At least until Lion got ahold of her.
“And this fae doesn’t give a fuck.” Tin ground his teeth. “We have to get off the road before we’re seen, unless you want to be ripped apart by the night beasts tonight.”
Dorothy grew rigid and stayed silent. Finally, an action from her that pleased him.
She shifted her concerned gaze to the dwarves’ lantern-lit homes. Each door was painted a different pastel color and the inn where Tin had already secured a room was no different. He gave her a small push toward the pink door at the edge of town. Unfortunately, he hadn’t factored his strength—or her mortal body—into the motion, and Dorothy stumbled forward.
“What the hell?”
He winced at the volume of her voice. The last thing they needed was to wake the dwarves this time of night. There was no telling whether they would get cranky miners, peppy singers, or, gods forbid, someone who recognized the woman beside him.
“Apologies,” he mumbled to quiet her. There was nothing to be sorry for.
It seemed to pacify her despite the insincerity in his tone. “Where are the munchkins?”
“The mun—oh. Right. The dwarves.” He’d forgotten Dorothy called them that.
She looked at him skeptically. “Glinda said they were munchkins.”
“Glinda is an idiot,” he snapped and tucked Dorothy into his side. She shifted away from him as he hid her beneath his cloak. Was she going to make everything difficult? This was why he preferred jobs that ended in blood. Heads didn’t talk once they were removed. “Stop fussing. Oz isn’t how you remember it.”
Some residual trust must’ve lingered inside Dorothy because she relaxed into Tin and allowed him to lead her into the inn. They hurried through the closed tavern with the long liquid-stained tables, worn stools, and wooden steins hanging from hooks behind the bar. Small barrels rested on shelves, ready to be cracked when the tavern opened again the next night. The sound of shuffling feet in a back room had Tin hauling Dorothy upstairs to their room. Every squeak of the planked floor had him wincing, and he nearly had to bend in half to fit through the doorframes, but they made it all the way to the room without seeing anyone else. Langwidere expected Tin to deliver Dorothy within the next week, alive, so her head could be properly removed, but he needed to rest first. Not flee in the middle of the night.
The click of the lock seemed to mean something completely different to Dorothy, however. “Where’s Glinda?” Without waiting for an answer, she asked, “Why isn’t Oz how I remember it? And what happened to your heart?”
Gods. Will this girl shut the hell up already?
Once his cloak was folded on the chair, he lifted his axe from his waist and tucked the head of the weapon beneath his pillow. The room was almost too warm, the bed too soft, and the ceiling too low, but it was more comfortable than the forest floor. Tin pulled his shirt off next, along with his gloves, and tossed the black fabric over the painted statue of a young Dorothy that sat on the nightstand. A vase of red flowers tipped, spilling water all over the floor, but that was fine with him. There were more on the windowsill, dresser, and round table anyway. He flopped down on top of the bed covers without sparing Dorothy a word.
The weight of Dorothy’s stare on his abdomen made his muscles flex involuntarily. If she asked about the handful of scars decorating his skin, he wouldn’t lie. The jagged one on his side came from an ogre, and the puckered circle on his shoulder from a poisoned spear. He couldn’t remember where he got other smaller ones, but the important thing was that every wound ended with a big, fat payday. Something told Tin that Dorothy wouldn’t appreciate hearing how his new profession was murder.
“See something you like?” he asked with a lazy grin. She blushed bright red. Tin yawned, satisfied with her reaction, and shut his eyes. The silver key to their shared room was securely in his right pants’ pocket, which meant Dorothy was securely in his grasp. They would leave at dawn, after the dwarves settled into their routines for the day, to avoid unnecessary attention.
“Tin!”
He cracked one eye to find Dorothy flushed with anger. “Are you really not going to tell me anything?”
“I don’t see why any of it matters,” he grumbled. She made a choked noise. “Fine. If it will get you to shut up. Glinda hasn’t come out of the South in years. She’s too busy doing whatever it is she does. My heart is my business. Oz isn’t the same because the Wizard is a faerie fruit addicted fool who left the Emerald City, which is now in chaos. And you’re back because I opened a portal and brought you here. The last bit was rather exhausting though, so do me a favor and stop talking.”
“But—”
“At the very least, try not to draw attention to us by gawking out the window or stomping around like an angry troll.”
His cloak landed hard on his face. “Call me a troll again,” Dorothy snarled.
Tin blinked in surprise at her audacity before using the cloak as a blanket. “An angry troll. And you just proved my point.”
“We haven’t seen each other in ten years, you pull me back to Oz, and then want to take a nap?” she asked, indignant.
“Let’s get one thing clear, shall we?” His piercing silver eyes latched onto her brown ones. “I don’t care. Not about old times, not about you. This is a job.”
“Job?”
“Lion hired me to bring you to him.” If he left out the part about Lion’s courage driving him into darkness, and into the bed of that crazy bitch Langwidere, Dorothy wouldn’t know to be wary of her old friend. She would follow Tin straight to Langwidere’s door for the tradeoff. “He needs your help.” To keep his lover happy and swimming in new heads.
“Is he okay? What does he need help with?”
“Dorothy,” Tin warned.
“What about Crow?”
He rolled over and gave Dorothy his back. The truth was, Tin had no idea what had happened to Crow after the Wizard got his brain working properly, but if he had to guess, it wasn’t good. Nothing was anymore.
Chapter Four
Dorothy
Dorothy stood in the darkened night of a strange, utterly small room with a low ceiling that her head almost brushed against, that Tin’s had touched. While the sun had already set in her world, it had also found its hiding place here.
Her breathing increased with growing annoyance as she watched the fae in front of her, the moonlight highlighting the silver of his long hair.
When she’d first realized that Tin was the one who’d pulled her through the portal, she couldn’t help being overjoyed. But that had quickly slipped away when it had become apparent that he wasn’t the same person.
And now, he thought he could just roll over and turn his back on her? Wearing a cloak like a blanket? That she would be fine and dandy about it? Outrageous. She stomped to the other side of the bed, not bothering to placate him with silence. But as soon as her gaze took in the markings on his cheek again, her anger left her. Where had the silver lines come from? And how was he already asleep? Her feet clomping the wood hadn’t disrupted him in the slightest, as his breaths came out slow and even.
She’d noted as she’d peered under the tall fiery posts, at the houses with chipped paint and broken pieces, that this wasn’t the Oz she remembered. This wasn’t the Tin she remembered either. Everyone had been happy-go-lucky before, besides the witch and her minion monkeys. But she hadn’t come across anyