel and it was then she noticed slight movement in each of the fabric figures, a kind of aliveness emanating from the tapestry. She leaned forward. This one’s hand traveling down a taut, naked stomach, reaching between her legs—

The sudden sense of nails raking through her hair brought gooseflesh to her skin. She cried out when the nails scraped her skin as the hand fisted in her hair, ripping it back from her scalp, dragging the back of her head until her neck thrust back painfully. She whimpered, tears prickling at the edges of her eyes, threatening to roll down her cheeks. She felt her tiara slip forward. 

“Are you a child?” L.’s voice was close by her ear, smoky and unnervingly calm. Glinda tried to shake her head, then remembered what she’d been told. 

“No, Mistress.” She whined, the pain and fear tightening her throat. The grip on her hair relaxed, and relief flooded her neck as it came back down. L. ran her fingers through the curls gently, as if fixing them. Respectfully, she readjusted the tiara. Her other hand went to Glinda’s shoulder, pressing so that Glinda was made to swivel to face her. 

“Are you quite sure? You’re so keen to experience through touch, the way a child does. You have greedy little fingers like a child.” L. took her hand, splaying her fingers with her own gloved ones. “But you have the hands of a lady.” She dropped the hand and stepped back from Glinda, glancing appreciatively at the trembling blonde. “And a woman’s curves.”

“She–she was moving.” Glinda breathed, and L. glanced at the panel with a laugh. 

“I shouldn’t touch you until you sign,” She said, gesturing to the parchment. “Come see.”

Glinda followed her to the table, her hands clasped at her waist. She wanted to pick up the paper, running her fingers over L.s startlingly perfect script, but dared not touch now. She scanned the agreement. It was well written, accounting for everything that had been discussed upstairs, factual and professional despite the context. L. had written a sample list of all that Glinda agreed to submit to (bondage, striking, touching, stripping, sensory deprivation, punishment, and pleasure). It was not comprehensive, as the contract stated, but it said nothing about Glinda touching L.

“Am I ever allowed to touch you?” She asked, hearing her voice affect the calm professionalism of her station, as if this were some legal agreement for the throne minister to sign. She did not look up from the paper, though her ear was trained on L.

“Strictly under my command, or with permission.” 

Glinda nodded. 

“Glinda, tell me if this is…palace…but your arrangements in regard to traveling here, they are secure? We advised your associate, but I do want to ensure your safety, and our secrecy.”

“There is…one guard within my service whom I trust with all personal matters. They are waiting in the alley with an unmarked carriage.” The genderless pronoun slipped from her lips easily; she would not betray Wes, but she found it strangely difficult to lie. 

“You trust…them…with something as confidential as this?” L.’s voice was low and serious. Glinda looked up at where she imagined the face to be within its hood, her own face carefully expressionless.

“I trust them with far more dangerous activities than this.” For the first time since they’d spoken, her voice was steel with certainty. 

The quill danced in her hand as she signed. 

In the quiet that followed, Glinda removed the tiara from her head, clutching it to her breast. L. brought over an ornate wooden box with gorgeous gold hinges and handles, instructing her to place the metal piece within its depths. The box was lined in velvet and it was handsome, a touch of luxury that reminded her of the divider in the meeting room. 

L. glanced at the large upright clock. 

“We have a little more than half of your session remaining.” She gestured for Glinda to step closer. From the height of her hood, Glinda was quite sure the woman’s eyes were on her breasts, thinly covered with the silk chemise. Chilled, her nipples poked through the fabric. 

“I’m going to cover your eyes, and then I am going to test you. Here is where we will truly get to know one another.” L. said with a hint of darkness in her voice. She left Glinda standing by herself, returning with a strip of black fabric. Glinda closed her eyes as the fabric was placed over them, and she steadied herself as she felt L. tie the fabric at the back of her head. She startled at the crackling sound of L. lighting the candle or incense stick that began to drift the intoxicating scent into the air around them. 

“Scared?” The other woman asked archly. 

“No, Mistress.” Glinda lied.  

She felt the hem of her chemise as it was lifted, the fabric tickling the back of her thigh as it rose. 

“Lift your arms.” L.’s deep voice instructed, and Glinda complied, leaving them there even after the chemise was lifted over her head. 

“Good, Glinda.” L.’s hands brought her wrists down until her arms were extended at her sides. Her touch trailed along Glinda’s arm, a gloved thumb returning to her lower lip as before. It stroked there, dipping to stroke along the inside of the lip, exposing the bottom row of small white teeth. She felt L.’s index finger press between her lips and she tentatively opened her mouth to a little “o” shape to accommodate the finger as it slid into her mouth, exploring her teeth, her tongue. 

“Suck.” L. commanded, and her lips came around the finger, drawing it in, sucking on it obediently. She felt herself blushing, her saliva beginning to pool in her mouth. The gloved finger was smooth and slick and unimaginably erotic in her mouth. 

“Good girl. You have the most delectable lips. So full and red against your fair skin. I can’t wait to ruin them.”

Glinda heard herself moan. She began to fear she would drool if she continued without wiping her mouth, and when L. pressed a second finger into her mouth she whimpered but did not stop the suctioning pull. Emboldened, she made ornate, barely perceptible little administrations with the tip of her tongue against the digits. 

“You’re showing off for me.” L. sounded pleased. 

Another hand stroked her cheek, sliding down to her throat until she felt the pressure of L.’s hand squeezing, her breathing restricting. She gasped. 

“Don’t stop,” Warned L.’s low voice. “or I shall strike you across your pretty face.” 

She continued to tighten the hand around Glinda’s throat slowly, and the blonde faltered despite herself. She felt the sting after she heard it—L.’s gloved hand as it struck her left cheek. She winced, but opened her mouth, desperate for compliance. 

The hand around her throat loosened, lowered to stroke her collarbone, to grab firmly at her breast. She moaned again when the gloved fingers taunted her nipple, transitioning from a light graze to a painful pinch. The sensation radiated in her center. The hand moved to her other breast, repeating until Glinda’s chest heaved, her nipples on fire. The gusset of her bloomers had dampened, a needful throb beginning to blossom from deep within her. 

“I will very much enjoy these.” L. murmured, giving both nipples a final twisting pull that brought out a guttural groan. 

L. seemed to step away suddenly. Blindfolded, Glinda listened to the sound of her boots, the sound of a door opening and closing. In a moment she had returned. Something tapped against her chest, slid down her belly, over her pelvic bone. It traveled down one thigh then up and over to the other, never dipping quite between her legs. L. circled her. She tapped the thing hard against her bottom, leaving behind a warm sting. 

“Do you know what this is?” L. asked, again smacking her with it. 

“Oh…” her brow stitched as she struggled to place it. L. hit her harder, then continued in a series of lighter smacks. “You have…a riding crop.” It took great effort to speak. 

“Do you like it, little pet?” The crop dragged down her ass, tracing up and down her thigh until it made its way to her inner thigh, moving ever so slowly upward until it just barely grazed Glinda’s bloomers. 

“Oh!” Glinda could not help her outburst, overcome with sensation. “Oh, El, yes.” She breathed, attempting to recover.

“I’ve never seen such tiny white bloomers, aren’t they meant to be mid thigh?” L. traced the hemline teasingly. 

“They are custom made.” Glinda confessed. 

“For whom? Wanted to scandalize your maid?” L. taunted, drifting the crop to the naked flesh beneath the hem of the bloomers. “What a thing to do, flaunting your gold coins on lingerie while your citizens starve.”

Glinda moaned; it was a mournful sound as much as it was a sound of acquiescence, as if she’d waited a very long time to hear someone say such a thing. 

“Ah.” The crop slid back out of her bloomers. “You crave shame.” 

“I don’t—well, maybe—I crave truth, Mistress.” Glinda whispered, her brow lowered. She shivered as the crop traveled along the waistband of her bloomers, tickling the flesh of her lower belly. Her stomach muscles tensed as it dipped below the waistline, and she could feel it as the woman slowly pushed the fabric down her hips with the turn of the crop. 

The exposure caught her breath in her throat as she felt the room’s chill in her most intimate area. The crop continued to drive the bit of white fabric down her thighs, over her knees, until the bloomers finally fell at her feet. It was silent save for Glinda’s little gasp. To be so exposed to the other woman while she herself could see nothing was a sensual, sensitive experience unlike anything. She was painfully aware of her own sex. 

“Oh, Throne Minister. Look at you.” L.’s voice was sultry, that hint of mockery bringing heat to Glinda’s cheeks. She was so disoriented by the eroticism she didn’t bother to remind the woman that down here she was as much Glinda as L. was Mistress. Had she the courage, however, she might admit it was maddeningly erotic to be reminded of her place as she stood in the nude before a complete stranger. 

L.’s gloved palm came to her belly. “So tight and soft. I can feel your muscles tensing when I touch you.” The hand rubbed small circles, making its way lower until the circles were traveling over the little blonde curls of her pubic hair. Glinda’s breathing was coming in short gasps. She cried out when the gloved fingers of the hand suddenly pinched down on the hairs, giving them a tight tug. 

“Oh!” She nearly wailed when instead of releasing L. had pulled on the hairs again. Glinda was mortified; the pain was a sharp nag so close to her sensitive center. She felt tears welling in her eyes. 

“Stop.” She moaned quietly. “Please, it hurts.” 

“You mean you aren’t enjoying this?” L. asked. “You know how to stop it.” 

Glinda groaned in relief when the little hairs were released, but the relief was short-lived. L. had returned to her breasts with rough hands, and before she knew it she felt the same intensity of those pinching fingers assaulting her nipples. Here there was an undercurrent of pleasure beneath the swelling pain, her body beginning to tense and writhe. 

“Stand still or I’ll have to restrain you.” L.’s voice was calm and cruel amid the torment. 

“I can’t…Mistress.” Glinda whispered, the sensation of agony rippling through her torso. 

She heard herself sob as the fingers twisted and pulled on the sensitive buds. Her hands sought to cover herself, but L. elbowed them away. 

“Do that again and I shall make you very sorry.” The woman said sharply, twisting her flesh sadistically between her fingertips. 

“Stop it! Oz, I can’t bear it.” Glinda cried. The tears were running down her cheeks. 

“It’s for you to stop it. Don’t issue commandments. Say the word…” L. pulled hard. 

“M-Munchkin…Munchkinland.” Glinda finally stammered, her chest heaving. Immediately, the fingers released, the gloved hands sliding down to her hips, holding her more gently. She shuddered, a final whimper escaping her throat as she fought to calm her breathing. 

“Thank you, Mistress.” Her voice was so quiet the other woman could barely hear her. 

“Good girl, that’s a good girl.” L. soothed, her voice close by Glinda’s ear. She felt L.’s hand as it brushed the tears from her cheek, the other holding her firmly by the hip. “That’s all you must say and it stops…all you must do is surrender yourself to me and I’ll take care of you.”

Glinda leaned forward, her forehead blindly seeking L.’s shoulder as she cried. It had been a cruel but necessary test, she understood now. 

“Hey.” The woman’s voice was firm but not unkind. She caught Glinda’s chin, brushing the blonde curls back from her face. “It was a painful lesson, but you learned, didn’t you?” She asked, her free hand gently cupping one of Glinda’s breasts. “Part of the point is to push your limits, but you must use your words when the limit’s been reached.”

An electric bolt passed through her when she felt L.’s lips around the sore skin of her nipple, her wet tongue lavishing soothing licks. Glinda’s core tightened. The woman’s attention turned to the other nipple until Glinda felt none of the previous pain but only the present pleasure. Her hands moved as if to clasp L.’s head, to fix her there, but she caught herself in time. She whined selfishly when the head moved away from her. 

“Don’t be greedy, Glinda. I oughtn’t to have even given you that. But look…”

L.’s hand traveled down her backside, to the back of her thighs at the garter where stocking gave way to skin. She realized, before L. reached the spot, that her need had begun to wet the inside of her thighs. The thought of the other woman seeing such a display seared a burning feeling through her groin. It was need. She had been reduced to nothing but need. 

She bit her lip as she fought to control herself. L.’s touch was drifting toward her wetness, teasingly stroking her inner thighs. 

“Just when I was beginning to think you couldn’t handle this.” Her fingers were relishing in Glinda’s mess, spreading her juices all over Glinda’s thighs as they trailed over her skin. 

“I think you liked it, Glinda. And maybe that scared you.” Glinda felt the words breathe into her ear. She could only respond with a whimper. 

When the back of the woman’s knuckles began to graze her sex Glinda tensed, unconsciously squeezing her thighs together. She wouldn’t get away with it. L. moved away from her so suddenly that Glinda could only tremble as she listened to the sound of the boots stepping around her. She squealed when the riding crop came down on her backside with a sharp sting. 

“Legs apart.” L. ordered sharply. Shakily, Glinda complied, her stockinged legs quivering. The crop came down again. 

“How many strikes was that?” The crop slid tantalizingly between her legs, stroking until her lower lips parted. It felt delicious. 

“Two…Mistress.” Glinda moaned. 

“We’re going to do ten.” The riding crop stroked again, bringing another moan from Glinda. “Count, or we’ll have to begin again.”

When the crop smacked down on the back of her thigh, Glinda was ready. 

“Three, Mistress.” She squeaked. 

Between each strike the crop would stroke her, spreading her wetness. By the time they got to nine her knees were shaking, her breathing tight. 

“N-nine…please, Mistress…” she moaned, her hand moving down to cover herself. 

“Move your hands.” The final thwack came down and the hot sting buzzed through Glinda’s core. She lowered her chin to her chest, trying to catch her breath. 

“You have no idea how much of a little whore you look right now.” L. sneered. Glinda whimpered, hearing the riding crop fall onto the table. 

“What kind of a leader wants to be treated like a slave? How do you expect to oversee all of Oz with all of that whining and whimpering? Glinda, you’re trembling.” 

Her knees continued to shake as she heard the woman’s boots step closer. How much more could she take? And how could she possibly expect to return home in such a state? 

When a gloved finger slipped through her folds she moaned disgracefully, rising up on her stockinged toes as if, could she only locate the source of her need with the woman’s hand, she might yet survive this. 

“How can they trust a woman with so much endless need?” L.’s fingers rubbed careless circles within her folds, tantalizing and dissatisfying at once. She whimpered, grinding down on the hand. “So greedy.” L. said with disgust, stilling her hand. “Who could trust such a slut to be able to help anyone but herself?”

Glinda shuddered. 

There was something about her wincing face that the woman found intriguing. The release of control was a desire she understood quite thoroughly, but here there was something else, something that deeply troubled the young Throne Minister, something that—to L.’s confusion—inspired a different approach. It was almost as if the bubbly little blonde nursed a wound she wouldn’t let close, some hurt she wanted to honor only with more hurt. What was the ethical standard in servicing someone like that in this way?

“You can’t see yourself right now, so let me describe it for you.” She murmured, one finger drifting aimlessly through Glinda’s slick center. 

“You’re completely open to me now. You’re like a little red flower desperate for a rainfall. Your ass is red, the backs of your thighs are red, your cheeks are deliciously pink and red. Your quivering little red mouth is all twisted up because what you really want is for me to fuck you until you scream. Your poor little pussy is dripping so desperately for my attention.” She watched with pleasure as Glinda’s stomach tightened, her shaky hands rolling into fists at her sides. 

“We’re running out of time, My Lady.” She taunted every reminder of the world outside, where this one would slip away. 

“Please, El…,” Glinda spoke softly. “Don’t let me go like this…”

L. clasped her hand around a pale wrist. “Lie back on the table, over here.” 

Glinda stumbled, thankful for the strong grip guiding her. She found the edge of the table, leaning down on her palms as she lifted her knee to climb atop it. Apparently impatient, L. grabbed her by the hips. 

“No, this way.” She commanded, practically throwing Glinda down on her back. She hooked her hands under the blonde’s knees, sliding her forward until her bottom reached the edge of the table. 

Glinda shivered when the hands trailed over her thighs, and she allowed them to drop open, her sex on full display. L. gazed down upon it hungrily for just a beat, grateful for the blindfold. She leaned forward until her hips aligned with the back of Glinda’s thighs, extending her hand to brush between Glinda’s legs. 

“I’ve never seen someone so wet during their first session. Usually I just send them home in whatever state, no matter how much they crave it.” She caressed with more force, for the first time traveling northward to Glinda’s clit, the smaller woman moaning with pleasure. 

“But you, spoiled brat that you are, with all of your exceptions,” her finger traveled down to Glinda’s entrance, teasing. “Could be dangerous if you don’t get your release. Can’t have you distracted and desperate. Oz knows you’ve waited years already for it.” Just as it seemed she would finally enter her, L. slipped away once more. Glinda remained in her own world of darkness, splayed out on the table. It was torture. She could scarcely dare to breathe. 

Her wrists were now drawn backward, up over her head where she felt a stretch of rope wind around them, pulled tight. Curious, she tested its strength against her own force and found herself unable to break the hold. There was a sound, a bit more of a pull, and she felt the rope tethered elsewhere so that her wrists were held back in a kind of stasis, suspended behind her. 

L.’s finger trailed over her parted lips and she could vaguely taste herself. 

“I want you to be able to release it all, as loudly as you wish.” She said, and Glinda felt a strip of fabric fall across her mouth. “Bite down.” Compliantly, she bit down as it was tied behind her head. 

At last L. was again between her legs, stroking her folds, her clit, and pressing again at her entrance. Impossibly slowly, she entered Glinda, who groaned into the rag, raising her hips off the table to offer herself to L. more fully. 

As L. developed a rhythm to her thrusting she introduced a second finger, and, soon after, a third. Glinda was impossibly tight and unbelievably desperate, moaning into the gag, tears of relief rolling down her cheeks. 

“Does that feel good, your Goodness?” L. purred. “Does it make you want to come, finally having a woman between your legs?” She was taunting, her tone sickly sweet.

She felt Glinda clench around her, her wetness audible to them both. Glinda felt a confusing interplay between humiliation and intimacy. For all of her indifference, her tone of condescension, L.’s fingers were expertly pleasurable, pressing against places Glinda had never been touched, creating sensations she had never before experienced. Yes! She was screaming into the rag, her words lost to its confines. 

“Do you wish to be taken over the edge?”

Glinda nodded desperately, her curls falling over her face. 

“You wish to come on my fingers?”

Glinda hesitated at such a naked admission, but it was she who had said she desired truth. She nodded again, more shyly this time. 

With the blindfold she could not have seen it coming when L. leaned forward to backhand her across the face. Behind the gag she released a low groan. 

“Don’t be coy with my fingers in your wet little cunt.”

L.’s hand lingered, trailing down the side of her face to her throat, which she took hold of in a firm grip. It was not so tight that Glinda could not breathe, but it restricted her airflow enough that she began to whimper. All the time L.’s skillful right hand worked between her legs. 

“You want to come on my fingers.”

This time Glinda’s hips thrust forward, her slow deep nod a submission and a plea. L.’s fingers were pressing deep inside her with each thrust, her thumb swiping over Glinda’s clit. Glinda felt the weightless euphoric wave beginning within her, the burning need beginning to give way to a complete bliss she could barely restrain.  

“Then let go, Glinda. I want to watch you come undone.”

Glinda’s stockinged toes began to curl, her forehead bent forward. L. watched her tense and flex, little gasps and whines coming through the fabric between her teeth. She watched the orgasm ripple through her perfect form, her brow furrow and then relax. Even now, with the lightest glisten of sweat along her hairline, her cheeks pink and shining with spilt tears, her limp form gasping in shallow little breaths, Glinda was the epitome of beauty. Even now she retained a kind of grace that could only be borne organically. It was her nature. 

L. glanced around and could not help but laugh. She saw Glinda’s brow stitch again with confusion, and she leaned forward to remove the blindfold. 

Around the room various objects levitated, slowly cycling through the air. The contract and quill hovered behind L., who was slipping the fabric from Glinda’s mouth to settle around her neck. 

“Only a true sorceress produces magic from her subconscious.” L. said quietly, as amused as she was impressed. Glinda blushed. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that would happen.” She said softly, her throat raw. “It’s never come naturally to me before.”

She glanced around the room and the objects slowly sank back to their places. They were silent as L. stood to remove the scraps of fabric, freeing her wrists from the rope. She moved about to straighten up as Glinda settled back into herself, returning some moments later with a soaked and steaming towel. 

Gently, L. brought the warm towel across her brow and cheeks, the top of her chest and peaks of her breasts. Glinda watched the woman gently bathe her thighs; it felt divine. The towel traveled over her skin, feeling warm and soothing as it cleansed her. 

“Oh, how lovely that feels. Thank you.” Glinda murmured shyly. L. didn’t speak but continued the slow, soft strokes with the towel. 

As L. helped her readjust, she flushed when she noticed the pool of fluid on the table beneath her, though L. seemed unaffected as she cleaned. 

L. brought her bloomers over, helping Glinda to stand up and step back into them. The chemise gently floated back down her body. 

“Are you alright?” L. asked finally. It struck Glinda as impossible that in all this time the woman’s face had remained concealed from her. 

“Quite.” Glinda said feverishly, feeling a bit delirious. 

“Your tiara.” L. extended the wooden box to her, watching as Glinda carefully removed the item and placed it within her curls. 

“Let us get you dressed, Lady Glinda.” The mysterious woman was turning away, gesturing toward the door they’d come through what felt now like hours ago. 

“Wait, please,” Glinda called, her feet rooted. She waited until the long legs stilled and shifted as L. turned back to her. “You don’t have to call me that just because I’m wearing this silly thing.” Her cheeks were pink and she clasped her hands in front of her chest nervously. “I mean, it’s so formal, and…” She laughed softly. 

“Alright, Glinda. Come with me.”

The stone steps felt especially cold beneath her feet as they ascended, a not unpleasant sensation. She felt an inordinate amount of time had passed since she had sat in that chair, separated from that stranger by the pretty divider with the naked woven women. She returned to the seat, feeling like a very different woman than she’d been when she’d worn the tidy little bundle of clothes. 

She slipped her white bodice over her chemise, reaching her hands to find the corset fasteners on her bloomers. Knowing L. was looking, she felt especially awkward, unused to doing this herself though she was more than capable—at least for the parts that didn’t require a second set of hands to lace her up. 

L. watched the blonde wrestling with her straps and laces, her slim stockinged legs exposed and flexing. Glinda picked up her corset, looking thoughtful. 

“El, would you help me please?” She asked, handing it to L., who held it aloft as Glinda slid her arms through their openings. 

“Breathe.” The woman instructed, running her palm down Glinda’s front before moving to fasten the busk. She gave a sharp tug on the lacing, more so to toy with Glinda than out of necessity. She enjoyed the little gasps she made. 

Glinda, whose body and mind still reeled from their appointment, distracted herself with settling her bust comfortably, carefully tucking the top of her chemise down beneath the tops of her breasts. L. pulled tightly on the lacing, snapping Glinda’s hips back. Having almost lost her footing, Glinda placed her hands on her hips, turning her head to be sure the woman saw her raised brow. 

“Now, you know I know that wasn’t necessary.” She said as sternly as she could manage. L.’s only response was a snort, another sharp pull as she reached the end of the lacing. With the last of it tied, she patted Glinda on the behind to let her know she was finished. Glinda handed her the blue dress as she slipped back into her petticoat. 

She was gentle as she helped Glinda back into her dress, admiring the deep cobalt blue of its fabrics and the finely sculpted clasps along her spine made in the shape of small birds. How clever. 

Without even having to be asked, she presented Glinda with a handheld looking glass. 

“I thought perhaps you’d want to see yourself to be sure everything’s to your satisfaction.”

Glinda lowered her eyes to the delicate glass, and the gloved hand that extended it toward her, a smile playing across her lips. She couldn’t help but be touched by the thoughtfulness of the gesture, and as she glanced back up through her eyelashes she wished she could see L.’s face. 

In the glass it was difficult to determine if any trace of the experience had been imprinted on the face it reflected. She turned her head slowly to the right and then to the left. True, she had bitten her lower lip a bit too hard, and true, her cheeks were flushed (would the slaps leave a mark?), and maybe her blonde curls had gone a bit rogue, but if anything she looked perhaps slightly flustered, or that maybe she’d gotten too much sun or drink. No matter; she was going straight home, only to be seen by Wes and Tilly. If Chuff happened upon her he’d be likely to think she’d been a bit irresponsible, and that was true enough. 

“She’ll suffice.” Glinda tilted her head at the face in the glass before handing it back. “Thank you.” 

She began fastening her travel cloak with the cloisonné clasp at her throat when she paused to ask, “My associate didn’t tell me the rest. When will we meet again?”

“I will decide…if we are to meet again.” L. coughed awkwardly, completely unsurprised when Glinda turned sharply toward her. “If? But the contract…?” 

“I will be honest, because I told you we must be with one another. This was new to you…and this particular dynamic, with you, is new and peculiar for me. You present certain challenges to my standard method. Don’t pout, Glinda, this went remarkably well, but I’ll need to be careful. What if I promised to write to you tomorrow, and if it is a yes I’ll even propose the next time and date we might meet? Granted, of course, the Throne Minister has room in her schedule…”

Glinda nodded because it was all she could do, drawing her own hood up over her tiara. With her golden curls and pale skin, L. couldn’t help but to imagine her some saintly, mythic character.  

“Well,” Glinda said softly. “I enjoyed our time together.” But it felt too thin and prim for the occasion. “Thank you,” she offered instead. “for your willingness to make a few exceptions for me, even if it was just this once.” She smiled coyly with a little wink. 

L. shook her head at the absurdity and knocked on the opposite door, waiting for the assistant to come fetch Glinda. When the assistant’s responding knock could be heard in return, L. turned to her. “Goodbye, Glinda.” She said simply, before slipping back through the other door which led down, down, down to her chamber. 

Chapter Text

Glinda stood outside of the stone building, her back to the spot where she knew Wes and the horses had come to collect her. The moment the door had shut she had begun to unravel, a shaky hand to her throat where her breathing constricted. She had, thank goodness, held it together those last few moments with L., but the true intensity of the experience had just begun to wash over her. 

Not wanting to alert Wes with any abnormality, she took a deep breath, forcing herself to still. 

Oz. She could only think feverishly. Oh my Oz.  

As she turned to her carriage Wes slowly guided the horses to a slow walk, meeting her in the middle distance. Wordlessly the guard tilted her head in that restrained yet respectful gesture of greeting, and she slipped inside the carriage unassisted. This was their custom when it came to Glinda’s “less official” meetings. Wes knew the Plum & Pip, but she also knew that it was a regular site for resistance activity, and without having been told one thing or another she would not assume why Glinda had come.

You must steady yourself, Glinda. She spent the silent ride home lost in the memory of sensation, unsure of how she could possibly reintegrate back into her life seamlessly after such an encounter. She clutched her trembling hands tightly in her lap. 

Each bump of the carriage along the cobblestones thrust her back into her body, highlighting where there was soreness and where pleasure continued to buzz. Intermittently L.’s voice broke through her thoughts, taunting glimpses that held her in a state of suspense and recoil. She couldn’t imagine the possibility that L. might refuse to see her again. 

Here and there she could hear Wes’ voice soothing and scolding the horses, but she was otherwise alone with the hazy sound of the carriage and the city and the steady thrum of her own heartbeat, her own shallow breaths. 

When Wes opened the carriage door at last Glinda allowed her assistance if only for the aesthetics of normalcy. Wes could sense her state of introspection and spoke little, disturbing her only to help her into the manor. Glinda shooed Tilly away, thanked Wes, and made her way to her private chambers, still wearing her outer layers and heeled shoes, which clicked hurriedly on the stone floor. 

There were no thoughts of ministerial duties or missives secreted away within locked drawers. There were only nerve endings—the lingering physical memories of touch both painful and pleasurable. She tossed her travel cloak over a chair and clawed at the buttons along her back, frustrating herself over the little birds that would not release the fastenings. 

After an embarrassing amount of time and effort, she’d managed to get enough of the dress’s clasps detached that she slid the still-tight garment down her body, tossing it over a chaise. She kicked her heels under her vanity and stood before the looking glass, analyzing herself from the top of her head to her toes. Little by little, her energy ebbing and flowing, she’d slipped off the many layers until she stood before the glass in only her corset, busk, bloomers, and chemise. 

Oh hell. It hadn’t been so bad with clothes on, but now she could see the red welts on the back of her thighs and backside when she lifted her bloomers to see. Surely they would bruise. When she pulled down her chemise she could make out where, just centimeters above her nipples, the skin was marred purple with the beginnings of light bruising.

She ran her finger over the imprint of teeth, not even remembering when the woman would have bitten her chest. A light dusting of red marked where the rope had bitten into the skin of her wrists. 

Are you alright? L. had asked when it was all over, as if she could possibly explain herself. Quite, she heard herself answer. 

Maybe I’ve gone a bit mad, she wondered, watching herself in the glass as she struggled to stretch her fingers toward the corset lacing. It would be no use—she was going to need help getting out of the thing. 

Thoroughly exhausted and inexplicably embarrassed at the thought of being seen, she slid under the covers of her bed, allowing the thick pink padding of her blankets and quilts to utterly engulf her. Only then could she run her hands over her breasts and down her front, over her thighs, and between her legs, feeling the delicious ache of L. having been there. 

She fell into fitful sleep, dreaming of ropes and hands, dreaming she was on a ship or was the ship, sails hoisted high and tight. She dreamed of her old room at Shiz, of Elphaba helping with the laces of her dress before a dance, catching her dark eyes in the looking glass…

She awoke in the predawn darkness to the sound of Tilly’s tiptoeing around the room, gathering last night’s fabrics. Within her slow, sleepy thoughts came the pressing notion that she had only the one chance to dress in the dark, where Tillly wouldn’t be able to see her marked skin. 

“Tilly,” she yawned, rolling over. Tilly, so used to Glinda’s typical two states of being—awake and wired or dead to the world—startled dramatically, dropping Glinda’s gold shoes with a thud. 

“My goodness!” She clutched her chest. “I mean—Your Goodness. My Lady. I am so very sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” She scrambled to pick up the heels she had dropped, casting a fleeting look at Glinda. Her pale face radiated in moonlight as she combed her fingers through her blonde disorder.  

“Oh, no, Tilly. I am happy to be awake.” She stretched her arms back onto the pillows, the feeling pleasant to her tight muscles. As her mind began to consider the day ahead of her, she grew warm at the thought of L.’s impending letter. She kicked off her sheets. 

“I would like to dress and have my coffee early this morning.” 

Tilly’s eyes flicked over Glinda’s body, then away. She had never seen the Throne Minister sleep in her corset (on the very (very) rare occasion nude, sure), her underclothing slipped down so that she looked more like a magician’s assistant or tavern performer than a lady of the court. Even in the dim lighting Tilly blushed at the bosom pushed up dangerously high, threatening to spill over. If Glinda noticed the anxious gaze of her maid she did not react, instead slipping from the bed and presenting her laced back for untying. 

“Lady Glinda, I would have helped you yesterday…” Tilly mumbled awkwardly, moving to work out the kinks in the tangled tethers. Glinda shrugged. 

“Nevermind it, Tilly. I was too tired.”

When she’d been unclothed down to her chemise, she stopped the girl from going further. 

“Tilly, I’d like to take my coffee on the balcony, watching the sunrise. Doesn’t that sound lovely? Is there time for me to bathe before that?” Tilly answered in the affirmative, reset again in her tracks as she set off to ready the bath. 

Well, look at you, the blonde thought, absentmindedly running her hand over her bruised chest. Dressing in the dark like a girl with secrets. 

…

“It’s an outrage!” A fist came down hard on the long wooden table, reverberating throughout the room. Glinda sat up sharply, blinking into focus. Her attention had ebbed and flowed throughout the meeting, torn between the monotonous hum of the men’s voices and an internal track of her own, distracted by the anticipation of L.’s choice. 

Let go, Glinda. I want to watch you come undone…

She felt feverish, a growing heat in her core. 

Not here, don’t think about it here. 

“Their goods aren’t worth the boxes they’re shipped in—”

“You’re mad! It’s Oz’s entire grain supply!” 

Two ministers argued across the table from one another. 

When one turned to her, exasperatedly announcing “We’re running out of time, My Lady!” she recoiled. Had L. not said the same, only yesterday, just before she’d entered her with those unnervingly erotic gloved fingers? She ran her fingers across her forehead. Don’t think about it here.  

“We must reach a revised trade agreement between the territories, or imports and exports between them will cease. Our window to negotiate is closing!”

“I say, why must there be an agreement, rather than a trade order?” The other interrupted, returning to the argument. 

“Because we must be honest.” Glinda whispered. The two men looked at her, bewildered. 

“What I mean,” She said carefully, righting herself. “is that we must prioritize the restoration of faith and trust. We must come to honest terms, collectively. Which requires—” she glared at the two who had returned to arguing among themselves in muttered bickering. With one look she had shamed them into silence as if she were a schoolteacher. “—communication. The governors must be brought to the table. There can be no legally binding agreement unless all parties are present.”

Unhappily the men were forced to agree. 

“But how, My Lady? Munchkinland remains without proper leadership—should the interim government really be given the right to effect longstanding change?” 

The table went silent. Only a white-whiskered cough of discomfort broke through. Glinda smoothed her skirt, a cold smile playing over her features. She allowed the silence to stretch until it became unbearable for them, the men shifting in their creaky seats. She leaned forward, meeting the eyes of the speaker. 

“Oh, but sir, surely you are aware that this is an interim government? Either it is that interim governments cannot rightly effect change—in which case all decisions we have made at this table are null, as would be the Wizard’s—or an interim government not only can but must effect change in accordance with its constituents. We must listen to the people, as must Munchkinland.”

“The Throne Minister is right.” Declared the white whiskered minister forcefully. “There will be no agreement without direct diplomacy. We can’t just order a territory that wants sovereignty—then there may never be true reunification.”

“And how do you propose direct diplomacy when the area is at present hostile even among its own kin?” 

Glinda’s face broke into a smile. 

“Why, a direct appeal to its people. A visit to the territory. And, perhaps…a party! A social engagement for the interim heads in a relatively neutral location? Our Mockbeggar Hall near Restwater might serve.”

“You want us to deliver ourselves to the proximity of potential hostilities?”

“I do believe you have sworn an oath of some sort. And besides, I don’t expect you to be useful at all in combat.” Her lip curled in disgust. “That’s why we have the Home Guard.” She surveyed the room. 

“Gentlemen, please assure me you are not all so cowardly as to fear fêting the Munchkinlanders? Yes?…No?…Then it is settled.”

…

Elated at the prospect of diplomatic negotiations by way of personal touch, Glinda was in an especially pleasant mood as she sat through open court. Today’s complaints also happened to be especially intriguing, involving one man’s wife having run off with a member of the Home Guard, leaving him alone with five sniffling babies. Another complained of the noise of the orphanage outside of his bookkeeping offices, which she was pleased to dismiss with great notes of disapproval. 

She was in the midst of listening to the final case—which involved a dispute between a ship captain and a canal guard revolving around a heavy crate and a broken foot—when her mind drifted back to yesterday’s session. 

What if I promised to write to you tomorrow…

Perhaps the answer had been delivered to the manor by now, waiting on the opalescent surface of her little parlor table, or the pretty dark wood of her office desk? She imagined L.’s beautiful calligraphy spelling out her own name, then imagined the hand that held the quill that wrote it. 

Those fingers…

Unseen by anyone else in the large echoing chamber of the court, she clenched her thighs together, feeling the burn in her groin. 

There couldn’t possibly be an answer other than yes. The experience had been electrifying, Oz-shattering, completely life-changing. Something inside of her had awoken; something had left her with an ache for what she didn’t know she’d been without, and now could not imagine being denied. And hadn’t L. enjoyed herself as well? Hadn’t she said as much? 

That woman. That mysterious face. The covered skin. The powerfully strong yet terribly slender body. Glinda felt a sudden certainty that for the rest of her life no one else would speak to her the way that woman did. No one else would touch her, torment and tease her, and—there was almost certainly no question—no one else could break and remake her the way that bliss she’d brought her had. Glinda had never before been so wet or so satisfied. That climax…it had felt as if every atom of her being had split apart in a delicious dissolve before reassembling. No part of her felt untouched. 

She was pulled from her thoughts when Wes coughed pointedly from her station at Glinda’s right side. She blushed lightly to have been caught in thought. The men had devolved into back and forth bickering, which threatened to bubble over into a brawl. Behind her the panel seemed to struggle to regain the room’s composure. 

She tapped her scepter. The two immediately turned to face her, the room hushing. 

“Hello!” She said brightly. “Yes, thank you. Forgot I was here, perhaps? So did I. I admit the quarreling does send the mind searching for pleasanter sounds...” She nodded graciously to the court audience who had laughed with the comedic relief of her words. 

“Oh, I quite understand, it is troubling. You, good guard that you are, simply wanted to control the process safely. And you, good trader that you are, simply wanted to deliver your supplies on time. You both meant well, you see? That much is clear.” She again nodded, first at the one and then the other. 

“But the problem is that we were a bit hasty, and the poor trader ended up with a crate dropping on his foot. The question may not be one of guilt or blame at all, but rather the conditions that allowed for this. Why is the port’s infrastructure such that this is not the first case of this kind? In fact…” She glanced down, her nose in her notes, ignoring the marginal illustrations she’d drawn in her boredom. 

“If I’m not mistaken, my records indicate that this is the third broken foot in a fortnight at the southern port. Unacceptable.” She shook her head. “It’s that Oz-damned footbridge. See here, the way these men are having to transport the crates the long way here? When just off to the side we might create a bypass.” She was holding up her own sketch of the southern port, pointing with her quill to indicate the places of issue. The audience leaned forward as she held up the sketch, turning it to show the panel. 

“Sweet Oz, she’s right.” Said someone over her shoulder. Again, she nodded. 

“Gentlemen, I cannot fix a broken foot,” she began, unsure if this happened to be true or not but unwilling to test her sorcery on the man. 

“But I can see to it that improvements be made to the infrastructure of your work environment so that this will not happen again. Now, must we address the theatrics or can two good-hearted Ozians summon up that sense of civility we’re known for and move forward?”

…

“Well done, Lady Glinda.” Wes said softly as she closed the door of the carriage, out of earshot from the other guards. Glinda waved the compliment away with a smile, used to the fruits of a little civility. 

The carriage ride home from the palace was spent thinking only of the letter she hoped would be waiting for her. She fidgeted, drumming her fingers, tapping her toes. And what if it hadn’t arrived? How long would she have to wait? Or—she was beginning to allow the littlest flicker of doubt to creep in—would she ever see L. again at all?

Outside, it had begun to sprinkle a light rain. Unusually, she didn’t mind it a bit, finding the sound soothing, watching the Emerald City pass by (never without a few waves and excited children) under a faint hazy drift of water. It had been warm, and she thought pleasantly about her gardens at Mockbeggar Hall, how pretty the flowers would be by the time she’d see them next! Was there ever a world in which she could be there at her country home with L.? Was it too soon to seek privately retaining her services? 

But of course it is, she scolded herself. Oz knows if she’ll even see me again. But even in her doubt, even the way L. managed to undermine any expectations she might have, it was difficult to imagine with any real seriousness the idea that anyone wouldn’t want to see her.  

“My Lady.” She was home. Wes stood at the open carriage door to escort her while Hostar fed fresh vegetables to the horses. Two other guards came round to scurry through a variable list of tasks at the front entrance, but she couldn’t recall either of their names. 

“Wes,” she called as the guard was preparing to set off from the front parlor. Tilly was scurrying down the hall toward them. “Would you stay a moment, please? I may need you to do something for me.” Wes nodded, stepping back as Tilly began removing Glinda’s outer layers. 

“Tilly,” Glinda turned to the girl hopefully. “By any chance has any correspondence come? I am awaiting a very important letter.”

“Yes, My Lady! I had just left some letters on your desk.” Glinda gestured for Wes to accompany her. 

They walked quietly, save for Glinda’s heels clacking along the floor. She was moving too fast—it wasn’t proper—but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Alone with Wes she felt safe to shirk the less useful scraps of Ozian propriety. Wes had no difficulty maintaining pace to stride alongside her. 

“Lady Glinda, I had not realized your talent for design. Perhaps—”  Wes’ words cut off as Glinda flung open her office door frantically, practically diving on the pile of correspondence on her desk with a delighted squeal.  

She flipped through the letters knowing she’d have to read them later, her singular focus on anything written with that familiar hand. Wes watched, a brow raised. 

“Oh for goodness’ sake!” 

Glinda was muttering a disappointed “no” with each letter that wasn’t the one. Finally, having rifled through all of them and coming up empty, she dropped the pile of papers on her desk with disgust and sank into her chair. 

“My Lady…”

“I’m waiting for a letter, Wes. A letter from Plum & Pip, which will require a response I want you to deliver.” Glinda said quietly. 

“I’m sure it will arrive soon.” Wes slipped into the chair opposite from Glinda, not bothering to seek permission. 

“I want to spend a couple of days at the mauntery, but I can’t do anything without that terribly important letter.” 

“Lady Glinda, please don’t think it too forward, but you seemed distracted today…it was the letter?” 

Glinda nodded glumly, resting her head on her palm as she leaned over her desk. She didn’t notice when Wes released a sigh of relief as if she’d been worrying over the cause of her distraction all day. 

“Wes, I’ll need you close these next few months…everything seems to be escalating all at once. I want you to be my Head of Guard. Are you able? Would that conflict…?”

“It would be an honor, of course, My Lady. My conflicts…are often enough the same as yours, at least in our one commonality.”

“Speaking of,” Glinda lowered her voice. “What news have you of—”  At the sound of a knock on the door Wes leapt to her feet to stand at attention. 

“You don’t have to—” Glinda was saying when Tilly’s voice interrupted, along with a second knock. 

“My Lady, your letter!” She called excitedly, as if it had been her own good news she had come to share. Glinda gestured hurriedly at the door as Wes—a step ahead of her—opened it. Tilly came stumbling through, extending a parchment paper envelope with one trembling hand. Glinda snatched it, turning her back on them both to face the window while she studied it. 

Throne Minister 

Lady Glinda Chuffrey, 

née Glinda Arduenna 

of the Uplands 

It was expertly formal, L.’s cursive so elaborate that the lines and flourishes nearly gave the letters lives of their own. She wanted to kiss it. Was there any hint of an answer in the way the letters curved and curled within their words? The thickness of the dots on the i’s or the flourishes of the tails on the y’s? She found nothing but the old familiar ache. 

It was almost too thrilling to stomach it, but she took up her silver letter opener with the finely carved handle, slicing carefully so as not to tear the stationary. 

Glinda, it began, and her hand went to her throat, moved by the decision to address her as she’d requested—simply by name. Just Glinda. Like she’d always been. 

As was my word to you, I am writing in regard to our contractual arrangement. 

I anticipate you will be pleased that I intend to proceed with the contract we initiated and to fully render and fulfill the services it promised.

I propose our agreement be met on the fifth day of every week at sundown, if your schedule allows. 

I do not expect confirmation unless you have changed your mind and wish to cancel our contract. 

—L. 

“That woman!” She murmured, her tone a bit more candidly intrigued than she’d intended for anyone to hear. 

Wes and Tilly eyed one another but said nothing as Glinda sat at her desk with a fresh sheet of paper and her quill. Ignoring the two, she reached for her Gillikinese rose salve, which she knew well would leave the scent of her perfumed wrist on the paper as she wrote. 

She sat in pensive silence for a moment before both hand and quill began to work their way across the page. She could have used one of the few spells she’d honed—the one that directed the quill to move without need of the hand—but if any letter required personal touch it was this one. 

L., she began. 

Anticipating one another was an expectation of both parties for the services to be effective, no? By which I mean—I knew you would keep your promises and deliver me a note of affirmation today, just as you knew I would be pleased to receive it. 

I very rarely change my mind once it is set on matters having to do with acquiring what I want, and rarer still do I enter into contracts I intend to cancel. 

I accept your proposal with one amendment—

I propose our agreement be met on the fifth day of every week at sundown as you proposed— as well as the third day of every week at the same hour, when our schedules allow. Payment to be doubled appropriately, of course. 

I do expect confirmation, please. I am a busy woman. 

—G.  

She slid the page into a marbled pink envelope (her most prized stationary, handmade by the paper printer from the Pertha Hills who used pulps and inks of the highest quality and vibrancy in all of Oz), signing the front with an elegant and elaborate “Mis—” the dash curling with a gestural flourish that traversed the surface of the envelope. It was a private joke for herself and L., if she caught it. Neither of the names in the off chance one or the other revealed too much, easily taken for “Miss” or “Mister” or something in between. She reached for her wax seal but thought better of it, realizing it would be entirely too identifying. 

Wes watched with curiosity as she reached into the depths of her desk’s top flat drawer to remove an older, cruder seal. It was not the ornate, pure gold seal of the Throne Minister, but a young girl’s first seal, gold-plated. She’d received it from her parents when she entered Shiz—a pretty “G.A.” for Galinda Arduenna, set inside a gillyflower for Gillikin.  

Signed and sealed, she handed the letter to Wes as though it were an important treasure. 

“Please deliver this right away, no stops. I would like you to inform the recipient that I expect you to return with a response.” 

Wes nodded, sliding the letter delicately into the breast of her jacket before departing with another nod. Tilly remained in the doorway, transfixed. Glinda noticed her as if for the first time, laughing at her look of deep intrigue. 

“Well Tilly, you did very well. Thank you. I had waited all day for this.” She pressed L.’s letter to her chest. “Is there anything else?”

“No, My Lady.” She murmured, turning on her heel and setting off for Oz knows where. 

…

Wes took far longer to return than Glinda had expected. Impatient, she had half-heartedly finished her house work (primarily, inspecting the flowers and complaining to Tilly about which were dead) and had retired to her bedroom, resting on a settee with her velvet-slippered feet crossed at the ankles. There could be no deep thoughts or matters of state to tackle. Not until she’d settled things with L. 

When at last Tilly announced Wes’ entry, Glinda barely pulled herself up from her horizontal position, plucking the letter from Wes’ outstretched hand. 

G., 

Your self-indulgence seemingly knows no bounds—I am quite tempted to decline your amendment on sheer principle. 

It does not help that your guard is currently harassing my assistant until a letter is returned, while I had not demanded confirmation of you. 

You write that you’re a busy woman. I do imagine your glitter and perfume keep you busy in your manor. I can also imagine that beneath those scented sleeve cuffs are the marks from the last time you were put in your place. 

I shall consider your amendment. 

L.

Glinda snickered at the letter, looking up at Wes. She only then noticed how the typically temperate guard seemed much more uptight and arrogant than usual, casually running her hand through her hair to smooth it. 

“Wes?” She laughed. “You seem to have made quite an impression.”

The guard’s face turned red. “I only stood at the window! I wasn’t going to leave without a response, Lady Glinda. You said—”

“Once more, Wes. Just a minute, I’ll have a response.”

“You’re sending me back there?”

“Only once more, and no response required.”

Wes glared at a giggling Tilly because she could not glare at Glinda. It had been an effort to get the assistant to demand the letter on her behalf, much of which was spent in silent intimidation. 

Dearest L., Glinda wrote. 

Of course you are right, I’ll accept what I deserve. 

But then, is it not a bit unfair to leave a woman waiting so long only to receive a maybe? I’d quite like to know, if only to select my clothing for the week ahead of time, as is my custom. 

My guard is, hopefully, behaving. I’ll not demand a response or write again, though I will be hoping…

G. 

Wes took the letter, biting back her displeasure at having to repeat the process. Tilly had come to quite enjoy the proceedings though she understood them even less than Wes did. She busied herself in Glinda’s chamber while they awaited Wes’ return. 

It wasn’t so long a wait this time, when Wes came striding back in, wordlessly extending the letter—was that a touch of impatience in her wrist?—to a delighted Glinda. 

She read it breathlessly, her eyes skimming the parchment. 

G., 

I did hear you were distracted in court today, though rumor has it you pulled it off with a bit of an art exhibition. My congratulations. In any case, I fear your behavior will worsen without my intervention. 

So, I shall accept the terms; however, know that with doubled pay, doubled appointments, and double the greedy little demands comes double the punishment. 

Until then—

L.

p.s. Do burn my letters. I know you think the scraps they’re written on are “very fine,” but if you don’t burn them they could burn you. 

Glinda tucked the letters away in her pocket, sighing with contentment. Within her chest her heart rattled with excitement. 

“Might I be released for now, Your Goodness?” Wes asked uncharacteristically.  Glinda glanced up, her face softening with an unspoken apology. 

“Yes, you’ve done well, Wes. Thank you so very much.” With a nod the guard was off. Tilly fidgeted with a bauble she was polishing, nearly dropping it. 

“Tilly, you too!” Glinda said pointedly, eyeing the bauble. “Go on and…do whatever it is you do when you aren’t with me.” 

The moment she was alone she pulled the pages out of her pocket, running her finger over the elegant cursive because this time she could. 

Chapter Text

It was raining so heavily that the little window’s glass shook with the force of its assault. Glinda shivered, tucking herself against the warmth beside her. A thin arm draped itself over her shoulder and pulled her close. 

“Come here, my sweet.”

Glinda nearly purred like a Cat, snuggling up against the other girl’s body, nuzzling her nose into her shoulder, her head just under the girl’s jaw where her neck was warm and smelled of salt and cloves and earth. 

“Well now, any closer and you’ll be under my skin.” Above her were the smirking lips, the dark eyes shifting down to her. 

“It would be warm there, Elphie.” She murmured sleepily. Elphie laughed. 

“You know, in Quadling Country they lay skin to skin when they need to keep warm.” She said casually. 

“Elphie!” 

“Glinda! You’re blushing.” 

“I believe you tell me such tales just to be scandalacious.” 

She pressed her face against Elphie’s neck, watching her breath erect goosebumps in the green flesh. Her leg moved over Elphie’s, trapping green between pink, her pelvic bone meeting Elphie’s sharp hip bone. Elphie’s pulse ticked against her cheek. She no longer needed to thaw; she was positively melting. 

“Good thing we should be arriving today. It’ll give you the chance to recover from me.” Elphie sighed. 

The train could have crashed and it would have felt less violent than the sudden weight Glinda felt crushing her. The old panic, immortal enemy, crept into her awareness, twisting her stomach.  

“Elphie, let’s not get off.” She whispered fearfully, leaning with both hands on the girl’s chest to peer up into her face. 

“Please, I don’t feel well. In fact, I feel bad…so bad I don’t think I can even walk.” The desperation made her mumble nonsense. 

Is it too late to try that skin to skin thing, before we’re wrenched away?

“Then I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you. Miss your chance to meet the Wizard? What’s gotten into you?” But to Glinda she seemed very far away as she said it. 

I’ve met the Wizard. It always ends in the same terrible fate…

Already her awareness was collapsing the world of her dreams, her memory, where the past rocked like so many waves in the waters of her consciousness, changing nothing in the waking world. 

“Elphie?” But the girl’s scent had already begun to fade and the warmth of her body replaced with a chill. 

When Glinda awoke it was to her own great, gasping sobs, the weight so heavy in her chest she feared it would stop her heart. 

It was cold, so cold and cruel to be sent back only to relive the loss. Hadn’t she already had to mourn Elphaba twice before the final blow? Must her life always revolve around the same hole in her heart?

She dragged herself out onto the balcony, slipping into her robe and withdrawing her handkerchief from its pocket. In the predawn chill the canal was still, the palace distant and misty with its few night lights, and she could register none of it with the way she had to cling to herself to remain upright. The sky was empty. That was all she knew. 

“Oh, Elphie.” She bubbled a little sob into her wrist. 

It razed her, the memory of the sweetness of that week with Elphie on the train to the Emerald City. She had had almost everything she ever wanted, there in her palm, before it all slipped away with the briefest of kisses. 

She knew why she’d dreamt it. This time of year there was no escaping the thought of her. 

It would have been liveable, Elphie’s abandonment. It had been liveable. Even that second time, there at Colwen Grounds with their arms linked, when she’d mentioned the silly matter of sending the shoes off with Dorothy. How she’d watched the disgust and disappointment spread across Elphaba’s green features as if watching the erasure of every stitch of respect and affection she’d ever had for her. She hadn’t even looked back when Glinda cried out her name. Even that she could have made good again, somehow. 

What was insurmountable was the idea that Elphie could possibly be dead. She just wasn’t. Not by Dorothy at the Wizard’s behest. Not by water. Not Elphie, that shadow of a woman. She was always slipping away. Glinda knew that better than anyone. 

What was insurmountable was having to hear the things they said about her—the things they could bring themselves to believe! They hadn’t known her Elphie at all. Glinda had seen the good in her, a small trembling thing buried deep inside her hardened heart. 

Elphie had loved her with that heart once—she’d said it the night that Ama Clutch had died, when she’d fallen delirious under Morrible’s binding spell and Elphie had scooped her up in her arms…I love you too much, snap out of it, you idiot! And she had kissed her, that terrible day in the Emerald City. 

No. Elphaba was sure to have gone full Witch, wherever she was, but she was. She was. That was everything. And for Elphie to be—wherever she was—it was Glinda’s curse to go on with it, too. 

She sniffled, drying her eyes with the damp, useless handkerchief. For all she knew, with that dark, morbid humor of hers, Elphaba was out there reveling in some sick satisfaction over the celebration of her own death, cackling with glee. She almost giggled, herself, at the idea. 

Glinda took a deep breath through her nose, releasing it slowly. 

And besides, don’t you have your own distractions? Your own sick satisfactions? 

Her second appointment at the Plum & Pip, tomorrow at sundown. Her heart raced just thinking about it. 

When she reentered her room Tilly busied herself with making up Glinda’s bed, her lips drawn nervously together. 

She drew her robe tighter around herself and cleared her throat, startling the girl. 

“The theater,” Glinda murmured, shooting Tilly a withering look. “is on Shiz Road, just past City Centre. My name is on it, you know, right below the parapet.”

“My Lady?” 

“Since you’re so starved for a good show.”

As Tilly turned her beet-red face away from her to fluff the pillows, Glinda sighed at the girl’s transparency, wondering if she would even be capable of learning the skill for stealth if the time ever came for it. 

…

Glinda thought she would die right there in the Florinthwaite Club, her perfectly arranged curls landing right in her blue bowl of chicory and gillyflower soup. What a scene she’d make!

Where was the mad soup woman from down in her own kitchens when one needed a reprieve from fatal boredom? Ninnie, was it? 

Surely she’d have the poison and the drive to put me out of my misery.  

The monthly meeting of the Rejoicification Committee was in full swing, with scones and teas and soups and schnapps—and Glinda wanted none of it. When she had formed the Committee she’d had it in mind to gather a cohort of the city’s society girls, like herself, to set the standard for a swankified, celebratory culture. 

To her great disappointment, she’d come to find that once a year the Committee was seized by the worst of the worst busybodies and sniveling elites to strategize over plans for the Anniversary of the Wicked Witch’s Death. She had half a mind to dissolve the Committee or oust the bigots, but the Ozians would demand acknowledgment of the event. It was their shared, lived history; more than any saint or Ozma, Kumbric Witch or Unnamed God, they felt that Elphaba’s story belonged to them. It made her seethe—when she wasn’t fatigued by the overwhelm of petty luncheons. Her only power was to oversee the writing and rewriting of that story until someone could finally get it right. 

She drove the sharp curve of her soup spoon through a gillyflower, severing its petals and dissecting the bald head left behind. She was being decidedly rude. It was a slight rebellion, but it counted for something in her book. 

“Lady Glinda?” A woman cleared her throat behind her. 

“Muffy.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled, relieved that it was someone at least fairly normal disturbing her surgery of the poor flower. 

Muffy gave a faint curtsy and took the seat beside her (another relief, her obnoxious seatmate had just excused herself), sipping her drink and eyeing Glinda with curiosity. 

“You never were fond of the Anniversary.” She said quietly. Glinda shook her head, tempted to fling the tiara that now felt to be digging into her skull. 

“Certainly not. I think it’s a primitive, vile practice.” She said plainly, because with Muffy she could be candid enough about these matters. “I have tried,” she sighed, continuing. “to inspire a greater sense of spirit throughout Oz—a greater sense of…character—than to sing and dance around the dead like cave dwellers.” 

“They see it as a liberation day.” Muffy’s tone was neutral, searching. 

“Liberated from Elphaba Thropp!” Glinda’s laugh was thin as though stretched across a great distance. “They should be so lucky.”

“It’s that time of yearrrr!” Came a boisterous, singsong voice. Glinda winced, but straightened in her seat, her face draining of emotion. 

“The great Anniversary Day is upon us, and there’s much to do!” The voice continued. Glinda strained to catch sight of the speaker amid the glitz and porcelain. 

“It’s not the day. I tell them every year.” Glinda said to herself. 

“Lady Glinda, what did you say?” Muffy asked much too loudly. Several tables’ worth of heads turned, asking the Throne Minister to repeat herself. 

When the woman—it was Florinda, a nobody from some rural place in Wiccasand Turning—tapped her knife to her drinking glass, Glinda stood. The remainder of the room turned suddenly to her with a civilized cheer. 

“Oh, excuse me!” She said in that silly soap bubble voice, sweet and humble as she could manage. “Yes, hello, happy to see you…I had only said…” 

She tilted her head, biting her lip as though she were sorry to say it:

“Well, I do just like to be accurate, lest we lose our sense of history. According to the Time Dragon Clock, Elphaba Thropp died at the thirteenth hour of a warm day in the autumn season. And though it is an unseasonably warm season this year, it is winter. According to the calendar record, Elphaba Thropp is already dead.” 

She was beginning to forget where she was, her eyes gone distant as though she had slipped away to someplace else entirely. She looked very fragile in her long, salmon gown, the fabric reaching almost to her quivering fingertips clinging to the table’s edge at her hips. 

“Well, it matters to me, but oh…someone else decided long ago to celebrate close to Lurlinemas…to borrow some legitimacy or build up a whole holiday season, I don’t know. I do hope we won’t require more corpses just to find cause for rejoicifying…” Here she shivered delicately, the idea too horrid. The ladies lingered on every word, every quiver, touched by her sensitivity. 

“I personally would rather be celebrated in the summertime when I’m gone…But oh!” She shifted back into herself, a dazzling smile overtaking her features. “All my blubbering does remind me! I’m quite looking forward to the Lurlinemas Ball at the People’s Palace next month.” 

She smiled ecstatically. The luncheon ladies, overcome with uneasy emotion, knew of no better response than to smile, too, and applaud. She waved, turned to Muffy with a secretive, sheepish grin, and floated back down to her seat, feeling much better for having corrected the record for the several-th year in a row. 

“You are bad, Muffy.” She murmured over her drink a few moments later. Muffy beamed. 

“Speaking of…your…person at the Plum & Pip, what were they like?” She glanced at the woman. 

“Well he was handsome, young…too enthusiastic, if you ask me. I think he was from Traum, by the accent. Why Lady Glinda, are you actually considering…?” She looked some cross between delighted and surprised. Glinda blushed. 

“Something like that.” She answered coyly, unexpectedly pleased and more than a little smug that Muffy had not described L. 

She drank two more bubbly drinks as she sat through the celebration ideation, which involved the construction and creation of massive murals throughout the city depicting the events that had led to and from the Witch’s death. She was to be featured prominently, though she’d had little to do with any of it besides sending Dorothy off to see the Wizard. Even with her mind growing fuzzy around the edges from her fizzy, tingling drinks, she smiled hazily through the remainder of the luncheon because she had begun to develop a plan. 

…

Glinda had sobered some by the time she slipped into bed that evening, grateful for the calm, cool, quiet. Within her sheets she couldn’t help but recall her dream from the previous night, only now the recollection wasn’t one of grief, exactly. 

It was pleasant, summoning to her senses the scent of Elphie’s skin, the warmth of her hard, solid form. In her mind she could almost return to the experience of burying her face in that green neck, feeling the aliveness of her ticking pulse. That Elphaba would always be hers and no one else’s. 

Glinda rolled onto her stomach, imagining Elphie beneath her. If she’d turned just so she might’ve felt a warm hip between her legs, the pressure of another against her core…

She slid her hands underneath the thin slip of her nightgown, her hips rising off the bed, her curls falling in front of her face. 

Tomorrow she would be returning to L.’s chamber. 

She moaned against her pillow, imagining the untold torment, the withheld and well-earned pleasure that awaited her. She imagined strong, gloved fingers instead of her own soft, gentle ones—imagined kissing them, imagined them slipping into her mouth, between her legs, thrusting inside her. 

L. would be waiting, already plotting her desecration. She’d told her as much in her final letter. Glinda brought herself to the precipice with the anticipation of submitting herself entirely to L., of being reshaped and remade by the woman who held pleasure and punishment both in her palm, weighing out doses of exactly what she deserved. No more, and definitely no less. 

She cried out softly when she came, alone but tethered in a tension between herself and not one woman but two, either of whom could—at any moment, again and again—shatter her into a million fragments for how ready and willing she was to be broken by them. 

…

L. was already waiting for her in the small, dark sitting room when the assistant left Glinda with a quiet click of the door closing. 

The divider was in the same place it had been when she had last left, placed parallel with the wall. There would not be opportunity this time to glance at the woven women or to wonder what strange magic seemed to animate them. 

Alone at last with L., Glinda slipped the hood of her cloak from her head, shaking her curls free with a gentle toss of her hair. She touched her tiara lightly with her fingertips to be sure it remained in place, never once taking her eyes off the woman across the room.  

L. sat back casually in her chair, watching her. One boot’s ankle crossed over the other knee while she leaned her elbow on the arm of the chair, holding up her hooded head with just two fingers. Something about her posture exuded power and restraint; Glinda had never and could never sit that way. She’d never even worn pants. She smiled, flashing her teeth at the woman. 

“It’s good to see me, isn’t it?” Glinda asked coyly, settling herself down on the chair opposite L., which had been hers last time. The other woman scoffed. 

“I would think you’d be saying that about me, Glinda. Don’t you know how fortunate you are to have gotten your wish? Especially with how you’ve behaved?” 

Glinda wished fiercely to see the face without its cover. 

“Would you remind me how I’ve behaved, oh Mistress? That does seem so long ago now.” Her voice was soft as velvet, facial features exceedingly innocent so as to appear almost angelic. 

L. stood then, and Glinda couldn’t help but shrink somewhat, impressed as though seeing her again for the first time. L.’s attire was hardly distinguishable from their last meeting in her many layers of black garments, her black cloak and clean gloves. 

“Remind you how you’ve behaved…” She murmured, her voice low and thick as she crossed the room toward Glinda, who sat up straighter in her seat. The room’s tension strung through the cords of her body, straightening her spine, lifting her chin. 

“Let’s review.” L. rubbed her thumb along Glinda’s bottom lip, slipping it away again when Glinda’s lips parted invitingly. 

“I suspect we’d cover a lot of territory by classifying your behavior as generally greedy, desperate, and selfish, don’t you think?” She grasped Glinda’s chin sharply between her thumb and forefinger, turning her face right and left as if checking whether she was clean. Glinda’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. 

“Mind wandering in court…” A gloved hand moved to the base of Glinda’s throat, the neck of her cloak drawn into its fist with a tug. The blonde released a strangled cry of surprise, but L. was already moving on, opening the clasp for Glinda’s cloak to fall open. 

“Perhaps we should start with the fact that you were expressly told not to write back. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?” The question rang with a malicious lilt, taunting Glinda as if she were a small child. It sent a shiver through her, her bottom lip just barely quivering. 

“Greedy, needy little Glinda,” She clucked her tongue with disapproval, her hand lingering around Glinda’s neck, stroking her delicate throat with her thumb. 

“Playing the role of “Throne Minister Lady Glinda” while practically begging to come back to me—and twice a week? My.”

With the flick of L.’s wrist the travel cloak slid from her shoulders with a kind of hush. Glinda glanced down at it slowly with a knowing smirk. 

L. had fallen silent at the sight of her. 

Let it be known throughout Oz, Glinda thought, appreciating L.’s silent attention, no one can accuse Glinda the Good of being a bad listener, or of failing to style herself perfectly for every occasion. 

Glinda had dressed with L. in mind, remembering her last visit. L. wanted her to look like a harlot, in something easy to remove. So, she’d gone shopping. Dressed without the maid’s help. And now she sat in her short, sleeveless chemise and a rose-pink loose-laced corset, whose hose supporters stretched down to her rosy stockings in form-flattering straps. She was straight from a magazine illustration for women’s underwear; the kind boys and girls would hide from their puritanical mothers to gawk at when alone. A harlot, L. wanted? She had costumed herself as the most decadent harlot in all of Oz. The diamonds in her tiara glinted in the room’s low light.

L. had never seen anything like it. 

“You traveled here dressed this way?” 

“I could say yes, or I could be honest and say I left my dress in the carriage. Either way, you should be pleased to know I’m shy nearly half the layers a woman should wear when she leaves the house.” Glinda smiled down at her own lap, pleased with herself. She clicked her rosy heels against one another.

“How many Ozians would kill to see you this way, do you think? Should I share you with them or keep you to myself?”

Glinda turned scarlet at the idea. 

“And I suppose you thought this would make me forgive you? That I’d forgo the punishment you were promised?” L.’s hand threaded through her curls dangerously, as if at any moment she might take them up in her violent fist in the way that left Glinda gasping. It would almost have been a romantic gesture if not for the underlying threat. 

“Oh, El,” Glinda began casually, dropping her eyes again to accentuate her painted lashes. “I only wanted to please you. After all, my need for your time only means more gold for you.” She was enjoying this delicious, risky game. 

“And you think I have all the time in the world to devote to you and your insatiable need?” 

L.’s hand was around her throat, dragging her up from the chair and against the wall. The stone of the slate wall was a cold bite at her bare shoulders. Her eyes grew wide and glossy. 

“I wish.” Glinda barely managed through the force around her throat. “I’d…pay.” She gasped. 

L. scoffed at Glinda’s gall, taking her time to draw herself back. She appraised Glinda’s garments with her hooded head tilted in consideration. 

“You were so willing to come dressed as a little slut…” She whispered. “Who did you wear this for?”

Her other hand came round to stroke Glinda’s cheek, her lips. She brushed her thumb over a blonde brow. 

“You. Of course it was for you.” Glinda’s whispered breath came tight under L.’s restrictive hand. 

“Turn around,” L. ordered, releasing her grip. Almost frantically Glinda had turned, pressing her front to the wall while L. unhooked her stockings and began to unlace her corset. 

“You dressed yourself.” She murmured, amused, easily plucking at the lopsided little bow Glinda had managed in place of the standard ties. 

“It was the only way.” Glinda cooled her warming cheek against the stone. 

“Tell me, where did your mind wander that day in court, Glinda, while you were waiting to hear from me?”

She could feel L.’s gloved fingers working to remove her corset as she leaned her forehead against the stone wall, feeling the fabric slip down over her skin. 

The hands slid down her back, her hips, finding the hem of her chemise and rolling it upward. One hand traveled around the front of her, down the quivering skin of her stomach, slipping into the waist of her bloomers. It stilled just there, her stomach seizing against the tickling sense of anticipation. 

“I was hearing your voice in my mind all morning.” Glinda murmured, melting under the touch and the rich, low voice that taunted and teased and just knew her. “Those deliciously filthy things you’d said to me.” She felt like she could cry from want for L.’s attention, her approval. 

“But that wasn’t all, was it?” The hand in her underwear had begun to move again, skimming her pelvic area. “What else?”

“I…desperately wanted to hear from you. I imagined your letter waiting on my desk with your beautiful handwriting, and then I thought about your hands, those fingers—” she gasped when she felt the fingers brush over the hood of her clit as they slid lower, creating a flat pressure against her core. 

“These fingers?” L. teased, gliding, then, through Glinda’s folds.  

“How they felt inside me…”

“Were you as wet there on your gilded throne as you are now?” L. breathed in her ear, one fingertip circling teasingly at her entrance. Glinda’s moan was more of a whine. She felt L.’s body behind her, sculpting itself around her own. 

“Desperate, did you say?” Two fingers were at her opening now, giving her nothing. Her hips moved of their own accord as she made an instinctive effort to grind against the hand, to give herself friction, anything. 

Immediately the fingers were gone, her bloomers with them as L. plucked at the waistband, pulling them down. She groaned at the twin losses, feeling the bloomers fall at her feet. 

“Pick those up.” L. instructed. 

She blushed, stooping to pick up her undergarments and depositing them onto the seat where her cloak lay. L. watched her shrewdly as she stood in just her chemise and stockings.

L.’s touch had left her feverish—a fact that was painfully obvious by the pink glow of her cheeks, the nervous fidgeting of her hands, the way she was squeezing her thighs together. She couldn’t bring herself to look up from her stockinged feet. 

“Glinda.”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“Are you very wet right now?” The woman asked. There was something inexplicably demeaning in her tone, a kind of condescension that now brought a burning shame beneath Glinda’s skin. She scanned herself as if she couldn’t feel her own slick need blossoming between her legs.   

“I imagine so.” She admitted, fingering the seam of her chemise. 

“Don’t imagine—check.” The word was a condemnation, the damning of Glinda’s dignity. 

“Oh, but wouldn’t it be better if you did?” Glinda asked hopelessly, her red lips parting in disbelief.  

“You’d like that.” L. teased, pushing Glinda with a light hand on her stomach until her back was against the wall. “Go on, touch yourself.” 

It was clear L. would not relent, and now, the woman standing there with her legs on either side of Glinda’s legs, the idea of touching herself in front of L. made her feel faint. She kept her eyes fixed to L.’s slim thighs as she reached down to gather her chemise around her waist, her lower half entirely exposed. 

Her breath was shaky as she slid her own hand over the patch of blonde pubic hair and down lower until she found the wet, warm folds of her sex. L. murmured a sound of approval, watching as her middle finger dipped between the lips of her center, gathering her own nectar on her fingertip. She stilled. 

“Yes, Mistress, I am.”

“You are…what?”

“Very wet, Mistress.” She whispered. 

“Are you quite sure? Perhaps a more thorough examination…” 

With L. watching she found herself unable to do anything but obey. Her breath hitched as her finger glided down to her entrance and then up again, skin slipping easily against skin with her own fluid. She moaned softly. 

“I’m quite sure…” Glinda whispered shakily. L. hovered impossibly close, watching every move of her wrist. 

“Does it feel good, darling? Touching yourself in front of me?” Her voice had dropped low, dripping silkily into her ear. Glinda moaned again at the brazenness of the question. Unconsciously, her pale fingers had followed the course of her pleasure, beginning to rub her clit. 

“Not there, Glinda. That’s mine.” L. pushed her harder against the wall, her knees grazing the stone as she practically straddled the blonde. 

“Ohh…” Glinda groaned, biting her lip to temper herself. Her fingers froze in place. 

“I didn’t say stop.”

“But…” Glinda arched against her fingers, pressing herself toward the other woman’s body, searching for contact with her. Their hips grazed. Glinda heard the woman’s low groan emit from within the darkness of her hood. She continued to draw delicate circles over her center with her wet fingertips. 

“The chamber…”

“You want to go down?” 

“P-please.” She murmured. 

L.’s hands swept over her midsection, the fabric of the chemise a thin barrier between their skin. 

“This stays here.” She warned, dragging one of the thin straps down Glinda’s shoulder to reveal one milky breast. Her gloved hand cupped it almost tenderly, the fingers of her free hand tracing over the sensitive skin. Glinda shivered, her breathing gone shallow. She drew her hand away from herself. 

For the second time in minutes she had been brought to and abandoned at the edge of her bliss.

“Still bruised,” L. murmured as if to herself, tracing over the faint purple of last visit’s roughness. “Does it hurt?” She asked quietly, squeezing the abundant breast in her hand. Glinda whimpered. 

“Only a little.” She whispered as L.’s thumb crossed over her nipple. 

L. tugged at the chemise, letting the other shoulder strap down until the garment was bunched at Glinda’s hips. She appraised the other breast, clucking at a bite mark. 

“That you sat upon your throne with bite marks on your breast, Glinda…” but she failed to finish the thought, moving to inspect the pale wrists, the tight skin of her throat.

“You managed to keep them to yourself? The marks?” She asked, intrigued.  

“I keep most things to myself, really.” Glinda breathed as L. cupped her cheek. She wanted badly to be kissed but would settle now on nearly anything short of it. 

She closed her eyes, allowing sensation to take over as the woman’s touch traveled, the hood moving closer to the skin of her throat. She forced herself to keep them shut tight, wanting nothing more than to tear off the hood and force the face to look at her, but she knew at what cost that would come. 

“Such a lonely little thing you are…” L’s dark voice was barely audible at her ear, the feeling of her breath along Glinda’s collarbone making her knees tremble. 

“That’s why you come to me.”  A tongue trailed along her throat and she sighed heavily. “That’s why you were needy enough to ask to have me twice.”

She felt L. force the fabric of the chemise down over her hips until she was utterly nude, and only slightly ashamed to be so. Fingers traced down her front, feather-light, stopping just above her small blonde curls, then back up to Glinda’s collarbone. 

“Down you go, then.” 

…

Glinda’s heartbeat was a hummingbird in her throat as she delicately descended the stone steps to the chamber. She stopped at the bottom, hesitating until L. strode past her. When she moved to follow, L. stopped her. 

“On your knees.” She said, now halfway across the room. 

Glinda stared at her. “Oh, but you don’t mean—”

“Oh, but of course I mean.” L. said, imitating Glinda’s high soprano. 

“If you want so badly to be near me…well, my pretty little pet, you’re just going to have to crawl.”

Glinda faltered, biting her lip. Had any part of their last session matched such degradation? She couldn’t think. L. cleared her throat, pretending to inspect her gloves. 

“Oh.” She squeaked at the predicament. “El, I…” The woman’s posture made it very clear she expected Glinda to fail. Instead, she shut her mouth, her blonde brow furrowing. 

With a flutter in her belly Glinda lowered herself to her knees as gracefully as such an act would allow. She glanced up at L., hoping for some kind of relief or praise, but the woman only stood, her head tilted expectantly. Her eyes lowered back to the floor before she began to crawl on her hands and knees toward the black riding boots. 

At L.’s sound of pleasure she looked up through her eyelashes, fixing her eyes on the dark void of the woman’s cloak as she continued to crawl. Some numb haze had fallen over her, emboldening her movements, knowing now that she had had some effect on her mistress. 

At L.’s feet she lowered her head, leaning back on her palms ever so slightly to grant her wrists relief. L. crouched, raising Glinda’s chin ever so slightly, though too low to see within her hood. She seemed to be feasting on Glinda’s nude, kneeling body with her hidden eyes. 

“Just look at you.” L. murmured. “You’re beautiful.”

She swiped her thumb over a stray tear at the corner of Glinda’s eye. Glinda hadn’t even felt it there. 

“Did you know you were still wearing this?” L. removed Glinda’s tiara, watching her blue eyes widen, her pretty, pale face flushing. 

“Ohh.” She groaned, clamping her eyelids shut. 

L. moved away from her to secure the tiara in the little box, returning with a scrap of fabric. 

“I know you’re trying so very hard to be good.” She said softly, gently wrapping the blindfold over her eyes and tying it at the back of her head. She heard the woman retreat a few steps. 

“This way, little lamb.” She called, and Glinda crawled blindly toward the sound of her voice until L. tapped her bare shoulder, grasping Glinda under the arms to hoist her over her lap. 

Glinda was able to deduce that L., who had laid her across her knees, was seated on the little wooden bench beside the wardrobe. She shivered, exposed and confused and still riding the humiliation of having had to crawl to her. Waiting face-down on L.’s lap was beginning to instigate a new wave of embarrassment. 

“Now, Glinda,” L.’s hand caressed her backside. “Don’t you think you’ve more work to do until you’ve quite made up for your transgressions?” 

In her mind, Glinda envisioned a familiar pair of glittering shoes. She shuddered.

“Yes, more.” She murmured, her lips moving against the fabric of L.’s pants, feeling the warmth of the woman’s skin through her clothes. 

“And what, do you think, is the worst you’ve done?”

Glinda thought back to her silly letters, to her demands for more of L. and the way she’d used Wes and L.’s assistant to get her way. She thought about the distraction of her newly rekindled sexual appetite, her short temper with Tilly, and the fact that she’d accomplished little that week in the way of politics or civic duty. She cringed. 

Instead, leaning into the vale of her own vulnerability, she offered a different confession. 

“Last night,” she whispered. “I touched myself.” 

“So needy.” L.’s voice was a smoldering scold. “Even knowing you’d be seeing me today. Tell me what you were thinking about, with your fingers in your pretty little pussy.” Glinda’s cheeks burned as she pressed them into L.’s thighs.  

“Ohh…I was thinking of…someone very dear…And then I was thinking of you.”

L.’s gloved fingers slipped between Glinda’s legs.

“You’re so wet, Glinda, are you absolutely sure you’re sorry?” 

Glinda pressed her face harder into the firmness of L.’s thighs. 

“I’m not sure of anything anymore.” She moaned openly. 

L. spanked the bare skin of her ass with the palm of her hand, hard. Glinda whimpered, burying her face in the crook of her arm. 

“How many more do you think you deserve?”

“…Fifteen.” Glinda mumbled into her arm after a moment, recalling that ten strikes with the riding crop had felt like more than enough last time. 

“Twenty-five, then.” L. murmured, bringing her hand down hard on the opposite cheek. Glinda moved against L.’s thighs, trying to process the pain. 

“Two.” She whispered. “Mistress.” 

Twenty-three was beginning to feel like an enormously large number. 

L. continued, with Glinda’s soft count echoing the sound of the impacts, broken intermittently by Glinda’s sharp cries and whimpers. At ten L. paused, her hand running softly along Glinda’s crimson backside. 

“Alright, my pet?” She asked quietly, dipping her finger to access Glinda’s arousal, trailing teasingly through her folds.

Trembling against L., Glinda raised her hips. 

“Please keep going.” She whispered feverishly. 

“With this?” Two of L.’s fingers swirled within her sex, stilling at her entrance. Glinda tightened her thighs together. 

“I meant—oh!”  

L. had entered her with the fingers, thrusting just twice before removing them and administering number eleven. Glinda groaned, arching her back like a cat. 

By twenty-two Glinda was sobbing but had refused to speak their coded safe word. 

“Tell me the truth, Glinda. Can you handle the last three?” She slid her hand beneath Glinda’s cheek, turning her face toward her. 

“Y-y-yes, Mistress. Please.” She whispered. In L.’s hand her face was red and wet with tears, hair sticking to her skin. The blindfold concealed her glossy, lost eyes. “Please.” She begged. 

L. paused again to rub Glinda’s clit, driving her mad with sensation. Her thighs drifted apart to allow L. more room.

“Are you trying to come, Glinda?” She asked pointedly, feeling Glinda writhe and move against her lap. Glinda did not answer, sensing she was being toyed with, fearful of reaching that peak only to once again be abandoned at the edge of bliss. 

She could only moan, accepting what she was given and not daring to ask for more. 

“You are, I can feel it. Look at you trying to ride my fingers, pretending you aren’t.” L. hissed, spanking her again. 

“Twenty-three,” Glinda squeaked—it was all she could admit. 

The last two strikes of her punishment dragged on, with L. bringing her close and pulling back. Glinda was a heaving, whining mess across her lap. 

Properly penalized, Glinda lay as still as she could, her wet face still buried in the crook of her arm. L. realized she’d been biting her own thin bicep to keep from screaming. 

“Poor thing. You’re being good for me today. Being so good.” L.’s touch was gentle, smoothing her hand over the smarting skin. “Almost as if that bad behavior was just another performance. And you are a very good performer, aren’t you, my pretty thing?”

Glinda moaned softly at the praise, clutching onto L.’s thighs. 

“Hold onto me.” L. whispered, readjusting Glinda so that the trembling blonde was sitting up on her lap. When she moved to place one arm beneath Glinda’s knees and the other around her back, Glinda clasped her arms around L.’s neck, pressing her crying face into L.’s cloaked shoulder. 

She felt L. stiffen, pausing to softly stroke the side of her face. 

“Our time is almost up, Glinda. I had so much planned for you.” Her voice carried low and smoky down to Glinda, whose heart leapt with fear or excitement—she could no longer tell the difference. 

“Tell me, Mistress.” She murmured, delirious that she was actually in L.’s lap, that she was being held. And after such merciless pain from that gloved palm, which now caressed her. 

“Well, I had intended to take you over to my chair, tie you up, and tease you until our time came to a close. I didn’t think you deserved to come today.”

Glinda held her breath, fearing the slightest wrong move that might bring her to such a fate. 

“Then, upstairs with your fingers between your legs, I thought I’d let you make yourself come. But, oh, you just couldn’t wait. We did that yesterday, didn’t we?”

There was something frighteningly erotic about that “we,” as if L. had been present in her fantasies. 

“You’ve been so good, Glinda. Such a good girl crawling on your knees…bending over my lap…” L’s hooded mouth was up against her ear, her breath tickling Glinda’s skin. Goose flesh crept over her tingling skin, and she felt her pulse between her legs. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to bore you, but I am tempted to just spread your legs and fuck you on my lap.” L.’s cold lips appeared beneath her jaw, her teeth nipping Glinda’s tight throat. Glinda extended her neck, delivering more of her skin for L. to feast upon. She moaned lustily when L. sucked the skin of her throat, teeth grazing. 

“You were…so generous with your appointment book…there’s plenty of time…another time.” Glinda’s mindless chatter was a breathless staccato. “Oh, but please.” She shifted her hips, opening her thighs to offer herself to L. 

“Have I teased you too much today, Glinda? Was I so rough you lost your little head?” 

“No, Mistress.”

“You just need it so badly, do you?”

“Oh yes…yes…yes.” Glinda whispered. L. shifted Glinda so that her back was against L.’s chest. The gloved fingers slid over her belly and down between her legs where they stroked her wetness. 

“You’ve been so patient, haven’t you?” L. murmured in her ear. Glinda didn’t think she’d been patient at all but was plenty eager to accept the praise, moaning as L. began to stroke her clit, rubbing slick circles there at the site where her nerves gathered, buzzing and alive. 

“You have two minutes, Glinda, are you going to come for me?” The delicious circles increased in speed and Glinda was sent spiraling into a series of soft little pants, clutching at the other gloved hand steadying her chest. 

“Ohh,” she whined, feeling herself rising from her body. “So good.” She murmured. 

“It’s exquisite, Glinda…the look on your face, those high-pitched little noises your mouth makes.”

Glinda’s thighs began to quiver. 

“Only a minute now—” But the noises of Glinda’s orgasm interrupted the warning with a stream of quick, whining little “oh”s until L.’s fingers were dripping, and Glinda was gasping for breath, burying her face in the neck of L.’s cloak where she was definitely not supposed to be. 

L. didn’t stop her; instead, she lifted Glinda up as she’d originally intended, deposited her in the chair she’d meant to tie her to, and began the process of cleaning her up.

The blindfold came off and L. was cleansing her again with that warm wet towel, the scent of mint and eucalyptus soothing Glinda’s overwhelmed senses. The process was soft and slow, starting with the skin of her face, her neck, down and circling her front before gently cleaning her between the thighs. It made Glinda teary, and if she hadn’t turned her head and pinched the bridge of her nose she might’ve sobbed. 

“Is your bottom sore, Glinda?” L. asked softly, and when Glinda nodded, she disappeared, only to return with a towel-wrapped block of ice. 

“Here, let me slide this under you while I finish straightening up.”

Glinda barely registered the time between the ice and when L. was beginning to help her dress again upstairs. She felt utterly dreamy, blissful and sleepy, her skin stinging and ringing and throbbing and pleasantly numb, all in the right places. 

“We’ve been breaking some rules, haven’t we?” L. pondered as she strapped Glinda’s stockings to her corset. Glinda looked down at the back of her hood in awe as if amazed they could possibly both be together in time. 

“Have you?” She murmured as L. wrapped her travel cloak back around her, fastening its clasp beneath her chin. 

“You’re quite good,” L. grinned beneath her hood, Glinda could practically hear it in her voice. She allowed the start of the sentence to hang suspended in the air between them. “Quite good at getting what you want.”

“I feel I deserved it.” Glinda raised her defenses playfully, rubbing her backside over her cloak. “I just hope I can manage to stay seated on the throne tomorrow.” 

L. laughed. “Well, I think next time I’ll let you wear that little pink number when I make you crawl to me.”

“It pleases you?”

“Yes.”

This time she waited until the top of L.’s cloaked head disappeared down the stairs before turning to follow the assistant from the room, leaving only the woven women behind her. 

…

It was unspeakably difficult to pretend she felt no pain, getting in and out of the carriage. Dressing herself back into her expansive pink gown had been its own task, and by the time she arrived in the parlor of her chambers she was exhausted and moody. Wes had accompanied her to discuss plans for her upcoming mauntery visit, and she sighed when Tilly burst into the room as if a single excess in word or breath would do her in entirely. 

“Lady Glinda, I am sorry. This package was just delivered for you…said it was urgent.” 

“Who said it was urgent?” Glinda winced as she sat up from her pillowed recline on the chaise. “What is it?” She peered at the package in Tilly’s hands skeptically as if at any moment it might explode. Something about the rectangular brown paper package made her nervous. It was far too late an hour for any package to be appropriate.

“It was a hired hand; they didn’t say.” Tilly studied the thing in her hands, confused about the fuss. “It’s light enough…it doesn’t rattle when you shake it.”

“Oh, give it here, Tilly. If it’s magicked it might as well hit its target.” She regretted having been so flippant when Tilly trembled, clutching the package to her chest. “It’s alright, Tilly. You know I’m just a silly woman. Give it to me.” 

But it was Wes who took the package out of Tilly’s hands, carefully scanning the address.

“It only says your name…Throne Minister Lady Glinda Chuffrey, Mennipin Square.” 

Wes and Glinda exchanged a look before Wes began to unwrap the brown paper, tucking it under her elbow as she pulled out the contents. 

“It’s a book…a biography of St. Glinda.” The Home Guard was dumbfounded, holding up the hardcover tome and offering it to Glinda. 

The Throne Minister gingerly took the book from Wes, studying it carefully and at as much of a distance from her body as she could manage. The cover illustration was general enough, resembling any stained-glass depiction of the ancient saint. But as Glinda began to scan the pages a cold terror came over her face. 

“That is not the story of St. Glinda. That is not how it’s told.” She shut the book hard between her hands as though some parasitic bug needed crushing within its pages. When she looked at the cover again it had gone black, then glimmered green as a junebug, and purple, and pink, the letters coming up to the surface as though floating in water. 

She didn’t need her fine silver lens to read the text that had suddenly appeared on the book in her hands, warm now as if it were a living thing. 

“No.” She whispered. “I gave it back…why is it here?” 

The book clattered heavily to the floor when her shaking hands lost purchase. 

The Grimmerie.

Chapter Text

Glinda pounced on the book before she could stop herself, hugging it tight to her chest in her pile of pink skirts. Against her ribs it radiated its old warmth like a tiktok thing overheating. Like a feverish creature she was determined to smother. 

“Wes! Wes! Where’s that paper wrapping?” She patted the hard floor around herself as though she’d lost her sight. Finding Wes’ shoe, instead, she gave her pant leg a little tug. 

Wes looked down at Glinda, caught between bemused and bewildered. The Throne Minister’s melodramas hardly phased her now, but the fright on her face when she’d studied that book cover was undeniably authentic. She extended her hand down to Glinda, unable to bear any longer the indignity of the Throne Minister on her knees. 

“Here, My Lady.” From her other hand she offered up the brown paper. 

Glinda tucked the heavy tome under one arm. She couldn’t help the small whimper as she rose to her feet, the muscles in her upper thighs and backside burning. Within her skirts her knees trembled, threatening to buckle. Her body begged for the nest of cushions she’d left on the chaise.  

All I wanted was to be alone, she thought miserably. 

It was oppressively unfair, this battery, this burden. Her body still sang from her session with L. and already the literal weight of the world was resuming its crush and grind. It made her head hurt. Had it only been an hour ago? That touch? Her own whimpers and sobs against L.’s chest? Crawling, blindfolded, to El’s feet…She shivered. 

That second meeting with L. had been as intense and overwhelming as the first—in body and mind. Every fiber of her being still burned in the wake of it, especially those places L. had touched, as rough as she was gentle, as attentive as she was neglectful. Each abandoned orgasm or painful touch, each humiliation, had been matched with an equally shattering rapture, from that mouth on her neck to that attentive towel bath to the way she had dressed Glinda almost reverently this time. 

She could barely bring herself to recall the warmth of L.’s thighs beneath her cheek, the way L. had held her on her lap, soothing and pleasuring her. It made her want to swoon. She wanted to bask in it, luxuriate in it, run her hands over her body before the looking glass and memorize every bit of close contact they’d shared. But such thoughts came with a sort of ache she couldn’t comprehend. She didn’t feel strong enough to face it, whatever it was. Much easier to think of the directness of their more salacious behavior—somehow that felt less dangerous. Even—especially?—L.’s violence. Somehow that felt like the least dangerous thing about the woman. 

Far less dangerous to think of the sting of L.’s palm than the bit of her scent Glinda had caught, her face buried in that cloaked neck. Something earthen, rain and smoke and salt. All too familiar. Too devastating. 

Not now. Don’t think about it now. Don’t think about it—ever. 

She felt the heat in her cheeks, the sting of tears she blinked away as she resurfaced. 

Wes still held the brown paper outstretched in her steady grasp, that look of uneasy concern making her lips go thin. Glinda couldn’t meet her eyes as she took the torn fragment, running her fingertips over her name and address. The handwriting told her nothing, no erroneous capitalizations or excessive swoops and loops in the lettering. It was only her public name, scrawled simply and plainly in blue ink. It was the handwriting of a man—she just knew it—the way not a single care had been rendered into the calligraphy. Nothing like the way L. had executed that G so artfully. Glinda hated blue ink. 

“My Lady…what does it say? About St. Glinda?” Tilly’s voice, tremulous and small, came from over Wes’ shoulder, drawing Glinda’s focus back to the parlor. Back to the present. She glanced down at the book tucked against her side with a strange sense of fear and revulsion. The archaic illustration of St. Glinda glanced back at her, distant and blonde and dead. 

A concealment spell. Wes and Tilly were entirely unaware. Clever book, I’ll keep your secrets. 

“I could hardly stand to talk about it…it’s too tragic.” Her voice hadn’t really broken, had it? To Tilly? 

“And in any case, it’s wrong.” She sighed. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.” But she kept it tucked close against her side. Wes looked as if she might say something but stopped at the sound of footsteps.  

“I thought I might have dinner with my wife, if she can spare the time for me.” Chuffrey’s deep, gentle voice preceded his appearance at the parlor door, already crowding the room with threat of another excessive presence. 

Dinner? At a time like this? 

Glinda resisted the urge to drop her head into her hands. Must all of Oz make an appearance tonight in her private suite? Out, she wanted to beg them. Oh, I love you, but won’t you leave? 

“Darling! Aren’t I just spoiled with surprises tonight?” 

The performance required no premeditation; her mouth and body betraying her with the muscle memory of the polished sophisticate. She was kissing his whiskery face before she could even stop herself. 

“Good, you’ve an appetite, then.” He nodded to Tilly in his silent, mild way of requesting. “The dining room, I should think,” He added, giving Glinda a pointed look. “Before we forget we’ve got one.”

“Now darling, it isn’t all me! You’re out and about as often as I am.” She patted his solid chest, smoothed a wrinkle in his lapel. In another life, she knew, she would have made for such a good wife. 

“You go on ahead, Chuffrey dear. I’ll tidy myself up and join you in just a clock-tick.” 

When Chuffrey patted her bustle, it was patronly. Platonic. Nothing like the saucy way L. had done it at the close of their first session, as if Glinda’s body already belonged to her. Then again, he’d never had her face-down on his lap. Never brought his hand down on her bare skin. Thank Oz. 

Only Wes caught it—the way Glinda’s features tightened in a wince, her shoulders tensing ever so imperceptibly. Even that nothing-little-gesture of his had ignited the dormant soreness, that delicious ache she wanted to save for L. only. Her hard swallow. 

He hadn’t even asked about the heavy book beneath her arm, her lazily laced dress, or freshly unmade face her mistress had cleaned. Glinda was grateful. 

He really was so kind. 

…

Before leaving the parlor, she pulled Wes aside, out onto the balcony where the last boat could be seen docking along the canal. The sky was cloudy; there was nothing to see but an eyelash of a moon. Not a single star; no flicker of shadow. 

“Have there been any recent sightings of the Time Dragon Clock, do you know? Or that strange little troupe that travels with it?” She kept her voice low. 

Wes looked out over the city as if trying to locate it herself. 

“Last I heard they were traveling the Pine Barrens, Lady Glinda. I suppose it could be anywhere by now.”

“Here, even?” She looked up from beneath a worried brow. “Would you look into it for me? Please?”

“Of course.”

…

The wine had been poured, the soup set, and Glinda’s seat at the opposite end of the table was still empty. Chuffrey wouldn’t even pretend to be surprised or terribly hurt by her absence. He only wondered when she’d last sat to eat. 

Halfway through the glass of Mount Runcible Merlot he pulled out the day’s Ozmapolitan. Before he could flip to the finance section his eye was drawn to a column in the society pages about a Scarecrow whose recent presence at a croquet game had drawn significantly more attention than made sense. The journalist described the up-and-comer as a charmingly personable speaker, a new celebrity figure, and Chuffrey could not help but to feel his age. 

“Ozians these days. ” He muttered, turning the page. 

…

Alone in her office Glinda released a long, tired sigh, forcing herself not to cry from the sheer overwhelm of the day. 

She stood behind her desk, holding herself around her sides as she studied the book laid flat before her, black with a shimmering, animated color. It was like a blade gleaming in sunlight, diffracting the light with the cut of its edge. 

She’d already tried; it wouldn’t open. She had pried with her fingertips, pried with her nails, used every last ounce of strength until her arms had burned with the effort. The devil of a thing was sealed. 

“You are a tease.” She glared accusingly. When it offered no defense, she dropped into her chair, giving a groan. The book glimmered. 

“Why refuse me now? We’re alone.” Nothing.  

“Would you prefer to be seduced?” She taunted, her voice raw and sultry. “Must I romance you?” Nothing came of it. 

Refusing to accept or consider this rejection, Glinda unlocked her drawer and removed the pile of notes, taking up her glass lens for the smaller details. The inscription on the brown paper matched nothing she’d ever before received—not the notes of warnings and meeting places, not the ones requesting aid or ink or other support, and not—certainly not—any of the notes from L., which she would not allow herself to read, though her fingers twitched to touch them. 

She’d have to be patient, though she wished she knew what she would be waiting for. 

The clock ticked along with its reminders. Chuffrey. 

The book slid into the drawer first, covered by the scraps of notes. Her silver key went into the lock with a click and a lie: I am safe and oh so happy. 

She didn’t believe herself any more than the book did.  

…

“Have you seen this?” Chuffrey was sliding the newspaper across the table before she’d even had a chance to set down the little decorative pillow she’d brought to cushion her seat.

Glinda paused before she settled herself properly, dragging the paper across her empty plate. 

“Ohhh, yes. Remarkably handsome, isn’t he? Do you think he uses a comb or a brush for those flaxen—” She was trilling on, running her finger through her own golden curls when he stopped her. 

“Glinda, he may well be positioning himself for your seat. Look here, what he said—”

“My seat will soon be empty. I’ll leave it nice and warm for his corduroy-covered—”

“Glinda, in all seriousness, these things are worth paying attention to.”

“Oh, but I do! I am!” She sat up excitedly. “In any case, I do believe I placed a pin of bravery on this very Scarecrow some years ago…or maybe it was another. They all look the same to me.” She blanched. “Was that a terribly wicked thing to say?” 

“You are a politician to your core, Glinda, saying one thing and meaning another. You’re considering him for your successor?”

“You wound me, Chuffrey, all this meaning and saying. Why, sometimes I even discover myself meaning what I say after I’ve already said it, that’s how much I mean what I say.” She hardly knew now what she meant, but it felt honest. 

She ignored his silence, continuing, “But the Ozians do seem to love him. Not nearly as much as they love me, of course, but it would be a start.”

“He doesn’t have a brain, you know.”

“Precisely.”

“You’re in a curious mood this evening, Glinda.”

She fiddled with her soup spoon. It was all she could do to keep the evening’s memories from flooding her mind, the embarrassment of who she’d been juxtaposed with the role of who she was. Even L. believed her a better performer than to allow the cracks to show.  

“I’m granting the Glikkuns their export tax.” She said carefully after a moment of silence, daring to glance up at him. Chuffrey gave her a hard enough look that she reached quickly for her wine glass. 

“Shiz—”

“Has been skimming from their supply and their revenue. It’s the Glikkuns who mine the emeralds!”

“The barons won’t be pleased. It shall take great lengths to bring them to peace with it.” He already sounded exhausted from the labor. 

“The Glikkuns worry me far more than a bunch of men who still try to bed me when they drink.” She spoke with far more confidence than she felt. 

“Glinda—”

“Oh, let’s not talk shop!” She said briskly, almost desperately, forcing a spoonful of soup between her lips. His shoulders relaxed, caving to her. 

“Alright, then. Tell me about your little masquerade. As I recall it usually falls between the Anniversary and Lurlinemas…What will you wear?” He sipped his wine, softening. 

Her eyes lit up. 

…

She could barely register the sense of relief she felt when Tilly finished turning down the bed, leaving her with a quiet word. The room was dark, thankfully dark, and quiet. 

Her nerves were still wired from the day. She had begun to fear it would not end, each new interruption and complication troublesome, her tolerance wearing thin. 

The session with L. had left her vulnerable, raw. Had she simply gone and taken up a room at the Florinthwaite Club, as she sometimes had, she might’ve avoided the mental duress of The Grimmerie showing up uninvited, the discussion of political drama with Chuffrey. But these were unavoidable now. Even the locked-away book still lingered like a shadow in her mind. Was she meant to protect it? Use it? Pass it along? She’d never been able to read the thing, no matter what L. thought of her sorcery. It never spoke to her. 

But Elphaba…it had spoken to Elphaba. If she were here now the book would almost certainly open its pages, reveal its ink. 

Everything opens for Elphaba. 

Even though she knew it was as true as it was untrue, she believed it. 

And El? I open for El.

Her thoughts were incoherent, hazy. 

She must have slept because when her eyes reopened there was light. Tilly was setting her coffee in the parlor just outside, waiting to help her bathe and dress. Things felt as unclear as they had in the dark, her thoughts reeling as she sat at her vanity to assess herself. 

It didn’t matter. It never mattered. In fact, something felt almost right about the tightened cords inside of her, those knots and twists and tangles. They kept her wired, rigid, alert. It was almost as if she performed at her peak when she was most on the edge, as if the constant fear of falling was the only thing that kept her moving forward. 

…

The Cabinet Meeting of the Ministers was an uproar. The members of the Home Guard stationed outside in the glossy hallway didn’t even have to strain their ears to hear it. Wes cringed inwardly all morning from her station at the door, waiting for an opportunity to use her sword that she knew wouldn’t come. 

Glinda had leaned back in her seat as if barely listening. Years ago, the raised voices would have startled her—frightened her, even—but now she suspected she could practically sleep through it, if she closed her eyes. Instead, she kept them focused, fixed, following much more attentively than she’d allow the men to believe. 

“You are refusing to speak at the Anniversary—”

“Allowing the Glikkuns to rob us—”

“Planning to festivate with seditious Munchkinlanders—”

“Creating a court of public opinion—”

They interrupted one another to implore her to reconsider her positions. She let it go on just a moment longer, reveling in their fury, finding it all just a bit thrilling. Eventually, in the interest of granting the meeting some sense of purpose, she tapped her scepter. 

“Let’s see, is that all?” She asked innocently, blinking her wide eyes. “Have we missed anything?”

They’d missed plenty, but she certainly wouldn’t be the one to let it be known. 

“Lifting the Animal Banns wasn’t enough, Lady Glinda? Do you mean to upset the entire order of Oz?” 

“Oz,” she said carefully, with a particular emphasis in her speech that gave the ministers pause. “Was in quite a state of disorder when I stepped into the mix, wouldn’t you say? Munchkinland was already seceding, destabilized by the tragic and untimely death of the Eminent Nessarose Thropp—”

“—Wicked Witch of the East—”

“—May I continue? Yes, Nessarose had certain…peculiarities…”

“Like her sister—”

“—Like her religious fanaticism. And poor trade deals. Why, it was she who wanted to secede! Anyway, you didn’t see Nest Harding after she died. It was madness. Most of Oz was madness, if you can manage to recall the state of things when the great and powerful Wizard fled.” 

She sighed theatrically. 

“Munchkinland finally has a moment to rebuild, to reunite with her Ozian sisters, and one must be tactful. As for the rest, I mean really, out of the goodness of my heart I am here to make good, for goodness’ sake! What would you like, a civil war?” 

The ministers went on grumbling. When she spoke again the high notes of her voice were firm: 

“We are giving Glikkus the export tax on the emeralds they mine. Shiz will survive such a very minor cost, and we avoid violence. I will not remind you of the last massacre.” She shivered, having reminded herself. 

“After Lurlinemas I shall be traveling to Munchkinland to seek a peace agreement in the interest of reunification—or at least deescalation. Now, what were my other crimes you wanted to discuss?”

The uproar swelled to a crescendo. 

…

That day the grain import did not arrive. Rumor held that the cargo had been rerouted, though by what force and under whose authority no one could even seem to speculate. It did not bode well. The Emerald City grew no grain of its own; without timely delivery the shortages would be almost immediate. Glinda had seen it before—inflated cost, blame, the later violence. If it went on forever—if it happened again, even—the city might simply begin to starve. 

She’d had Tilly package up all the bread at the Mennipin Manor for the Children’s Home, resolving loudly that she was not to eat anything from the kitchens the soup woman might poison in retaliation. The kitchen staff were furious. 

So much so that when Tilly had begun to gather the loaves Winnie and the baker girl had pounced on her, the older woman snatching her by her hair bun. It was only Cook who could break up the commotion, guarding Tilly with a butcher knife as she packaged the scavenged bread. The others could only scowl. 

It was Wes who had discovered Tilly crying in the stairwell, hair awry and face blotchy, looking like a new mother with the hard-earned bundle of bread held against her breast, and it was Wes who gleefully marched them both from the kitchen on Glinda’s orders to remove them. They’d been Chuffrey’s staff, but he’d forgive her. There was plenty of unpleasantness going around as it was without Lady Glinda’s diamond head dropping dead into her soup bowl. 

Glinda pressed grimly through her plans for the masquerade before sending the fabric swatches and menus off to Crope’s loft apartment in a huff. At least he would appreciate the petty matter of color; Glinda saw only green. The Emerald City glared green through the manor windows, just waiting to devour her. 

But Glinda was never to be outdone, and there were other matters to attend to. There was the unpleasant matter of that wicked book—impossible as it remained closed to her—and the matter of her own private plans for the Anniversary, along with the public ones. Begrudgingly she had compromised only this issue with the ministers: she’d keep her public address in the programming.

As if that all wasn’t plenty, there was still her upcoming visit to the Mauntery, the afternoon stop at the Children’s Home, and the following day…L. She felt enormously grateful and more than a bit proud of the fact that she’d managed to win her case for a second weekly session. By tomorrow she would need it. 

…

At the Children’s Home Tilly was in a fit of delight handing out the pink candies with Wes. Having taken pity on the poor girl, Glinda had asked her to assist with the afternoon’s errands, a privilege she had never before been extended. 

Down the narrow hallway, Glinda passed the parcel of loaves to the Director, her neat little scrolls tucked inside the blanketing. 

“I shall be at the Mauntery next week,” she said lightly. “There is ink for the children, and parchment, and—oh. They’ll be needing paint, and paste, I imagine. For their art lessons. I have placed orders in several shops, but I shall send word for what remains to be acquired. They don’t tend to carry in bulk, you see.”

The Director was nearly expressionless but for a twitch at the corner of her mouth. 

“You really are too good, Lady Glinda.”

…

Before they departed, Glinda insisted on stopping in the hosiery store, her mind drifting to L. At the corner just before the entrance she stopped Wes with a little tap on the shoulder. 

“Unless you’re in the market for new pantyhose, I’d like you to deliver a letter for me while Tilly and I are in there.”

“The Plum & Pip?”

“The very same. No waiting, no threats, just a letter.”

“Of course, My Lady.” Wes slipped the letter into her jacket, turning to make her way back to the carriage. 

“Oh, and Wes?” She called, waiting until Wes looked back. Tilly had stopped walking, turning to listen, too. 

“Do instruct your guards to wait outside. I still have terrible dreams about that time in the fitting room.” A brief look of horror passed over the Guard’s face. 

“Of course.”

Turning back to Tilly, Glinda grinned. 

“I had just been in the middle of trying on a new corset when I thought I found a gray hair. The way Hostar burst in thinking I’d been stabbed!” She laughed so hard she wiped a tear from her eye. 

It was the first time she noticed that Tilly snorted when she laughed. 

…

L.,

I have been giving devastating performances all week. Standing ovations abound. 

Apparently, I am simply ruinous. You should have seen the costume changes!

All these masks lead me to wonder if you’ll still recognize me when I fall at your feet…

Devotedly disobedient,

G. 

L. had read it twice, the scent of Glinda’s perfumed wrists wafting up from within the paper’s fibers. 

It was risky, reckless. The vulnerability so thinly coated by that candied teasing, she could almost hear the accompanying teasing laugh; those pretty, painted lips twisting in a smirk or the little “o” shape they made when she’d taken her finger in her mouth, when she came. 

It was so very Glinda. So tempting, so disarming. L. hadn’t expected it, arriving late, hood drawn. When her assistant handed her the fragrant pink envelope she’d known immediately, pretending it was hardly anything at all as she’d taken it down the hall to read privately. She hadn’t needed the rosy wax “G.A.” on the back to identify the sender. 

Now as she sat with parchment and quill the words came easily to mind, unnervingly natural. Some small part of her was sounding an alarm—protocol broken, train off its tracks. 

That architecture of boundaries and borderlines, those rules and parameters she’d so carefully constructed, that crucial distance kept…

She felt herself revising, structures shifting to avoid collapse. She could keep her word, both to herself and that which she’d codified. Some structures must bend so as not to break. 

Glinda’s message had been clear: I need it. I want it. 

L. would give only what she’d promised, even as she felt the better part of her yielding, too—had yielded, before the ink even dried on the contract. 

…

Glinda had hardly dared hope for a response, though as she’d run her fingers over silks and satins, tulle and lace, she imagined her letter in L.’s hand, wondering how it would be received. 

Distracted as she’d ever been on the carriage ride home, she was hardly bothered by Tilly’s chatter. She was already drawing her plans for the morrow, how she would arrive early, even if it meant she’d be kept waiting. 

L.’s letter arrived at the manor minutes after she did, before Tilly had even finished removing her cloak. She kept herself from tearing into it on the spot and then again alone in the hallway. She would not allow herself to open it until she’d sat at her desk, office door closed, sliding the letter opener impossibly slowly through the fine paper, proud of her restraint. 

G.,

I’ll recognize you. 

I have seen beneath the costumes. Or have you already forgotten who removes them for you?

You perform with distinction, but I prefer the private performance—the one where you unravel. That one belongs to me. 

Leave the masks upstairs tomorrow. 

L.

It was almost impossible to will herself to sleep. 

…

Glinda cursed herself. 

For all her best laid plans, her scheming and dreaming, she was running late. The ministers had called for an emergency meeting with regard to the missing grain, which had still not arrived and now may never. 

She’d left the palace on swift feet, calling over her shoulder to Wes as they left the remaining Home Guard behind. 

There wouldn’t be time to preen herself beforehand, to sit before the vanity ensuring every curl and color was right. There wouldn’t even be time to change, which would be a horrible embarrassment given the enormity of her bustle, her pushed-up bosom. She would never have worn something so ostentatious—so excessive—with L. The dressing and undressing alone would cut into the little there was left of their time together. 

She arrived, breathless, at the little window and followed the assistant impatiently down the hall. She found herself tempted to toss the woman aside altogether and make her own way to the sitting room.  

Her chest still heaved as she stood against the door, eyes still adjusting to the darkness. L. was standing this time, not seated with that booted ankle across her knee. Her arms were crossed. 

“You’re late, Throne Minister.”

The use of her title was punishment in itself. 

She wanted to argue, wanted to pout. Surely L. could see the way she still struggled to catch her breath, as if she’d run the route from the palace on her own silver slippers. 

“Don’t sulk, darling, I’m here now, aren’t I?” 

Oz, she was in for it. 

L. approached her slowly, terribly slowly, a predatory stalk that suggested she needn’t bother trying to escape—she was already in the mouth of the beast. 

She had Glinda against the door before the blonde could even swallow her nerves, one hand gripping her hair while the other seized her hip. It was painful, ever so painful. Enough to make her jut out her chin, fighting L.’s hold of her hair. 

“My! How you must have missed me.” 

L.’s hand on her hip moved to cover her mouth. Her hooded head drew back slowly, making a scene of glancing over Glinda’s figure. 

“Have you any idea how ridiculous you look? And after all that talk in your little love letter. What have you to say for yourself, wasting my time and showing up in this asinine assemblage?” The hand dropped roughly to her throat. 

“You could have just said you aren’t fond of such a fabulous little robe battante, darling. No need to muss it up—” Despite herself, her lower lip had begun to quiver as L.’s hand tightened. 

“Oh,” she whimpered, losing ground. How quickly she surrendered, it was almost embarrassing. “Oh, wait. Wait.” The hand released, just slightly, the thumb drifting over her jaw. 

“Take off the tiara, won’t you dear? I fear you’ll crush it.” She spoke so softly that L. complied, stepping away to place it on the chair. 

“It was the Oz-damned ministers.” Glinda muttered, turning her shoulder ever so slightly to rub her throat so L. wouldn’t see. “If you think it pleases me…” She was helpless to finish the thought. Behind her, L. had already begun removing and unfastening, fingers working quickly through the laces and clasps. 

“El,” She fidgeted with her hands. “Must we end on time, or can’t I linger longer? It hardly seems fair—”

L.’s hand was at her back, pressing so that she was forced to bend forward, hands quickly moving to press against the wall, to stop herself from falling. 

“What’s fair is that you shall make it up to me.” 

L.’s fingers moved between her bare thighs, running along her warmth where the skin was soft and wet. She didn’t need convincing. L. had entered her abruptly, almost cruelly, her two fingers thrusting into her, hard. 

Glinda’s gasp gave way to groaning, low and rolling as if she no longer controlled her own throat. 

They were deep, penetrating thrusts. If they hadn’t been so precise, so exact, they would have felt heartless, careless. It was all the more demeaning that L. seemed to locate the source of her pleasure so easily, so effortlessly, as if she were so simple—as if her most private, sacred spaces were almost boringly plain, obvious and unremarkable. 

Her climax arrived quickly in a wrecked sob. 

The session wasn’t over. She followed L. down the stairs on trembling knees, fearing she may collapse when L. bent her over the table, taking her from behind again, here and there attending to her clit with sure, steady strokes.

Nothing seemed to hinge on Glinda—L. ignored each orgasm as it came washing over her in waves. Glinda was drowning; mindless, careless, caught between anguish and ecstasy. L. had not disciplined with punishment but abundance. She’d been well and truly spoiled in the purest sense of the word. 

At some point Glinda had gone limp, her fingers losing their grip on the table’s edge. She moaned past the point of L.’s touch, her body reeling and shuddering. It had been too much, but that had been the point. She shook from the overstimulation. 

Glinda barely registered it, but something in her subconscious stirred when L., gently gathering her into her arms, murmured softly My sweet. 

Something within her gained lucidity, sharpening her focus, but L. was murmuring now My pretty little pet, fragile thing, everything dreamy and uncertain. L. was drawing that warm towel over her skin, whispering Glinda, Glinda, Glinda until she realized she had drifted off to sleep, right there in L.’s lap.

Chapter Text

Glinda…Glinda…Glinda

She felt herself a young girl again, everything warm and simple and sweet. So loved, so protected. The bad things were elsewhere, always elsewhere. It was all pleasure beyond belief. She had been held, cleansed, and set down gently—half-seated, curled into her own bare arm. 

“Glinda.”

There was something fragrant—a kind of mint in the air. And there was something soft—what was it?—against her skin. Lights were floating between her eyelids, a kind of heat, the delicious burn between her still-quivering legs, that crackling air left behind after a spell…

“Glinda.”  

…and Elphie. Glinda loved this state: falling into dreaming or rising from it. This liminal space between sleep and wakefulness, where figments of her dreams were still real before they slipped away and real even before they neared, reality more dream than truth as it resurfaced slowly or sunk to the depths. Her two worlds weren’t in conflict or collapse, but were, finally, fluid and simultaneous. It belonged to her, this place, this intersection between subconscious and conscious. Here was where she could always reliably locate Elphie, always in the wings with her gentle reminder to hold out, my sweet. Just a little longer, if she could.

It was a stunning ache, so bittersweet. How often she had lingered there in its wake, some hour between night and morning, holding it to her chest. My sweet. She had heard it, so real this time. 

“Glinda.”

Surely she was slipping again, lost, and losing herself…that grief that made every sense sharpen toward a sign. Any sign. At the risk of madness. At the risk of perilous delusion from which she may never return. Every time she’d mistaken the shadow of a bird in flight overhead…every flash of raven hair she’d nearly reached to touch. All the green of the Emerald City, a verdant lamentation all her own. But no sign, no recollection, had been as striking—as strung through with truth—than that murmured My sweet. 

“Elphie…” Glinda stirred after the sound of her own drowsy murmur, her eyelashes flickering. 

The nerves were first to sense it, the mind slower to make sense of it: the prickle of peril. Fear fluttered up to her throat. Dread crept in after it, slow and chilling. 

It was only to be voiced in solitude—Elphie, untainted, still soft and young. And she had just released it, this bird too tender to fly by day. 

Glinda was unmoored. More dangerous than the slip of a state secret, her loosened lips had given up that most private, most vulnerable, most precious piece of her—that which was hers and hers alone. Treason bubbled up to the surface of her thoughts. Traitor. 

Not Elphie. Not Chuffrey or Wes or Tilly. Not a guard or a minister, friend or enemy. But L.—it was L. who had evoked it. L., smelling of earth and rain and salt, her low voice. Her dry wit. El, not Elphie. 

But no one else had ever said it. And now…

Don’t start…

Glinda’s eyes opened. L. had frozen in the midst of her careful routine. She was crouching at the foot of her chair to wring excess water from the towel into a ceramic bowl. Her gloved hand twitched, water still dripping steadily. Her head still bent over the bowl. Those tight shoulders beneath her cloak tensed with enough potential energy to fight or flee or fling herself upon Glinda. 

Glinda hadn’t moved, but inside her blood coursed quickly, heart threatening to burst from its cage. 

“What.”

It didn’t ask. Didn’t tell. The middle of the word twisted in the throat, the “t” released from the teeth, aspirated. A stop consonant warning stop. It ruptured the reverie. 

“I didn’t…” But what could she possibly say? Even the opening of her mouth had been a soft surrender. L. had heard it, released her breath. 

In just a beat the moment had broken. L. was again wringing the towel, the water’s sound a disruption. Glinda was left with her dangling sentence fragment, and no words with which to finish it. She felt as perplexed as she felt vexed by L.’s neglect, that silence which seemed to communicate so much and to confirm so little—leaving Glinda’s mind open to every interpretation: disastrous, ruinous, catastrophic. 

L. still hadn’t shifted her hooded head her way. She hadn’t looked at Glinda at all, folding the towel with that surgical precision of hers, rising to her feet and approaching the washstand. Away went the soiled towel and the water. She had lifted a second cloth from the washstand, dipping and wringing this one. 

She moved with such a practiced regularity that it was as if nothing had happened at all. As if Glinda had not murmured something forbidden, causing a crack in the foundation. As if she’d not done the same. 

Glinda watched her warily. Some internal mechanism had begun to reassemble as she studied L.’s back, drawing up the blanket the woman had draped over her, recovering her poise. Something was rising within her, threatening to overcome her, to spill forth, were she unable to quell it. 

L. had returned to her side, resuming the process, running that warm cloth over her shoulder and up along her clavicle. When L. reached toward her hairline, just shy of her right temple, Glinda could no longer bear it. Measured, slow, and with a striking sense of physical calm she hardly recognized in herself, she caught L.’s wrist. 

“Don’t.” Glinda’s voice was low, unnaturally low, but as real and as firm as her grip. L. stared down at the pale hand around her wrist. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” She asked quietly, beginning to draw her hand away. Glinda would not let go, her nails digging into the sleeve of L.’s black tunic. 

“Do you think I pay you to be romantic?” There was only a tiny crack in her voice. 

“Romantic? You found that romantic, being thrown down and fucked from behind? Glinda, that’s sad.” L.’s voice was beginning to tip back into that dangerous terrain; she was slipping back into herself. 

“You know what I—”

“You were so gone. There wasn’t anything left of you.”

“Gone, me?” Glinda scoffed, taking the bait.

Her eyes flicked to the standing clock, then back to the blackness of L.’s hood. “You talk of “nothing left”—our session isn’t even finished.” She turned her head slowly toward the clock, her every move calculated in real time to orchestrate, to lead. Despite herself, L. turned her head to check the time. 

“That’s a kind of theft, you know. I see it in court all the time.” Glinda’s eyes narrowed, watching L. shrewdly. 

“Theft.” L. echoed with amusement. “I’ve already taken all there is to take from you. You’re in no condition…” Her gloved hand twitched again as though she might fight to reclaim it, but then didn’t. 

“I can determine my own condition, thank you.” 

But Glinda was beginning to frighten herself with her own intensity; she released L.’s wrist. 

The hooded woman stood immediately, drawing herself back. She towered over Glinda now, which seemed to please the Throne Minister. She settled back into the chair, crossing one leg over the other and inspecting her nails, wearing nothing but that blanket around her middle. 

“If you didn’t know, my bank account funds a significant portion of this city’s functioning.” She drawled, one eyebrow arching as she assessed her polish. 

I’ll not let you forget who I am. 

“You think I don’t know when I’ve been shorted? That kind of slight makes its way onto ledgers—in polite society.”

“Is there something else you need, Lady Glinda? Something from my impolite society?” L. began to circle the chair, for the first time realizing that Glinda’s feet did not fully reach the floor. 

“More than you’ll give me, but I’ll take what I can.” She owned it, coquettishly, meaning every word. 

When L. did not respond, she continued:

“Oh I do think you’ve been rather too polite, Mistress, darling. And here I was expecting to be absolutely obliterated for my tardiness.”

She’d said it so coolly, so casually, those red lips drawing into a practiced pout. If it weren’t for the hood she would have seen L.’s approval, her lips curling into a smile. 

…

L. continued to circle the chair, the void of her hood fixed to Glinda. The tension stretched so taut that Glinda, despite herself, could begin to feel that familiar heat creep along her chest, pinkening her cheeks. 

She was spiraling; that such a fierce sense of overexposure could be produced by something so effortless as L.’s fixed attention was driving her mad—and stoking her burgeoning want. 

The hunger of her want ran deeper than that place between her legs. Yet again within this chamber she had been reduced to nothing but need, only this time there was a need that felt feral, existential. 

When L. passed to the back of the chair and lingered, Glinda’s breath caught. And suddenly, that low voice was breathing into her ear, murmuring, “You want obliteration, Glinda? Is that really what you want?”

“Oh.” Glinda said softly, a little tremble having come over her. “There she is...” 

She felt or imagined L.’s tension, some electricity between them. She held them suspended in the moment for as long as she could stand to bear it. 

“…the mistress I was promised.” She breathed at last, breaking the spell. The blanket slipped down to pool at her waist and she was bringing her hands up to run them through her curls, arching her back.  

Yes. She would beg for it, if L. demanded. Obliteration. 

She felt it was the only way she would survive it now: her own life, the terrible week she’d had, this raw vulnerability borne first from pleasure and then from the uninvited, unsolicited agony: My sweet. 

Don’t think about it. That ruination you can’t afford; this one you can. 

The blindfold came down over her eyes and Glinda couldn’t help the thrill that went up her spine. When L., still lingering close, nipped the sensitive skin of her neck, just beneath her ear, she felt herself growing wetter. 

“Have you even regained use of your legs, yet?” L.’s laugh was dark and quiet by her ear. 

“Oh, I’m not sure, Mistress,” Glinda said coyly with the last of her fortitude. “Perhaps you’d like me on my knees?” Her pride played across her lips beneath the dark fabric of the blindfold. 

“I’d rather you shut up, I think. You always talk too much when you’re desperate.” 

She couldn’t help the throaty laugh, which came and rang until she felt the rolled fabric brush her cheek, until it fell close enough for her to obediently bite down upon it. 

Then…then L. left her to suffer. Sightless and unable to speak, she remained seated in utter uncertainty. 

…

It was humiliating, to crawl without knowing in which direction she was meant to move. L. had called to her, but in the dark silence she seemed to have disappeared. Glinda sat back on her heels, training her ear for movement. 

“Lost, Lady Glinda?” L. called from across the room. Glinda quietly huffed her frustration, a louder groan coming through the gag for L.’s benefit. 

“Now Glinda, don’t be a spoiled brat. Come.” 

Glinda complied, moving toward the sound of her smoky, teasing voice. “I have something for you if you’re good.” Glinda tensed with anticipation but didn’t dare stop, crawling in that delicate way that had taken L.’s breath the first time. 

At L.’s feet the woman praised her, running her gloved thumb along her jaw, grasping her chin. She trailed her hand through Glinda’s curls before she took a handful of it in her fist, bringing Glinda first to her knees and then to her feet, her cries muffled by the gag. 

L. took her wrist and tied a length of rope around it, then did the same to the other. Glinda was held up by her wrists, together now over her head, as she heard the grinding creak of metal on metal, lifting her arms higher until she could just barely stand on the balls of her feet and her toes. 

L. grasped her chin so fiercely, so tightly, that Glinda’s lips pursed around the gag painfully. 

“You were late.” She said with disgust. Glinda dipped her head, nodding, but L. steadied her chin. A stinging slap met her cheek and she groaned. 

“You teased and you argued—you didn’t even apologize for wasting my time.” Glinda nodded again. L. brought her hand to Glinda’s throat. 

“You begged. You broke.” She hissed, leaning forward. There was a pause then, during which Glinda had the sense to wonder what was to come.

“You gave me your secrets.” L. whispered finally, her breath tickling the delicate shell of her ear, her hand tightening around Glinda’s pale throat. 

Glinda’s mouth gaped, though not even a muffled sound escaped. She was crying quietly. L. used her other hand to force the gag from her mouth, letting it fall at her collarbone. Glinda only whimpered. 

“I don’t think it’s just that you’re easy to break, my little gillyflower…” 

She trailed her fingertip over Glinda’s wet lower lip. Glinda accepted the finger as it passed her lips, closing her mouth around it hungrily.   

“…I think you are broken.” 

She said it softly, almost gently, watching the wave of grief pass over Glinda’s beautiful, wrecked face. 

“And that’s why you’re mine.” 

L.’s breath hitched ever so slightly when Glinda’s tongue lavished her finger. 

“Because I know what to do with this pretty little mess.”

She withdrew her finger slowly, noticing how Glinda seemed reluctant to release it. 

Her fingernail traced along Glinda’s lips and chin, down her throat, and finally, drawing a line straight down her front. It left a red trail from her collarbone to her pubic bone. 

“The tragedy of it all is,” Now she pressed her body against Glinda’s, spreading her hand as she traveled down to cup Glinda’s sex, a finger slipping between her lower lips. “It makes you wet to hear me talk about it.”

Glinda groaned like she’d been kicked in the stomach. L. drew her hooded mouth to Glinda’s throat, the faintest kiss giving way to a bite. 

“Oh, but you are being good, getting so very wet just for me.” There was a softness buried in the seductive taunt, detached though L. made herself sound.

She began to tease at Glinda’s clit with soft circles and strokes as if she were spelling something Glinda couldn’t read. It was difficult to stay steady on her toes, suspended as she was, but she still managed to jut her hips forward, seeking more of L.’s touch. 

“You always wanted to earn it when they called you Glinda the Good. That’s why you like it when it hurts.” 

Glinda moaned in agreement. 

“It makes the pleasure feel deserved, does it?” 

Her finger glided down to Glinda’s entrance, entering her with a sudden force that made Glinda cry out. She thrusted into her, and then continued to thrust until Glinda was gasping, on the edge. And then she pulled away. 

“Oz, you’re insatiable.” 

It was so dismissive, so degrading and derisive, it could have come straight from Glinda's own lips.

Glinda was not surprised by the riding crop, but by its timing when it met her skin. L. brought it down upon her flesh again and again, shoving the gag back into her mouth to muffle the noises she made. 

When Glinda grew quiet some five or so strikes later, L. set the thing aside.  

“Have you had enough, Glinda, or would you like to know what I have for you?”

Glinda had completely forgotten. She nodded, curling her toes against the hard floor to ground herself. 

“I know how you learn best by touch…” L.'s voice was meandering, wistful.

Glinda was not treated to the sight of the switch, but the feel of it—first, the tongues of leather brushing over her bound hands, letting her fingers explore them. L. drifted the tresses along the skin of her arms, her shoulders, and traced long, serpentine strokes down her spine. Glinda moaned with anticipation. 

When it first struck, she arched with a cry; a sharp, slicing burn beginning to bloom across the skin of her back. 

“One…Mistress.” She moaned around the gag.

The switch came down without warning for a second time and the noise she made was a raw, unformed cry broken from the back of her throat. She felt her body curl inward, the ropes beginning to bite the skin of her wrists. 

“Two…El.” She stopped counting after that. 

…

Again and again the lashes rained down on her with L.’s astute precision and accuracy, each one disfiguring the sounds she made, alighting constellations of pain throughout her nerves. 

Glinda didn't know if she was dreading each new strike or craving it, her body quivering from the expectation within each pause. 

Fireworks burst into color within her black vision, her mind gone utterly blank. After a time, she was unable to resist the restraints, her body limp, trembling. She could only whimper from within the wrecked state she’d demanded to be brought. 

L. paused before administering the final strike, directly across the span of her ass. When it connected with her skin, Glinda screamed through the gag as though she’d been completely shattered. She felt herself floating. Or falling. 

Her body trembled openly now, the deep, involuntary shudders wracking her. The whimpers came intermittently. The ropes above her creaked with her sway; her toes no longer sustaining her weight, merely offering the least amount of stability. 

If she’d started the evening as an act, then the artifice had surely been stripped away; she’d been laid as bare as she could be. 

She didn’t register the sound of L. storing the switch back in the wardrobe, barely hearing when L. returned to her, quiet as a shadow. 

“Still here, Glinda, my pretty?” She whispered, low and close to her ear. One gloveless hand under her chin and the other on her hip to ground her. Glinda nodded, collapsing into L.’s touch, feeling her body no longer belonged to her. 

She felt brave but delirious. L.’s bare hands were a rare, hard-earned treat—an exception she wouldn’t take for granted. They felt so warm. 

“You’re such a good girl for me. Even when you try not to be.”

Glinda shivered when L. cupped her cheek with her warm palm. She all but nuzzled her face into the gentleness of that touch. 

“It isn’t romance to be soft with you sometimes.” L. said quietly, as if she’d meant to keep it to herself. 

“Or maybe it is, but I think you need that, too.” 

Glinda’s attention narrowed in focus until L.’s voice was all that existed. 

“I have wondered, when I look at you,” L. murmured then, stroking just beneath her bottom lip. “When you were last kissed. Not devoured. Not idolized. Just kissed—because you wanted to be.”

She didn’t wait for Glinda to even try to answer. Instead, she slowly untied the gag, careful not to catch her curls, setting it aside. Her thumb swiped over Glinda’s swollen lips, then lingered.  

“Would you like that, Glinda?”

Glinda hesitated, acclimating to her shaky breath now free of the gag. When she tried to speak the sound was a whimper. Finally, she simply opted to nod, wishing she could see the woman’s face. 

Glinda could feel the shift of air as L. removed her hood, could feel the warmth of L.’s mouth as it neared her own. 

The mouth was soft against hers, slow. She tasted of peppermint oil. There was no sense of control or domination, only L.’s presence: raw and real. Just heat and lips and the faint tremor of restraint between the two of them, each yielding as they gave. 

Glinda’s lips parted just as L.’s began to pull away. L. kissed her again, then, deeper, her mouth opening over Glinda’s, not insistent but claiming all the same. Her hands came up to touch Glinda’s face, to comb through her hair, her fingers curling against her scalp. Glinda moaned, soft and authentic, helpless.  

It was fatal, the way the kiss deepened despite their shared devotion to discipline. There could be no moderation; this was thorough. Searching and starving. L. kissed like a woman who rarely could; Glinda, like a woman who had never been allowed. 

It was L. who broke the kiss again, if only to breathe. If only to murmur, “Good girl, Glinda,” before she was kissing her again, hungrily, neither knowing where one’s breath began and the other’s ended. 

One soft, warm hand gently held the base of Glinda’s skull, the other traveled down the narrow space between them, beginning again to pleasure Glinda, who was already so close, gasping breathlessly without letting her lips leave L.’s. 

When Glinda began to pant against her with her high, short-lived whimpers, L. entered her, their bodies close, her smell of rain and salt making Glinda want to sob. 

L.’s thrusts were expert as ever, sure to reach that part inside that made Glinda’s mind go white, her legs quivering. She came, open-mouthed against L.’s lips.

When they pulled away from one another, Glinda was gasping softly, her lips wet. 

“I’ve got you.” L. whispered. 

Glinda hardly knew what to say, could barely remember how to think as L. began to finally unbind her wrists. L. was careful, lowering her from the suspension slowly, supporting her weight as her feet came back to solid ground. When her knees gave out, L. caught her easily. Glinda’s cry died in her throat. 

“Shh, Glinda. I’ve got you.”

She was carried back to that chair and blanket—back to where it had all begun, where the damp towel and bowl of water still waited, now cold. Glinda listened to the sound of L. gathering fresh warm water until again she was lifted and settled onto L.’s lap, the scent of herbs and salves and sweet mint soothing to her senses. 

L. began to clean her, pressing the warm dampness softly over her sore skin. She wouldn’t be ungrateful for it now. A kind of ointment, smelling of a bitter mint, soothed the skin of her wrists where the rope had bitten her. L rubbed it there with her bare thumb. She softly kissed each wrist at the pulse point before releasing. 

She repositioned Glinda over one arm of the chair, laid out over her lap, trailing her fingertips ever so lightly over the burning surface of Glinda’s back. 

“Glinda, you needy girl,” she murmured. “you got what you asked for, didn’t you?”

Glinda nodded, her cheek pressed against her own hand, the blindfold somehow making it more bearable to lay broken this way. L.’s every touch soothed. 

“I’ve let you linger, like you asked. I wasn’t going to tell you that, of course. Next time I’ll charge you for it.” L. teased lightly, truly unbothered. She was in no rush. 

Something cool was applied to Glinda’s back and bottom, a tonic solution that settled the smarting skin almost immediately. She sighed with relief. 

“It’s mostly unbroken,” L. said softly. “But it will be painful later.” Glinda nodded again into her hand, not worried about later, concerning herself only with what she felt in this moment. 

“Did you get what you needed?” It wasn’t a taunt, the way L. asked it now. Glinda could feel her movement as she adjusted her hood, slipped her gloves back on. Finally, the blindfold was gone, and Glinda was blinking back into the low light of the room. 

“Oz, yes.” She breathed, still stunned, rubbing her eyes before L. brought the towel up to her face, cleaning with warm, wet caresses. 

This time L. carried her back upstairs, though she made Glinda cross the room to her clothes on her own to be sure that she could stand. She was dressed slowly, carefully, nothing tied too tightly. L. murmured here and there, but mostly they were quiet in the aftermath. 

As soon as L. had given the final knock to summon the assistant, Glinda turned back. She pressed herself to L. for the briefest instant, arms coming round the woman’s back—wordless, trembling, and gone just as quickly. 

“I’ll pay for it later,” she called lightly over her shoulder as she left, her voice thinner than she’d meant for it to sound. 

After she’d gone, L. drew up her shirtsleeve, running her fingertips over the little half-moons Glinda’s pink nails had left in her skin. 

…

She could only hope Wes would not notice how gingerly she carried herself into the carriage—hoped it even when Wes extended her arm wordlessly when they arrived at the manor. Glinda winced inwardly, her hand shaking as she caught the arm, stepping down to solid ground. 

Again, she had had to send Tilly away from undressing her and had denied Tilly’s attempts to help her with her bath. She hardly dared to check the looking glass. Feeling was more than enough; she didn’t need to see it. Decompressing in the bath, Glinda almost fell asleep in the warm water, the base of her skull resting comfortably on a small pillow atop the ceramic tub. 

A tremor had lingered in her hands long after the session, long after the stimulation had settled, the pain growing familiar. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the physical; in fact, any thought that brought her back to L. was heart-stopping. It almost hurt to think of her. 

She tried to distract herself, sitting in her office that evening—tried to remember who she was. There were so many problems to solve tomorrow and thereafter: keeping the peace in Oz, in herself. There were appearances to make, celebrations to host, and ministers to placate as she worked with and against them to mend the fabric of things. How little anyone saw of the real work it took to manage it all. How little she had left inside to think of it just then. 

That night she fell asleep folded over the surface of her desk, surrounded by uncertainty: the cargo reports, the week’s coded correspondences...The candle had long since guttered. Cold air drafted in from the cracked window, drifting through the pages on her desk so that the covers lifted as if some unseen forces were searching them. 

Beside her head, beneath her palm, was the heavy book whose cover would glimmer with color and whose pages would tell her nothing at all. She could not get inside; it would not open. The Grimmerie would keep its secrets to itself tonight, tomorrow, maybe, too. Its answers as devastating as its uncertainties—too buried, too bright. Too irreversible.

Chapter Text

The days had begun to escape her. 

The week was passing in a stream of scruples—mystifying, intricate enigmas. The simpler matters—meeting times, parties, and public appearances—almost made mockery of the darker dramas, but she had always moved gracefully between levity and gravity, blending the one with the other until the balance was made bearable. 

Glinda had begun to sense that she knew much less of the world than she thought she did. 

At every turn was another secret, another fleeting, elusive answer withheld from her. Time seemed to slip through her fingertips, truth even further away. 

The second shipment of grain arrived on time, though the first was never found. The loss lingered threateningly over all impending shipments and the border regions remained unstable; within its gates an air of mistrust settled over the city. Public opinion of Glinda the Good traversed the spectrum from budding doubt to worshipful desperation. The critics were watching now; the performance would have to be perfect. 

When she could, she would sit at her desk, running her fingertips over the carved ivy vines as she troubled over the riddles in her desk drawer. The Grimmerie remained closed. One morning she had laid her whole palm upon the warmth of its cover and whispered, please, feeling the sting of tears when she received nothing.

That evening, laid out on the hideaway bed within the chamber, with L. drawing her fingernails painfully, deliciously, across her skin, Glinda opened her eyes into the black of the blindfold. 

Open for me, she had nearly said. I am so open for you. She said nothing. 

…

An electric charge had sparked that first time their bare skin had made contact. Glinda was treated more often now to the softness of L.’s lips, the bite of her teeth. L. had invoked the idea of ritual in that first meeting; the foundation had now been laid for their own. 

L. increasingly redrew the lines as Glinda’s tolerance proved nearly limitless. The mistress lived between the boundaries of two extremes: as severe as she was in session was as soothing as she was in its aftermath, her practiced detachment giving way to something almost reverent. 

In L.’s mind, theirs was a dynamic of ratios—if the formula held, so would her resolve. Ravaging:Repairing. Hard:Soft. Even so, their sessions defied mathematics, defied her logic. Each time she removed her gloves—when skin met skin or mouth met mouth—her touch gentler than her own doctrine dictated, the borders between the two states grew less and less defined. Only one ratio remained fixed, immovable. Hooded:Bare. 

This last time Glinda subconsciously released her magic mid-climax, she snuffed out the lights. The chamber was submerged in a black so complete she could almost sense it through the blindfold. In the absolute void the room had become, L. had removed her hood and kissed her on the mouth. 

Emboldened by magic, Glinda had been quick to escalate the kiss, drawing L.’s lower lip in between her teeth, biting it before releasing. She parted her lips, offering her mouth to L., surrendering more than access, if she would claim it. She had heard it when her mistress groaned softly, taking what was given. 

Within each kiss were suspended states of liberation—armistice, equity. There could be no rules to indicate what was permissible each time the threshold was passed. 

This was uncharted, ungoverned territory outside the realm of ritual or routine. L. had never kissed a client. It was not written into her rules at all, not even between the lines. 

“Glinda,” she’d murmured, pressing her hands firmly to the sides of Glinda’s head. “I know you’re fond of the theatrics, but we really must learn to pace our power, mustn’t we?” 

Glinda began to practice her sorcery at home. 

…

She had only used their word once since that first time, the evening after a performance at the Chuffrey Exhibition Hall, during which a dancer rushing by her on the stairs had slipped a poem into her hand. 

It had been scrawled on the back of the event program: 

The sand spins round you when it shifts—

keep still and you’ll be in its drifts. 

To win the war that never lifts

keep each step nimble, light, and swift. 

A northern storm approaches now,

but do not take your final bow—

surrender we cannot allow,

when ships and wheels still turn and plow. 

Dear Glinda, listen to this vow:

your strength will see Oz through, somehow. 

She thought she had been inconspicuous, crumpling the page in her hand as they reentered their box, but Crope had murmured “cute” into her ear, having read over her shoulder. 

“I’m not fond of rhyming lines,” she’d muttered back as the lights dimmed, grateful that in the realm of theater Crope would not think it more than fan mail. 

“Besides, if it’s meant to be a sonnet it’s a broken one.”

During the second act she’d bitten her lip until she tasted blood. The note had left her nervous. 

She had gone straight to the Plum & Pip, peeling off her own clothing while L. looked on, perplexed. Glinda rarely bothered to reflect on what she needed beyond recognizing the primal urge it ignited, to be deconstructed and rebuilt in body and spirit. How it had begun to sustain her, this new ritual rebirth. This strange, masked intimacy. The lingering echo of that once-whispered, my sweet still reverberating within the chamber walls. 

It was simple, really—she needed L.

Glinda had murmured “more” and “harder” enough that L. gave without restraint, until Glinda’s choked sob broke through around the force of L.’s hand at her throat: “Munchkinland.” They had both been relieved to hear it. 

This was the clarity that would have to suffice until she could seek answers at the Mauntery at week’s end: to clear the mind and then begin again with senses sharpened. Hadn’t the poem meant to keep moving? 

…

On the morning of her visit to the Mauntery, Glinda stood facing the gleam of the Emerald City, looking down at her hands as Tilly laced her corset. She was long overdue for that carriage ride through the greenery, away from the city’s grind, away from the People’s Palace and the people’s hungry eyes and ears and mouths. But first, she would have to make her appearance. 

She’d selected a lovely emerald green taffeta gown, one with warm, long sleeves, whose generous tiered skirts swelled out from the waist with fine, floral embroidery—a perfect marriage of town and country, she imagined. Or city and country. Mostly city. It was an elegant affair. 

L. had behaved when she was asked in no uncertain terms not to mark her in visible places for the week, but as Tilly lowered herself to assist her—Glinda bracing herself on Tilly’s shoulder—the maid’s eye traveled to the bruises, the purple fingerprints blooming on her pale thigh, just under her chemise. 

“Lady Glinda…” she’d started to say, but as soon as Glinda’s eyes met hers, she faltered. 

“You’re alright, My Lady?” She asked instead, abnormally sober. 

“Oz, Tilly, have you become a doting ama already, so young? Hurry, now, I’m expected.” Glinda waved her arms dismissively, distractingly. 

Tilly said nothing more, but her hands moved gently. Glinda looked back over her shoulder at the People’s Palace with a sigh. 

…

The mood in the Cabinet Meeting of the Ministers was uneasy, the room humming with mild but mounting anxiety over the state of Munchkinland. Relief was palpable as to the continuance of the grain supply, but a few terse updates from the border had dampened any cause for celebration. More troubling still: there seemed to be, increasingly, no news at all from large swaths of the region. 

Glinda sat at her place at one end of the table, listening with close attention to the latest reports. On the surface she was cool, calm. Her brow unbothered, her face impassive. Beneath the table her hands clenched white-knuckled in her lap. She bit the inside of her cheek between her teeth. 

“Communications with central Munchkinland have stalled. There’ve been courier delays, missing reports. Our diplomats were stopped by armed guards near Old Pastoria en route to The Corn Basket, sent back the way they came because of something about “unofficial new Yellow Brick Road ordinances.”” One minister was reviewing his notes carefully as he spoke. Glinda sighed. 

“Oh, dear,” she said dryly, though her heart was hardly in it to be so sardonic. “Armed guards and new road ordinances? It’s either a harvest festival or a coup, and I wasn’t invited to either.” She swept her gaze over the room. 

“The diplomats are looking into this, I assume? If not, they’ll want to take the Pine Barrens north or move south of Munchkin River—but I suspect they’ll want to keep close.”

“Yes, Lady Glinda.”

“Shall we send another envoy to take the alternative route?” Asked another. 

“To which alternative route? The Corn Basket is surrounded. It’s always smoke and superstition in Munchkinland—”

“Smoke,” Glinda interrupted smoothly, her voice turning thoughtful. “Can always be traced to a source. And superstition, a story. They never spring up on their own, do they? Someone’s always fanning the flames. In Munchkinland it’s usually the Unionists, but somehow, I don’t feel they’ve the breath for this.”

“Yes, Lady Glinda. Stories. Well…something does seem to be circulating. The last exchange at the border indicated reports of strange symbols cropping up in the townships. A dissemination of pamphlets with riddles and scribbles. We do not yet have details, but they do not appear too incendiary, yet. They are…more poetic.”

Glinda felt a chill, a needling cold along her spine. 

“Goodness,” She murmured once she had collected herself, her smile wry. “Everyone’s gone poetic, it seems.” She raised her teacup delicately, taking a sip. 

“And lastly, they have turned over the border guard three times in as many weeks, at least those assigned at our border. We’ve managed to retain a few allies, but there’s cause to question why the change.”

“How unusual…when did we last hear word from the mayors? North or central?” She asked at last, as lightly as she could though her throat felt tight.  

“We have heard nothing from the mayors of the Applerue regions, nor those of Nest Fallows or Wend Fallows. Not in two weeks or more.” 

“Be so dear as to try them again. And their clerks, for good measure. In spite of it all, let us keep our heads about this, gentlemen. We don’t want to overreact and send the Ozians into a state of panic.” 

She stood, taking up her skirts in one hand. Wes placed her scepter in the other.  

“Do keep me apprised, would you please? Munchkinland has many voices, and I intend to listen to the ones that matter—those of the people.”

The ministers nodded, too serious to scold her today. 

She turned toward the windows behind her, looking through the glass to the palace balcony, and beyond it where the city awaited her.

“Perhaps you finally feel appearances are appropriate?” She asked rhetorically, her voice soft. She turned to leave. Without her signature flair, the ministers could only stand nodding in silence as she exited.  

Out in the hall she turned to Wes. 

“Yes, I believe we are very overdue for a visit to St. Glinda’s.” She murmured, leaning close to her guard. 

“You sense another faction forming, don’t you, Lady Glinda?” Wes asked in a low voice, her brow cinched. 

Glinda didn’t answer at first, looking past the guards down the empty hall. 

“I sense a faction has already formed…I just wish I knew whose leadership it’s following.”

She had seen this pattern before: rumor, splinter, swell. The words were different, the context new, but the shape of it was the same. 

…

The applause began before she reached her place at the balcony’s marble mantle, at the first gleam of her tiara over the balcony rail. Beneath the standard jollity was a touch of brittle unease: relief at seeing her again, at last, or in the hope her words might bring them some succor. 

“Fellow Ozians,” she greeted the congregated crush of citizens with that bright piccolo voice, light and lifting as it was when they’d heard it in the wake of the Wizard’s flight, amid the riotous rejoicifying on the day of the Witch’s death, and again on every occasion of note since she’d been named Throne Minister. 

It was the voice her Ozians listened for in times of joy or sorrow, the bubbling, soft soprano that insisted everything was alright because it simply had to be! 

Her gloved hand trembled imperceptibly around the cold metal of her scepter. The winter sun caught her lustre but provided no warmth. 

“Oh, how happy and humble I feel when I’m with you!” She bubbled, wiping a tear from her eye. “Oh, thank you so much, thank you.” She nodded her tiara, acknowledging their cheers. 

“Now, we must have a chat, mustn’t we? Quite a lot has happened, I know; I, too, have heard the innuendo and outuendo–all these rumors and speculations. It would seem these weeks have brought more questions than answers. No doubt you come to me today for clarity in the wake of whisperings...” 

The crowd grew still and silent, save for the titter of the palace pigeons. 

“…Whispers of scarcity, and discord, and all that uncertain activity past these city gates.”

She thought about the poem, the shifting sand. Her eyes flickered briefly over the crowd, hoping for a hooded head. When she had not found the figure she sought, she could only brighten her smile. 

“You are not wrong to ask these questions. Why, I think it’s time we deserve some answers, isn’t it?” She raised her chin, nodding humbly at their murmurs of agreement. 

“Firstly, the matter of the missing grain. Yes, it is true that the one shipment failed to arrive at the southern port, but we do not believe it was withheld by Munchkinland authorities. Our ministers have investigated the matter and have so far determined it only a minor mishap. We have since successfully received fresh supply, and future shipments remain secure. Our stores will hold and shall soon be stable again. You’ll all be able to bake your bread in peace. And my, what delicious bread you bake—I’ve had plenty of it, myself!” She placed a hand over her stomach with feigned modesty. 

“Secondly, with regard to trade. Well, I am so very thrilled to announce that we have just about reached the latest agreement between Shiz and the Glikkus for fair import and export of the region’s mined emeralds—to be announced next week! And who would we be today were it not for such goods?” 

She drew her elaborate emerald skirts away from her waist for emphasis, giving rise to a swell of pride among the city folk. Skillfully, she pivoted into a deep and elegant curtsy.  

In her peripheral vision, the ministers frowned. Avaric, seated behind them, shook his head. 

“Yes, the ink will dry on that matter in just a clock-tick, and as such we will continue to maintain the custom of peaceful trade among the territories. We Ozians are so famously friendly, let us not forget ourselves!”

She set her chin, resisting the urge to clench her jaw. Here her smile showed her teeth:

“Thirdly, Munchkinland: our kin and the keepers of agricultural prosperity throughout Oz. I wish to reaffirm my commitment to our upcoming Post-Lurlinemas Peace Talks, to take place, of course, while we are still in high holiday spirits!

“I wish to extend my ongoing support to the diligent, devoted interim governors, and look forward to working with them to strengthen and repair the ever-important unity between us. I have every trust in their ability to serve the Munchkinlanders until then.” She paused, sensing the rippling tension, softening herself. 

“Ozians, remember that there will always be little rumbles and ripples when the wind changes direction. We know that Munchkinlanders are a passionate, patriotic bunch–and we love them for it. But passion does not always need to inspire division. Sometimes passion is just passion. It is love: when we care enough to speak, to name what matters most, and to protect it. I do hope you know that’s how I feel about you?” This they loved. She blushed and bashfully tilted her head away. 

“Oh, but do remember this, dear ones. The current moment is not without its challenges. But neither are we without courage. Or cleverness. Or poise! Together, we’ve faced far darker, far more confusifying times, and together we’ve survived them—with grace, and grit, and—but, of course, darlingest Ozians—with style.”

The steady, delicate cadence of her voice wove through the crowd, fragile as a spell against a much fiercer storm. 

“Now I so hope that I have soothed some worries that might have plagued your minds lately. It would pain me to encounter an epidemic of frown lines on your pretty faces. In any case, take comfort in the fact that you, dear Ozians, are the reason I lace my corset each morning.” She paused. 

“Be good now—I shall see you again at the Anniversary of the Witch’s Death.” 

Even as she ended the address with a dazzling smile and a seemingly endless series of waves and nods and half-curtsies, she shuddered to herself. 

What speech on hope and happiness must end with Death?

…

Wes helped Glinda from the carriage when they’d returned at last to Mennipin Manor. 

“Wes, be a dear and keep the carriage ready.” She said as they crossed the threshold. “If I remain in this city much longer, I shall be forced to start breaking things, and it’s always the porcelain that suffers.”

Wes could recall Glinda flinging porcelain figurines from her parlor balcony during last year’s Anniversary season. She nodded grimly. 

Glinda continued to issue instructions even as Tilly worked to remove her cloak, the sound of her voice muffled by the fabric: 

“You have full permission to carry me out with only the clothes on my back if I’m not ready by teatime.” 

“Yes, My Lady.” Wes replied patiently. 

“Lady Glinda, a package was left for you while you were at the palace. It’s waiting for you in your parlor.” Tilly called timidly after Glinda, following her toward her chambers. 

Glinda had neither the time nor desire for packages, but she followed Tilly’s pointing finger to the item on her table. It was beautiful; a small gift box wrapped in satiny pink and green candy-striped paper, tied with a perfect pink silk bow. 

She lifted it delicately, peering at the sides. 

“No sender?”

“No, My Lady. It was left at the door.”

She hardly dared look when she lifted the lid. Inside was the most perfect Gillikin rose she had ever seen—freshly bloomed, clipped cleanly at the top of its stem so as to allow the flower to lay flat and fully open. 

Like home, she thought, almost teary at the memory of Momsie’s gardens. 

Its rubine petals were unblemished and richly saturated. Without even bringing it to her nose, its fragrance reached her, lavish and full. Gingerly, she rubbed a petal between her fingers, amazed it had not wilted.

Beneath the rose lay a small, handheld looking glass, nearly identical to her own. Its flattened silver rim was engraved in vines in intricate detail.

“Tilly, look. Who would have…” Surely not El. This is much too much.

“Ooh, Lady Glinda! It’s lovely.” Tilly peered over her shoulder into the box, hardly daring to breathe on its contents. “But look—” She pointed to the underside of the box, where a slip of paper had been tucked. 

Glinda removed the rose and glass, balancing them in her hand as Tilly handed her the note. 

The curling black calligraphy was too elegant for its message. That tremor returned to her hand again as she clutched the paper, reading and rereading:

In burning bloom and shattered frame—

she’ll crawl to me stripped of her name. 

Let Oz behold: she’ll yield her will—

when silk and blood and beauty spill. 

O Lady Glinda, gold and grace—

unmade, undone, erased from trace. 

The air shifted—electric, sizzling with sorcery—carrying with it the scent of something singed. 

“Lady Glinda!”  

Glinda had never heard such a shrill sound. She closed her eyes as if to shut it from her mind. 

Before she understood, Tilly had seized her wrist. 

Slowly, as if drowsy from sleep, she looked down at her hand to see the Gillikin rose had turned to a pile of ash in her palm, the burn’s red bloom already beginning to spread across her skin. 

On the table below, the looking glass lay fractured—her reflection shattered in a hundred shards. 

…

It had taken longer than an hour to leave the manor. 

Because Glinda had not taken charge in the spell’s aftermath, Tilly had. She’d packaged the note and glass—even the pile of ash—back into the little box, setting it within a larger one to insulate any lingering ill intent. 

Glinda had refused to allow her to send for doctors or ministers; the wound and the offensive package were to remain a secret she’d carry to the Mauntery. 

Tilly packed Glinda’s luggage while Her Lady begrudgingly reclined on her chaise, moaning to herself about meter and rhyme schemes and the poverty of poems that fail to stick to them. 

All three of them felt the weight of the threat. 

Wes was shaken. She was unable to rid herself of the feeling that she should have been the one to open the package, just as she had that awful biography of St. Glinda. It had taken this long to silence her; Glinda having had to hush her apologies. 

In the carriage now, nearly through the city gates, Glinda stared down at her wrapped hand, wracking her mind for any thought as to just who might have been so inspired. Really, she didn’t believe herself to have so very many enemies, and few whose animosity could run so deeply personal. 

Could it possibly be a poor joke of El’s? 

A provocation? A seduction? 

It was a stretch. 

Even in the way L. rendered her into those twin writhing states of pleasure and pain, there were limits. There was nothing erotic about the burn that hurt so terribly that her hand still shook with it. 

Were it even about some unforgiven sin, she didn’t believe they’d have shared so many other good moments in between. Those were too true to be a façade. Too fragile to be false. 

The theater poem had warned of a northern threat, but Glinda could think of no one capable of such volatility. It was a bit much to have come from the Gillikin barons displeased with the Glikkun emerald deal. Whoever had written it spoke of desecration, violation. Whoever it was wanted her ruined politically and personally—wanted her destroyed. And whoever had sent it had access to sorcery, which eliminated most of Oz from consideration. 

Was the rose alone representative of its nativity? 

Anything’s as possible as it is impossible, she sighed to herself. 

Glinda had risen above quite a number of negativities in her time—she would have to rise above this little matter just the same. And what was it she had said just hours ago?

Oh, yes. 

Grace, and grit, and—but, of course—style.

…

The Cloister of St. Glinda was nestled in the Shale Shallows within the borders of Gillikin, just past the West Gate of the Emerald City. It was set off from the main path, housed within the leafy greenery of the forest. 

For reasons she could hardly put to words, Glinda loved the place for its silence, its quiet work and unassuming exterior. It was like another world, the Mauntery, one that offered reprieve from the city. Her visits reinvigorated her spirit, in more ways than one. 

She had tried many times to be faithful—to anything, really. Often, she was touched by the iconographies and architectures of devotion—those old Lurlinist shrines in the wooded hills of her youth, the stories of saints, the quiet chapels. She had a fondness for stained glass and the wooden arms of ceiling naves and stories and artworks and the silent vows of the maunts. She understood what it meant to make a life out of one’s beliefs, but hers had never been religious, despite how often she’d whispered that prayer: Elphie. 

Sometimes she thought she might’ve made for a good maunt, herself. Though she would, of course, have had to do something about the drab robes they wore. One’s humility surely needn’t be dependent on a masochistic descent into dreariness. 

Still, if saintliness required the erasure of the self in the interest of devotion, she felt she could have managed.  

Everything about the place pleased her, especially that surreptitiously thrilling duality of place and purpose. Glinda didn’t visit the place to pray. 

She had fallen into a restless sleep, lulled by the carriage’s rock and lean, and Wes was gently waking her now. She was thankful to be lured from dreams of burning roses and thorny thrones, tiaras that sliced and glass that shattered, rising sleepily from her seat. 

She knocked on the door, herself, Wes close behind her, and waited on the steps for the short, gray-haired Superior Maunt to greet her. In the chill of the outdoors, she felt grateful for the warmth of her winter cloak and its fleece-lined hood that warmed her ears. 

It was not the old Superior Maunt who opened the door, but another figure she recognized immediately. Her breath caught in her throat. Impossible—but there she stood. The corners of Glinda’s mouth twitched. 

What a pleasant surprise. 

…

L. stood in the doorway with one hand on the heavy handle and the other at the molding, as if ready to shut the door against an unwanted intruder. 

She wore her usual black riding pants, tunic, and gloves, but lacked her signature hooded cloak. Instead, atop her head was a black veiled hat, the likes of which Glinda recognized from fishermen on the canals who wore them to protect their skin from sun exposure. 

It had a rounded top with a wide brim, attached to a curtain of fabric mask running ear to ear and down to her shoulders. Instead of the open space for the eyes, as Glinda had seen of the fishermen's hats, there was a black mesh layer to obscure what little skin would have shown there. 

Almost nothing was visible of the woman but the flash of her eyes behind the fabric. She still hadn’t quite registered the hooded figure on the stoop. 

Glinda made a point of looking the woman up and down, scanning her possessively before stepping forward, slowly bringing her eyes to the shine of L.’s. The twitch in her glittered blonde brow beneath the hem of her hood was the only evidence of the overwhelm of surprise she was working to swallow. 

Instead, she adopted a cool composure in the twist of her smile—measured, sharp, if not a bit triumphant. Her blue eyes gleamed. 

“Glinda? What are you—”

“That’s Lady Glinda, L.” Wes warned casually from over Glinda’s shoulder. The note of familiarity in her calm, controlled voice hinted at old friendship, leaving Glinda supremely curious—but that would have to wait. 

“Oh, that’s alright, Wes.” She put her gloved hand on Wes’ arm to settle her before turning back to L.

“El, darling. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. I assure you, I’m quite real, though I am freezing.” 

“What are you doing here?” L. asked, guarded. 

“I imagine the same reason as you…a pause for piety?” Glinda asked with amusement, by now entirely delighted at the circumstances.

“Doubtful.” L. murmured with her own hint of humor. “You aren’t the cloistered type.”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting you, either.” Glinda tilted her head, studying her. “But I find I’m not entirely displeased.”

L. laughed, and Glinda caught the shift in her hips as she relaxed somewhat. 

“Not entirely?” L. asked. 

Behind her, Wes gave a soft, disbelieving exhale, just shy of a laugh. From the corner of her eye, Glinda could see Wes’ neutral face, the curious attention barely visible in the lines around her mouth. Her eyes glanced back to L. 

“So far your hospitality leaves something to be desired, El—I did mention the cold, didn’t I?”

Over L.’s shoulder the Superior Maunt had come around the corner, clucking, her robed arms shooing at L.

“Rude even for you, L.—leaving the Throne Minister outside in the middle of winter.” She tsked. “Patroness of St. Glinda’s, no less. Let them in.”

Reluctantly, L. withdrew from the doorway. Glinda kept her eyes fixed as she crossed the threshold, watching the woman retreat to a desk in the corner. 

L. stood before a dozen or so scrolls, which she now rolled up and stowed inside her pocket. In the dim lighting, Glinda could only make out the repetition of cursive lettering. 

Translations? Transcriptions?

Inside the humble little entryway, she drew the hood back from her blonde arrangement and day tiara, nodding politely at the older woman. 

“Thank you, Mother Maunt. I do believe she was about to let us perish out there.” 

She turned back to L., tilting her head at the desk pointedly, then glanced up with a puzzled smile. 

“Practicing your devotionals?” She asked innocently. 

L. snorted. The Superior Maunt clucked again with disapproval as she moved toward the kitchens to check on dinner preparations.

Glinda crossed the remaining distance to L. 

“And what is it you’d be praying for? Surely not prosperity—I’m quite sure you’re handsomely paid.”

L.’s laugh gave way to a little cough. 

“Oh, that’s right, darling.” Glinda sighed mockingly. She turned to Wes conspiratorially. “She doesn’t believe in souls—tragic, really.”

“A word, Lady Glinda? In my chamber?” 

It was Glinda’s turn to cover her embarrassment with a little cough. She nodded, assuring Wes she’d be alright, and followed L. out to a dim stairwell leading to the visitor’s rooms. 

“My, my.” Glinda murmured, trailing her up the stairs, hardly bothering to disguise the fact that she was enjoying the view of L.‘s figure. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be so fervently…religious, El, dear. I quite like it, actually.”

L. snatched her forearm and dragged her into the second room on the right, shutting the door behind them. Glinda withdrew her arm delicately and stepped inside, glancing around. The Mauntery’s chambers were identical: humble bed, chest, desk, and a window overlooking the woodsy exterior. She stood by the window, watching two maunts picking winter peas in the garden.  

“Glinda—”

“Are you following me?” Glinda interrupted, leaning back against the glass, holding her wounded, still-gloved hand soft against her stomach. L. scoffed. 

“Following you? No. The world doesn’t spin around you, Glinda. This also happens to be a meeting place for travelers—I am here to meet a few acquaintances this evening.”

“I know what this place is.” Glinda said softly. “That’s why I’m here, too.” 

“No, you—” L. hesitated. 

“Surely you knew I was the benefactress…did you think all I did was sponsor barley stews and burlap robes?”

They stood, silent, until Glinda finally spoke again, her voice soft, unchallenging. She’d have to be the one to name it, of course:

“You’re in the resistance.” 

L. said nothing. 

“You may be surprised to learn I am, too. In different circles, surely, but it would seem they’ve overlapped.”

“Of course I’m surprised. Glinda, how can you be part of the resistance? You are the government.”

“The pretty face of it, yes.” Glinda’s voice was light, but her eyes were steady, searching for the bit of gleam where L.‘s eyes caught the light. 

“But don’t be so naïve, darling. I was part of the former, first. Long before this.” She touched her tiara with the tips of her fingertips absently, her delicate fingers brushing its emeralds. 

She glanced toward the garden, thinking. 

“Do you know how gillyflowers grow, El? Their bulbs spend a year in the dark before blooming. Even Throne Ministers have roots in the shadows.” She sighed. 

“Some causes begin in quiet places, too. You don’t shout revolution from the rooftops if you want it to last. You coax it. Tend it. And you wait.” 

She turned away again, watching the maunts with their quiet work outside. 

L. stepped closer. She wanted to ask more—wanted to tell more—but she said nothing.

“You are full of paradoxes, Glinda.” She said quietly after a moment, her voice low. She touched Glinda’s elbow with her gloved fingertips. “How do you keep them all straight?”

Glinda turned to face her, a faint smile curling her lips. 

“Oh, I don’t.” She laughed softly. “Straight’s not my style. Lucky for me, you’re very good with curves.” Her tone was teasing, but she meant her answer: You, El.  

L. looked down at her hand still holding Glinda’s elbow, drawing it back to herself. 

“It’s good to see you, Glinda.” 

Glinda’s smile softened.

“It’s good to be seen.” Her voice dipped, a little raw. “I was disappointed to have to cancel today’s session.”

From downstairs came the sound of the dinner bell, the sound of the maunts as they moved to gather in the modest dining hall. 

“I’d hoped you’d be there today,” Glinda admitted softly. “At the address.”

“You think just because I wasn’t waving a silk handkerchief and sighing your name I wasn’t there? You must not know about that tea shop on the corner—the patio has a perfect view of the balcony.”

Glinda’s pleasure at this alighted her sense of playfulness. 

“I don’t believe you! Tell me something I said.”

“Take comfort in the fact that you, dear Ozians, are the reason I lace my corset each morning!” L. mimicked. 

“I’ll look for you next time.”  

The dinner bell rang again. 

“We should go. You need to eat.” L. moved toward the door; Glinda followed. 

“El,” Glinda asked thoughtfully, pondering something she’d just remembered. “How do you feel about poetry?”

…

“I prefer the verses that don’t rhyme. Lyricism within the line is far more impressive than some tacked-on little accessory at the end.” L. paused, her hand on the bannister. 

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Glinda murmured, brushing past. 

Of course it wasn’t El, she thought with relief. 

They sat across from one another at dinner, sending Glinda into a state of euphoria. After so long and troublesome a week, L.’s unexpected presence was a necessary comfort she hadn’t realized how much she needed. 

She struggled not to stare at the woman over her soup spoon, studying her mannerisms, lingering over her words. L. would take her meal upstairs, she’d said, obviously to preserve her anonymity. The commitment was impressive, but utterly frustrating. 

Patience, she told herself. Grimmeries and mistresses only give you what you deserve. She felt silly thinking about it. 

“Lady Glinda, is the setting so formal as to require gloves?” L. asked when the meal was nearing its end, looking pointedly at her. Glinda had kept her left hand in her lap throughout the meal, but the obviousness of her gloved right hand as it hovered her spoon over her bowl was on full display.

She blushed uncomfortably.

“I’ll remember to ask you the same when we next meet.” She sniffed, a bit pricklier than she meant to let on. “But as it relates to my dress, that is a conversation for later.”

Wes laughed openly, loosened by her wine. By their second glasses it had become clear that the Plum & Pip hadn’t hosted much policy talk or underground strategizing—or if it had, it had been drowned out by the low burn of want between them, their careful exchanges of power. Their play. Having moved past her initial scandalized sensibilities in relation to Lady Glinda’s virtue, Wes was now quite enjoying the spectacle. 

Wes, herself, was no maunt or saint—she’d spent enough time around the bawdy men of the Home Guard and the rugged collection of characters that comprised her resistance colleagues. 

“Wesley,” L. turned to her suddenly, sobering Wes with the sound of her legal name. “Is it true what they say? That you once masqueraded as Lady Glinda to reject an important suitor from the Vinkus on her behalf? How many bustles did that take—and how much padding in your bodice?”

Glinda’s foot gave L.’s shin a soft tap beneath the table, then slid teasingly along her calf and up to her knee. 

…

It was late when the summoned group gathered at the round table in one of the meeting rooms of the Mauntery. It was so late that the windows held only starlight, the moon’s reflection in the glass a smudge of silver. The members were each sipping from their coffee cups to remain alert. The room was primarily lit by the warm fire and the inset candles along the walls; it was comfortable, the fire warm and the lighting soft. 

Glinda sat between Wes and L., across from a Goose, a Wren, three maunts including the Children’s Home Director, the Mother Maunt, and two of Glinda’s own expansive network—a canal worker and a typesetter, both of whom had learned the art of disguise from Wes. It was not the largest of such meetings, but each member, herself, existed within her own Ozian nexus, and so it felt as if quite a number of Ozians were in the room in spirit. 

Glinda was tilting her magnifying lens over her notes, repeating the ministers’ reports from that morning. Beside her seat was the briefcase with her other fragments and scraps, and the gift box she had yet to address. 

“There is growing concern about the instability in Munchkinland. I had hoped the governors could hold it, but with this latest news of armed militias, propaganda, and changes in the formal guard—not to mention that the northern and central governments have not been heard from in weeks—intervention may be necessary. Has anyone heard or seen these messages firsthand? These symbols? I am told they are riddled, poetic…”

“I am told there is a parable about a northern flower—the sigil is the Gillikin rose with petals that end in claw-like points. At the center of the rose is an eye.” Said the Wren, Dosey. “I have it on good authority from General Kynot. These matters were discussed at the last Conference of the Birds.”

Glinda bit her lip. 

“I have had a few too many intimate encounters with poetry this week, and in particular as it pertains to this “Northern Rose.” It’s beginning to put me off the form and Gillikin roses altogether, which would be extraordinarily unpardonable.” She murmured, locating the theater poem within her papers and sliding it toward the center of the table. 

L. snatched it before anyone else could and turned sharply to face her. 

“What happened?” L.’s edginess might have stung if Glinda hadn’t the sense it was somehow for her. 

“Crope and I were on the steps of the Chuffrey Exhibition Hall during a matinee intermission when a dancer slipped that into my hand.” She gestured to the event booklet. 

“The Hall is a common site for correspondence from my scouts, but this note, here, it’s…unusual.”

“…the war that never lifts…a northern storm…”

L. read the poem aloud in its entirety for the gathered group. 

“Not terribly helpful, is it? Other than to assert that there are as many forces with as against.” Said the Goose. 

“The mention of sand does not seem insignificant. But if this “Northern Rose” is the center of Munchkinland’s destabilization, why, she would be covering half the Ozian map: deserts to the west, Gillikin to the north, and Munchkinland east.” The Superior Maunt spoke quietly, trailing her finger across a yellowed map of Oz. 

“There are places north of Gillikin.” Suggested the canal worker. The typesetter was quiet, seemingly illustrating something with a cut of black charcoal. 

“What else, Lady Glinda, from your plague of poetry?” L. asked, looking at her shrewdly. 

When Glinda placed the gift box on the table Wes shuddered. Glinda glanced at her sympathetically. 

“A package was left on the steps of Mennipin Manor earlier today, when it was known that I would be at the palace for a public address.” She said carefully, removing the smaller box from the larger one. 

“I don’t know who left it there; they did not linger, and there was no return address. That’s another little unrelated problem I’ve been experiencing...”

Glinda began to pluck at her glove. 

“El, would you please open the box?” She asked softly. “Carefully?”

Giving Glinda a look of confusion, L. took the box and began to carefully untie the bow. Glinda, meanwhile, had peeled off the remainder of her glove. 

“Don’t touch anything inside.” She warned nervously, putting her unharmed hand lightly on L.‘s forearm. She turned back to the group. 

“Inside this box was a Gillikin rose—just the bloom, no stem, trimmed to fit. It was alive, fresh, fragrant... It was…impossibly perfect. Preserved by magic, I’m quite sure of it now. Not a single petal wilted. Beneath it was that looking glass, though it wasn’t fractured then.”

L. peered down into the box to locate the looking glass. When she glanced back up at Glinda, she caught sight of the bandaged hand clutched at her chest. 

“Let me see?” She murmured, holding out her hand for Glinda to delicately lay her own for inspecting. 

“That poem in there, on that little notecard—El, don’t touch it!—I remember what it said—

In burning bloom and shattered frame—

she’ll crawl to me stripped of her name. 

Let Oz behold: she’ll yield her will—

when silk and blood and beauty spill. 

O Lady Glinda, gold and grace—

unmade, undone, erased from trace.”

She recited the poem softly, each line catching in her throat like a thorn. Her fingers trembled in L’s hand. 

“It must have been enchanted. I read the poem aloud—exactly as I did just now—and then…well, I didn’t notice anything right away. I wasn’t looking. I barely felt it, at first. I was so struck by this scent in the air, something sweet, at first, and then singed, burnt. I remember thinking it was…odd. It upset the maid terribly—Tilly was shrieking. I looked down and there was ash—just ash—where the bloom had been, and this horrible burning sensation in my hand. Just this sharp, searing pain. The looking glass was shattered. All of it, just as the poem promised.”

“Not all of it.” L. said quietly, beginning to unwrap the bandage. “Only the first line of the first couplet.”

She held Glinda’s open palm face-up in her hands, the bandage wrap draped over her own arm. 

L. leaned in, the candlelight catching that flash of her eyes behind the mesh veil. Something about her physicality was intense, like a large cat on its haunches, preparing to spring forward. 

She trailed her gloved fingertips over the periphery of the reddish-purple burn. 

“It’s—” She began, then stopped herself. 

Glinda looked down at her own hand, curious. 

The burn was no longer angry and red. The broken skin was beginning to scab in strange, elegant lines. The marks were curving traces, sharp at the ends. A petal. Or claw. Or something halfway between the two. 

It didn’t resemble the whole of anything, not heart or rose or recognizable shape. But there was enough of a sense of deliberate suggestion that it unnerved them both, deeply. 

“It’s healing into something. The burn is part of the spell…” L. murmured, studying it.  

“I don’t like it,” Glinda said in a small voice, drawing her hand back to herself. “But it’s mine now, whatever it is.” 

L. gently grasped her wrist, bringing the hand back down to rewrap her bandage. 

“There was a report of a woman matching no known records but appearing to be departing from a duchy of some desert-adjacent sovereignty, something about a diplomatic pretense, or so it was said. She was last seen in the north, entering the Madeleines moving southwesterly. I’ve an acquaintance who spotted her traveling by carriage.” Dosey the Wren said. “I will notify the Conference of Birds to be advised.”

“Did your acquaintance offer a description of this strange woman?” Glinda asked the Wren. 

“Witchy. A tall, imposing woman with a severe, striking beauty. Impossible beauty. Fine dress, fine manner. A very curated individual. With secrets kept close to the chest.” 

“Well, if she’s the Northern Rose she’s fixated on Lady Glinda. I would say it’s no secret—she’s after the throne.” Wes offered, having taken it all in. 

“She didn’t sound like she’d stop there.” Glinda whispered to herself. More secrets. More promises of poetry. The coffee cup lightly trembled in her good hand. 

She spoke little the rest of the meeting. They all agreed that locating the woman and identifying her would have to be prioritized. 

Glinda stared down at her bandaged hand, held like a secret in her lap. Around her, the meeting continued—the rustle of pages and maps, the low hum of strategy. 

Not all of it, L. had said. Only the first line of the first couplet.  

She’d meant it to comfort, but Glinda could only hear the threat: unmade, undone, erased from trace.

The rest still waited to happen.

…

L. rolled over to the sound of a light knock on her door. There came a second knock, and then a deliberate third. 

“What is it?” She called quietly from her bed, not having to ask who it was. She ran her hand through her hair, inhaling deeply through her nose before releasing. 

The door cracked open ever so slightly, just enough for a whisper to slip through. 

“El, may I come in?” 

L. stilled. 

“No.” She frowned. “Why, what happened?” 

She reached sleepily through the dark for her cloak. 

“Nothing. Everything. Just…knowing you were so close, right down the hall.” Glinda said quietly, a confession full of awe. 

L. stood slowly, her stockinged feet meeting the cold stone. She was slipping on her gloves now. 

“That’s not a reason to go wandering the halls.”

“Then there isn’t a reason,” She sounded small. “But please, El, even so.”

“This is highly inappropriate, Glinda. Suppose someone were to see you?” There was only the door between them now. L. could almost feel the heat of Glinda’s body through the heavy wood of it.

“I don’t care.” She could hear the pout. “I needed to see you. Please.”

The floor creaked beneath L., her hand on the handle. She knew if she pulled it, suddenly, she’d send Glinda tumbling into the room. She could sense how close their bodies were, two opposite forces with only the door between them.  

“I’ll be good. I promise. I won’t touch—I’ll let you sleep. Just don’t send me away.”

L. pulled the door open gently. 

“I don’t believe you.”

Glinda startled, embarrassingly obvious, but kept her slippered feet in place. She was clutching a delicate pewter candle holder, the candle’s flame flickering over her face, her loose hair. 

“I can’t let you in.” L. said quietly. 

She glanced down the dark, quiet hallway, then back at Glinda, who seemed to glow in front of her in the candlelight. She stood there in her nightclothes, a pale, pretty arrangement of pearl-gray lawn fabric and whisper-white batiste. Her robe was trimmed in hand-stitched silk ribbon, lightly embroidered with curling thistles in silver thread. 

It was a modest arrangement, almost virginal, but where the lines of fabric fell and where the fabric thinned across her skin was suggestive enough to draw L.’s eye: the delicate line of her collarbone, the slope of her breast. The soft gold of her curls had been unpinned, falling recklessly about her neck and pouring over one shoulder, now free from the day’s careful updo. It fell like light. 

“You can, you can.” Glinda breathed. 

She looked so open, like a delicious secret meant only for L.—her beauty tempered only by vulnerability, by sleepless nerves. She was so obviously at L.’s mercy that it brought a flutter to the cloaked woman’s chest. 

“Glinda,” she whispered, struggling to hide how flattered she felt, something fluttering around in her chest at the sight of her. Under the surface her nerves tensed; outside the context of the chamber was pure free fall. She couldn’t even trust the air between them. 

“Just for a little while, and then I’ll go.”

But L. had taken the candle holder and snuffed out the candle, the door softly whispering shut behind them. 

…

She would have to pretend Glinda wasn’t there, she decided in the few strides it took to return to the bed. She slipped in, folding back the covers for Glinda. She could feel the other’s hesitation in the near black of the room, then her soft, self-conscious little steps. There were seconds of stillness, silence, before Glinda slipped in beside her, so careful in her movements, the scent of her perfume light and airy. 

Glinda had turned away, lying quietly on her side. She wouldn’t touch—wouldn’t even look—if it meant she was permitted to stay. She could feel L.’s warmth beside her, her scent in the pillows. 

L. remained seated upright, her back against the wall. She watched Glinda’s vague shape under the covers in the pale bit of moonlight her window gave. She could see the covers rise and fall lightly with each breath, could sense her tension as she tried so very hard to be good. To make not a sound, to move not an inch. 

It felt unbearable, though she wasn’t sure why. 

Glinda’s silence wasn’t the same as in the chamber, in the midst of reward or reprimand. It didn’t offer, wasn’t submissive. It was, instead, a kind of self-denial, as if she were trying to be as small as possible—as if she were trying to cease existing altogether. 

L. felt an unusual ache, having glimpsed it. It was her fault, after all—for opening the door, for enforcing this distance. Glinda had presented her with an impossible choice, coming to her room this way, and L.’s surrender was now to doom them both. 

She exhaled softly. 

“Are you asleep?” Glinda whispered. 

“No.”

“May I ask you something?” She dared. 

“No.”

Glinda was still. 

“May I touch you?”

There was the smallest pause in which neither refusal nor permission was given. 

Glinda shifted, lightly, curling to face L.’s side. L. didn’t move, didn’t look down to see when Glinda’s hand hovered over her own, when Glinda’s fingertips brushed over her wrists. There, above the hem of her glove, there was only the thin fabric of her sleep shirt between their skin. They felt each other’s warmth. 

L. remained fixed, leaning against the cool wall, eyes open from under her hood. 

Then slowly—in a barely perceptible rearrangement of bone and tendon—she had turned her wrist into the warmth of Glinda’s palm, allowing herself to be held. For a moment they remained that way, Glinda accepting what little she’d been given, L. warming to her touch, until Glinda’s fingers moved gently, tracing over her pulse point, sliding up the fabric of her sleeve so that their skin touched. Full contact. 

She continued to trace her fingertips over L.’s skin—light, lingering touches that faintly tickled, faintly aroused. Goosebumps crept across her skin. Glinda was shifting again, drawing closer, her mouth moving toward that pulse point, that soft, warm skin—and L. broke. 

Her hands found Glinda’s delicate wrists and pressed them gently to the bed. She slid over her, pushing her wrists up over her head so that Glinda was flat on her back, heart pounding, breath catching, the thin robe falling off her shoulders. 

“No more of that.” L. whispered softly. “You promised to be good.”  

Glinda bit her lip to keep quiet. L. felt her hips stir beneath her. 

“Glinda.” She scolded, lowering her hooded head so that her lips brushed Glinda’s ear. “In the Mauntery? Are you really so shameless?”

Glinda’s breath hitched and she had to swallow before trying to speak. 

“I’ve only ever prayed for one thing.” She said softly, rolling her hips. “It felt holy to me.”

Elphie.

Somewhere along the way it had become El. 

El. El. El… 

There was no difference to her tongue. No difference in what the prayer asked. 

Open for me. 

L. didn’t respond. Her mouth was full of the skin of Glinda’s throat, her shoulder, her breast. Glinda could only measure out the sounds of her pleasure in breathless whispers, until finally L. covered Glinda’s mouth with her own to silence her. 

The kiss was slow, insistent. Glinda had hungered for L.’s wet mouth all evening, her cool, clean taste of peppermint oil. She moaned ever so softly. 

“Shh,” L.’s breath moved over her lips. “Shh.”

She traced her fingers over Glinda’s lips, replacing her mouth with her fingers as Glinda took them in. She moved her lips down to the sensitive skin behind Glinda’s ear as her other hand pulled up Glinda’s nightgown, slipping between her legs. She was straddling Glinda’s body, subconsciously enjoying the feel of Glinda’s thigh against her core. 

“Pretty.” She murmured quietly drawing her wet fingers from Glinda’s mouth to run them down her front, admiring the fabric of her night clothes. 

Her fingers found the waistband of Glinda’s silk bloomers and dragged them down, running her fingers over her wet heat. Glinda was soaked. 

“I love how silky your skin gets when you’re wet like this for me.” L. whispered. Then, as if to undercut her own compliments, she took Glinda’s nipple into her mouth and pulled it hard with her teeth.

“Oh!” Glinda squealed quietly, covering her own mouth with her good hand.

“You have got to shut up.” L. whispered roughly, entering her with two fingers. Glinda groaned softly into her hand. The fingers did not pull out but pressed harder against her g-spot, pressing and massaging expertly until Glinda writhed against her hand, her thighs pressing upward. 

She recognized, somewhere in the haze of such pure ecstatic pleasure, that the muscle of her thigh was moving against the warmth between L.’s legs, and she began to move with more intention against her until L. herself began to gasp. 

She squeezed Glinda’s hip hard, so hard she worried she might shatter her. She needed Glinda to stop, needed Glinda to keep going, distracted by her own efforts between Glinda’s thighs. She couldn’t fight her off and bring her to climax, both—couldn’t sacrifice the one for the other. She fucked Glinda harder. 

“What are you—stop—” L. mumbled quietly, crossed between panic and pleasure, feeling herself too close to her own peak. Glinda’s thigh was moving against her in time to her own thrusts. Her focus was beginning to slip. She was panting. “Stop it.”

But Glinda didn’t. 

She pressed harder, matching L.’s rhythm. When L. gasped, it was real—sharp and unguarded. 

“Glinda—” She hissed, her hips stuttering forward. “No.”

She withdrew her fingers, eliciting a disappointed whine from Glinda, gripping each of Glinda’s thighs in her hands and pressing herself forward so her own knees spread Glinda open and kept her there, disarming that dangerous erotic thigh. 

Then she drew her fingers back over Glinda’s wetness, reveling in the little whimpers she was breathing against her palm, already forgetting her own transgression. L. entered her, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting, Glinda raising her hips as much as she could to meet her there. 

L. could sense Glinda’s orgasm as it began to ripple through her, the way her muscles clenched, the way her pale lashes fluttered in the moonlight. She’d glittered them. L. could have laughed if she wasn’t more distracted by the trembling thighs, the little muffled noises as Glinda came, overwhelmed, tearful, spent. 

L. felt an urge to retreat, to leave her trembling and recovering to herself, to step out into the cold night air. Instead, she carefully withdrew herself, smoothing down the nightgown and drawing Glinda closer so that her head was in her lap. Glinda panted, curling against her. 

L. reached for her hurt hand, running her thumb over the pale periphery of the burn. She kissed the top of her wrist where the skin was whole and unhurt. Glinda sighed, and sighed again, her head growing heavy on L.’s lap. Her eyes fluttered open once, unfocused, and L. saw the edges of a smile curling over her lips before her lashes lowered again. 

She fell asleep thinking: El will open, after all.  

She fell asleep thinking: My El. 

…

L. did not sleep. She lay beside Glinda for hours, unable to look at her. Their shoulders just barely grazing, she allowed their shared warmth to collect in that space between them, feeling her nerves hum. 

She stayed until she was sure Glinda was asleep and would not reawaken at the light shift of the mattress as she slipped from the bed. 

She stood over Glinda, using one finger to ease the curls out of her face, watching the expressionless look of peace throughout her features, wincing at the burned hand clutched beneath her chin. 

And then she slipped out down the dark hallway. 

Chapter Text

L. sat alone in the modest dining hall, looking out at the morning light catching the ground’s frost-laced grasses. The blades stood stiff and wet, silvered in dawn. Beneath her veiled hat, she sipped her coffee, lost in thought.

Days always began early at the Mauntery. The maunts rose before the sun, beginning the work of the day. They had only nodded politely as L. slipped by them, her boots still slick from outside. The Superior Maunt had given her a strange, amused look, but said nothing as she led the maunts to the chapel. 

The muted sound of kitchen work and low-voiced devotionals drifted from down the hall. L. barely heard them. 

She hardly noticed when Wes swung her leg over the wooden breakfast bench, setting herself down easily across the table.

“L.,” She began casually, stirring her. “Lady Glinda’s bed was empty when I went to wake her. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” 

L. blew a puff of air from between her lips dismissively. She did not turn her head from the window and so did not see the amusement playing at the corners of Wes’ mouth as she sipped her coffee. 

L. turned away from the window to peer down into her own cup. 

“Let her sleep.” she said simply. 

“And you?” Wes asked, “Do you ever sleep?”

“Here and there.” L. sighed. “It’s never been generous with me. Not the way it is with you.”

Wes waved her hand. “It’s the Guard. We sleep when we can, ready to rise at the slightest sound. You might’ve fit right in if you weren’t such an independent agent.” 

“At least you get a reprieve from the uniform on occasion.” 

Wes glanced down at her white tunic and tan jodhpurs, shrugging to herself. 

“I think Lady Glinda prefers it to the regalia of the Home Guard.” She laughed lightly. 

L. snorted. 

“I’m sure she does. She’s never been fond of uniforms, but fashion that flatters a woman’s figure…”

“Then surely you must have…” Wes hesitated, fiddling with her cup. “Well, have you revealed yourself to her? In the privacy of your meetings at the Plum & Pip?” She asked quietly, curious. 

“No.” L. said simply. 

“You won’t even remove your hood for her?” 

When L. maintained her silence, Wes continued. 

“I am not one to judge. You must know I understand. But at least the resistance knows who I am. Isn’t it lonely to be known only to yourself?”

“There are worse things than loneliness. It comes at much too high a cost.” But the tone in L.’s voice was soft, an answer in itself. 

“Isn’t it lonely for her? Not to know you?” Wes murmured, more so to herself than in expectation of a reply. 

“She knows me.” L. glanced out the window. 

“We’ve come to know one another, despite the hood and gloves. More than we meant to, maybe. I suppose I should thank you, for your discretion.” She added. 

“It wasn’t for you, of course. I didn’t know for sure it was you she was meeting. I didn’t know for sure the kind of meeting—”

L. coughed—a subtle warning Wes was now approaching dangerous territory. Wes paused, lifting her coffee to her lips. She set the cup back down without having sipped from it. 

“Lady Glinda isn’t afforded much of a private life. She’s different, away from the palace and the public appearances. All I mean is that you must be mindful. I’ve now seen the way she wears her heart on her sleeve for you. Don’t mistreat it.”

L. listened quietly, her head tilted. 

“Don’t you think I know that?” She mumbled after a moment, her voice muddled as if she were puzzling over the matter. 

“We are on the cusp of war. If I have to collect her off the balcony weeping the way she once used to, I shall never forgive you. And neither will Oz if she falls.”

“By she I can hardly tell if you speak of Glinda or the State.” L. deflected quickly, as if the image were too much to bear. 

“As far as the rest of Oz is concerned, they are one and the same. Aren’t they?”  

The two silently sipped their coffee as the quiet maunts began to set the tables for breakfast. 

“Not to this so-called Northern Rose.” L. whispered after a moment. “She certainly seems intent on severing the one from the other.”

“You’ve heard nothing of the matter on your end? Or maybe you’ve been distracted from your duties, too?” Wes was not unkind in the tone in which she asked it. 

“I’ve heard very little. But I shall be listening.” 

Wes caught the flicker of her gloved fingers as they tightened around the little ceramic cup.  

L. exhaled, slow and quiet, beneath the weight of the woman and her state. 

…

The room was cold and bright when Glinda’s eyes opened tenderly, the early morning light intense against the dark of her sleep. 

She was alone. In L.’s bed. The reality of it registered with an overwhelming immediacy, bringing with it memories of the night before. She turned to press her cheek to the empty pillow beside her. It still smelled of L. in the way that meant she’d once laid upon it, her hair uncovered. 

She shifted, curling herself closer to the pillow.

L. had gone. But she had been there, beside her. So intimate, so strangely...domestic. Even at the Mauntery. 

Bless the Mauntery, she thought. That it could give us just this. 

She’d buy the place outright and move into it, if she could. If it meant more nights like the last one. 

L. had been there, beside her. But L. had gone. 

Glinda wondered just how long the woman had stayed after she’d drifted off to sleep. 

What was so unbearable? Why had she gone?

The question burned. The bed was empty. It suddenly occurred to her that L. might have already left the Mauntery, might already be well on her way back to the Emerald City. Back to that mysterious other client. Back to her secrets. 

It was impossible to imagine it—L. alone. L. with anyone else. Impossible to imagine L’s lips intertwined with another’s, with some simpering aristocratic shadow. What drippy thing crawled for her on Glinda’s off days? Called her Mistress? 

Did it matter?

She would never hear the whisper of my sweet. She didn’t get to feel those gentle fingers post-session. L. didn’t dress her. Those were the treasured exceptions reserved for Glinda alone. 

She would have to revisit the conversation about private retention. 

But then she saw it—just there. In among the bedding beside her she caught the slightest corner of dark fabric. L. would never have left for the city without her cloak. 

As if it were forbidden, as if it might suddenly bite, she slid her hand tentatively, allowing herself just the slightest brush with her fingertips. Gaining courage, she held its edge between pointer and middle finger, studying it as if she could memorize each stitch. She drew it close, pulling it from its hiding place and holding it to her chest. 

It held L.’s clean, cool scent, that scent of winter and water and damp earth and mint; she’d dreamt of that scent. She’d craved it. It meant a distance crossed, an intimate proximity. It meant closeness to L’s skin–as close as she’d been last night. The smoothness of her wrist. The pulse beneath her skin. 

It meant that at some point, while Glinda had slept, L. had taken off her cloak. At some point they had shared this space, bare to one another. No barriers. No veils between them. 

She thought about L’s slender legs, her strong thighs. The square of her back when she tensed her shoulders. She imagined L.’s dark hair falling loose there, the darkest dye. L. was a living shadow, a dark bloom of ink in water. A question. An answer. A woman she hardly dared believe she already knew. 

And L.? In all those almosts, in the darkness when L. removed her gloves, pushed back her hood, Glinda had never pushed—L. had simply given. As if she wanted to give, and give more. As if one day she might. 

Her palm ached, anchoring. The pain whispered beneath her skin: wake, rise, begin. 

…

“Let’s begin.” 

Glinda rose, resting only the tips of her fingers on the worn wooden table. She leaned in, all purpose and intention. 

Back in her own room that morning, she had chosen a blush-toned gown of pressed linen and pale dimity—modest enough for mauntish approval—the bodice attractively corseted and the neck buttoned high at the throat. Her fitted sleeves were pushed back to bare her forearms in quiet defiance of decorum. 

Her day tiara settled securely within her sunlit curls–she was all that comprised Lady Glinda: her polished poise sharpened to a precise point. Glinting, charming, deliberate. 

Her very posture called the room to a hush. From the hidden pocket at her hip, she withdrew a folded scrap of paper, laying it flat on the table in front of her and smoothing her fingers over its creases. 

“I trust you are all, by now, intimately familiar with the layout. This” she tapped the page lightly with a gloved finger. “Is the city square adjacent to the People’s Palace, where proceedings are to be held. I have notated event details for you in the marginalia. Additional copies are in that stack at the center of the table.” 

“Here is where I shall be. The murals will be mounted here, here, here, and here.” Her gloved fingertips glided over the page. 

“Wes?” She glanced up from under her brow.

“Each is accounted for. Installations begin at the start of the week and shall be completed by noon the day prior.” Wes offered easily. 

Glinda nodded, her face impassive. 

“And the more…creative flourishes?”

“The apple farm has pressed the printings. The painters are prepared.” The typesetter murmured from under her cap, setting down her charcoal. Glinda had to restrain herself from smiling at the smudge of ink along her jaw. 

“The pigment?”

“Mixed and sealed.” The Director of the Children’s Home said wryly. “Your advanced purchases did the trick, Lady Glinda. The bulk shipments never would have made it in time.”

“And on the matter of time…?” Glinda seated herself lightly on the table’s edge, one ankle crossing over the other. 

The canal worker answered this: “Your cohort of city workers ensured it. Two candle marks after sundown. We move at midnight.”

“You shall be safe.” She promised, her voice low. “If you need additional scouts, you shall have them.”

“And you, Lady Glinda?” Asked the Superior Maunt soberly. “Are you not concerned for yourself?”

“Oh, me?” She laughed lightly. “I shall be tucked under my coverlet, dreaming of ribbon cake. In my pretty bubble, my greatest concern is the guards sneaking glimpses up my skirts.”

“You’ll be center stage. If the tides turn—”

“Let them try to topple their darling porcelain doll,” Glinda said a bit too sweetly. Softer, she added, “But they won’t, don’t fear.” 

With this she set her chin, allowing her gaze to drift over her conspirators. 

“It is your bravery that humbles me. It is your goodness that reminds me what Oz might still become—if we believe in it. If we build it.” She paused. 

“Whatever happens, remember this, dear ones: there is no one story. No one truth. Our world is a collection of memory and myth. And myths are just stories that can still be revised.”

“Yes, Lady Glinda.”

“Quiet courage and steady hands, now.”

…

As L. traveled the narrow hallway back to her room, a flicker of motion drew her eye. Through the small square window of a door, she glimpsed Glinda—perched with one hip settled on the heavy table, one ankle draped over the other, her sleeves pushed back. Her chin was lifted; her brow set with a conspiratorial secret. She looked composed. Queenly. But there was also a certain tension braced behind her knee, the pulse of her throat. The parts of her performance failed to conceal.

L. couldn’t make out the words that were exchanged, but she didn’t need to. Even at a glance it was clear, the way the room bent around Glinda. She was in command. This was her own resistance at work. 

She hadn’t meant to see. Hadn’t been meant to see. She looked away before the image could settle too deeply in her thoughts. 

As she moved on, Glinda’s light laugh echoed softly in the hall behind her. 

“Duckie,” An old woman’s whittled voice called uncannily, then, through an open doorway. L. was tempted to pretend she hadn’t heard it. Was this a hall of past ghosts? 

“I’d know those skulking steps anywhere.”

L. turned, peering into the dim room. An ancient thing was sitting in a seat facing the window. 

“Not dead yet, no such luck.” The woman turned her head halfway, the bit of light from the window illuminating her profile. L. tilted her head, waiting. 

“Weren’t going to leave without saying hello to old Yackle, were you?”

…

The meeting had concluded as quietly as it had begun, the maunts exiting first so as to resume their daily responsibilities. One by one the remaining members of her party had trickled out until only Wes remained, lingering by the door. 

She watched as Glinda bent her head over the event layout, fingers drifting lightly over the illustrated dais where she was to stand for her remarks. 

She appeared to be in a state of memory–or memorizing. She did not stir until Wes cleared her throat. 

“Oh, Wes,” Glinda blinked slowly, as though returning from a faraway place. “You go on ahead. We’re done for a while.”

“Yes, My Lady.” But Wes stood still. “Forgive me if it’s forward to say, but I thought you might want to know that L. is staying another evening. I know—”

“Thank you, Wes.” Glinda cut in gently, relieving her of the effort of having to finish. “This morning, I almost thought she’d gone.” She added quietly, almost absently. 

“No, My Lady. She’s just not one for sleep.” 

Wes gave a brief nod, dismissing herself, and turned to head off down the hall. Behind her, Glinda remained at the table, a faint flush rising in her cheeks and an even fainter smile beginning to form. 

…

Glinda tucked her paper back into her pocket, turning down the hall toward her room. 

She hadn’t meant to linger. The halls were quiet now, everyone dispersed and distracted, settled throughout the Mauntery. She had thought she might be the only one upstairs, but as she rounded the corner, voices floated from a room just ahead—one a low, taut sound and another, sly and dry as old roots. 

Glinda slowed her steps, light on her feet so that her footfalls landed soft and soundless. 

“…You still imagine vision resides in the eyes, only? Oh no, duckie. I lost that a decade ago. No veil covers what sticks to you, child. I couldn’t name the hue, even if I still had my eyes. But it clings. Oh yes, it clings. Like lichen.”

Glinda held her breath. 

“Why is it you’re always lurking in the periphery? Always exactly where I don’t want you to be.” L.’s voice was so low, she had to train her ear to hear it. 

“Oh, it’s always been that way. I turn up unwanted like mildew. Can’t help myself; I go where the wind blows.” 

“You always seem to find me.”

“I’ve always had a nose for misplaced things.” Yackle gave a dry laugh, which devolved into a cough. 

“Though I don’t suppose you’re so misplaced now, much as you try to hide. Yes, still playing in the shadows. Tell me, how long can one wear a mask before it starts to stick? Mistress, is it now?”

There was a pause. Glinda’s fingers had come to her throat, rubbing softly at the embroidery on the neck of her dress. 

“Oh, don’t bristle, dearie.” Yackle settled. “I’m impressed, is all. All that fire and no place to burn. And now, pulling silk over eyes and ropes over wrists…a little illusion, a little discipline—and they never think to wonder who’s under that cloak.”  

Glinda shivered, knowing she should leave. 

“You’ve always had a way with words, Yackle.” L. muttered. 

“You wear it well, like spell work. You’ve the voice for it now. Not like the slip of a thing you were—all elbows, too self-righteous to bend.”

“I suppose you think you understand.”

Yackle’s voice was amused. “I’ve lived longer than most sins. I’ve always seen the shape of things. The disempowered empowering themselves, in more ways than one. And the coin can’t hurt, can it? A girl can’t run an underground world on books alone.”

Glinda heard only silence, then the creak of Yackle’s wicker chair. 

“You take what they fear and feed it to them—isn’t that a kind of sorcery? My…wicked indeed.”

“My work needed doing.” L. sounded as though she’d meant to say something else instead. 

“Oh, how brave. How bleak.”

There was a silence in which Glinda considered tiptoeing down the stairs, but something fixed her in place, strong as a binding spell. 

“Funny how fate coils like a snake—or would you rather I say Snake? All these years you’ve kept to dark corners, and yet look where you skulk and slither now, so poorly she almost caught you looking.”

“I don’t know who you’re referring to.” L.’s voice was a sharp warning Yackle wasn’t about to heed. 

“Oh yes, of course you do. The one who leaves a shimmer and a sting. Whose light once burned you. Who touched you once, somewhere beneath that bony rib cage, and you’ve never been the same since. The girl with the golden ringlets and voice high as a bell and twice as hollow. Always did speak like a teacup tapping its own saucer—delicate, deliberate, and a definite ache to the eardrum. The one—”

Glinda felt the heat in her flushed face. 

“You’ve quite made a point, but I don’t know what you meant to mean under all that nonsense.”

“Even when it’s glamorized, power leaves a scent—and I don’t mean perfume.”

“She is the Throne Minister.” L. said warily. 

“Ah yes, that one, who glitters her regrets and polishes her pain—or pays you to do it. She’s stronger than you remembered, is she? Suddenly you’re a nervous little novice again.”

L.’s response was dark and deep enough that Glinda couldn’t make it out. 

“Oh, come now. You didn’t think you could let her slip in and out of your chamber without consequence? You’ve got her heart beating like a clock you’ve wound too tightly. And you still think she doesn’t know you.”

“She hasn’t seen me.”

“Oh, but she does know. She does know something.”

“She’s better off not knowing, if she knows what’s good for her.”

“That Glinda the Good has a twisted sense of goodness, confusing love with the feel of your hand around her throat.”

Glinda’s breath stuttered as if Yackle herself were wringing her neck. 

“So, you can speak her name without burning to a crisp. Though I must say, I don’t like the sound of it coming from you.”

“I’ve seen you work, and not just with your Crows. The chambered sessions. The cloaked rendezvous. Your careful rituals, rehearsals of power. Almost holy, if you squint. And isn’t it always the case that the pretty ones are the quickest to come undone? How she unravels for you, unspools, opens herself to you—and you have no idea what to do with it.”

Glinda took a step as if to escape the conversation’s hold, but the wood of the floor creaked beneath her shoe. She pursed her lips, waiting to be caught. 

Instead, a pause came and went. There would be no escape now. 

“All there is, is control.”

“Control, is it? Is that the game you think you’ve been playing at? You’ve come back with a cloak and a crop and yet you still let her unmake you with a single look. She knows you. And she’s always known you, just as you have always bent to her.”

Glinda could hardly stand to hear it, but she waited with bated breath for L. to speak. For L. to say anything at all beyond her little quips and deflections. 

“Not always.”

For some reason, Glinda’s mind conjured up the image of a set of jeweled shoes. How they’d once damned her to the hell of abandonment. 

“You two spin on your little string, thinking you’ve chosen each other or chosen otherwise—when all the while, the string’s chosen you.”

“No one’s chosen anything. There are contracts, payments.”

“There are histories. Both past and present. And in the future—roses with thorns intent on drawing blood. Roses that have already burned that precious pale hand you’d love to devour. Best be honest, now. With yourself and with her.”

“I have to go.”

The sound of footsteps made Glinda’s chest seize. Quickly, nimble as one of her dancing conspirators, she slipped into the closest room to her right, closing the door carefully behind her, resting her forehead against the cool wood.

…

The rest of the day passed in polite distance. 

Glinda hardly knew how to behave in L.’s orbit, and was grateful L. barely gave her the opportunity. L. kept to the edges of the Mauntery’s society, reading a book in the courtyard. Even during her own meetings she’d only half-listened, earning her the Goose’s disdain. 

In the afternoon, when Glinda felt an anxious urge to set eyes on her, she’d found her sitting against a tree trunk, whittling a small thing with her knife. She watched through the window until L. glanced up in her direction, as if feeling her gaze. It made her feel like a child, hurrying off, having been caught doing something she shouldn’t. 

It was a pleasant surprise that L. attended dinner at all, considering she wouldn’t be eating with them. Wes, only half aware of the silence between them, took up the task of conversing on their behalf, keeping everyone’s wine glass full. 

Glinda’s shyness took on a giddy edge before the end of the meal, even daring to press the side of her heeled shoe against the inner sole of L.’s boot. L. startled at the intimacy of the gesture, but didn’t pull away—not even when the toe of Glinda’s shoe stroked her calf softly, light but with enough pressure not to be mistaken for an accident. L. pressed back into the touch. 

Before they broke for bed in silent agreement that a good night’s sleep was necessary before the morrow’s travels, Glinda lingered at the foot of the stairs, waiting. 

“Goodnight, El.” She said softly when the veiled woman passed her. L. glanced around before stroking Glinda’s cheek with the knuckles of her hand. Glinda saw the quick glint of her eyes behind the fabric. Something about the soft touch after all that she’d heard had brought about a knot in her throat. She swallowed, smiling shyly as L. turned and headed up the stairs. 

…

Oz, how divine. 

Gillikin roses—she could not see them, but their fragrance was everywhere, the scent enveloping. It wasn’t perfume or oil, it was real. Delicate, drawing her after it. 

Words began to curl in the air around her, stirring up the scent of the roses as if it were a physical presence. 

“O Lady Glinda, gold and grace—”

Where had she heard that before? Who spoke it now? She could not recognize the deliciously feminine voice, lusty and full, whisper-thin as if arriving on wind. 

“Unmade. Undone. Erased from trace.” The whisper was seductive, inviting. She wondered if it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, to spill out into nothingness. 

“Let Oz behold: she’ll yield her will—”

Glinda glanced up. The marbled floors, the emerald banners…the throne. 

Bare knees pressed to the cold, polished floor, arms trembling. A cold dread caught her breath in her throat. 

She was on her hands and knees in her own marble court.

She realized this slowly, as if her body had known before her mind did. Her thoughts were slow, drifting, as if her mind were underwater. 

“When silk and blood and beauty spill.”

Where was the voice coming from? And who spoke it? It sent a shiver through Glinda. The voice was exacting and precise as a bone knife. It cut right through her, traveling down the aisle to Glinda. 

The room to both sides of her sat beneath a fog so thick she could not determine if an audience was watching. Was it smoke? Illusion?

The throne was so very far away. She lifted her chin to see. It was as if she wore blinders—she could see no higher than the panel table, nothing above the minister’s jacket sleeves and gold cuffs. They did not speak. They did not so much as move.  

There was her throne, a woman atop it. With her vertical vision obscured, the woman was only visible up to her bust—even so, the spectacle was too much. 

The gown was rose-gold, burning deeper, blushing almost, brazen and bold, rich and dynamic. The silk seemed to breathe, rippling without a wind to stir it. It clung to the woman’s bodice, a kind of second skin, laced tight enough to madden, its bone buttons glistening like teeth. Her posture implied a casual power Glinda herself could not possess. A supreme sense of superiority, a hunger. Glinda could feel the electric danger of magic crackling in the air between them.

One gloved hand dripped over the arm of the throne, the other idly curling its fingers around a scepter. Glinda’s scepter. She was terrified to look any further, but even when she tried to look, she could not see. 

She was exquisite—even without a face, Glinda could tell. She was monstrous. 

“In burning bloom and shattered frame—”

Glinda cried, gasping—a sudden pain searing her palm. She brought her hand to her stomach, doubling over her knees. Curling into herself. 

The woman laughed from deep within her throat, cruelly erotic. 

“She’ll crawl to me stripped of her name.”

And suddenly, she was. Mind numb, Glinda could not help herself, she could not stop. Slowly she crawled, compelled by some strange pull she could hardly place. Her blonde curls hung around her face. It hurt to think. It hurt to resist, her own muscles dragging her forward. 

She was aware then, shivering, eyes on that silk lap, that she wore nothing but a sheer bodice and her short cotton bloomers. The fabric shifted uncomfortably, a cold sweat sealing it to her skin. How exposed she felt. How like a little pink doll she felt, crawling toward the woman, the greedy hands of the ministers. 

Were all of Oz within the crowd she would not know, the swirling haze hung heavy and thick, the room eerily silent save for the woman’s voice. She had begun to whisper now, her voice seeming to lower the closer Glinda neared.  

“Girl of gold and sugared tongue—

I’ll make you beg once I’ve begun.”

Her heart raced, though her mind was a mess. She felt like a moth drawn to a flame, everything was death and want. The woman lured her. 

She was close now, unbearably close. She trembled even as she felt a sort of burning need. 

“So sweet, so pure, so fit to praise—

but even saints have wicked ways.”

The scepter tapped the marble floor and Glinda collapsed as if a spell had broken. A part of her burned with shame. A shameful part of her—a dark, twisted, bewilderingly disloyal part—felt a little thrill. It was sickening, that small spark. Revolting and wrong, she was overcome with a fear she may faint.

Her knees bled. She was so aware of the thin transparency of her white undergarments. When the scepter tapped again, her body betrayed her, rising back up to crawl. 

“Come to me, little Glinda the Good Witch.” The woman whispered. Glinda was within a few feet of the throne, noticing now the jeweled feet, the milky, attractively angular ankles. The dress made the woman look like a burning rose. Glinda felt naked against such extravagance. 

As if reading her thoughts, the woman laughed, a mix of pity and condescension. 

“I am your Northern Rose, Lady Glinda. I am Mombey. I am who you kneel before.”

The closer she got, the more the world seemed to tilt toward this woman, as if gravity were the force drawing Glinda nearer. As if she were falling. 

Everything tasted of roses, but the scent had taken on a sickly tone, as if the roses had turned to rot. 

Glinda had reached the throne, close enough to kiss her feet. Her mouth watered. It made her want to spit. The tremble shook her whole form. 

“Look at me.” The sultry voice dared.

Chapter Text

“I am your Northern Rose, Lady Glinda. I am Mombey. I am who you kneel before.”

The closer she got, the more the world seemed to tilt toward this woman, as if gravity were the force drawing Glinda nearer. As if she were falling. 

Everything tasted of roses, but the scent had taken on a sickly tone, as if the roses had turned to rot. 

Glinda had reached the throne, close enough to kiss her feet. Her mouth watered. It made her want to spit. The tremble shook her whole form. 

“Look at me.” The sultry voice dared. 

Above her, close enough to touch, the woman removed one glove with a careless grace, exposing a hand too perfect to be kind. Her fingers were glacial and pristine, inhuman. They reached for Glinda’s chin, their chill radiating outward through Glinda’s skin like a spell. Cold and empty as a marble statue.

“Look at me, Lady Glinda.” The terrible voice curled in the air. Glinda tried. She obeyed—automatic, compelled—her chin tilting upward, gaze slipping to the skirt-covered knees she knelt before. But another voice cut through, disorienting. A sudden scent of mint—clean relief from the rot of the roses. 

Glinda. Dark and rich and warm. 

“Lady Glinda.” Sharp and sneering. 

Glinda. Glinda. Glinda. The second voice soothed. Foreign here, the voice came far too soft and far too gentle. She felt herself falling toward it. Tipping away from the terrible woman with the terrible voice. Now she may never see the face. 

Glinda! It insisted. 

The jewels were dimming, the awful whispers petering out. Around her the marble court was fading, the Emerald City scenery gone pastel, then pale. 

She woke into blackness. A light touch at her cheek made her flinch with a strangled cry. 

“Shh, Glinda. It’s just me.” L. was beside her, that strong, sinewy body curled protectively around her. Gloved fingers swept softly, soothingly, through her curls. 

“El…” Glinda’s voice cracked, choking back a sob. Through the dark she reached for some tether, some talisman. Her hand closed around the fabric of L.'s cloak. 

She gasped for breath, lungs full of roses, of that cloying, heady linger of magic. The dream clung to her throat like wet silk. She clung to the cloak. 

“Everywhere…she was everywhere.” Glinda’s voice came small and dazed through her tremble. 

“Slow down, breathe.” L. whispered, guiding her gently upright, drawing her in until their ribs kissed. When Glinda sank against her chest, L. could feel the rapid rhythm of her heart—a frightened rabbit on the run. 

“I can still feel it…” Glinda pressed her face into L.’s shoulder, inhaling her scent. She breathed deeply, exhaling the torment, exhaling its tension. 

“I’m here.” L.’s low voice whispered into her tousled hair. “Just me and you.”

After a time, Glinda had settled some, and with clarity brought confusion. 

“But what are you doing here?” She murmured, turning her teary face toward L, rubbing the tears from her lashes. 

“I couldn’t sleep. I was passing through, going for a walk outside, when I heard you from the hallway.” 

Glinda blushed. 

“A proper spectacle…I must look frightful—no, no, that was rhetorical. Please don't tell me.” she whispered, looking down at her hands in her lap. 

They sat in silence. Glinda began to worry the hem of her nightgown, at a loss for words. 

“I interrupted your walk…” She began softly after a moment. L. shrugged. “If you’re still going, may I join you?”

“Bundle up. It’s bitter out.” It was almost maternal, the way she said it—even clipped as it was—quiet, firm, and a touch possessive. 

Wordlessly, Glinda slipped out of bed and began to obediently dress in the dark. Behind her she could feel the heat of L.’s gaze on her back, warm and soft as sunlight. 

…

Outside the Mauntery, the evening was still, frozen. A heavy moon hung over the treetops, casting just enough light to see their steps as they crossed the courtyard. It snowed, barely enough to stick, but enough to infuse the dark forest with a sense of quiet accumulation. 

Glinda lingered close by L.’s side, occasionally bumping shoulders, brushing her cloaked arm against L.’s. She kept her gloved hands fisted in her pockets. To keep them warm. To keep them still. 

If L. observed her uncertainty, her light tiptoe, the sense she could barely remain contained in her own body, she didn’t call attention to it. 

Glinda felt far away from herself, L.’s presence the thread tethering her back.

L. kept her own thoughts quiet, sensing Glinda’s fragility. She remembered again the image of a frightened rabbit, running so as to stay alive. 

“Oz, but it’s cold.” Glinda whispered finally, breaking the long silence. “But I needed it.” She added, even as her teeth chattered. 

L. glanced down at her, moving to close some of the space between them. She allowed her arm to touch Glinda’s with more certainty, more permission. 

“Are you alright? Not just from the cold, I mean…?” L. asked quietly.

Glinda closed her eyes, took a breath. 

“I will be.” she said. Then softer: “By morning, I must be.” She couldn’t refrain from sighing. 

L. grimaced from within her hood. She slowed her steps. 

“Don’t—don’t do that. Please. I hate that.”

“What did I do?” Glinda wavered, slowing to a stop. 

L. could hardly look at her, bundled up, hooded. Small. She was so real. A few rogue snowflakes stuck to her eyelashes like the painted glitter she so often used for public appearances. 

“That performance—that mask. When you act like you aren’t allowed to feel, to hurt.” Even as she said it, she cringed at her own hypocrisy. 

“It’s to your benefit I’m too tired to argue about masks.” Glinda sighed again, taking a step to indicate she wanted to move on. 

Slowly they resumed their pace, walking the perimeter of the Mauntery, beginning to near the edge of the woods where the path continued onward toward the Emerald City. 

Glinda swallowed, trying again. 

“She called herself the Northern Rose. She named herself.”

Something called her to ease the glove off her left hand, staring down at the burn on her open palm. 

“The Northern Rose? She was there, in your dream?” L.’s breath hitched. 

“She said her name is Mombey.” Glinda said, struggling to keep her voice even. 

L. was quiet, processing. 

“She was the dream. I don’t know how, El, but it felt cast—like a spell. Maybe she sent it to me. It was so real, so penetrating. She knew things she shouldn’t. She said things I don’t even know. None of it belonged to me. It couldn’t possibly have come from me.”

“Can you tell me more?” L. pressed gently. 

“That poem…she spoke it. Among other awful little rhymes. That one line, she’ll crawl to me…” Glinda blushed. 

She stopped, having to turn away from L. before she could continue. 

“I was on my hands and knees. In my own court. Crawling. She was on the throne. I couldn’t see her face, but I know now—she’s beautiful. Frighteningly so. Dangerously so. A terrible beauty. She’s so powerful, she had me…” She trailed off. Saying it aloud to L. was worse than the dream itself.

“I was undressed. My knees bled. Just as the poem said: ruined. And the worst was…I…I hardly know how to say it.”

L. waited. 

“She…I think she knows about me. About us. The way I—oh. It was like sorcery, El. Like she was using magic to seduce me. To… arouse me. Against my will.” Glinda’s pitch had risen higher as she spoke, ending with something close to a squeak.

L. was silent behind her, looking at her own boots, listening intently. 

“She made me want to crawl. To kiss her feet. To give her everything I am. Even…Oz.” 

Glinda had begun to cry softly into her sleeve. 

“It wasn’t like it is with you, El. It was twisted. Wrong. I knew it wasn’t want. Even if it felt like want.” 

“Glinda, you don’t have to feel shame for wanting—not when it’s yours. Not when it’s forced. What happens between us…it’s different.”

L. thought for a moment, searching for the words. 

“It’s different because your power is never taken. Only what you choose to give, surrender for a time. You know that don’t you? You hold all the power between us—not because you pay, but because it’s your desire. Your control over what’s too much, what’s enough. It’s safe—because your want is our guide.”

Glinda turned back to L., her face curious. 

“Why do you do it?” She whispered. “Why build your whole life around this give and take?”

“All of life is give and take, Glinda. You know that a little too well, don’t you? But I don’t usually give as much as I do with you.” She glanced over. “I don’t.”

“You always say that. That it’s different with me.”

“Because it is different with you! Glinda, I…I didn’t become what I am because I wanted to give. I did it to take. To fund my projects, gather intel, survive. I’ll only say this much: I come from a past where everything was taken from me. And then I started to take. I exposed them. I protected myself. The Plum & Pip is a resistance cell. We started it because it was the easiest way to steal secrets from spoiled men and women—people who hardly noticed what they gave when they thought they were the ones taking.”

Glinda was horrified. And intrigued. 

“Espionage. You’re talking about espionage. Seduction. El, you are a clandestine courtesan—a sex spy!” She whispered, and laughed—a short, incredulous sound. It was a strange relief, laughing.

“I suppose…”

“Then I—”

“Yes. Then you. I didn’t plan any of this with you—but I didn’t plan that with you, either. I started the way I always start: at a distance. Testing the shape of things. The give, the take. Just to see.”

“Why, with the Throne Minister—of all people!—at your fingertips, why wouldn’t you want to steal her secrets? Why wouldn't you want to take? Why give?”

When L. spoke, it was as if the words themselves were fragile, as if she barely trusted herself to speak them:

“For the first time, I had a client who actually deserved it. I can’t explain. From the very first session, I wanted to give you what you wanted. You wanted, Glinda. And I don’t think anyone ever really gave you what you wanted.” 

“Once—”

“Not even then, though, did she? She left you.”

“Twice.” Glinda whispered. “Three times, if you count—”

“I knew what the stakes were for you. And still, you came. You were so good, Glinda. So good for me. I’m not sure that should be mine.”

“But the cloak, the hood…I understand why with them, but why with me? You talk of want like that isn’t the burning question. Like that isn’t what I want most.” Glinda’s lip quivered, despite herself. 

L. was not quick to respond, so Glinda went on. 

“For you to just open yourself to me.” She continued, softer. “I have been good. I’ve hardly asked. But you must know how utterly impossible it is not to be able to see you.”

“I know.” L. paused  

“I know you won’t believe me, but it’s as much for you as it is for me. It’s tiresome, yes, but at least it’s safe. Maybe one day—maybe in another Oz, a safer one. I just wish…wish you’d let it lie. It’s not a kind subject for me.”

Glinda did not want to let it lie. She bit her lip to keep from pressing, allowing the moment to pass. 

“So, tell me what my coin is funding.” Glinda offered, trying to smooth things over. “If it wasn’t just about the secrets.”

L. hesitated. 

“Well, what is it? If it’s against the administration I’m not likely to be offended—”

“Animal rights.” L. said simply, as if that explained anything. 

“What exactly to do with Animal rights?” Glinda asked, curious. “I lifted the Animal Banns, though I know it didn’t solve all the problems.”

“It was good of you.” L. reassured her. “A start. But change is slow—you know that as well as anyone. I’m funding research—trying to uncover the evolutionary developmental differences and similarities between Animals and animals and people. Trying to understand how Animals came to be, why they’re different and what that difference means. If we can understand difference, maybe we won’t fear it, or abuse it. We might even learn from it. Every time nature gives us something strange, it turns out to matter. These evolutionary anomalies, these differences, have a purpose—they tell us something about our own survival, how we as individuals fit together to create the whole of life.” L. paused, remembering herself. She tilted her head at Glinda curiously, reading her reaction. 

“The flood. The Kumbric Witch…” Glinda murmured. “All the old stories, how Oz came to be. How any of us did. It…pleases me, knowing I’m paying for this work.”

“That’s the academic side, anyway. I am also helping to build a small community—just Animals, caring for themselves, rebuilding, reintegrating into Ozian society as fuller citizens. A place where their lives can be…whole. Oz hasn’t made it easy. Society still doesn’t know how to welcome them. That’s not your fault. But they do see you, Glinda. They trust you more than they trust the ministers.”

Glinda tilted her head, taking it all in. Then she smiled to herself. 

“Well…I’m impressed, of course. You’re a benefactress yourself, without any of the public credit. I would like to help, if there’s anything to be done.”

“There’s always work for willing hands. We might help each other. Or our people might, I mean.”

“I would like that.” Glinda smiled softly. 

They began to walk again, slow and silent—but it was a different, more settled silence than the one that had begun the walk. L. guided Glinda back in the direction of the Mauntery. 

“Your lips are blue. Come, let’s get you back to bed.”

“El, you were looking at my lips?” Glinda asked, teasing softly. 

At the Mauntery steps, Glinda slowed. She reached for L.’s arm, fingers barely grazing her cloak. 

“I don’t think I want to be alone tonight.” She whispered. She meant to add something lighter—a bit of levity, a flicker of humor—but nothing came quickly enough. L. didn’t hesitate to answer. 

“I don't think I want you to be.” She returned, soft but certain. 

“I only meant—just to sleep.” Glinda blurted, already flushing. 

“I know.” 

Glinda could only imagine the accompanying smirk. 

At the base of the stairs, Glinda removed her heels, just as she had when they’d left. L. followed her up, glancing fondly at the soundless stockinged feet. They moved quietly in the shadows, careful to step lightly on the creaking wood to avoid waking the others. 

Inside her room, Glinda removed her cloak slowly, pushing back her hood and removing her cloisonné clasp. She rolled down her warm winter stockings, slipping them from her feet. She removed all but her nightgown. It was a warm, long-sleeved white linen that landed mid-thigh. 

L. had slipped off her boots, watching Glinda. She seemed to hesitate before she slipped off her riding pants, and Glinda’s breath caught at the sight of her long underwear and stockings. Still completely covered by black fabric, the thin underclothing clung to her skin, highlighting her shape as intimately as if she wore nothing. She brushed the bit of snow and damp from her cloak, then settled herself atop Glinda’s bedcovers, waiting patiently for her. 

Just as she had in L.’s room, Glinda slipped into her own bed to lay breathlessly on her side, as close to the edge as possible. 

A long moment passed in the quiet dark. Then she felt it. A warm hand rested lightly between her shoulder blades. A long pause followed in which her nerves buzzed beneath the hand’s warmth, and then it withdrew. 

“I’m here.” L. said steadily, her voice quiet. 

Glinda’s chest ached with abstract longing. She closed her eyes. 

It didn’t take long for sleep to come for her, but this time it was slow, and kind—warmed by the memory of L.’s touch. 

…

Glinda awoke to L. stirring beside her. She realized that in her sleep she had rolled over, curling her body up against L.’s back, her knees tucked into the backs of L.’s thighs. The sun had not quite risen, the room cast in the blue of early morning. 

“El?” She murmured, her cheek brushing L’s shoulder. “You’re still here…”

“Yes, but I should go before anyone else rises.”

“Oh,” Glinda whispered. 

“I know how to press the coffee, if you care to join me.”

Gently, she disentangled herself from Glinda and sat up, beginning to lace her boots. Glinda shifted, hardly trusting her luck, then nearly scrambled to dress, hardly caring how she looked. L. kissed the back of her neck as she did up the buttons of her dress, preparing for the necessary distance of the remaining morning at the Mauntery.

…

From the breakfast table they watched the activity of the day unfold around them. L. hardly touched her coffee before Glinda was already onto her second, and she had begun to chatter about silly things because it seemed no matter what she talked about she had L.’s attention this morning. 

“I love to dance.” She said dreamily into her cup, just as Wes was making her way toward them. “The Masquerade is the highlight of the winter season—almost as good as Lurlinemas, when the city’s swept in green.”

“Good morning,” Wes said cheerfully, looking from one to the other as if she didn’t know where to sit. 

“You can sit beside me, Wes.” Glinda said lightly, tapping the bench beside her. 

“If we leave before the next candle mark we can be back at the manor by afternoon.” The Guard said practically. Glinda frowned, not wanting to think of it. 

Over porridge they were quiet, lost in thoughts of city matters to be attended to upon their return. 

As Wes gathered their dishes, a courier entered on quick feet, signaling to her, drawing her away from the table. Glinda watched as the courier leaned toward Wes confidentially, the Guard’s face growing grim and serious. She felt a sense of dread. L. glanced between the two figures in the corner and the one across from her. 

Wes slipped back beside Glinda, placing her palm lightly on the table as if to steady herself. 

“A Glikkun was found murdered last night. In Shiz. An emerald trader who was there to unload his shipment.” 

Glinda startled. 

“How horrible,” She murmured, pulse quickening. 

“Lady Glinda, they’re about to print that from the weapon type it appeared to be the Home Guard. They intend to suggest it was upon your orders.”

L. stiffened, drawing herself back just slightly. Glinda turned to Wes slowly, catching the shift in her periphery.

“Did you tell them to retract it? Did you tell them—”

She cut herself off. L. had risen from the bench.  

“And where are you going?” Glinda asked, trying not to sound accusing. Failing.

“I need to send word to my associates.” L. said quietly. “They’ll want to know if…if this signals a change. If something's shifted in the administration’s stance on fair trade with the Glikkus.” Her voice was too composed.

Glinda’s face went pale.

“You don’t believe I did this. Not really.” Her voice was an octave lower than her register. She was stunned. “Do you?”

L.’s silence made her breath catch.

“You’re not even sure.” Glinda stood abruptly, as if to outrun the thought. She nearly knocked Wes from the bench. “You insult me.”

L. didn’t move. Glinda stared into the dark of her hood, her breath shallow.

“Not here.” Wes implored, rising too. She reached for L’s cloak with one hand and gently caught Glinda’s elbow with the other. “There are eyes.” 

She steered them into the corridor. Glinda blinked down at the hand on her arm, then pulled free with a murmured, “Alright, Wes. Unhand me. We’ll behave.” 

She turned on L., lower now but no less fierce. 

“Can’t you see what this is?” She said, her voice shaking. “And don’t you know me better than that? I’ve been working on this trade agreement for weeks—Avaric and the ministers are livid. My own husband’s unhappy with me over the state of the markets. And now this?” Her voice dropped further. “You hear one accusation, and you think I had someone murdered?”

L. raised a hand.

“I didn’t say I believed it.” She said at last. “Only that I needed to ask myself. You know what they’re capable of in Ozian politics. You know how often the unthinkable proves true.” 

“But I’m not one of them,” Glinda said, her voice catching. “I thought you knew that. Naïve, maybe. Too hopeful by half. But not that.”

“You’re right.” L. said. Her face withheld, only her voice could carry a note of something like regret.

A silence followed.

Glinda turned sharply to Wes.

“I want the Guard mobilized—quietly. No uniforms.” Her voice was low and precise. Wes leaned in to catch each word.

“I want to know who the Glikkun spoke to. Who he traded with. Who saw him last. I want to know who identified the weapon as Guard-issue, and who approved that for print. I want the names. Every link in the chain.”

Wes nodded quickly, already in motion. Her face had hardened.

Glinda paused, thinking. “If anything else unusual turns up—anything out of place—follow that, too. I think something invasive is trying to bloom where it shouldn’t. Some wild rose seems to think my garden is hers.”

L. snorted. Wes raised an eyebrow. She would have to tell her about Mombey later.

“And for Oz’s sake,” Glinda added, waving her hand with disgust. “Let it be known that the Throne Minister has never and will never authorize midnight executions in the streets.”

“We’ll need to leave at once,” Wes said.

“Then let’s.” Glinda looked once more at L with a glance that meant more than it said, but L.’s hood gave nothing in return.

She turned on her heel and walked out.

…

“Glinda.” L. stood in the doorway as Glinda gave the room a final once-over. 

“I didn’t mean to…” she trailed off, unsure of herself. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, thank you. I’m quite used to being underestimated and misunderstood—in fact it’s sometimes useful. But not by you.”

L. seemed to have held her breath in the moment that passed. She released it slowly. 

“I know.”

There came a quiet. 

“I didn’t want to leave it this way. May I?” L. asked, stepping into the room. 

Glinda nodded, unsure just what she was agreeing to, until L.’s arms came around her, pulling her close. She breathed in that scent of hers—fresh and sharp, like mint and snow—and something in her eased.

“I’ll see you at our next session…” L. whispered. 

…

Glinda’s return to the Emerald City had been unremarkable, with exception for the speed at which Wes navigated the carriage through the wooded path back. If Wes were not so expert, so composed, Glinda might’ve feared for the horses. Thank Oz they weren’t Horses—they might’ve had some words for the woman. 

Glinda had reclined in the carriage, feeling more pensive and prickly than she would have preferred. She forced herself to admire the icy trees, the pale diffused sky that flirted with rain but didn’t promise. Through the carriage she could see Wes’ form, half out of her seat, her men’s blouse tucked into her riding pants. How the inseam flattered the sculpt of her thighs. She imagined she’d look rather handsome, herself, in a pair of pants like those. She thought of L. and felt an old ache. She forced it down, beneath duty and lace.

The manor greeted her with its usual activity. Tilly was immensely relieved that they’d returned alright, having fretted and flitted about directionless in their absence. Sir Chuffrey asked for so little, and was so rarely even home. She was overenthusiastic in removing Glinda’s cloak, accidentally pinching her with its clasp when it had swung back shut. Rubbing her neck with a wince, she’d sent the girl off to run her bath. 

The night passed purposeless and shapeless, other than Wes’ achievement: the rumors, for now, would be hushed. Wes had marched straight to the newsroom offices upon their return. She did not describe the encounter in detail when telling Glinda, but her hand on the sword at her hip gave some indication the meeting had not gone down without a bit of intimidation. 

The murder would be addressed, but not the evidence of the Home Guard weapon—not until Wes could authenticate it herself. She had assured them if the report were found to be true, she would gladly render the appropriate punishment. Glinda had written the new statements of fact herself, combing through the file Wes had obtained. 

Even with this one relief, she slept poorly. She did not remember dreaming, but she awoke with a new couplet on her mind that must have whispered through her sleep:

Beauty blooms before it burns—

Lady Glinda never learns. 

…

Wes was out in the city with three hand-selected members of the Home Guard in civilian dress. Glinda had given them three names and two merchant houses—anything she knew of the intricacies of the emerald trade, and its dealings with Shiz. She’d have to trust Wes to trace the rest. 

The name Mombey had not been familiar to the Guard when she mentioned it, discreetly, in her office that morning. Wes did not ask how it had come to her, but assured her she would follow the woman’s trail. Glinda was grateful not to have to explain the dream, that lingering sense of a spell.

Now, glancing at her timepiece, she had begun to fear Wes would not return in time for her session with L. She had kept herself occupied, sitting at her desk. The rhyme echoed faintly at the edges of her thoughts. Subconsciously, she rubbed the healing burn on her hand each time she thought of the couplet. 

She’d written a letter of condolence to the Glikkus envoy, and another to the family of the deceased. She’d rewritten both, then rewritten again. It was careful work—one couldn’t be too apologetic or too formal. 

From the window of her office she could just make out the green haze of Lurlinemas decorations beginning to surface in the market squares. She preferred that to what she’d seen in her rides through the city proper, up close—the fixtures and fixings and beginnings of Anniversary folderol. 

She could barely contain her restlessness. In her drawer, the Grimmerie’s pull was a mockery. Look, and I shall remain closed, she imagined it taunting. 

Open for me only whispered through her thoughts once. She was beginning to tire of prayer and poetry. She wanted something tactile. She wanted L.’s sharp hardness. She wanted collision, clash. Something tangible. Something to thrust her from her murky thoughts. Where was Wes? 

…

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.” There was an unusual new edginess in her voice, as if she were disturbed at the fact that she cared at all. 

L. was seated with her elbows resting on the arms of her chair. She looked, somehow, casually furious. 

“El, I assure you, Wes drove the carriage fast enough to kill us. The horses are heaving out there.” Glinda brushed back the hood of her cloak, removing her tiara and running a hand through her curls. 

“Oh, animal cruelty. A nice touch in that poor excuse for an apology.” L. scoffed. 

“You could be a bit more flexible, El, darling.” Glinda pleaded with exaggerated notes, pressing. 

“Flexible. Shall we test your flexibility today?” L. asked with a hint of condescension. “We both know you’ll do whatever I tell you to do…how far shall I push you past your limits?” L. stood, approaching slowly. 

Glinda clasped her hands behind her back. 

“I don’t like this.” L. fisted a handful of her skirt. “It’s excessively pink. Turn around before I tear it off.” 

Glinda complied quickly, lowering her chin to her chest to grant L. access to the buttons along her spine. 

L. was rough, forcing the fabric off of her shoulders and down her legs until she was left in only her chemise. The gown was tossed carelessly, disdainfully, over the chair, followed by the corset. 

“Down.” L. pointed toward the stairwell where the chamber waited with its thrilling silence. “Don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

…

Glinda waited at the foot of the stairs, shivering. 

“I was beginning to think you’d come to your senses, that you’d stop seeking out your own shame and pain—but here you are.”

Glinda’s breath was shaky, released through parted lips. 

“Well? If you want to be here, show me.” 

In the still silence that followed, Glinda could only try to anticipate what it was L. most wanted from her. Remove her own chemise? Drop to her knees? 

But when she reached toward the hem of the thin garment, L. caught her wrist. 

“No, not you.” She murmured. “Don’t move.”

Glinda remained rooted to the floor as L. turned from her, returning to tie the blindfold over her eyes. 

“You’re right, though. I don’t think this little slip is doing much for you.” 

Glinda felt something cold and smooth—metal—against the skin of her back. It made her shiver. As L. glided it carefully over the surface of her skin, Glinda realized it was the blade of a knife, touching so lightly that it did not cut. The threat of it thrilled. 

The sharp cold of it traveled across her collarbone, across her nipples. She felt them harden. She felt herself growing wet between her legs. Then, she felt nothing, until the blade began to travel tightly down her spine, the sound of severed threads and the loosening of the garment bringing forth the realization that L. was cutting the chemise off of her, allowing the blade of the knife to graze her back. When L. slipped the torn pieces off her shoulders, she was entirely exposed, and already quivering. 

“Oh, she’s trembling.” L’s voice came from behind her, close by her ear, dripping with pity. 

“She’s lovely when she trembles.” L. said, a little sharper now. She seemed to be circling Glinda. 

Something about the way she spoke as if to someone else, as if ignoring her, invited a new sense of humiliation. Glinda moaned. 

“No—I said I didn’t want to hear from you unless I asked for it.” L. grasped a handful of golden curls, pulling Glinda’s head back painfully. She whimpered. 

“You really can’t help yourself. But I think we learned that at the Mauntery. Where other women go to pray and fast, you were there, begging to have my fingers inside you.”

She released her, suddenly, Glinda sinking back into herself. 

“Get on your knees, Glinda. Remember who you really kneel for.” 

Glinda’s breath caught, but she lowered herself. There was almost a warmth, like sinking into a warm pool of water. Yes, she thought. Like this. 

“To whom do you belong, Glinda?” L. had crouched beside her, holding her chin softly. 

“I belong to El.” She breathed.

“For me. You are only for me.” L. released her, moving away.

The cool floor of the chamber was comforting. She knew where she was. She knew what she wanted—she knew that she wanted. 

L.‘s boots circled her once as she waited on her hands and knees, then wandered off. When she returned, the riding crop had snapped across the back of her upper thigh. And then again on its twin. Glinda cried out. 

“Oh, I suppose you can talk now. Keep count, so I don’t have to.” L. said offhandedly. 

“Two, Mistress.”

L. increased the pace of the crop, and the sharpness of its sting. By fifteen Glinda was red, from her ass all the way down to the backs of her knees. L. admired her work, crouching beside her. 

“You’ve done…decently enough.” She murmured, a possessive hand gripping Glinda around the upper thigh. When Glinda groaned—in agreement? Apology? She herself had no idea—L’s hand drifted, two gloved fingers pressing against the outside of her sex. 

“Does being beaten with my riding crop make you want to come, you filthy thing?”

Glinda shifted her hips, pressing herself into the touch. 

“Shall I spread you open yet, or make you wait a little longer?” She asked, increasing pressure just slightly enough to make Glinda’s muscles clench. 

“Oz, you’re absolutely throbbing. Do you need it very badly?” Glinda felt she could come from the tone of voice alone, the way L. mocked her needy whine. “Oh you do?” 

Spread her, she did. It was the most vulgar thing Glinda had ever experienced, and she moaned shamelessly. Between her thumb and pointer finger, L. grasped her lower lips, opening, peeling her like fruit. Glinda could feel L.’s gaze, seeing all of her, so close and open. She groaned at the obscenity. 

“I can see how wet you are for me. You’re just a greedy little girl, aren’t you, Glinda? Are you just dying to have me inside you?”

With the air on her exposed organ she pulsed. Yes, she needed. L. had no idea how much she needed—how badly she needed it. 

Instead, L.’s hands wrapped around her forearms, dragging them back. Glinda felt her front tip forward. 

L. had taken up a bulk of rope and was beginning to tie her hands there, behind her back, while Glinda curled forward over herself.  

“You’re not to move unless I tell you to, understood?” 

Glinda nodded.  

Suddenly L. was pressing her face to the cold floor, her boot lightly pressing on the space between her shoulder blades. 

Glinda gasped but did not resist, blooming or collapsing under the thrill of it—she was losing herself. 

“Stay down.” L.’s voice was sharp somewhere above her. 

This was new. 

“You wanted this, didn’t you? Wanted me to give and take? Wanted to be good for me? To belong to me?” 

Glinda’s cheek rested on the cool floor—it soothed the fever under her skin. She whined when L.’s gloved fingers rubbed up and down the slickness between her legs. Utterly immobilized, she could barely widen her thighs for L., could barely press back into the delicious feel of her fingers. 

“Oh, you like this, don’t you? It feels good, my fingers on your aching, pretty little pussy? Do you want them inside you?” L. quickened the pace of her strokes, her palm brushing Glinda’s clit. 

“Yes,” Glinda whispered feverishly, her voice a whine gone high with need. “Oh pleasepleaseplease.” It issued breathlessly. 

L. laughed, then entered her. 

“My desperate little pet. So pretty. So ruined.” Glinda gave a sharp little squeal of pleasure as L.’s fingers quickly filled her. 

“So eager and obedient. I could spend hours just watching your little cunt take my fingers.”

Each time she thrusted, Glinda moaned, until the fingers came and went too quickly to respond to, her sounds fallen out of sync, purely responsive, pure need and want. It all felt so purely good. 

L. pressed her harder to the floor. Glinda closed her eyes. She groaned unfiltered. 

“Lift your hips, Glinda, don’t be such a lazy little thing.”

As L. repeatedly hit her g-spot, Glinda felt the waves of pleasure beginning to roll through her, the tingle that began in her curled toes, beginning to travel upward. Attuned to her every move, L thrust hard, leaning closer to her ear.  

“Don’t you dare, Glinda.” She whispered. The scold was erotic. “You don’t come until I tell you to.”

Glinda whined, helpless against pleasure, sure she couldn’t hold herself back. Sure she couldn’t resist. 

L. continued to fuck her as she writhed, fighting her own body’s spiral into pleasure’s depths. She gasped and whined. 

“There, just like that, Glinda—cry for it.”

“Ohh,” Glinda squeaked against the cold floor. “I…c-can’t.” She gasped, unable to think, much less speak. “I can’t…can’t…”

“Do you need to come now, Glinda? Are you sure?”

“Oz, yes!” Glinda groaned, her pent-up tears beginning to fall. “Oh please, I can’t…”

“Good girl, Glinda. That’s it. Come for me, now.” Glinda’s hips jerked involuntarily, resigning the last bit of control she’d clung to. 

“Go on, Glinda. Make a mess of yourself.” The thrusts were merciless, precise—fast and deep. 

A sconce above them shattered, scattering the light, and Glinda was coming, a wave of trembles and whimpers crashing loose from her.

L. grunted with the effort of carrying her through it, slowing her pace but hitting just as deep until Glinda lay panting and spent. She stilled her fingers. 

“Don’t go.” Glinda whispered. “Don’t take them away yet.”

Amused, L. kept her fingers still within Glinda’s warmth, feeling her clench and contract as she came down from the high of her climax. Slowly, allowing Glinda to adjust, she removed her wet fingers, covered in Glinda. As she caught her breath, L. brought her fingers to Glinda’s lips, patient as she opened her mouth, taking them, tasting herself, lavishing them clean with her tongue. 

She knelt close to Glinda, beginning to untie her. 

“One day soon I won’t let you be so greedy. One day soon I am going to taste you, myself, devour you until my mouth is covered in your mess.” 

Glinda shivered with uncontainable delight, her heart beating in her chest. 

L. ran her other hand through Glinda’s ruined curls. 

“You’re perfect like this.” She murmured. “Messy and mine.”

“Yours.” Glinda breathed. “Just yours.”

…

L. took things slow, soothing. Glinda sat in silent satiation as L. cleaned her, pressed her cool lips to her wrists before she applied her balms and salves, the scents of mints and herbs calming. Always this at the closure, always the slow, soothing sensory pleasures. 

“How is your hand?” L. murmured, turning her wrist to inspect her palm. 

Glinda looked tentatively down at her own palm. 

“It’s faded, a bit, I believe.” L. said softly, lowering her hooded head to kiss it. “The shape defines itself as it scars…that rose with claws.” 

“I have been looking into healing spells.” Glinda whispered. “So far none have worked.”

“It will heal.” L. said simply, folding Glinda’s fingers over her palm. 

“No more nightmares?” She asked, brushing Glinda’s brow with her thumb. Glinda shook her head, wrapping L.’s blanket tighter around herself. 

…

“You have a big week before you.” L. murmured as she laced Glinda’s corset. 

“Yes.” Glinda sighed. “I needed this. Needed to see you, first. Now I know I’ll manage.” She turned to smile softly at L., still in a sedate state from the intensity of the session. 

L. scoffed, gently this time, and cupped Glinda’s chin. 

“Look for me this time. You know where I’ll be watching.”

Chapter Text

The looking glass could barely contain her. 

Tilly waited to the side with a kind of quiet pride as Glinda took her final measure in the glass. It had taken two hours in total since she’d stepped from her bath: the powders and glitters, the rouge and regalia, the dressing. Fastening the corset in itself had been an ordeal—Glinda’s gasps, her gritted-teeth repetitions of Tighter—Tilly—tighter, while Tilly’s hesitation trembled her hands. 

The maid had never seen Glinda so tightly wound, so cinched she seemed close to splintering. She felt as if Glinda were ordering her to crush her. Eventually—finally—Glinda had approved of her lacing, and when Tilly had finished the final tie she had placed her palm against the center of Glinda’s bodiced back with relief. 

Together they had lifted and arranged the skirts, smoothed the sleeves, and slid the elegant gloves over the skin of her hands. She did not allow herself to look at the clawed rose at the center of her left palm, clapping her gloved hands together tidily as she took in her own image.

The looking glass was unequal to the task—it could only glimmer back a fragment. 

It was not only the circumference of her gown—possibly surpassing all previous skirts to date—but its complexity: it had been woven through with her own. She had designed it that way. 

Every element of her ensemble was meant for illumination—and for revelation, under just the right slant of light. 

To see herself in full necessitated several tottering steps back from the glass. Now, as she twisted at the waist, catching her curls in her fingers so as to expose the fine line of her neck, she watched the fabric catch the light and shift: a luminous bloom, petal and gilt and faintest blush—a pink champagne. It glittered at every impossible angle. 

The silhouette was deliberately absurd—a sea of colossal, expansive skirting, suspended by crinolines and structured silk taffeta, floating in layers of sheer organdy, clouded muslin and chiffon, all dyed in slow fade and pearlescent flicker. The gown frothed from the base of her bodice like a mist—like a breath. The sheer volume alone made every movement a negotiation. 

The bodice—boned and laced tight in milk-threaded moiré—ran against her ribcage and rose just high enough to reveal the curve of her cleavage. Her sleeves floated in delicate suspension, sheer dimity loose enough to follow her gestures, then cinched at the wrist like a kept secret. Each course of the bodice was tight enough that each breath came measured, controlled—nearly choreographed. It was the embodiment of restraint; the solid, caged antonym to all that spilled and shimmered beneath. 

She was thistle and thistledown, together: spiny and soft, floating and fixed. A perfect contradiction.

It hurt to sigh. 

At a knock on the door she let her curls slip through her fingers, signaling for Tilly to open it as she turned back toward her vanity to slide a hairpin just over her ear. 

“Darling…” Chuffrey’s voice came softly from the doorway. She straightened, moving her left hand to her stomach, and managing a smile so slight it was authentic. 

He moved toward her slowly, as if not to frighten her, and cupped her cheek with his palm—so light a touch their skin barely made contact. He had to stand at a distance because of the expanse of her skirts. 

“Your devotion is devastating.” He said quietly. “You really are something.”

“So is she.” Her lip quivered. “So was she.” She corrected, furrowing her brow. 

“Best keep practicing, lest you let something slip.”

“Oh, I imagine a few things might slip today,” She said, a lilt in her voice bordered on charming. She glanced toward the window and he caught the brief flicker of steel behind her eyes. “But that won’t be one of them. Not from my lips.”

Chuffrey would not be there to see it. They had never—in all this time—needed to discuss it: the Anniversary of the Death of the Witch was a burden she needed to carry alone. 

He leaned forward to kiss her forehead and left.

For the nth time, she was grateful for his kindness. His discretion. Grateful for the way he never asked for more than she could give—wanted nothing from her but her presence, and their peculiar companionship. Only their unusual partnership. He cared for her, inexplicably and unshakably, and she did not know why. 

She hesitated for a moment, twisting a final time in the looking glass before turning toward her maid.

“Well, Tilly,” she murmured, “Time to be seen, I suppose.”

Anticipation drew taut inside her, fine and cold as spun wire. She glanced at her reflection as she passed it, and a shimmer in the glass brought to mind a memory so frighteningly fragile, so dear, it stopped her mid-step. She turned her chin into her shoulder, shutting her eyes, letting it live out its brief life across her vision. 

The sheer, veiled layers had stirred that image of Elphaba, the two of them sharing a window’s reflection on a dark rainy evening. It stung now, the reason for it, how she’d pressed Elphaba to don her own veiled hat for entertainment—expecting to laugh, expecting to be horrified—the green girl in her hat! To her delight the girl agreed to her own humiliation, agreeing all to appease Glinda’s bored whimsy. But instead—

Oh, you mustn’t—all the glitter and paint will bleed down your face—

Instead, it had stopped her heart. She had stared. She had insisted Elphaba should see what she saw. It might have been the first time, there in the window—when presented with her own reflection—she looked at someone else. 

Oh Miss Elphaba…you terrible mean thing, you’re pretty. 

She had said. 

There’s some strange exotic quality of beauty about you. I never thought. 

Oh, that wound. She was clutching her gloved hands to her chest as if to wrench it out. Her ribs ached beneath the boning. By why not wrench it open? Why not think of it? The delicacy, the thin little thread between them? Even if Elphaba had severed her end, Glinda would cling to its frayed edges until the thing dissolved entirely. Or until she did. 

There had been the train, and that ruinous kiss, and the final time—the heart-leaping reunion at Colwen Grounds, so short-lived before it, too, evaporated in betrayal, disappointment. It was so painfully private. So unequivocally hers, because Elphaba had left it to her. Bequeathed it, hardly knowing that to shelter the little thing against all of Oz’ ridicule, its violent allergy to difference, would destroy her. 

But it hadn’t. Instead, she had done all that she could—would do all that she could—to carry her forward, to hold to her tattered end. To unravel the truth of it all. 

She was ready. Oh, was she ready. 

…

Wes had waited for her at the door. Their eyes met with a look of purpose and resolve. Wes extended her hand for Glinda to brace against as she entered the carriage, but Glinda did not release it, even as she settled among her skirts. They leaned toward one another over the embrace of their hands. 

“Not a hair out of place, My Lady.” Wes whispered in a tone that suggested she was not speaking of silk moiré or sheer chiffon. “Your presence will be stunning.” 

Glinda’s smile showed her teeth. She released Wes’ hand to rearrange herself. 

“But of course.” She said with an affected lightness. “It was all my design.” She laughed, slipping easily into the role now. 

“Not without helping hands to pull the strings, of course,” she added. 

…

They’d hardly left the courtyard of Mennipin Manor when they encountered the swell of gathered Ozians, arriving early to secure their places. The noise was deafening; the Emerald City streets were filled, fit to celebrate. It became impossible to tuck herself away, and so for the remaining blocks she smiled tightly through the carriage window, waving and blowing kisses—being Glinda the Good, though it all felt wrong and awful. It all felt positively bad. 

…

Her map had been brought to life. In the shadow of the People’s Palace, in the city square surrounded by the colorful little cafés and shops and offices, the curtains bellowed in the wind, guarding their secret charges with a regal, near-religious authority.

They shivered like sails, the enormous sweeps of heavy velvet, crimson and caught in swags of gold rope. Each was tethered to the other, trailing back to the dais where an elaborate gilded lever took center stage beside the podium; when one curtain fell, all would. 

The murals were placed strategically, spaced from one another near enough to tether each component as part of a series, with enough atmosphere around each to earn its own attention. To those in the square, it appeared they might stretch on and on in an interminable, unceasing circuit through the city. 

An impossible sea of Ozians surrounded the dais, dwarfing it by the immense scale of the audience. The Rejoicification Committee gathered giddily at its base, reeling from the reality of their labor made real and reluctant to make their retreat into the anonymity of the crowd. The dais itself was beautiful, built for the occasion and radiant with gold and brassy fixtures. The committee beamed up at it as if awaiting benediction. 

When the high little trumpet notes announced Lady Glinda, the group scurried to their places. The cries of elation and excitement did not silence but spiked, requiring a second and then a third set of trumpeting until they fell to a manageable hush. 

They were not to be contained when they saw her emerge from behind her own crimson curtain like a vision conjured, a spirit summoned simply by their desire to be near her. Bright and brilliant as a single star in a dark sky, she made her way to the podium on slow, graceful steps. Glinda was all light and glow, gleaming and glittering, enchanting the Ozians into frantic praise. There were gasps, and cheers. The press of the crowd tightened, advanced, as if it were a singular entity reaching to touch her. 

Hundreds—thousands?—of faces turned toward her as flowers to sunlight, uplifted and radiant, drinking in her presence as if it were life-sustaining. She waited patiently beside the podium, standing silent with one hand on her scepter and the other outstretched, fingers dangling like a dancer’s as she curtsied once, and then twice. She let them look. 

Her dress—layered and luminous, its pink champagne shimmer catching every sunbeam—infused her image with a sense of intangible ephemera, suspended and distant as she finally stepped onto the podium’s platform. In the corner of her eye she caught sight of Wes’ figure, just off to the side of the stage, out of the audience’s view. 

“My dear Ozians,” She began, her high soprano full of emotion. At the sound of her voice the crowd had hushed so thoroughly it seemed even the wind was at her mercy. The crowd collectively held its breath. 

“Thank you for joining me on this…most singular of holidays: “The Anniversary of the Death of the Witch.””

She spoke steadily, softly, granting each word its due significance. Her body tensed in anticipation. When it came, the uproarious cheer felt like a physical strike she had expected but had not shielded herself from. She offered a polite smile—it was all she could do. But oh—how could they think it pleased her?

“What a strange thing, to celebrate a death.”

Her knuckles were white around her scepter. She could only bow her head, her formal tiara catching the light with its rows of diamonds and rubies and emeralds. After a moment she raised her head slowly, as if it bore a weight she could barely bear. Her eyes glanced over the faces before her. 

“But, yes. According to the testimony of those who were present at that castle in Kiamo Ko on that autumn day…the Wicked Witch of the West died at the stroke of the thirteenth hour, as the result of a bucket of water cast by the young girl, Dorothy.” This time she held up her gloved hand, softly, her fingers curled—a delicate appeal to continue uninterrupted. 

“I’ve often wondered how it is so often the case that our most important moments are experienced alone…you see, it was just the two of them, there in that tower. And the poor girl was so upset she could hardly explain what she saw. How many of our lives were changed by that one moment, shared by only two people, one of whom could not even remember…” Glinda trailed off, glancing back down at her own cursive. 

Her voice did not waver when she continued—measured, dignified, and warm, with just a hint of irony. 

“Isn’t it uncanny, the way we weave in and out of one another’s stories, so rarely aware of what traces we leave behind? You see, that is history, my dear Ozians. Perhaps you were present for parts of the story we celebrate today, but with certainty you are each part of your own. Each one of us exists as an individual, but we are never alone. Not truly. Our histories are bound together, threaded through each other's. They are as important as the history of Oz, for the history of Oz is composed of moments large and small—those of its citizens, as well as its territories.”

She extended her hand from herself, sweeping outward as if to implicate them all.  

“Our histories are intertwined, so much so that they sometimes begin to feel they do not belong to us…A young girl, caught in a storm. A wizard who was only a man. A pair of shoes. A woman…who terrified us because we could not understand her—”

Glinda’s voice faded at the sight of L., leaning over the rail of the tea house balcony. She had placed herself well; the patio was packed. L. bent forward, listening intently. She wore that fisherman’s hat, her face as veiled and dark as ever. 

Glinda swallowed, glancing back down at her speech. 

“I suppose we knew that there is always power in the unknown.” She said quietly. 

She paused, giving L. another quick glance, wishing she could see her eyes, meet her gaze over the mass of strangers between them. 

Then she smiled softly. 

“Oz is defined only by her people. Oz does not exist without each one of you—each of us—and the stories of our lives as they are braided into the fabric of all that exists beyond us. Our lives are defined by the choices we make. Our contributions. Our connections—who we befriend and who we betray. Who we learn from, and who learns from us. You understand, don’t you? Each one of us is part of the story.”

Her gaze drifted over the crowd, careful not to linger too long in one place. 

“We gather today to celebrate one story, but let us not forget that it belongs to a greater tapestry of what we mean when we talk of truth. I know this day is quite a special one, for many of you. I do understand. Those were dark days, weren’t they? Days of terror, and doubt. It was a terrible time.” She shivered, and the crowd seemed to shiver with her.

It required a deep breath to speak the name as though it did not hurt.  

“Elphaba Thropp emerged in the midst of it all, an enigma. An anomaly. She was…different, and not just on the surface of her skin.”

Beneath the level of the podium she had placed her palm on her stomach.

“Elphaba Thropp seemed to embody all that we were afraid of. Stories swirled about her until it was impossible to pinpoint a single truth—only that she must have been Wicked. Only that we did not recognize humanity there. We did not recognize ourselves in her. She was the center of every story and yet she did not seem to fit into Oz’s story.”

Glinda paused. 

“She was part of my story, briefly. She is written into the record as a means by which Glinda Arduenna became Glinda the Good. It is because you saw goodness in me that I was selected as your Throne Minister. But even my story has its darknesses, just as yours do. In a world so interwoven, so interconnected, how can any one of us be any one thing, but rather, a collection of things? I do believe in goodness. I do strive to be that for you!” Her voice rang with sincerity. It was followed with encouraging cheers from her audience. She nodded gratefully, then continued, softer.

“But I also know that we are complicated creatures. We are all capable of good, as much as we are capable of wickedness. Beset by the right slant of light, beset by the wrong circumstance, any one of us might be thrust toward one or the other.”

Only Wes was near enough to catch the little shiver that went through her. She brushed it aside as though it were nothing but an emphatic gesture. 

…

She stood beyond reach of the mass of rejoicifiers, resting her forearms on the iron rail of the balcony. It was a near-perfect vantage point, offering the curve of Glinda’s mouth, the set of her spine. Each time her head dipped low, even those times the act was imperceptible, as if her chin were dipping into doses of strength to see her through.  

Glinda had sighted her so quickly, had smiled softly. L. caught the slightest stillness in her posture, holding herself a moment too long, as if securing a moment of privacy between them, even in public. 

L. had watched the gloved hand, the little flicker of movement. She had seen when Glinda placed it on her stomach before she could find the strength to speak that name. 

L. watched carefully, the way her gown shimmered like spun gold, all innocence and awe. She watched as it fractured each time Glinda shifted, the way the softness gave way to an intriguing, dangerous glint. Beneath the frothy frost and petal pink was another design altogether, a deliberate layer beneath the others. L. was almost certain that layer had been worn for her alone. 

Symbols wove through the fabric like invisible ink. Gold thread, or silver, or something else entirely—something else only revealed when Glinda stood favored by a certain beam of sunlight, easily misconstrued for abstract embroidery. 

At L.’s angle, if she leaned forward, she could see that the gown was not a single color, or even a marriage of two—its iridescence granted it the full spectrum. Here and there was a green so green L. wondered if it might linger. It always seemed to give way to the pinker hues. 

Glinda had worn the truth. She had sheathed herself in it. 

It was the skirt—not its sparkle, and not its swell—the stitching traversing its tiers, beneath the shimmer and show, stitched in the faintest thread, nestled and nearly veiled by the fabric’s sheen. It was the silhouette of the Witch on her broom, cape billowing out behind her, the hat.  

The silhouettes of mourning doves flew above the Witch, stitched across the bodice, imperceptible. 

It was all there, hidden in plain sight, Glinda’s whisper beneath the weight of the performance. 

L. felt something tighten in her chest. It wasn’t attached to the awe she felt, or the desire. It wasn’t even the usual ache of glimpsing Glinda in full splendor. It wasn’t quite grief. 

It was recognition. And it was unbearable. 

Glinda was glancing up at her again, all those jewels and glitter, tiara and teeth flaring the light almost painfully, though she refused to look away. A certain flash caught her eye and she dared lean closer, dared baring her close attention, to see it: a thin hairpin with that S of dear old Shiz. 

…

“We gather today to remember a moment in which each one of us was changed. A moment of…liberation or joy, removal of fear, return to the pleasures of certainty. It is too simple, too crude, to say we are here to celebrate the death of a fellow Ozian. What is true is that we are here to celebrate the unification that followed, the hope that returned.”

 She approved of their cheers this time. 

“As we move forward, dear Ozians, remember that our peace and prosperity are delicate, that there is always more work to be done in the interest of making good. Remember that we are dependent on one another; we need one another—particularly when our days are dark. As terrifying as terror is, let us seek to find the goodness in one another, let us seek to see ourselves in others, and let them find their own humanity within ourselves. Perhaps…perhaps if we had done so then, perhaps she might have lived. Perhaps if given the opportunity, she would have shown that she too, had good inside. She was human, after all, no matter what the rumors said.”

Her eyes had gone a bit misty, but there was no one near enough to see. She blinked the tears back. 

“The story of the Wicked Witch is a warning to us all. Let us learn from the past. Let us be better for it. Let us be glad, and grateful, and good.” 

She waited for the applause to settle. 

Then, in a single breath, she realigned herself—setting her spine, lifting her chin a fraction higher. 

Her lips, still parted from the last syllable of good, closed softly into a smile. She jutted her chin toward the Rejoicification Committee. 

“And now,” she began, her voice returning to its usual pitch, that silly soap-bubble-blown-through-piccolo voice—“I do believe the Rejoicification Committee is quite pleased to present their commemorative work for this occasion.”

Glinda dazzled them, her smile baring her teeth. 

“It is my honor to unveil the Rejoicification Committe’s murals memorializing that moment: The Death of the Witch!”

Glinda slowly approached the lever at the center stage of the dais, allowing her final words to hang in the air, suspended like silk. Her footfalls echoed as the crowd honed in on the moment.

She paused briefly, before her gloved hand rose to hover over the lever with a graceful elegance, her eyes meeting Wes’ for all of half a second. She inhaled a breath, held it, and then her fingers curled around the hard, cold golden lever. 

She paused again, feeling the immensity of the crowd’s anticipation as it stretched taut through the square. The Rejoicification Committee leaned forward, the press held their position at the front or pushed their way there, the silence tense and tight. 

She pulled the lever. 

…

The curtains fell in sequence, their weight crashing, the deep susurration of velvet against stone. Five quiet implosions in rhythm as the gold-tasseled hems hit the brick road. There was a breathless hush as the hiss of the fabric echoed throughout the square. The shock was audible in its absence of sound. Then the gasps began to ripple—a few strangled cries, a few shouts. 

Glinda did not flinch. She did not move. Still standing, still caught in sunlight, her pink champagne skirts stirred faintly in the breeze. She could feel it when the crowd turned back to look at her, to await the command that would come with her reaction. They waited to know how to feel. How did she feel? They could hardly sense it. 

Glinda’s face remained impassive, maybe a touch curious with the curve of her brow. She clasped her sheer-sleeved arms behind her back and began to walk. With slow, deliberate steps, and with the high lift of her chin, with the full flare of her skirts rolling forward like a tide, she moved across the dais, down the little steps, and paused before the first mural, feeling the eyes of Oz at her back. She felt no pressure to perform. She took her own sweet time because she could.

“The Witch as She Was”

Glinda read the gold-lettered title aloud. It had been struck through with a fine line of red paint—enough to strike it without entirely concealing the words. 

The mural was a mix of two faces. She tilted her head to see beyond the repainted layer—to see what had been intended—“The Witch,” as they believed her to be. It was an awful face, gnarled and sharp. The shade of green an offense in itself, the color of sickness, a murky, muddied green that bore no likeness to the luscious, earthy, emerald skin of Elphaba Thropp. 

Her eyes scanned the hint of what they wanted—needed to believe. The murderous, unsympathetic face, the ugly mouth, the twisted nose and eyes that knew no kindness. 

In the background was the trace of what once was there—the witch on her broom, looming large and monstrous over the small skyline of an innocent, ideal Emerald City. 

She leaned back on her heel, bringing her head back up to take in the revised version. Behind her back the gloved fingers of her hands held each other tight as she craned her neck. 

“The Woman as She Was”

She read aloud the gold-lettered printing pasted just beneath the original title. 

Another Elphaba had been painted over the other’s caricature. Elphaba, as Glinda had known her. The green skin shone rich and verdant; the deep, dark eyes full of passion and soft, a bit of honest mischief. The nose was sharp but true. The mouth…oh, that mouth. Alone, Glinda would have trailed her fingers over it, that attractive curling smirk. 

But it was the hair that stuttered her heartbeat, the raven hair falling around her face. She remembered again the memory of their faces in the rainy windowpane and shut her eyes, just long enough to recompose herself. To sharpen the set of her shoulders before she strolled slowly to the second mural, her hands still clasped behind her. 

The last image L. caught of Glinda—the last glimpse she dared before she slipped out of the tea house—was the twitch in her lip, the set of her brow. It was the barest trace of pleasure. Of pride. 

“The Wicked Witch of the West”

She read it slowly, dispassionately, again tilting her head, training her eyes to see first the original draft, the pentimento. Only it wasn’t a pentimento; this was no artist’s change of mind. This was a correction, an assertion of the original’s wrongness. 

There was Elphaba, in the window of her tower in that castle at Kiamo Ko, a terrifying, dark figure against a dark and stormy sky. Flying all about in sharp, dark strokes were winged monkeys and crows and bees—buzzing, stinging, biting things. 

“Never Alone”

It took great restraint to keep her voice level—the words themselves a torment of emotion in her throat. It was difficult to say just how it had been managed, but pressed printings had been pasted over the original. The same characters appeared with softer postures, flying about the Witch in a devoted sort of halo. 

She could hear the crowd breathe, eyes on the rigid lines of her back, her shoulders steady. She moved on to the third, stiffening, steeling herself. 

“The Death of the Witch”

Her voice was thick and dark, but it did not reveal the depths of her revulsion—only a sense of seriousness. There were the two in that tower; angelic, heroic, brave little Dorothy with her pail of water, in the act of sloshing its contents onto the Witch, who appeared to begin to burn and steam and melt. It was graphic in the way of Ozian propaganda, just enough to turn the stomach, just enough to make her eyes sting with tears she knew would not fall. 

“Elphie’s Alive”

She supposed she’d been untruthful with Chuffrey, as she breathed the words, repeating them louder for the gasping, gaping, restless crowd behind her. The silhouette of Elphie’s profile appeared in contrast to the death scene, proud and present. Alive. 

Approaching the fourth she began to feel a bit of trepidation, uncertainty. She barely turned her head toward the tea house, unwilling to change her choreography now, but straining to locate L. She could not see her. 

“Glinda the Good Witch”

Even she had to resist the urge to scoff. There she was, surrounded by the most enormous, most gorgeous skirts, her face a thing of impossible beauty, all pale skin and golden hair. It was the moment of meeting Dorothy in the barn, the moment of presenting her with the stolen, magicked shoes. Her protection spell. Like a guardian angel, she practically levitated with supernatural grace and softness. 

It hadn’t been that way at all. She’d crouched. Whispered. Grown impatient, desperate, sending the girl on her way to the Wizard, even knowing who he was. How little he had to offer. She’d needed the shoes out of Munchkinland. Needed to smooth the wrinkles in the chaos of Nessarose’s death. Besides, they wouldn’t be removed from her feet easily. Not with that spell. 

She read the revised title, a second phrase tacked onto the end of the original:

“…Stole a Dead Woman’s Shoes!”

It hurt to see it. It had been an effort to convince them to even paste it there. Glinda, at Colwen Grounds, clutching the shoes tight against her chest as Elphaba mourned over Nessarose’s stockinged feet, sticking out from under that house. In the corner of the mural, off to one side, there were the silhouettes of Glinda and Elphaba, that last time they’d seen one another—the first time the accusation had been lodged. 

It hurt, as it meant to. It hurt where the hundreds who watched her would not see the mark of it. 

She swallowed, taking a breath. 

Finally, ever so slowly, she approached the final mural. She raised her chin to see herself. To face the final confrontation. 

“Lady Glinda’s Ascent”

It was a florid, flamboyant, pink nostalgia: the ceremony of her coronation as Throne Minister. The expansive, elaborate gown, the curls golden and regal and her own graceful, humble curtsy as the tiara hovered in a minister’s pale hands, suspended just above her head. She’d seen similar likenesses before—flattering and outlandish, both. 

Just as Elphaba’s portrait had expanded and dissolved into the background landscape, so too did the Rejoicification Committe’s depiction of Lady Glinda. Behind her, illuminating her own image, pastoral Oz unfolded. A perfect utopia of blooming gardens and smiling faces. 

“No Such Thing as Perfect”

She read the revision with a certainty beyond the simple act of translation, narration—she meant it. The Throne Minister’s gown had been pasted over; at first glimpse it appeared a simple wallpapering, a new skirt design. On closer inspection, the plastered image was a fractured map of Oz—each territory split at the seams and floating off from its kin border states. In the Emerald City, children were parentless and begging with empty bowls. In Munchkinland, Animals huddled in masses separate from people. The Vinkus was all civil war and bloodshed. Gillikin barons salivated over their gold, the Glikkuns mined their emeralds. The deserts? A mystery. A blank taupe canvas. 

It didn’t hurt terribly; it wasn’t only her. It was the nature of things, the mural insisted: Oz depends on a decided unity—on mutual trust and partnership. Oz could be nothing without its citizens; divided, it all falls. The message, as she saw it: the work is never done. Oz was not to be an art of perfection, but an ever-unfolding story of fracture and repair, of things coming together, coming undone, and return. It would all repeat until the people learned. 

She bit back the smug smile that threatened to expose her, even as something caught in her throat—they had added onto the gown, expanded it to excess, dwarfing the woman within it. A gold tiara had been painted over the original mural’s—heavy, comically large, at a tilt atop her head, threatening to fall.  

Glinda paused, fixed in place. She had planned a quiet, demure exit. Now was the sense of bittersweet triumph, her internal state—her internal truth—spilled out under guise of anonymous, guerrilla accusation. She twisted to glance over her shoulder. The balcony of the tea room was open and still, that single chair empty, no gloved hands gripping its iron rail. 

She inhaled a deep breath through her nose and released it through pursed lips. Then, still twisted, she slowly turned the rest of the way to face the stunned and silent masses, who awaited her guidance. 

“My!” She tilted her head at them as she had the murals. She gave a light laugh. 

“They do say art is interpretation, don’t they? Isn’t that just the trouble with it…”

She glanced back at the murals and bit her cheek. 

“Hmm.” She offered thoughtfully, just loud enough to be heard. 

“But Lady Glinda!” A faceless man shouted from within the crowd as she began her small, careful steps back to the dais. She turned in the direction of the voice with a tentative pause. 

“Yes?” She called, her voice soft. 

“This is treason! Do you not intend to pursue the party responsible for this…vandalism?” He implored. She could just barely make out the tops of a dark curly head.

“Oh, goodness, no,” She laughed to herself. “I’ve no plans to sentence anyone to Southstairs over a bit of paint.” She clutched her expansive skirts in her hands, raising them to see her feet as she took the few steps back up to the dais. 

She turned a final time to the citizens of Oz. 

“We’re all just storytellers, aren’t we?”

The second she had passed behind the velvet curtain she located Wes, clutching the woman’s forearm. 

“Well done, Throne Minister.” Wes whispered so only Glinda could hear, eyeing the activity around them. 

“Oh, Wes!” She whispered breathlessly. “There aren’t words.” Her chest heaved with emotions that had only just begun to rise.

…

Glinda took a sip of wine from her perch on the parlor balcony. She was still dressed in her Anniversary gown and travel cloak, though beneath it she had traded her heeled shoes for soft velvet house slippers. 

The canal was unusually quiet, the streets loud. The gathered Ozians had disassembled and now went about, the sounds of revelry drifting in from the pubs and public parks, laughing and cackling after the earlier confusion. She watched what little she could glimpse of it wearily. 

“My Lady? Do you wish to undress?” Tilly’s voice carried softly from the parlor where she held Glinda’s dress shoes. Glinda glanced over her shoulder at her lady’s maid, then down at her gown. She ran her fingertips over the fabric, finding the fine threads of the light silhouette of Elphaba, her hat and billowing cape. 

“Not yet.” She whispered. 

“I heard the Anniversary was…eventful.” Tilly said softly. “Wes said your speech was very moving, very encouraging, My Lady.” 

“A few things cracked open,” Glinda said thoughtfully, her fingertip tracing the line of Elphaba’s hair. “I just made sure they caught the light.”

Tilly considered Glinda’s pensive, far-away face for a moment and began to make her retreat. 

“Tilly?” Glinda called after her, glancing up. “Do you know what’s become of Wes? I’d like her to deliver a letter for me.”

…

Glinda sat in her office, scribbling through a third attempt. Wes waited patiently in the hall. 

You leave. It’s nothing. 

I wait. It’s everything. 

She tore it in two. 

You, who have made an art of absence. 

And I, who have always held out hope.  

She tore it up into confetti. 

Taking a deep breath, she began again. Deciding to write just what she would say, if she could. 

Dearest El,

I hardly saw you—just long enough 

to miss you when you left. 

Why did you, Mistress?

G.

“Wes!” She called, standing as she tucked the note into its envelope. Wes entered. 

“Please, I know it’s a nuisance. Would you take this to El?” She handed over the envelope, a bit sheepish. “I just had a question that couldn’t wait.” She murmured. 

…

“My Lady.” Wes couldn’t quite conceal her amusement upon returning to the parlor. 

In her absence, Glinda had cajoled Tilly to play the piano. The piece was buoyant, full of swooping rises and sudden dips, like a skirt caught in a breeze. 

Glinda reclined across the pink velvet cabriole, her gown ruched high over her thighs. Her bare knees tipped together against the curve of the seatback, feet dangling loosely over the opposite arm. She kicked them lazily in time to the music, humming now and then at the parts she favored. A bottle of champagne was tucked snugly against the sheer, floating fabric of her sleeve. 

At Wes’ voice, Glinda glanced at her offhandedly, then seemed to remember her errand. She sat up on her elbows, newly alert. 

“Did you see her?” She asked, voice sober despite the sway in her movements. 

“No, My Lady. Her assistant said she was out.”

“Out?” Glinda frowned as if Wes had said something preposterous. “Out? Out where? Where does she even go? What does she do?”

She dropped back into the cushions dramatically. 

“Nothing fit for your station, I’d imagine.” Wes answered dryly. “Don’t worry, Lady Glinda—she’ll receive your letter when she returns.”

“Another, Tilly.” Glinda murmured, taking a sip and adding something to herself neither heard. 

“Are you alright, My Lady? You always say Tilly plays off-beat...” 

Tilly gave an offended little huff as she struck the opening flourish. 

“If all of Oz insists on carousing,” Glinda began breezily. “I refuse to play the mauntish teetotaler. I do not share the cause of their rejoicifying, but that doesn’t mean I can’t celebrate, myself.”

“And what is it you’re celebrating, Lady Glinda?” Wes asked, easing into a chair by the piano with a crooked smile. 

“Myself.” Glinda answered brightly. “Myself and Elphaba Thropp.” She lifted her glass in a half-toast, then took a satisfied sip, her fingers sweeping fondly over the embroidered Witch stitched into her skirt. 

…

An hour later, Tilly faltered mid-swell at the sound of footsteps in the hall. To Glinda’s surprise, it was Cook standing at the parlor door, red-faced, panting, her nose pink from the cold. 

“Begging your pardon, Lady Glinda.” She puffed. “A courier just arrived—brought a letter for you.” 

Wes crossed the room and handed her the little square of paper. 

Glinda fumbled at the seal and nearly tore it, trying to open the envelope without her silver knife. 

She stilled at the sight of the familiar hand, her breath catching. She read it once, then again, slower.  

G.,

You stood alone. 

I didn’t want to watch you fall. 

L.

…

Wes and Tilly did not linger out of duty but something steadier, like an affectionate fidelity. 

Tilly played until her fingers began to cramp, her hands curling stiffly over the keys. Wes relieved her with a few of the tamer pub songs she knew, though even those had verses enough to make Glinda giggle and to send Tilly ducking her head with a blush. 

She wooed me with kisses and dandelion wine—

then ran off with the milkmaid and left me the swine…

Eventually Glinda had had her fill of toasting herself and Elphaba Thropp. With a satisfied sigh, she set the half-empty bottle on the little side table and stood, smoothing her skirts with both hands, patting down the folds that refused to lie flat. 

“Well,” Glinda declared, running a hand down her hips, “the Witch is stitched in—and I’m stitched out. Help me undo her, Tilly.” 

She slipped L.’s letter back into its envelope and slipped it up her sleeve with more care than she’d shown the champagne. “Goodnight, Wes, darling.” 

…

Glinda drifted into her bedroom in a gauzy sweep. She moved with a floaty, absent-minded grace, as if carried by air and champagne bubbles alone. The skirts of her gown only added to the effect, hiding her bare feet. 

The room was dim when they entered, lit only by a few sconces along the walls. Tilly set down the candle holder by the looking glass and positioned herself behind Ginda to assist her in undressing. 

“There’s a Witch stitched into this skirt.” Glinda announced absurdly, repetitively, her voice low and a little slow. “She’s beginning to itch.” 

She tilted her chin downward, presenting the full back of the gown. Tilly gathered the gown box and set it on the bench, beginning to work at the fastenings with careful, practiced fingers. Glinda swayed with a slight drift. 

“Is she wearing all this netting, too?” Tilly muttered, forgetting herself for a moment as she fumbled with a stubborn clasp. 

“Oh, I don’t know, you’d have to undress her and check.”

Tilly’s hands froze. Glinda smiled lazily at her reflection in the looking glass. 

“Oz, Tilly, the cape! Don’t witches wear big capes? Anyway…she’d probably bite.” 

“They call you the Good Witch. You don’t wear big black capes.”

“The Good ones don’t, I suppose.” She sighed, angling her body slightly to help. “But careful, Tilly.” She winced as a hook tugged at her ribs. 

“Don’t want to damage the nation’s most strategic asset.”

“The gown?”

“My figure.” Glinda replied, affronted, and both of them laughed. 

“It was a good fit: glitter, grief, and ghosts in the hem. Much too good a fit, maybe.”

The bodice finally gave with a soft, breathy sound, and Glinda exhaled. She glanced up at herself in the looking glass, looking half amused and half asleep. 

“I liked it.” Tilly said softly, kneeling behind her now, nearly lost in the netting. “You made them listen.”

“Tilly, you weren’t there. I made them look.”

“Sometimes that’s the same thing.”

Glinda lifted her arms obligingly as Tilly eased the upper layers over her curls, having coaxed the final hooks free. She stood flushed and barefoot in her corset and chemise, the ribbed infrastructure still guarding her stockinged layers. 

“It’s like shaving the icing off a wedding cake.” Tilly murmured, carefully folding the gown. 

“I like to think I’m a little less virginal. And a lot less dense.” She swiveled her waist, letting the hoops spin gently. 

“Well, you looked beautiful as always, My Lady.”

“Thank you, Tilly. Flatterer.” 

The last structures came free, corset unlaced with a hiss of ribbon and a grateful groan from Glinda. She rolled her shoulders with visible relief. 

Tilly tucked the garments away in the wardrobe. When she turned again Glinda looked suddenly smaller—quieter, somehow, without her finery. 

“Will you be needing anything else, Lady Glinda?”

“Just to dream sweetly.”

…

Once Tilly had gone, Glinda turned and caught her reflection in the looking glass. She tilted her head, swaying a little on her bare feet, then gave a soft exhale and stepped softly toward her bed. 

There, on her pillow. A little dark blot, stark against the ivory of her linens. 

She stopped. 

For a moment she simply stared, brow furrowed, uncertain if what she saw was real or imagined. Her tipsy warmth pooled and stilled in her chest. 

She stepped closer and let out a quiet huff of disbelief. Of course. A Gillikin rose, long-stemmed thorned, and proud of itself. A satin ribbon was tied around its stem in a single, neat knot. Glinda picked it up carefully by the ribbon, avoiding the thorns. 

There was a script scrolled into the ribbon—elegant and familiar. The same hand as had inscribed her last gift, written tighter now, pressed to fit the confines of the fabric. 

She squinted, adjusting it in the candlelight in her unsteady hand.

You looked like glass. You spoke like gold. 

How strange, the way you looked so cold. 

Glinda released a long breath from between her lips. 

Well, it is winter, she thought uselessly. Helplessly.

She turned to the pitcher of water and glass on her nightstand. Without thinking, she snapped the stem with a wet little crack and dropped the bloom—thorns first—into the glass. It bobbed there, erect and unyielding, beautiful and sharp. 

She slipped beneath the covers. For tomorrow. She told herself. 

Another matter for the morrow. 

Chapter Text

Something was opening—her mouth, the sky. 

She bloomed in silk and shadow, ankle first, mouth last. It was only the senses at first—blind night, champagne on her tongue. Her skin buzzed with invisible touch, an unseen frisson along her limbs. She shivered from a chilling thrill she couldn’t place, a smoldering warmth buried somewhere deep. 

One bare foot dangled over the arm of the cabriole, toe dipped in an impossible pool of black. Something pulsed at her ankle—tight, hot, sharp. She looked down, lifting her heel slowly, drunkenly, the motion slurred through syruped time. 

Around her ankle was a bracelet of roses, stems woven tight, thorns blooming inward. Already, red beads wept down the delicate arch of her foot. The pain was sweet and shapely. The image almost didn’t register as her own. 

She tried to move but she was sinking into the plush cushions. Her gown seemed to fix her in place, spread like spun sugar across the cabriole, all champagne netting and chiffon. 

The shape of the Anniversary still clung to her thighs and waist. She noticed, with a sort of delirious confusion, that there was no longer a Witch stitched within her skirt. How strange. 

“I suppose you weren’t entirely alone,” a smoky voice unfurled from behind her. “You had a Witch trapped in your skirts.” 

L.’s hooded head nuzzled near her ear as the woman leaned over the seatback to whisper close. 

“But I think she would have preferred to be trapped under them.” 

L.’s tongue trailed along the sensitive skin behind her ear and she heard herself moan. From somewhere in her periphery came a scoffing sound. 

Glinda’s head spun. She touched her fingers to her temple, glancing in the direction of the noise. 

Elphaba lounged casually on the chaise across the room, leaning over a thick book. The Grimmerie. 

“Elphaba…” she breathed. 

“And…oh…El…” she moaned quietly. 

L.’s mouth had now descended to the skin of her throat, the warmth of her lips radiating outward. 

L.’s hand spread over her bodice, the mourning doves seeming to glow, to move, a rush of air sweeping from the flight of their wings…

“Glinda…” Elphaba bent over her, tracing her jaw, her slim, green fingers warm and real. 

Glinda glimpsed the Grimmerie alone on the chaise, a page or two fluttering as if swept up in a wind. Had a bird flown out? 

“Open for me, Glinda…”

She reached to touch the green hand with her own but it moved away, brushing her cheek, her curls, fingertips tracing along her exposed collarbone.  When Elphaba leaned to press a kiss there, Glinda caught a strand of raven hair, feeling it slip quickly through her fingers. 

“El…Elphaba.”

“I’m open for you…”

She was losing sense of who spoke when and who touched where, their shadows intertwining in the dark, their names and voices already a struggle to distinguish between. 

She reached toward their coalescing silhouettes, but her hands were stilled, her wrists caught and cradled against the velvet, a mouth kissing her pulse. 

“I’m so open for you.” Someone whispered in her ear. “Open for me…”

One of them was between her thighs, kissing the inside of her knee, then higher. Her gown ever so slowly slid up until it settled around her waist. 

A hand traced down her thigh, along her leg, and downward. 

“A rose has tried to claim you,” the breath of a dark whisper brushed her bare calf. “Perhaps she didn’t know you were taken.” 

Glinda lifted her heel, presenting the woven thorns, feeling a drop of blood roll down her foot. A figure bent over her ankle, cradling it, brushing away what had dripped. A thumb caressed carefully along the outline of the anklet. 

“She thinks you’ll fall so easily…” said the other against the inside of her thigh. “but you only do that for me.” 

A tongue trailed across a spot on her thigh so sensitive she arched her back with a soft groan. 

There came the flat cold of a knife’s blade along the inner line of her foot, its eerie thrill coursing through her nerve endings. It slipped easily through the woven stems, severing them with a single stroke. 

“Open for me, Glinda.”

She felt it snap—not only the pressure, but the spell of it. Her breath hitched, and then she sighed. She could cry with relief, with overwhelm. 

Soft lips pressed warm kisses over her foot, her heel and ankle, soothing and slow. Savoring. Long and lovely kisses grazed that wounded place. 

“I am so open for you.” 

A tongue trailed there, lavishing over the pinpricks of pain like a healing salve. Her pulse quickened. She’d already forgotten the thorns. 

“And here.” A mouth kissed the inside of her wrist, a finger tracing the clawed rose of her palm. 

“Only a scar now; it’ll fade.”

The mouth opened for a wet tongue to trace the fine lines of the rose’s sharp petals. 

Glinda whimpered and a hand covered her mouth softly. 

“Open for me.”

She was nothing but silk and pulse and ache. Only surrounded by shadow and shimmer, the barest glimpse of green, the outline of L.’s hood. Her own pale skin seemed to glow—or felt as if it did. 

Two sets of hands were roaming her body, slipping beneath her bodice, unfastening her from herself. The gown rustled away easily, as if no infrastructure had been required to hold its bloom. 

The air was cool along the tops of her breasts, her bare shoulders, the space between her thighs.

They devoured her. She felt like liquid, each fingertip passing through her surface, each mouth drinking from her depths. She poured herself into them. She poured herself out. 

Her body arched again, not knowing whose mouth grazed her shoulder, whose hand held her firmly at the hip. 

Her chemise was lifted over her head and soft lips were kissing her stomach. When she strained to see, Elphaba’s mouth brushed her ribs. 

Feverish, delirious, utterly overcome, Glinda let her thighs fall open into a set of hands. Fingertips skimmed her ribs, her breasts, as if reading her bones and flesh. 

“So open…” Glinda murmured brokenly. “I am so open for you.” 

“Open…”

“Open…” 

Their voices lapped at her like waves. Her body curled with want. She could not separate the fingers and tongues, the names and shadows. Elphaba. El. El. Elphaba. She didn’t need to understand. She needed only to open. 

Someone now kissed her hip bone, her stomach, moving upward to take her nipple between teeth, lavishing it with a wet tongue, closing a mouth around it. 

Another mouth sucked at the skin of her throat. It traced a path higher, licking up her jaw, kissing her cheek. Finally, the mouth was over her own, tasting first of copper, then tasting sweet. It was gone again before she’d opened her eyes to see. 

“Open for me, Glinda.” Fingers danced along her parted lips and she opened for them, greedily. They were bare and clean. To whom did they belong?

“Open.” Fingers danced along the space between her pelvis and thigh, a palm pressed between her legs, and one—then two fingers—dipped inside. 

The lower voice murmured, “So open now.” 

“So mine.” Said the voice whose mouth feasted at her neck. 

Her eyelashes fluttered with the sensation of being filled. 

She was being played like an instrument—bowed at the ribs, plucked between the thighs. Every string of her being vibrated. Her mouth opened, and something sang out from her spine. 

The room was awash in darkness—smoky, swirling, spiraling, the sound of her own whimpers and moans, the twin sounds of their breath along her skin. She heard the pages of a book flutter, too, as if caught in a wind. 

She moaned from the back of her throat. She was crying thick, heavy tears, her palm and ankle warm without burning. She writhed, the fingers thrusting so satisfyingly, filling her, the mouth at every pulse point, every erotic erogenous place except the one. 

There was hardly an inch of her left untouched. 

“Come open.”

“Open.”

“Come undone.”

“Open.”

“Come, Glinda.”

“Open.”

Their dark whispers swirled around her, lavishing her, awakening every nerve ending, uncurling her. She was open, her hips rolling, her breath shaky. She made mindless, high-pitched sounds, her hands clutching at the briefest traces of the two, grasping at fabric and hair, always slipping from her fingers like smoke. 

She was sinking, falling into that plush velvet, falling through a bottomless air. 

“Open.” 

"Come."

Glinda awoke with a gasp, blinking rapidly, breathless. Her inner thighs were slick, her heart raced. Her bedroom was dark, empty, and still; it did not spin or swirl or curl with smoke. 

There was only the sound of her own breath as she worked to settle it. 

“Oz.” She whispered, her voice strung tight. There was a burning heat beneath her skin, like a fever. 

She was slick, pulsing, breathless, and entirely alone. There were no fingers, no mouths, no whispers—only the ghost of them, and her own body still aching with almost. 

She brought her hand between her legs as if she could call the dream back. Her fingers met her own wetness and she gasped, half-awe, half-ache. The dream still smoldered inside her with its smoke, all mouth and green and shadow. 

She couldn’t resist—her fingertips circled her clit with reverence, remembering their whispered words until her body arched in answer. Her climax rose like memory: trembling, too fleeting to hold. Her hips raised from her sheets and she finished on a whine, a whimper. 

She breathed quietly for a moment as she came to her senses. Somewhat settled, she sat up, her spine straight against her pillows. When she pulled her ankle close, she thought she caught the blush of a blood smear. But when she touched, her fingertips came away clean. 

…

The manor was impossibly quiet at this hour. The staff had all gone home or retired to their quarters. Wrapping herself in the night robe with the silver-threaded thistles and donning her slippers, she took up the candle holder. Softly, quietly, she slipped from her chambers and moved down the hall to her office. 

Through the window, the Emerald City gleamed its nighttime green, its citizens having finally celebrated themselves to sleep. 

She sat without illuminating the room, still unsettled from her dream. Something fluttered between her ribs and her throat. She wondered if she ought to pinch herself. 

She had been left only with the dream logic, the whispered refrain on all three of their tongues: 

Open. Open. Open for me. I am so open for you…

Still, she felt a pull. A hunger. A curiosity that throbbed low and restless, one that would not settle until her fingers found it. 

The Grimmerie. Even now, still safely locked away, it seemed to radiate a warmth, a faint electric crackle, like the air after a spell. Its magic releasing the way a flower releases pollen—and she was the bee, helplessly drawn. 

If it were to open, what would it reveal? What would it demand?

She slipped the small key in its secret lock, her fingers trembling with the nerve of needing to keep quiet. Its cover shimmered iridescent; a fish’s scales cutting through dark waters. It was warm beneath her touch. 

“Oh, you terrible thing.” She murmured, lifting it from the drawer and placing it gently on her desk. The terrible thing glimmered green like a mischievous smirk. 

“Will you?” She whispered, holding her hands together in her lap. “Open for me?”

…

She placed both of her palms on the cover, holding her breath. Her heartbeat thrummed loudly in her chest. 

It was not lost on her, the passage of time, the passage of hands. That the book had once belonged to Elphaba, that she’d kept it close the more she’d leaned into the role of the Witch, locked away in her tower. Her hands once held it, fingers once skimmed it. Glinda had so little left that had been touched by Elphaba. 

She patted the book affectionately. 

“If not for me, for her.” She told it resolutely. 

“Surely there’s some reason you ended up here.”

Elphaba’s whisper surfaced in her mind, Open. 

She pulled it down onto her lap, one hand on the spine, one hand tracing its edge. 

When she moved to lift the cover, it allowed her to open it. 

She took a deep breath. 

Every page she turned was bare, but it had opened, remained open, allowing her to skim through its thick parchment pages. 

She placed it on her desk, eyeing it curiously. She watched as the book turned itself, its pages fluttering of their own accord, lying flat at the center of the binding. She peered closer. 

The parchment was blank, but there was a shimmer in the inkless space—subtle, like breath on glass—as though its message had been quietly withdrawn. 

She leaned closer. 

Then, there. At the top of the page, only just visible, appeared a phrase so faint she drew the candle nearer and lifted her magnifying glass. Faint, glimmering like light through gossamer, like something glimpsed beneath the surface of a river:

To Call 

That was all. A fragment of a sentence—a spell—and no more. The words wavered, hovering as an unfinished thought. Glinda squinted. She waited, but there wasn’t even an implication of a second half. No trailing letter, or glimmer of what might come next. 

She traced her fingertip over the words. 

To call what?

She could be good. She would be patient. After all, two words and an opening were progress. 

She left the book open on her desk—hardly daring to shut it now—and locked her office behind herself with a murmur of a spell to keep it shut. Her fingertips still hummed with warmth, and magic. 

…

Even in sleep, she’d felt it: a slow rustling, like parchment rippling in a breeze. 

The echo of Elphaba and El, the suggestion of their presence, voices whispering open, reverberated through her dreams, but none as real or present as the dream in which they had come to her. 

She woke slowly, blinking in the light of the sunrise glinting off the Emerald City. It was a chilly morning, and she burrowed deep into her covers with a shiver and a slight groan of discontent. 

Had it all been just yesterday? The Anniversary, that evocative dream, the Grimmerie?

Having caught the sound of Glinda’s groan, Tilly appeared tentatively in the doorway. 

“Good morning, My Lady.” She said softly so as not to disturb her. “Shall I fetch your coffee? Too cold for the balcony this morning, but—”

“Please, Tilly. But also,” Glinda turned to glance at her nightstand, in case she’d dreamt it. “Would you send for Wes to arrive early?”

“Wes is here, My Lady.” 

“Oh…well, isn’t that convenient. Fetch them both, then?”

“Both?”

“The coffee…and Wes.” Glinda murmured sleepily. 

When Tilly had gone, Glinda forced herself from the warm comfort of her covers, reaching for her night robe. It would be a long day; she could sense it. Her fingers itched to return to the Grimmerie, but that would have to wait. She had a throne to seat herself upon. A throne to defend. 

By the time Tilly had entered the parlor with the coffee tray and Wes in tow, Glinda had fastened her night robe and settled herself on the cabriole, absentmindedly running her fingers over its nailhead trim. 

…

Glinda returned from her bedroom with the glass of water, setting it down pointedly on the table. She pulled her robe tighter around herself, as if it had any bearing on the chill she felt beneath her flesh. 

Tilly gave a little gasp. Wes frowned. 

“On your pillow, My Lady?” Tilly asked, horrified. “When…?”

“That’s where imagination fails me. Tilly, you were here, and I can hardly picture you accepting any more unsolicited roses on my behalf. And Wes, you were with me. Who else was on yesterday?”

Tilly thought for a moment. Glinda fiddled with the rose’s stem, absently, wincing when a thorn caught the tip of her finger. 

“No one else who is allowed in your chambers, My Lady.”

“Perhaps it was sorcery, or perhaps…perhaps my husband met the Northern Rose.” Glinda shivered. She glanced at the time. “I shall breakfast with him this morning. Perhaps he’ll know something.”

…

“Darling! I was hoping you would make an appearance.” He said pleasantly from behind the day’s issue of The Ozmapolitan. As she lowered herself into her seat at the other end of the long table, he set the paper down. 

“It seems all of Oz would like to get their hands on you.” He said. She flushed until she noticed he was tapping the print. “I suppose you’ll be giving a statement.”

“Oh, I was quite pleased with my speech, Chuffrey, dear. I think I’d like to let it stand for itself.” She said softly. “Why, dare I ask what they’ve said?”

He gave her a knowing look. 

“Some have praised your stoicism, your generosity of spirit. Most are quite curious to hear your candid take on the mural defacement affair. It would seem you were…exceedingly calm—even, perhaps, amused—at what many are calling treason.”

She waved her hand dismissively, sipping her coffee. 

“Art is expressive, darling. It was…provocative, to be sure, but it’s a silly thing to call it treason. I told them—art’s interpretive. Who am I to judge?” She held out her hands innocently. 

“I mean, for Oz’s sake, send me straight to Southstairs if showing a bit of poise in the midst of disruption is adjacent to treason. I hate to think what they’d do if they read my diary.” She shivered. 

“Glinda, you don’t keep a diary.” He said, laughing. “But I have no doubts; you’ll manage this, darling.” 

She smiled softly, warming. 

“Chuffrey—I must ask. Did you leave anything in my bedroom yesterday?” 

Chuffrey picked up the paper to fold it carefully. His expression was thoughtful, and then memory dawned bright across his features. 

“Ah, that’s right! I can’t take credit, unfortunately. Your thank you kiss will have to go to the woman I bumped into in Mennipin Square. She recognized me and asked that I deliver it to you.” He looked pleased with himself. 

She wilted, not knowing whether she felt greater alarm that the woman was wandering the streets, or relief that she hadn’t been inside the manor.

Wasn’t Mombey meant to be in Munchkinland?

“Roses are falling out of favor.” She murmured, thoughts churning. 

“Fashionably?”

“Personally.” 

“Oh, Glinda,” He frowned. “Really? They haven’t even finished the rose garden you insisted on having at Mockbeggar Hall. Do you have any idea what it’s cost?” He looked so disappointed that she turned her face, torn between explaining herself and letting it lie. 

“I’m sure I can be persuaded again, just—a bad dream I had…what did she say to you?”

“Come to think of it, it was a bit odd. She seemed to be speaking to herself so I didn’t ask. Something about you preferring ‘beauty with a bite.’ She said she was someone you knew.”

“No, darling.” Glinda hesitated, brushing away the shiver. “She’s someone who thinks she knows me. If you see her again, will you tell me? But do avoid her, if you can. She’s…not quite right.”

She pushed away from the table, her toast untouched. 

“Glinda,” he sighed, gesturing to her plate. “At least take your breakfast with you.”

She glanced at him, feeling sorry—for too many reasons to name—and carefully folded the Munchkinberry toast inside her cloth napkin, knowing she wasn’t likely to eat it. 

When she crossed the room to kiss his cheek, his hand moved around her waist. For the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to be held. She could not bring herself to tell him about Mombey—she didn’t deserve his worry. 

…

Glinda braced herself as the guards drew open the doors to the Cabinet Meeting of the Ministers. The men were already in their places, rising now to their feet, voices falling to a hush as she crossed the room to calmly take her place at the end of the table. 

Two representatives had been sent from the Rejoicification Committee to review the “Matter of the Murals,” and the handling of public communiques.

“Good morning!” She offered brightly, her features calm and serene as if she had slept restfully and eaten a hearty breakfast. As if she bore no burdens, as if everything in the world was simply wonderful. 

She had toned her wardrobe down today; in light of the illustrations the papers had printed. This was not a meeting for stoking anyone’s ire but for setting a tone, an expectation. For smoothing the wrinkles by offering only certainty and composure. She’d barely applied her glitter, her lips a pale pink. 

“I see you all received my agenda—let’s begin with the matter of the Rejoicification Committee’s Anniversary Murals so that the representatives may move on with their day before we move on with ours. Florinda,” Glinda glanced at the woman, blinking at her innocently, a kind of empty kindness. 

“Florinda, it is my memory the murals were your idea. Perhaps you would like to provide your account, and any associated requests or remarks for the ministerial panel?” She spoke with an affected warmth she did not feel for the woman who had squealed with delight over Elphie's death during too many committee meetings to count.

Florinda brought her handkerchief to her nose, sniffling. She made a helpless gesture, wide-eyed. Her voice cracked when she finally spoke. 

“I-I hardly know what to say, Lady Glinda! It was…oh! It was awful. And the Committee had drawn up such gorgeous, meaningful designs, and commissioned the best artists in the Emerald City! When the curtains fell I thought I would faint.” She blew her nose loudly. 

“You poor dear.” Glinda said, staring at the woman. Her voice was flat, though no one seemed to notice. 

“Do go on.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—” Florinda patted the arm of the woman to her right. The woman was covered in curls and frills—Glinda thought she looked like a poodle. It was not at all becoming. 

“The things they suggested about you, Lady Glinda…” The woman gaped, barely able to look at her. “A thief, a-an impersonator, that you—”

“Something about not being perfect. About the weight of the crown being too heavy for my head.” Glinda nodded, hoping to hurry things along. 

“Yes. They left no image untouched, didn’t they?” 

“And you…doesn’t it bother you? My Lady?” Florinda asked, glancing up at her. 

“It is, as I have said, an…alternative interpretation. I am not immune to critique.” Glinda answered, her voice casual. She leaned forward to sip from her teacup over its little saucer. 

“What happened at the Anniversary of the Death of the Witch is nothing short of subversion,” fumed one minister whose gray hair still contained traces of brown. “A coordinated attack of visual treason—across five panels, no less.”

Florinda nodded. “The Committee concurs. We feel the symbolism will not be lost on the people. If the Throne doesn’t act decisively—with clarity as to its position—”

Glinda interrupted, keeping her voice slow and level. “What would the Committee suggest? That I arrest all the artists? Check under every Emerald City citizens' nails for paint?” She worked to sound as if the options were actually on the table—Florinda had only to request them. 

Another minister spoke, liberated by the first. “Perhaps simply a statement, My Lady. To affirm that the offices of the Throne had no prior knowledge of the edits—”

“I suppose I could,” she began smoothly. “But I do wonder—if the edits told another version of events, and that version resonates—what harm is there in another perspective? Isn’t Oz expansive enough for a bit of complexity?” 

“Resonates?” Squeaked Florinda, never having imagined questioning the likes of Glinda the Good. “Resonates? The Woman as she Was? Elphie’s Alive? Glinda the Good Stole a Dead Woman’s Shoes? To whom in Oz would that resonate, Lady Glinda?” 

Glinda pursed her lips, their corners twitching to smirk, her brow raised in surprise. 

“The artists responsible, I imagine. And Oz is so very large they’re unlikely to be alone.” She offered an unconcerned shrug. 

“Lady Glinda, you imply the Witch’s version of Oz was valid. That is a dangerous suggestion. Sentiment for her is sentiment against this government.” The second minister implored. 

“Oh, I imply no such thing. Only that hers was the Wizard’s era—not Ozma’s, not ours. A very different government, indeed.” She felt herself puffing up a little and lifted her chin, an eyebrow arched. 

“The public wishes to see the perpetrators punished, Lady Glinda.” Florinda’s associate said softly. “Will you not, truly?”

“I will not treat—what was it you said?” She turned to the first minister. “Visual treason?” She laughed. “This was a happening. A spectacle. It is public art—it belongs to the public."

Glinda paused.

"And art,” she continued finally, turning back to Florinda. “Is evocative, transformative. It’s meant to make you think, and thinking isn't always meant to be pleasurable.” 

As if Florinda had ever had a troubling thought in her life. 

“No, I will not go around interrogating artists to appease my ego, or to silence other stories. And I do not believe they should be wrenched down before Oz has had opportunity to process them. I propose we leave them up—as is—until Lurlinemas. I, myself, would like to sit with them a little longer. Seems we’ve myths and memories to reckon with.”

“In the meantime, you will make a statement…?” Asked the first minister warily. 

“I’ll issue a statement, certainly—if only to repeat myself for the benefit of those who struggled the first time.” Glinda said coolly, blinking once—slowly—like a cat who’d already forgotten the mouse. 

If anyone else in the room had prepared to argue, Wes’ sudden entrance took the words from their mouths. She brushed through the doors, her hair slightly askew, a file tight in one hand. Her Guard jacket was only half-buttoned. 

“Lady Glinda, forgive me, I’ve just come from—” she began, but Glinda’s look of amusement stopped her. 

“I’ve asked Wes to speak on another matter from our agenda. Lucky you—it appears you are just in time.” She gestured for Wes to take a seat, turning back to the Rejoicification Committee representatives. 

“Ladies, I do understand you remain quite shaken by that inconvenient interruption at the mural unveiling, but your efforts have not gone unnoticed—I assure you. I am glad we have landed upon a resolution, and I look forward to seeing your plans for next year’s Anniversary event. Perhaps a different approach next time."

"Now, if you will excuse us…” she nodded to the Home Guard by the open door, who readied to escort the women out. 

…

“My Lady.” When the door had shut behind them, Wes stood, opening her file. 

“I have here the final report from the investigation into the Glikkun murder. My team has concluded the responsible party was not a member of the Home Guard.” 

The ministers began to murmur among themselves until Glinda raised her hand to silence them. 

“Please continue.”

Wes glanced up at the seriousness of Glinda’s tone, then turned back to her paperwork. 

“Traces of the alloy do not indicate Guard-issue weaponry as first suspected, but rather—Munchkinland origins. We can see why the mistake was made: similar serration, an eyewitness account of an unspecified uniform. But this was a Munchkinland militant, primarily identified not only by the weapon but by the way in which it was wielded. See here…” 

Glinda nodded along, leaning forward on her elbows to follow Wes’s finger as it traced the supporting etchings and illustrations in her file. She could not say she was surprised, but a chill did work its way up her spine. 

“A Munchkinland militant? With intent to frame the Home Guard?” One minister asked in a low voice. 

Wes nodded grimly. 

“And right as we were on the cusp of finalizing a fair-trade agreement with the Glikkus. How very…convenient.” Glinda murmured.

Of course it was, but she would say no more. 

“You believe this was an act of political sabotage, Lady Glinda?” Asked another minister, clearly rattled. 

Glinda remained composed, though inside it all felt grim. 

“I believe someone is benefitting from a divided Oz, someone who wishes to exploit the Munchkinlanders’ aims at sovereignty. I believe they wish to see blood along Oz’s borders—and I will not grant them the pleasure.”

Soon after, Glinda dismissed the ministers with a follow up meeting scheduled formally in her book. She lingered in the doorway with Wes until the men had cleared. 

“Closer attention at the boundary line, now.” She said softly. “Wes, it was Chuffrey who left the rose. Hand-delivered to him by none other than Mombey, herself, right there in Mennipin Square.”

“My Lady.” Wes had gone pale. 

“It is only a matter of time, now.” She said softly, her throat feeling much tighter than she made her voice sound. 

…

Glinda sat at her vanity, combing her curls in the dying light, the day’s glamour beginning to fade. 

Tilly had gone off to prepare her bath, and as she sat alone in her chemise, she ran her hands over her arms and legs, scanning for traces of L.’s presence. That post-Mauntery session seemed as if it had been ages ago, now, though perhaps that was only a matter of insatiability. Or loneliness. 

Perhaps the mural had been right—her head felt heavy, the formal tiara’s weight more oppressive than she’d become accustomed to in her dainty day tiara. 

She rose to pace slowly through the parlor, trailing her fingers along the edge of the escritoire. She thought about the Grimmerie, its spine still open on her desk with its single unfinished spell—

To Call—

Call what? Call whom?

She hadn’t yet returned to her office, but her thoughts had many times returned to the book, that fragment of a spell. 

Over and over, like fingertips pressing a bruise. 

Elphie. 

No. 

El.

But wasn’t it the same wound? 

She settled down onto the cabriole, legs curled beneath her. She’d left the pages of her speech on the little table in her post-Anniversary (and post-champagne) haze. Her eyes now flickered over the text and marginalia. Her words had been near-perfect, she thought. 

She had worn the dress, unveiled the murals, drawn every eye in Oz—and still, still, she hadn’t felt seen. Not even by L. 

She sighed, leaning back against the cushions. Her throat was tight. The silence crept into her bones. 

She had offered everything: her body, her voice, her version of the truth. What else did she have to offer? What else could she give?

Tomorrow’s session with L. loomed like a shapeless shadow. It offered only the vague certainty of a promise she’d paid for. Tonight, she could only sleep alone while her ghosts drifted in and out of her dreams. 

…

The sitting room’s dim lighting was in such stark contrast to the blinding winter sun outside that Glinda almost had to squint to see L. where she stood, her eyes adjusting. 

L.’s lean, powerful physique was taut as a coiled spring. As Glinda neared, she reset her shoulders, scoffing out a confident huff of air. 

“Still overdressed,” she murmured, her hooded head tilted, gaze trailing the lines of Glinda’s gown. It was pale blue, with a fitted bodice and floral embroidery that climbed from the base of her sternum to her throat. 

The V of the neck was modest but deep, the same sheer lace of her sleeves traveling up the back of her neck like a collar of breath. The skirt just barely swept the floor with a whisper. Glinda had undone her travel cloak, letting it rest loose at her shoulders. Her day tiara was humble in comparison to the elaborate formal piece she’d worn for the Anniversary. 

It was simple enough to wear for L., but there was a vulnerability in all that lace and form-fitting tailoring, knowing it was all to be undone. 

Glinda smiled faintly in practiced moderation. 

“I only thought of you taking it off, from the moment I dressed this morning.”

L. didn’t respond. She stepped closer, hands moving to sweep the travel cloak from Glinda’s shoulders. She moved with an unusually slow precision. Mechanical. 

“You left the event so quickly I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me, El.” Glinda admitted quietly. “Your note…”

“I couldn’t bear to see that. ” L. clarified quietly as she worked her way down the buttons along Glinda’s spine. She slipped the top of the dress down Glinda’s torso, where it caught at her waist. 

“You designed that entire spectacle. Down to the dress you wore for it.”

Glinda stiffened. “Of course I did.”

“I saw what you were doing.” L. said quietly from behind her, head bent to the task. “You wanted to be brave.”

“I was,” Glinda said tightly, sounding suddenly small.  

L.’s hands slid around to her waist, moving to work the dress down her body, but Glinda caught them. 

“Wait—” she turned slightly. “What is it you mean by that?”

“That it was reckless,” L. said. “That it was too much.” She spoke as if from a sore throat. 

Glinda’s lips parted. 

“I didn’t ask for your—”

“It was dangerous, Glinda. And to what end? You mocked the very throne you sit on. You put yourself at the center of a myth you don’t even—”

Glinda stepped back from L., her breathing sharp. Her hand moved to her throat. 

“It was a public reckoning.” She said. Then, fiercer: “Not a myth. The truth.”

“It was filth,” L. said. “And you’re still playing pretend.”

Glinda reeled. Her lip trembled. She shook her head very slowly. 

“Don’t—please.” She whispered. “Please don’t call it that.”

She took another step back. L. followed, reaching again for the fabric that fell about her waist. 

Glinda caught her wrists. “Palace.”

L. paused, as if struggling to remember the meaning of the word. Its particular context. She pulled against Glinda to free her wrists, but Glinda held to them, her eyes shining. Glinda had gone very pale. 

“Palace,” she whispered again. Her voice cracked. 

But L. pressed forward, low and hot and scared. “Why are you the last person in Oz who can’t let her go?”

Glinda shoved her hands away; her top half draped in nothing but chemise.

“Palace.” She felt herself unraveling, her voice rising in pitch and volume. “Palace. Palace. Palace—”

The word snapped through the room like a whip.

This time L. stepped back, as if she’d been struck. 

“I didn’t mean—” she began. 

“No,” Glinda whispered, her breath coming shallow and fast. “You did. This time, you did.”

She turned away, arms holding herself. She seemed not to notice she was half-undressed, or not to care. 

“Do you still want to go down?” L. asked, her voice quieter. “Leave all this,” She gestured as if the air were painful. “up here?”

Glinda turned to face her, slowly. “I don’t know, do you?”

L. looked at her for a long, breathless moment. Then she nodded, turning to make her way down the stairs. 

Glinda hesitated, looking down at the layers she still wore, then followed. 

…

The chamber felt colder than usual. Glinda stood, holding her bare arms, as L. gathered the fabric for the blindfold and gag. She watched her move with that careful, methodical grace, even as everything around them felt misaligned. 

L. said nothing as she approached. Glinda held herself together, but her eyes were wounded, wary. 

L. reached for her waist a final time. 

“I can do it.” Glinda said in such a low, quiet voice she caused L. to retreat a step. 

She undressed herself slowly, deliberately, pushing the remaining fabric down her hips. She slipped from her chemise, careful of her hair, and laid both pieces down neatly on L.’s chair, as if to offer some dignity to her relinquishment. 

When she took off her tiara, she handed it to L. 

“I wanted to be seen.”

L. flinched. She’d hoped they would move on from this. 

“I stood there in that gown,” Glinda went on. “In front of all of Oz. I told the truth. I told the whole truth, on that dais. In the revisions. And you—you who claim to want the truth—you act like I desecrated a grave.”

L.’s voice cracked. “You’re trying to resurrect something that can’t come back.”

Glinda’s breath hitched. She swallowed, willing the words forward. 

“Even so. Even if there’s nothing more…I wanted to honor her,” Glinda said. “I honored—” she broke off. 

The air shifted. 

L. stepped closer. “You think I’m angry because you honored her?”

“I think you’re angry because I dared to speak her name,” she said. “Because I brought her into the light. And you—whatever you carry, whatever this is—”

L.'s jaw tightened beneath her hood. 

“There’s a reason some things are meant to stay in shadow,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re exposing. Not everything survives the light.”

Glinda stared at her, wounded. “You want her to stay in shadow…Is that it?”

“She never wanted—”

“But I did!” Glinda’s voice rose, all sharp edges and ache. “I wanted—need—someone to remember her as she was. The woman she was. Not the Witch they made her into. Maybe she needs to see herself that way, too.” She released a choked sob. L. sounded as though she struggled to breathe. 

“I’ve done everything—everything—to pull her through. Just to hold her in the world a little longer, the way I remember her.”

Glinda tilted her head. 

“And you—you’re afraid. That’s all.” She said softly. “You keep yourself from me because it’s easier than honesty.”

L.’s hands clenched at her sides. “You think this is easy? You have no idea what it’s like.”

“No,” Glinda said softly. “But I know what it’s like to miss her.”

That undid something. 

The room was quiet except for the soft sound of breathing—labored, trying not to break. 

And then, L. turned away. 

“I can’t do this tonight.” She said, and for a second her voice frayed at the edges, as if saying it frightened her. As if it were the last thing in the world she wanted to say.  

Glinda inhaled sharply. 

“No?” She asked. “So, I came here, opened myself—again—and you can’t even stand to look at me?” The words burned on her tongue—bitter, humiliating. 

L. turned back. 

“You want to know who I am?” She asked. “You want to strip me bare, Glinda? Because I won’t be what you think I am. I won’t say it. I won’t give you that moment. You want revelation, but only a certain way. Only on your terms. Even if it ruins you.”

Glinda’s voice trembled. “And what have you given me? Really? You’ve taken and taken—you’ve had me on my knees—what more do you want, El?”

L. picked up the clothing she’d set down, moving to help her dress without a word. 

Glinda froze. She let the chemise slip back down her body, her arms guided through the sleeves of her gown. 

But neither spoke again. 

When they emerged into the sitting room, it was silent. The assistant didn’t meet her eyes when she arrived at the door in answer to L.’s knock.  

When Glinda crossed the threshold, blinking back tears, she had no way to tell if she was embarrassed or relieved to see Wes waiting for her, the carriage making its slow crawl toward her. 

The worst part wasn’t that she cried, wiping her tears on the ride home. It was the certainty that L. hadn’t. And that stung beyond any language she could use to describe it. 

…

On the morning of their next session, it was Wes who told her L. had canceled the session. She had provided no reason. 

There came only a knock on Glinda’s office door. Wes, looking grim and regretful, had held out a folded slip of paper that bore nothing more than a few words. 

“She said she couldn’t receive you this evening, My Lady,” Wes had explained quietly, looking as if she wanted to melt. 

Glinda had taken the note, glanced once, then tossed it into the fireplace without unfolding it. The paper curled like a leaf, blackened, then was gone.

It was the only note of L.’s she hadn’t secretly tucked inside her drawer. 

…

That night, Glinda had slipped beneath her covers, alone with ache. Her chemise clung at the small of her back. 

She had reached between her legs, slow and searching, the way she used to before she’d begun the sessions with L. It had always brought relief, the caress of her own hand. It had always brought pleasure, power, and control. 

But then, her fingers drifting through her wetness, she couldn’t help but to think of L.’s fingers, to hear memory of that smoky superiority—

Does it feel good, darling? Touching yourself in front of me?

Her pride burned, stilling her hand, but it came again—

Go on, touch yourself. 

She had groaned, one hand clutching the edge of her covers, the fingers of the other driving up to her clit, circling once, three times—

Not there, Glinda. That’s mine. 

It was agony. 

I didn’t say stop. 

Fragments of their sessions drifted through her thoughts. L.’s mouth on her own, on her throat, her vulgar whisper, and even—oh, it hurt to think of it—her softer touch, her balms and salves, the way L. dressed her slowly, combed her fingers through her hair gently. She thought of that night in the Mauntery, where for the briefest of moments L. had ridden her thigh—

When she came, the candle flickered out. She was left with nothing but darkness, gasping with recollection and the mildest relief. 

…

It didn’t carry her through the night. Hours later she awoke, agitated and anxious. Sleep would not return, a fleeting thing her racing heart had frightened off. 

Past midnight, she slipped on her robe and slippers, stepping quietly through the eastern corridor with her pewter candle holder, the wick of which she’d just barely managed to light by the faint green glow of the Emerald City. 

She hadn’t touched the Grimmerie since the night it opened, terrified that it might seal itself up again if she dared. It was a beckoning wound. 

To Call—

She paused outside the linen closet, catching something strange. 

A breath. It wasn’t hers. Then came another. Then—

A thump. 

Her heart pounded so hard it hurt her chest. She had no defense. No wand or weapon. She was utterly open. Alone. Afraid. 

She leaned closer...the door was cracked open. 

…

There was no light, save for the flicker of Glinda’s candle. It was more than enough. She brought her hand to her chest with relief. Then paused.

Wes’ Home Guard jacket was unbuttoned. Tilly’s skirts were hiked up indecorously, clasped in Wes’s closed hand. Her hair—Tilly, so tidy and demure—was mussed, falling from its bun. Their mouths were pressed with a kind of magnetism that made Glinda blush with memory. 

Wes’ hand froze first. She gently pushed Tilly back a step with a soft hand to her shoulder. Tilly’s pink little face was caught in candlelight when she gasped. 

Glinda stood still for a moment, blinking. 

A flicker of jealousy, a sense of injustice, flashed along her jaw line. 

She stared at them, her face impassive. “Well, at least someone’s getting f—lattery and attention. Must be nice.” 

With a little huff, she closed the door. 

Chapter Text

It’s all so terribly unfair. 

Glinda reclined—languid, diagonally draped across the cabriole—in an arrangement equal parts practiced and petulant. With one hand propping up her cheek and the other fussing idly with her skirts, she curled like a ribbon of silk left to spill against the upholstery, steeped in melancholic indulgence. 

She was not concerned with appearances—how spoiled and girlish she would seem to anyone who happened upon her. The way she saw it, she’d earned the right to a bit of self-pity. 

There were too many injustices to count—though if pressed, she could name each one. 

Before Shiz, she had known no true difficulty, not really. The girl who had arrived at university saw the world only through her own reflection, floating through life as light as a cloud. She had thought herself happy, then. 

And yet—How could it be possible? At one moment you were a child, light and loved, with the world at your feet, and then, in an instant, you were a woman with a wise old heart of hurts, with enemies and allies who you were no longer sure you could trust. 

A woman who could know no peace, with the eyes of Oz upon you. 

And meanwhile, to have to harbor the private, isolating ache over the one soul she wanted near, the continuous cycle of here then gone. Elphaba didn’t believe in souls. L. had said the same. 

But Glinda—Glinda knew enough of the complexity of human emotion, the way it shapes you, writes your story, until you realize your entire life has been fixed to a single focal point. One you may never truly reach. Or touch. 

Yes, she had been torn from her charmed, pink childhood in a sudden swoop, thrust into reality, without so much as a warning. 

It was particularly unfair to realize how poorly she’d been prepared for the rude, cruel chill of the world—for the darkness that lives in others’ hearts. 

Unfair to realize that no matter how much you care, how perfectly you poise yourself, how hard you work or how much you give—you might still be left empty-handed. 

You have no power over another’s heart—or how they choose to act upon what lives inside it. Even then, even when you feel vulnerable and alone as a single blade of grass, there is no true safety unless you learn to lean—just the littlest bit—on someone else. 

…

Wes paused at the parlor door. Glinda was still and sullen as a portrait of feminine pause. Listless and dreamy, sighing unhappily, it seemed crude to intrude upon the moment with the unseemliness of political strife—or that other, more personal matter. 

“Wesley.” Glinda turned her head to face her Head of Guard, holding a long, even gaze that Wes found difficult to read—aristocratically bored, bemused, vaguely haughty? 

There was something brittle about her, as though she might suddenly crack with a laugh or shatter with a sob, and yet—as she lifted her head from her hand to tilt it at Wes—that composed dignity, that grace, remained intact. 

Wes stepped in hesitantly, stopping a few feet shy of the arrangement: Glinda draped like ornamentation across the cabriole, skirts spilling over its edge. 

Wes gestured to the chaise. “May I?”

“You don’t really have to ask, you know.” Glinda murmured. “Not when we’re alone. Don’t you think we’ve crossed a certain…threshold?” When she lifted her eyes to Wes, her expression was softer. 

Wordlessly, Wes settled into the seat, glancing at Glinda and then away as if that were the most respectful thing she could think to do. 

“We owe you an apology, Lady Glinda.” She said, bringing her eyes back to the cabriole. She found herself surprised when there was little reaction from the woman. She seemed distracted. 

“I don’t wish to be her just now.” Glinda said then, calm and soft as if she’d said it a hundred times before. She twisted her hips to straighten her spine, though her side still leaned against the cushions.  

“Do you know how few people know me as I am? And now I suspect I’ve lost another. A woman might begin to fear she doesn’t exist at all, if no one ever calls her by her name. Just Glinda, won’t you try?”

Wes bit her lip to hide her surprise. She tilted her head down in a gesture of respect. 

“Glinda, then.” Wes said, processing the intimacy, the honor. “Thank you—Glinda. We owe you an apology.” She repeated. 

Glinda slid her feet down to the floor, sitting up. Pointedly, she glanced around with an affected confusion. 

“We?” She asked, an eyebrow arched. 

“Yes—well. Tilly is a bit…shy to join me. After this morning.” Wes tilted her head, her lips pulling to one side with strange amusement. 

It took a moment to remember. 

“Shy.” Glinda repeated, turning down the corners of her lips. She glanced down at her left hand, at the faint lines of the clawed rose which seemed to recede day by day but never to fade entirely. 

“But I didn’t throw it at her.” She clarified. 

It was true; that morning, after a poor night’s sleep and after having tortured herself with rereading L.’s past letters, she’d taken one look at the awful little bloom by her nightstand and thrown it against her chamber door in a satisfying shattering of glass. 

“In my defense, I wasn’t expecting an audience. Poor Tilly was simply a casualty of unfortunate timing.”

It had coincided with Tilly’s arrival with her coffee. The girl had startled, set down the tray with shaky hands, and fled. 

“Do let her know the linens forgive her. I will too, eventually.” But Glinda's lips were pursed. She was beginning to enjoy the humor.

“Tilly will recover.” Wes said casually. “I still felt I needed to see you, to talk about last night.”

Glinda smoothed a fold of fabric on her lap before responding. 

“I assumed it was Mombey, come to murder me in my sleep. So you can imagine my disappointment.” She smiled wryly. “Well, really, Wes. Far be it from me to interrupt a budding thing…but the linen closet? And why, when Tilly has her own chambers?”

Wes blushed. 

“I don’t know, M–Glinda,” She began, a bit flustered. “I hadn’t meant for it to be more than a goodnight kiss.”

Now Glinda couldn’t help but blush, a sympathetic response that rubbed against the fresh wound, causing her to turn her head away. 

“It won’t happen again, I promise.” Wes added. 

“Oh, Wes, who am I to judge? I mean, those were the good linens—and you two might’ve thought to shut the door—but…part of me celebrates that two good people are happy.” Glinda sniffled softly. 

“Oh…forgive me. I shouldn’t ask, but it’s L., isn’t it?” Wes asked quietly, leaning forward over her knees. Her face had twisted with concern.

Glinda’s eyes shifted to Wes as though she might argue, scold her for being so forward, but she found herself nodding instead. 

“She hasn’t canceled—tomorrow. She hasn’t canceled.” Wes offered gently. “Maybe…”

“No.” Glinda shook her curls, the idea of getting her hopes up much too painful. “I’m canceling. I’ll write a note for you to take.”

“Are you sure?” Wes asked. “I know her. Whatever it was, she didn’t mean it…Glinda. She probably just got scared.”

“I know her.” Glinda said tiredly. “She is scared. But she meant it.”

Wes wanted to break the silence—to reassure her, to offer mediation—but she held her tongue. When Glinda had settled back into the cushions, Wes shifted her weight forward, resting her elbows on her knees. 

“Glinda…I know it’s the last thing you want to discuss, but today’s address…”

Glinda sighed. “Yes, of course.” She stood, smoothing her hands over her skirt. “Oz awaits. In the meantime, I must finish my remarks.”

Wes stood, too. “Shall I walk you to your office?” She asked. 

“Please.” Glinda confirmed. “I’ve just the final touches left. But before that, I’ll pen a cancellation note for you to take.”

They walked close in silence, a rhythm easing between them. Glinda’s posture had softened, the tilt of her chin less defiant, less alone. Something between them had stilled, as if they were not only allies, comrades but leaning—quietly—toward something steadier: contemporaries, confidantes. 

As they passed the linen closet, Glinda paused with a light laugh. Wes stopped beside her, tilting her head in quiet question. 

“Wes, darling,” Glinda began, pausing to delicately adjust the epaulette on Wes' shoulder. "Be good to her."

…

Glinda was frustrated to find that canceling didn’t come easily.

She'd pushed aside the Grimmerie, pushed aside mockups for her upcoming Masquerade Ball—Crope's gorgeous design for her gown, which she'd hardly had the time to study. Instead, she gazed off, mid-address, hesitation and doubt stilling her hand.  

The tip of her quill had leaked an ugly black wound on the stationary as she forced herself to remember the last session. The cruel brevity of that note L. had sent to cancel their session. 

You can’t go back, she told herself, disgusted to find how much some part of her still wanted to.

No. L. had rejected her in no uncertain terms, had wrenched her heart from her chest, had striven to defile the purest part of her—as though to stifle it. Filth, she’d called it. It still made Glinda shudder.  

She had no difficulty recalling the most searing things L. had seethed, twisting the knife, aiming to hurt.

Why are you the last person in Oz who can’t let her go?

You’re trying to resurrect something that can’t come back. 

Her hand shook when she slid a new sheet of parchment onto her desk. 

L.,

I trust you’ll forgive the inconvenience, but I won’t be coming tomorrow. 

I find myself in no mood to be seen—least of all by you.

From what I understand, that’s precisely as you prefer it. 

—G. 

And you, she’d told her, you’re afraid. That’s all. 

She didn’t bother to scent her wrists. She didn’t address the card.

…

Wes was discovering that L.’s assistant had not forgiven her earlier intimidation tactics when asked to be taken to L. 

“I’ll take your message, but she is not seeing anyone at the moment.” The girl sounded bored.

“We are associates—tell her who is here and let her make that decision.” 

The young assistant glanced warily at Wes through the small window in the slate wall. With a sigh, she slid the window shut and disappeared. 

When L. opened the door to the Plum & Pip there was a self-consciousness in the way she held herself. She gestured for Wes to follow her into another room for privacy, but she wouldn’t speak. 

Wes cleared her throat and extended Glinda’s letter. With a sigh, L. turned her back to read it privately. The Guard watched her sloped shoulders carefully but said nothing. 

L. mumbled something inaudible, offering the letter back to Wes with an unsteady hand. 

“L., I’ll not speak on it, but…are you alright?”

L. waved her hand dismissively. 

“It can’t last, this…” But Wes trailed off, noticing the way L.’s entire being seemed to bristle. The two were beginning to exasperate her; she felt like a third party whose own heart was becoming a casualty. 

“I did want to tell you that Mombey was spotted in Mennipin Square. By none other than Lord Chuffrey himself.” She watched L. carefully. “No, she wouldn’t have told you that. Not now. I have a lead on a certain cell of Munchkinlanders operating out of a tavern in the Lower Corner, by the Corn Exchange. I just thought…I don’t know. You’re not entirely outside of this. You should know.” 

L. turned her hooded head toward Wes as if she might say something, but she only nodded. 

…

It was another chilly winter afternoon in the Emerald City. Glinda shivered as she stepped onto the balcony, wrapping her cornflower blue moonwool and silk moiré tighter around herself. She’d dressed disinterestedly, as a matter of routine obligation, caught up in her own rules of regal presence: elegance, excess, and enormity. Of figure and fabric so fine and full she could not be denied or ignored. By the common Ozian, at least. 

The noise of the masses deafened, as if the less they understood her, the more they begged her presence. She approached the edge softly, her features fair and gentle as she waited one moment, and then two, before tapping her scepter to call their attention, to summon their silence. 

“Fellow Ozians,” she began, her voice calm and deliberate. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

She paused, glancing around, nodding appreciatively at the fading cheers. 

“Just days ago we gathered together, down there on the city square, to mark the Anniversary of the Death of the Witch. It was a commemoration—a public remembrance—and, for many, a day of deep importance.”

She let a deep breath move through her body, feeling her torso meeting the comfortable restraint of her corset. 

“As you recall, the Rejoicification Committee commissioned Oz’s greatest artists to create a series of murals to memorialize those days in our collective past. Their intent was to honor our shared history and celebrate the peace that followed.”

She paused. The adjacent tearoom tugged at her thoughts, the muscles of her neck strained against the impulse to look, to see. 

Don’t wish—don’t start. 

She forced herself to continue.  

“What appeared when they were unveiled, however, was not exactly what we had expected, was it?” she asked softly. 

There was a faint murmur among the crowd, which she allowed for a moment before tapping her scepter just once, gently, to signal she had more to say. 

“The murals had been…altered. Not ruined, but revised…reimagined, if you will.”

There were a few noises of discomfort, but she did not pause for them. 

“To this day, it is not known who was responsible for these alterations. But I do know this: those revisions did not remove the meaning from the murals. They expanded it.”

There was an attentive silence that offered neither approval or disapproval. 

“The papers have called them defacement. Vandalism. Treason, even. A few have suggested they were corrections. I have heard your requests for clarity—how I feel about them. To me, the revisions were…perspective.”

“And I believe—still—that Oz must remain strong enough to hold more than one perspective—more than one story—at a time.”

Glinda raised her chin slightly out of the sheer force of conviction. 

“You understand, don’t you? How, in conflict, both sides can carry their own truths, believe themselves just as right? It is a complicated thing…memory. Truth.”

Despite herself, her glance traveled to the balcony of the tearoom, then down to its patio. Her heart suddenly felt as though it were in her throat. She faltered—if only to herself—nearly coughing. She gave a light little laugh to herself as though nothing were at all serious, swiveling back to center. 

“The speech I gave that day had been written long before the murals were unveiled—and I continue to stand by it. I said then, and I say again, now: our stories are bound together. Our truths are layered, conflicting, sometimes uncomfortable—but real.”

“I do not celebrate pain. But I do not fear complexity.”

Would they understand?

She placed her hand upon her chest.  

“I have heard your concerns. I know that the mural revisions caused unrest—not only in sentiment, but in the city itself. There are moments when public memory must pause—to make space for breath.”

She took a breath, herself, grounding herself, feeling in her fingers the way her chest rose and fell, feeling in her ribs the way her body strained against its corseting. 

“And so, I announce today that the ministers have decided that the murals will remain as they are until Lurlinemas, as originally scheduled. After that, they will be removed. I want to be clear: I do not believe in dictatorship. I do not believe in the dominance of one story, one truth over another—there will be no pursuit. No death sentence. No Southstairs. I believe our discomfort here is…revelatory.”

She ignored the gasps, the stillness. 

“We have some things to work out.” She said softly, temporarily running off-script. 

“Understand, Ozians, this is not an endorsement of vandalism. This decision has been made in the interest of diversity of thought, deeper understanding, clarity, and…forgiveness. We are not a perfect people. But we are people, still. And every story told—sanctioned or otherwise—has something to show us.”

She paused. The crowd seemed to be calming, coming to terms, however unhappily. 

“I thank you for listening, dear Ozians. I thank you for considering. And I thank you, as always, for believing in the possibility of goodness.”

Her curtsy was shallow, but elegant. When she lifted her head, she looked toward no one and everyone—though she couldn’t help but glance, for a heartbeat, again at the patio across the square. 

L. sat, one leg crossed over the other, leaning over her teacup. If she had listened, she gave no sign. But she had come. 

…

Glinda took her exit slowly. 

With a frozen smile and wide eyes, she waved. 

It was difficult to process…L.’s cancellation, then her own, and now L.’s presence. But hadn’t she partially expected it, mostly hoped? 

She withdrew from the balcony, offering the line of ministers a curt little nod before making her way to the grand stair—toward the palace’s rear where Wes waited with the carriage. 

She descended the palace steps slowly, one hand grazing the marble rail, the other clutching her skirts and scepter to keep her balance. She cursed herself for sending Wes along ahead—it was a strain to maintain her grace with such a balancing act. 

The afternoon air had sharpened; it cut through her fine cloak like a warning. 

Glinda didn’t—couldn’t—rush. She caught sight of Wes beside the carriage at the edge of the circle, speaking to someone. Exhaustion was beginning to creep in—the kind no sleep could cure. 

She was nearing the final stair when she heard it—

“Glinda.”

Soft, smoky, unmistakable. 

She stopped, grasping the rail. 

She turned slightly, eyes scanning the stone colonnade at the western arcade. From its shadowed frame, L. stepped forward in her dark cloak. 

Glinda’s gaze flickered from L. to the carriage circle, the square. They were alone. No witnesses. Only the hush of early winter, the distant crowd, and two women wrapped in separate silence. 

Her pulse quickened—sharp, insistent. 

“Glinda—a moment. Please.” L.’s voice was quiet, steady. Her tone did not beg, though the please felt unusual to her tongue. 

Glinda didn’t move. Her jaw tensed. 

“St. Glinda’s Square. The Chapel.” L. said. “Only a short carriage ride from Mennipin. I’ll be there, just after dusk. If you would—I only wish to see you. To talk.”

Her voice caught faintly on talk, as if it were too small a word for what she meant. 

Glinda’s eyes narrowed—measuring her. Measuring herself. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. An eyebrow arched. 

“St. Glinda’s Chapel?” She asked at last, her voice thinner than she’d meant. 

L. inclined her head. 

She gazed at Glinda—as if taking her in for a final time—then turned, disappearing down the curve of the arcade, her cloak slicing the air like a blade. 

Glinda stood still. 

She did not look at Wes as she crossed the square. She said nothing at all as the carriage doors closed behind her. 

…

Glinda was quiet on the ride home. She kept her eyes on the window, her hands folded too tightly in her lap. 

By the time she reached her chambers, the blue light was beginning to turn silver. Dusk crept along the corners of the ceiling, softening everything into shadow. 

She allowed Tilly to unfasten her cloak—her own fingers had trembled—sending her away just after, gently. 

As if by a kind of magnetism, she moved directly toward her locked office, the key cold in her hand. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, to consider L.’s offer to meet, though the tingling in her nerves left little doubt she’d decline. 

The Grimmerie lay open where she had left it, seeming ever so alive. Something about it shimmered, slithered, some undercurrent of movement she wouldn’t have been able to describe were anyone to ask. 

She moved toward it slowly as if afraid it could be startled, settling herself down behind her desk softly. 

“I’m still open.” She said to no one. “I can’t seem to help it.”

The open page shimmered, shadows crossing over its surface that didn’t come from the window’s light. 

To Call 

It was still there, bold and dark, but beside it was movement, something swimming under the surface, ink beginning to bloom and fade as if breaching. 

“To Call the Kept”

She read it aloud as it appeared, watching as the fragment scrolled along the top of the page. 

“To Call the Kept to Light”

Revelation. 

She read it once. Twice. Her chest ached. 

She closed the book as gently as she could, sliding it back inside her secret drawer, locking it in. 

Downstairs, Wes was lingering at the front door. 

“Just you,” Glinda whispered. “And no questions, please.”

Wes nodded, her jaw tight. She said nothing, opening the door as Glinda stepped out into the deepening dusk, clasping her own cloak, which she’d plucked from Tilly’s hands without explanation. Her eyes were bright, her steps light—but inside, the apprehension burned.

“The Chapel of St. Glinda.” She murmured to Wes as she slipped into the carriage. 

…

The Chapel of St. Glinda was dark when Glinda entered, pushing her hood back from her curls. Only a few scattered sconces gave a soft glow at the edges. An elderly man was praying over a candle in the corner, but she was otherwise alone. Wes waited outside with the carriage, feeling a heaviness she couldn’t explain. When she caught sight of L. crossing the cobblestones to slip inside the Chapel, she exhaled a breath of relief. 

Glinda had settled into a pew facing the large, stained-glass image of the saint. She gazed up at the figure for a long, quiet moment, wondering again whether there was much of a difference between what one believed, so long as one did believe. Was it a compulsion? Some force that carried on inside of her, automatic and instinctive as breath?

She had been to the chapel previously, first when she’d hoped prayer would help. Later for its privacy. Though the saint could offer her nothing, the faint glow, the quiet, the heavy scent of incense had soothed. It was so soothing she could have slept. 

Even now, she closed her eyes, absorbing the calm, the sacred scent of—mint?

“Glinda.” 

L. had slipped in beside her so quietly that Glinda startled. L. leaned back as if in apology, turning her hooded head away. Why couldn’t she be soft? she cursed herself. 

Glinda glanced at her sideways. 

“You asked me to come.” She said quietly, her voice cool, distant. 

“I did.” L. looked down at her hands in her lap. “I—well, thank you. For coming.” She said, her voice low.  

“I suppose I was curious. What you might have to say. Why you came, earlier, if you find my public image so unbearable.” Glinda tried to keep the hurt from her voice, to keep her tone level, more accusing than defensive. She found herself half-successful. 

“I don’t…oh.” L. groaned so softly Glinda barely heard. It was a pained sound. “It isn’t that you’re unbearable, Glinda. It’s unbearable to see you hurt. To imagine you hurt—”

“You hurt me.” Glinda cut in, sharp, her pitch high. 

“I know.” L. dropped her hooded head into her gloved hands. 

She’s not crying. She isn’t capable. 

They sat in silence, Glinda turning her head back to glance at the glass saint. L. seemed to compose herself. It was almost comfortable, the quiet tension. It certainly wasn’t new. 

Glinda’s gaze did not waver from the stained glass. She exhaled slowly, then said, carefully, with a decade’s old bitterness, “You’ve a clever way of disappearing just when I need you most.”

L. stirred. She raised her head, turning just slightly. 

“It must seem that way to you.” She said, considering. 

“And to you?” Glinda glanced at her, sharp and hurt. 

L. didn’t answer right away, looking up at St. Glinda as if for answers. Her hands stilled in her lap. 

“It’s like watching you give yourself away, piece by piece. For Oz, for—” she hesitated, “—for her.”

Her throat worked around the next sentence. 

“Like watching you offer up your throat like it’s the price of peace. Or love.”

Glinda was quiet. She couldn’t look at her. Her jaw was tight, but her hands had tightened in her skirt. 

“It’s like watching you walk into fire,” L. added, her voice fading to a whisper. “While I’m told to stand still.” 

Glinda flexed her trembling fingers, trying to convince her body to calm. 

“That’s what you think I’ve done?” She asked softly. 

“I think you gave more of yourself than anyone had the right to ask. And I think you stood alone, doing it.”

L. straightened slightly. 

“And I think I—” She faltered, then forced herself to finish. “I don’t know how to stand beside you without ruining everything.” 

Glinda turned toward her, slowly. 

“What exactly are you afraid of ruining?”

L.’s voice was low, dark. “You. Your name. Your…peace.”

Glinda gave a little huff. 

“My peace.” She murmured ironically. “You always think it’s your job to protect me.”

“It is.” L. said with a startling sense of clarity. Certainty. “I’ve done it badly, I know that. But if I hadn’t tried—” 

“You’d feel what I felt.” Glinda interrupted. “Abandoned. Again. And again.”

L. fell silent, which Glinda took for confirmation. 

“You think protecting me means holding control, but sometimes what I need is for you to let go.” Glinda began.

“I’m trying.” L. offered quietly. But Glinda shook her head—she hadn’t said what she meant.

“You—you lash out, when you’re frightened. You didn’t listen—I said palace because I couldn’t—I needed you to stop pressing where it hurt…it wasn’t just a word—it was all I had…” Her voice faded out, her throat too tight to continue. 

“I know.” L.’s voice shook. She lowered her head. “I heard you. I…knew what it meant. I just—” She faltered. “I was too far inside it. My own fear. My own history.” Her gloved hands curled in her lap. “It wasn’t your fault I kept going. I can only say that I’m sorry. That I understand what it means, to have to earn your trust again.”

They sat with it, not moving, not speaking. The chapel air with its incense and dim stillness pressed, solemn and thick, with musk—and grief. 

It was Glinda who broke the silence, softly. 

“You think hiding is the answer, but it isn’t for me. You think you’re keeping yourself from me, but you’re not. Not really.”

“No?” L. asked quietly, her emotions illegible. 

“No. I see you every time I close my eyes. I hear you in my head all the time. You think you’re hidden, but you aren’t—not from me.”

L.’s hands toyed with the hem of her cloak. 

“Then you must know how hard this has been.”

“So stop making it harder.” Glinda breathed. “Come back to me.”

Her words seemed to unlock something in L. She didn’t cry, but her posture softened. Her shoulders lowered, her arms slackened—like something surrendering its shape. 

“If there’s a way back, I’ll find it. I’ll walk it with you. Just…don’t cancel tomorrow. Let me try to be what you need.” L. whispered. 

Glinda closed her eyes. The ache bloomed in her chest, a light sting. 

“I just need you, El.” Her voice broke, and she sniffed delicately, pinching the bridge of her nose to hold back the well of tears. 

“I watched you turn yourself inside out for Oz. I wondered if you had anything left for yourself. Or for me. But you did…and it was still more than I can give…I don’t think you understand how terrifying it is, to be left on the edge of giving you everything, even what might hurt you.”

“You honestly don’t imagine I might relate to that? The Throne Minister, crawling on her knees for a faceless woman?” Glinda murmured quietly, glancing over her shoulder. The old man had gone. They were alone. 

They sat quietly for a long time. L. resisted the urge to reach to touch her. Neither moved. 

Finally, L. whispered, “I thought churches bored you.”

Glinda gave the ghost of a laugh. 

“That was before I had anything to pray for,” she murmured. 

Then she rose, her steps echoing through the stone.  L. remained seated. 

When Glinda reached the doorway she paused—just long enough for her image to burn in L.’s mind—then stepped back into the night. 

…

The manor was quiet and dark when they returned. Evening had fallen, washing everything in an inky dye, the exterior of the manor barely lit through its few illuminated windows, awash with the canal’s reflections. 

She and Wes had hardly exchanged a single word and now, as they broke for the evening, Glinda wondered if she was off to find her comfort in Tilly. She’d only offered her own grateful murmur, distracted by memory of her talk with L. Glinda felt no excitement to return to her empty bed, drifting up the stairs alone, her hand trailing the banister. 

Instead, she made her way to her office. The earlier fire burned low. As she sank into the seat at her desk, she pressed her hands to her face. 

The chapel still clung to her. The scent of incense. The weight of silence. L.’s voice, that low, strained rasp, offering more than she’d previously given:

You give yourself away, piece by piece. 

You stood alone. 

I don’t know how to stand beside you without ruining everything. 

Glinda let her hands fall to her lap. Her throat was tight. She could feel L.’s presence as if she were still beside her on the pew, close but not touching. 

She pondered what L. had said—

If there’s a way back, I’ll find it. 

Don’t cancel tomorrow. 

It wasn’t an apology, but it was more than absence, more than silence. It was something. It was L.’s attempt at a promise—she, the woman who could promise nothing. 

As she sat at her desk, she felt that faint magnetic pulse, the light electric current of air infused with magic. She removed the ribbon of the key and quietly unlocked the top drawer, the Grimmerie’s magic seeping out like a sea foam. 

She had almost forgotten. 

To Call the Kept to Light. 

Gently, she opened the book, allowing its own inner movement to guide where the pages fell. There was the title, glowing dark and sure as ink. 

Even now, the page shimmered as if it had more to say—as if begging her attention, just a few moments longer. The murky dark blotches, those shadows, swelling and shrinking, were again swimming beneath the surface of the parchment. Curiously, she lifted the page, but there was nothing to be seen underneath. This was simply a matter of page versus page—one without, one within the magic. 

As she watched, the spell began to reveal itself in full. Worlds curled and flexed beneath the title—elegant, insistent, careful. Her eyes skimmed the page once, and then again. 

The title promised a call, an invitation. It was a spell of revelation, a kind of summoning, but softer. It beckoned the one to the other. 

It was a way to name what had not been named. A way to receive what had not yet been given. 

Her eyes stung in the candlelight. She brought her fingers to her lips, resting them there. 

“You would give it,” she whispered to the book. “But I couldn’t take it.”

With great effort, she forced herself to close the book, to put herself at a distance from it. She stepped toward the window, looking out over the canal. The Emerald City. 

“All this time, and I still couldn’t.” She whispered to the book behind her. “I do not want what she won’t freely give.”

Her fingers trembled as she pressed them to the cool glass, letting her forehead fall forward to press, too, against its chill. She stood still, feeling her temperature lower, feeling herself calm with the feel of winter returning under her skin. 

“I’ll wait,” she whispered across the city. “You’ll open yourself to me.”

Somehow, the warmth of the book felt like the heat of pleasure, as if it approved, encouraged. When she slipped it back inside its drawer it almost seemed to sigh. It would wait, too—quiet and certain, as if it already knew. As if it hadn’t been meant for L. at all. 

Glinda slept peacefully that evening. If she dreamed, its memories didn’t linger. She was pleasantly surprised to open her eyes to day, not those dark, restless hours between night and morning. 

She had slept through the night—no nightmares, no surprise seductions. Just a peaceful sleep, her skin warm, her heart beginning to churn. She would be seeing L. that evening, because L. had invited her. Because she had been asked to come back. And this time, she’d said yes. 

She wasn’t sure what would happen. Only that some part of her had already answered the call. 

…

Glinda changed her clothes three times before the session. Tilly had begun to suspect it was some sort of punishment—until Glinda murmured an apology, turning her back for the third time as Tilly began to undo her buttons. 

“Something simple, Tilly. Simple, but pretty. I’m one gown away from resorting to sorcery to solve it.”

“Why not, Lady Glinda?” Tilly asked, a pin tucked between her teeth. Glinda paused, meeting her own gaze in the looking glass. 

“Why not? Oz, Tilly, because I might set the manor ablaze. Or give myself an extra limb. Body magic is frightfully temperamental—and dreadfully unflattering. I only use the one that keeps your hands from being burnt by toast. I learned that one for Chuffrey, you know…” 

She smiled softly, almost absently. Tilly was quiet, undoing the buttons along her spine. 

“Tilly,” Glinda said after a pause, catching her eye in the mirror. “I’ve meant to talk to you. But you’ve been fluttering about like a sparrow lately, I’ve hardly had the chance.”

Tilly flushed, stilling her fingers. 

“You aren’t in trouble,” Glinda said gently.

“Well—other than your criminal taste in linen closets. But really, I was in the throes of a terrible night. It surprised me, was all. Still, I’m quite fond of you both.” 

She paused. “It pleases me, you know, that you’ve found each other.”

“I—thank you, My Lady.” Tilly whispered, nearly folding into herself.  

“Just…perhaps next time in your own chambers?” Glinda murmured with a wry twist of her mouth. “A scorned woman stumbling upon young love in the linens—well. Even I have limits, Tilly. And apparently, they’re somewhere between the pillowcases and the duvets.”

“Scorned?” Tilly asked, hesitant, surprised. 

Glinda rolled her eyes with theatrical grace. 

“Oh, do hush and help me dress. Let’s try the blue one. I’ve just enough faith left in it.”

…

When the assistant closed the door behind Glinda, L. stepped forward from the shadows. Her hood drawn as always, Glinda could still feel her piercing gaze. 

“You came.” She said quietly. In the stillness, Glinda could sense a withholding, as though L. were waiting to be permitted near. 

Glinda stepped forward, her heart quickening. 

“You told me to.” She answered, her voice small as if she were already beginning to doubt herself. 

“You always have a choice.” L. said seriously, her voice dropping even lower. 

The air between them vibrated with something unspoken—delicate, dangerous, unfinished. It was enticing. Erotic. 

“I chose you.” Glinda said softly, simply. 

L. began to step closer, to circle her slowly. This time, it felt to Glinda less thrillingly predatory than absorbing, savoring. 

“Say that again.” L. whispered from behind her. 

“I chose you, El.” Glinda said again, her lips pursing together in enjoyment. 

“May I undress you?” L. whispered in her ear from behind. 

Somehow, the woman was close enough to leave goosebumps along the back of Glinda’s neck without touching her at all. Somehow, even in asking permission, Glinda still felt L. held all the power. 

She nodded, her breath beginning to go shallow. 

“Out loud, Glinda.” L. breathed into her other ear. 

“Undress me. Touch.” Glinda whispered, “Please.”

“Mmm.” L. made a sound halfway between pleasure and thought, acknowledging Glinda’s request. She closed the circle, coming back around to Glinda’s front. 

Inside the quiet, L. drew near, measured and calculating. Slowly, she reached for the cloisonné clasp, fingers brushing Glinda’s throat just barely as she released the hinge and slid it off, stepping away to place the cloak on Glinda’s chair. 

There was a kind of reverence in the silence. 

She began on the next layer, her movements slow, almost ritual. Glinda did not speak, only lifting her chin or lowering her neck to accommodate L.’s movements, allowing herself to be unwrapped. L. did not hurry. She touched as little as she could, but what touch she gave lingered. 

There was something trembling beneath the silence. 

She raised her arms loosely, delicately, as L. drew her gown over her head. When L. removed her untied corset she sighed with pleasure, standing now in only her low-necked chemise and bloomers, her stockings high on her thigh. 

“If you’re ready.” L. gestured to the stairs. Glinda was amazed to be undressed and to have hardly been touched at all. She glanced at L. only once before turning to descend—bare but unafraid, drawn toward something that no longer felt dangerous, even if naming it was. 

…

L. followed her down the stairs, the step of her boots echoing softly behind her. 

“If you want something different tonight, I will follow your lead.” She said from behind her.  

Having reached the bottom, Glinda turned back. She shook her curls—no—then removed her tiara, handing it carefully to L., who stepped away to place it in the box for safekeeping. 

“I only want…everything.” Glinda whispered, hoping L. would understand her. 

Again L. came around to circle her slowly, still not touching. When she came around to face Glinda, she brought her gloved hand up to press against her cheek. Glinda did not flinch. 

She grazed her skin with her fingertips, bringing her thumb to Glinda’s lower lip. Glinda softly parted her lips, opening just wide enough to offer her mouth to L., if she wanted it. 

She could hear L.’s breath catch ever so quietly, slipping only her index finger between Glinda’s lips, which closed around it. 

“Good girl.” L. breathed as if she could not help herself. “Still so good.” Glinda moaned around L.’s finger. 

L. slipped her finger out of Glinda’s mouth and down her chin, her jaw. 

“Only for you.” Glinda whispered, beginning to feel the feverish heat of need. 

“You want everything.” L. repeated softly. 

She dragged her finger along Glinda’s jaw, trailing along her sensitive skin as it traced the low, wide neck of her chemise, just inches above her breasts. 

“I’ll give you everything.” L. murmured, her fingertips dipping below the chemise. 

Glinda shivered pleasantly. 

“You must be feeling very needy—you’ve been without for far too long.” L. said with an affected pity. The hint of remorse carried in her voice. 

L. lowered herself to a crouch, then, her hand sliding up high on the back of Glinda’s thigh to find the top of her stocking, slowly sliding the thin fabric down over her legs. Glinda felt the gusset of her bloomers dampen. She did not have to be asked to raise her foot so that L. could slide the stocking off, the gloved fingers lingering along the bare instep of her foot. 

The touch reminded Glinda of her dream, bringing a new heat to her cheeks, feeling herself flush all the way down to her chest. L. repeated the maneuver with the other stocking, this time allowing one hand to linger on the back of her thigh. 

“Glinda,” she murmured from beneath her. “You’re trembling already.” 

She slid her hand up, beneath the bottom hem of her bloomers, her fingers tracing light circles over her skin until she reached the place where thigh gave way to softer skin. Glinda’s breath hitched, but L. was already withdrawing. 

L. stood then, catching the obvious want in Glinda’s eyes. She ran a gloved hand through the golden curls, gently grasping a handful to cradle the back of Glinda’s skull. She pulled, only enough to expose Glinda’s throat, bringing her hooded lips to kiss her lightly there. 

“Would you like to be bare for me, Glinda?” She whispered against the elegant neck, working her way down to kiss her collarbone. 

L.’s hand flexed in Glinda’s hair, as though aching to take more. 

“Please, El. I need…” Glinda trailed off. 

“What do you need?” L. asked with a patient authority, her lips parting to take Glinda’s skin between them with a pleasing suck. 

“More.” Glinda whimpered beneath the touch, and L. was sliding the chemise up her thighs, up and up until the fabric was lifted over her head and she stood now in only her small—scandalously small—bloomers. She shivered with a thrill at the exposure. 

The chemise set aside, L. brought a gloved hand to linger at Glinda’s hip, just below the soft waistband of her bloomers. She didn’t lower them, yet. Instead, she let her fingers trace the edge, as though testing a boundary. 

Glinda’s breathing had shifted: no longer shallow, now expectant. Her body swayed subtly toward L.’s hand. It was a telling gesture that did not pass unnoticed. 

“You said you wanted more.” L. murmured. 

Glinda nodded. 

“Say it again,” L. whispered, her mouth now brushing Glinda’s ear. “What do you want?”

She almost choked on it, but she meant it.

“I want...more.” She breathed.

“Everything?” L. offered. 

“Yes.” Her voice cracked. “Please, yes.”

L.’s tongue was tracing patterns behind her ear, and Glinda heard herself whine. 

“I’m yours, El. All of me. I need—” her breath caught at a particularly sensitive spot. “Everything.”

There was silence for a moment, a charged stillness as L. drew back her hooded head. 

She stepped back, just enough to take Glinda in—nearly bare, already quivering on the edge of her composure. 

“Kneel for me.”

The instruction was quiet, inevitable. Though it lacked the usual commanding quality, Glinda did not hesitate. 

She sank to her knees with grace, her bloomers still clinging to her hips, her hands folded atop her thighs. She lowered her eyes at first, letting them flicker up to L. when a few seconds had passed. 

L. stepped closer, slowly circling. Her boots stepped close to Glinda’s knees, the edge of her cloak brushing Glinda’s shoulder. She paused behind her. 

Glinda closed her eyes as L.’s fingers returned to her hair, gathering it gently, reverently, lifting its golden weight off her neck and letting it spill to one side. She bent forward, pressing a slow series of kisses to the nape of Glinda’s neck. 

She pressed the blindfold into Glinda’s hands, allowing her to see, feel it. 

“Can you trust me, Glinda?” She asked, her mouth wet against the side of Glinda’s throat. 

“Yes.” Glinda whispered. “I can trust you.” She was easing into submission, comfortably, willfully. 

L. lifted the fabric out of Glinda’s lap, dark and smooth and cool as water between her gloved fingers. She stepped behind Glinda, and Glinda closed her eyes, tilting back her chin, exposing her throat, surrendering her sight. 

“You can trust me.” L. repeated it as a statement, reaffirming. 

“Yes.” Glinda whispered. 

L. slipped the blindfold over Glinda’s eyes, knotting it gently behind her head. She brushed back Glinda’s curls, her gloved fingers soft near her temple. For a moment, they lingered. 

Then L. circled again—slower this time—taking in Glinda’s half-nude body, her soft, shallow breath, the unguarded posture that came with deliberate choice. 

“You waited for me,” she said, her voice low. “You were a good girl.”

Glinda whimpered. 

“I…I tried.” Her voice was small, shaky. 

“You tried?” There was a hint of the familiar amused condescension, though gentle. 

“I tried to wait.” Glinda admitted softly. 

L. stilled. 

“I…touched myself. Twice.” Glinda confessed with a shiver, lowering her head although her eyes were covered. 

“Oh?” L.’s voice didn’t sharpen—it softened, darkened. 

“I’m sorry.” Glinda whispered. “I tried so hard. I wanted to wait. I just—I thought of you. Even when I was upset with you. I couldn’t help it.”

L. exhaled, but it wasn’t disappointment she released—it was hunger. Satisfaction. Need. She stepped closer. 

“What did you think of?”

Glinda trembled. “Your voice. The way I feel when I know you’re looking at me—” her breath hitched. “I couldn’t get your hands out of my head.”

L. made a low sound in her throat, circling back in front of Glinda again. She brought her gloved fingers to Glinda’s chin and lifted it gently. 

“You did well to tell me.” Her voice was like water, cool and fluid. “And you still belong to me. That little ache you soothed—it was still mine.”

Glinda gasped, breath trembling. 

“I want to be yours.” She whispered. “Please, El.”

L. again brought her thumb to Glinda’s lower lip, slipping her finger into her mouth. Glinda moaned softly, closing her lips around it. 

“Then open for me,” L. murmured. 

…

L. stepped back. Glinda heard the faint sound of leather sliding against skin. A moment later, a soft thump as L. carefully laid her gloves aside. 

The air shifted. 

Glinda couldn’t see her, but she felt the difference. L. without gloves was rarer than a blessing. Every nerve in her body was strung tight with anticipation. 

Bare hands cupped her jaw. 

The touch was so intimate, so unbearably gentle, that Glinda almost wept. 

“I’ve missed this.” L. murmured. “Your skin. Your breath. Your surrender.”

Glinda tilted her head toward the touch, her lips parting. 

“I’m yours, El.” She whispered. “You didn’t ruin that. You’d have to do a lot worse to take that from me.”

L.’s fingers traced down her throat, grazing her collarbone, sliding slowly down her chest—pausing with reverence over her sternum, just above where her heart thundered. 

“You begged for everything,” L. repeated. “That’s what you want?”

Her hand moved down to Glinda’s breast, her palm brushing Glinda’s hardened nipple. Glinda whimpered. 

“Please.” She whined. 

L. let her hand fall away, her touch leaving goose flesh in its wake. She was gone, and Glinda began to curl ever so slightly inward at the loss. 

“Lean forward. On your hands and knees, Glinda.” The command came softly. 

Glinda obeyed instantly, waiting, her breath stilted. 

There was a faint swish of air, and Glinda gasped at the first strike of the crop—light, exploratory—against her upper thigh. 

“Alright, my pet?” 

Glinda moaned in acknowledgment. 

“Good girl.”

There came another strike, this one sharper. Then another, to the other thigh. The sound of its strike echoing. 

Glinda moaned, her knees tightening together. 

“More.” She moaned, lowering her head between her shoulders. “Please.”

She felt L. move closer, felt the next strike as it landed across her ass. Glinda cried out, her tears beginning to dampen the blindfold. 

“Have I let you forget who has the power here, you pretty little thing?” L. asked quietly. 

Glinda groaned, shifting the weight on her wrists. 

L. crouched behind her, her bare fingers tracing the red marks she’d left on Glinda’s skin, slow and careful as if she were mapping a language only she could read. 

“I love how you tremble,” she whispered, her lips brushing Glinda’s spine. “The way you beg. The way you offer yourself.” 

Glinda released a sob—pure, aching need. 

“I trust you.” She murmured feverishly. “I need you.”

L. inhaled, her breath ragged. “Then I want more.” 

“Take it,” Glinda pleaded. “Take it, El. Please.”

L.’s hands moved to her hips, then slowly around to the front. One palm cupped Glinda’s sex through her bloomers.

“You touched yourself.”

Glinda stiffened.

“I–I did.” Her voice cracked with shame. “I needed—needed…”

“You needed me.” L.’s voice unfurled in her ear like smoke. “Say it.”

“I needed you.” Glinda whimpered. “Oh…I need you.”

L. made a low sound in the back of her throat.

“Then let me have you. All of you.”

She tugged the bloomers down slowly, delicately, letting them pool at Glinda’s knees. Glinda gasped, bent beneath L. Her body bare, her knees parted. Her spine curved in surrender.

L. kissed the base of her spine. 

“Mine,” she whispered. “All mine.”

…

L. remained behind her, one bare hand still resting over the curve of her hip, the other trailing slowly between her thighs. 

Glinda was already wet. L. groaned softly at the discovery, her thumb pressing with the faintest pressure into her heat. 

“You’re soaked.”

“I can’t help it.” Glinda’s voice was high, ashamed, near breaking. “I missed you—needed you…please, El, I want—”

“Insatiable. Such a greedy girl.” L. murmured.

She stood, slowly, drawing the crop across Glinda’s back without striking. Her bare fingers brushed along Glinda’s inner thigh, caressing, spreading her open with a sense of veneration that made Glinda sob. 

And then—

The crop landed. It was a sharp, clean strike across her backside, perfectly timed with the press of L.’s fingertips against her clit. 

Glinda cried out, her body jolting, knees widening for balance.

Again. 

A second strike—this one firmer, a little lower—and a circular motion from L.’s fingers that made her whimper. 

Again. 

The rhythm built: a pattern of strike and soothe, of pain and pleasure, the impact blooming across Glinda’s skin as her core tightened at L.’s touch. Her sobs came softer, deeper, as if pulled from the very center of her being. 

“You’re crying.” L. whispered, not stopping. “But you want more.”

“Yes,” Glinda gasped. “More. I need—” 

“I know.” L.’s voice was strained. “I know how badly you need it.”

There came a firmer strike, and L.’s fingers entered her. Glinda wailed, shaking, the pleasure cresting so sharply it almost hurt. 

“Oh please, please. So close…” She gasped, growing delirious. “Please…don’t stop…”

But L. did stop. She pulled her hand away, leaving Glinda trembling. She throbbed. 

“No—no…” she gasped, desperate. She turned her head, blindly. “Why?”

“You still think you’re in control.” L. whispered. She was behind her, curling her body around Glinda, drawing her upright against her own cloaked body. One hand slipped between Glinda’s thighs. 

This time there were no strikes, there was no pain, only a relentless, precise pleasure as her fingertips found Glinda’s need. She rubbed, circled, the pressure so perfect Glinda could only gasp, could only bite her lip until it bled. Her body seized.

“Oh…yes…oh…El, I—”

Her climax crested like a wave, overcoming, overtaking. She writhed against L., gasping, before she finally collapsed against her. L. caught her instantly, pulling her against her chest, cradling her as if she were something breakable. 

…

L.’s bare fingers combed through Glinda’s hair as she curled against her, still quivering. Her other arm held Glinda around her ribs. She pressed her lips to Glinda’s temple and allowed herself to breathe her in. 

“I’ve got you,” she murmured, so softly Glinda barely heard it. “You’re mine. You’re safe.”

A soft sob escaped Glinda, coming back down. She pressed her face into L.’s shoulder, the blindfold still damp. Her body still reeled. 

“I can’t tell where I end,” she whispered. “I can’t feel—anything that isn’t you.” 

L.’s fingers were soothing in her hair. She was kissed again. 

“Every part of you is still yours.” L. whispered. “Every part.”

Gently, when Glinda’s breathing had calmed, L. carried her over to the chair, settling her down and wrapping her in the blanket. 

“So good, Glinda.” She murmured into her hair. “You’re so good.” 

Glinda was alone with herself for barely a moment as L. cleaned her hands and slipped her gloves back on. She prepared the bowl of warm water, the balms and salves. 

When she returned, she reached carefully to untie the cloth, keeping her head turned. She slipped the blindfold off without ceremony, setting it aside. 

Glinda blinked slowly into the low light of the chamber. She looked radiant, ruined, undone—and beloved. 

“Are you alright, Glinda?” L. asked, barely able to look at her. 

Glinda reached to brush her fingers over L.’s cloaked arm. 

“I am much more alright than I was.” She said softly. 

“Me too.” Murmured the hooded mouth. 

L. knelt and began to clean Glinda gently—her face, her breasts, her torso, between her thighs. She whispered soothingly as she worked, every moment its own balm. 

Her hands were slow and steady as she guided Glinda’s arms through the sleeves of her chemise, gently tugging the garment down over her body and helping her to stand so the fabric would fall the rest of the way. She kissed each of the pale wrists. 

The bloomers followed. L. bent to help Glinda step in, first one foot and then the other, then gently pulled them up over her thighs. She kissed the inside of her knees, her hands steady on Glinda’s hips. 

When she brought the stockings to Glinda’s feet, Glinda raised one foot delicately, dangling it as L. kissed her instep then rolled the stocking up to mid-thigh. Then she repeated the action with the other stocking, gentle as she held Glinda’s foot between her hands. 

She combed her hands through Glinda’s golden tangles, smoothing through the knots, tucking the strands behind her ear, and then she stepped away, only to return with the tiara. Carefully, with both hands, she placed it within the curls as if she were intimately familiar with its weight. To Glinda, the gesture felt like a coronation. She kept her eyes closed. 

When she opened them again, L. was standing. Glinda looked up at her, hazy but held, and reached out to catch L.’s wrist. 

“Don’t disappear.” She whispered. 

L. paused. 

“I won’t.” She said, scaring herself with how much she meant it, the implications creeping in. 

…

Upstairs in the sitting room, L. finished helping her to dress, quietly, her fingers lingering on every fastening, each button. Glinda stood patiently, still enraptured, longing to linger, too. 

At the door, before the final knock, L. lifted a gloved hand to hover beside Glinda’s cheek. Without having to be asked, Glinda leaned into it. 

“I don’t want to let you go.” L. murmured.

She reached her other hand to touch the narrow place between Glinda's waist and ribcage with just her fingertips, as if memorizing her again. 

“I’m still here.”

Glinda pressed her palm over L.’s heart, faintly feeling her heartbeat beneath the layers of fabric.

“I never left.”

Chapter Text

I. Masquerade

El.,

You know how terribly impatient I get, but you’ll be very pleased with me: I’m trying to be good. I am waiting. I’ve even avoided the looking glass, lest the sight of myself be too tempting. 

Instead, I’ll spin through tomorrow’s masque in my silks and secrets, whirling away the hours, all the while keeping that little ache—yours—tucked carefully where no one can see it. Waiting, like me, for the day after next. 

I can pretend a little longer that I’m not already yours. But I am. Every pulse. Every breath. My throat, my wrists, my—oh dear, I’ve gone pink. 

Before I lose all sense of discipline— 

Your (aching, but still terribly good) girl,

G.

Glinda startled at the knock on her office door. She stuffed the little fold of parchment into its envelope, her face flushing. 

“Come in!” She called, her voice high. She pressed her seal into the wax, inwardly calmed by the certainty of the stationary’s security. 

“My Lady,” Tilly called quietly from the doorway. “Master Crope is ready. He’s waiting in the private parlor.”

Glinda stood, a bit too quickly, grasping her skirt in her hand to make her way across the room. 

“Tilly, would you give this to Wes? She knows the recipient. It’s urgent.” She asked in a hushed voice, feeling only a touch of guilt. 

Well it is, she said to herself. Urgent in its own way. 

Tilly took the envelope with an eager nod, tucking it into her apron. 

…

“Why, if it isn’t the Lady, herself!” Crope gushed when she finally swept into her parlor. “A vision! A muse!” He clutched his heart with both hands. She swatted his arm before she leaned to kiss his cheek. 

“Crope, dear friend, I am sorry for the wait.” She cupped his cheek briefly, accentuating her apology. “I had hoped we might meet last week, but with the Anniversary...” 

He only shook his head. 

“It was nothing at all,” he said softly, then gestured to the garment bag hanging from a little hook by the looking glass. “Only I’m quite proud of this one, if I do say so myself—the fit must be tailored exactly.”

She bit her lip to contain her delight, eyes gleaming. 

“I’m certain it’s marvelous.” 

From the corner of her eye, Glinda caught Tilly moving toward the door. Discreetly, the maid patted her apron pocket in explanation before securing the door shut behind herself. 

Glinda found herself blushing again at the memory of the letter. 

“Something on your mind, dear Glinda?” Crope murmured, glancing up at her in the looking glass as he worked to unfasten her gown. 

“Someone.” She sighed, stepping out of the first layer. He smirked, pursing his lips. 

Dressed down to her chemise, she accepted the hand Crope extended for support as she stepped onto the fitting pedestal.

“Still going well, then? The L. sessions?” He asked quietly, reaching around her waist with the measuring tape. He gently put his hands on her hips to pivot her a few degrees to the right. 

“Too well.” She murmured distractedly. 

“I should say! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you like this.” He laughed lightly. 

She rolled her eyes playfully, but had no defense for herself. Crope turned back to his work. 

“This gown’s going to require all the accoutrements. I’m thinking of a circular cage crinoline…”

He produced a round hoop with impressive architecture, loosening its drawstrings to allow her to step into it. She lifted her arms as he drew the garment up to her waist, breathing softly as he began to lace the drawstrings snug.  

Behind her, he lowered himself to adjust the seat, reaching through the caging to smooth the hem of her chemise. 

He stilled at the sight of the faint purple bloom across the tops of her thighs. When she glanced down to see what had given him pause, she caught the flicker of something unreadable in his expression. 

“Is she a mistress or an assassin?” He asked casually, his tone neutral. 

“Either way’s my ruin.” She murmured with a sigh, glancing back up at herself in the glass. “By request.” She felt the need to add quietly, in L.’s defense. 

Crope was still looking up at her. “Oh Glinda. When you want, you do want.”

She blinked, surprised into a soft laugh.  

“I didn’t know it was something I could want. I admit your initial request on my behalf may have inspired…more than you meant.”

Crope softened, sobering. “That’s not a bad thing, darling—wanting. Especially when it’s yours.”

Glinda’s eyes flickered over her own face in the glass. She brought her fingertips up to touch where the flush still settled in her cheeks. 

“But what if she isn’t?” She asked, more to herself than to Crope. “Mine? What if my want is too much and she disappears?”

He released a quiet sound of disapproval. In the silence that followed she recovered herself, shaking her curls. 

“Oh, Crope. I’ve gone from a lifetime of longing to full-blown depravity—all in a single season.” She sighed dramatically. 

“As I always suspected you might. You’re a spoiled, greedy girl, Glinda—and I love you for it.” He said fondly, rising back to stand. 

“I fear you’re right.” She whispered. “I’m spoiled, smitten, and sick with it.”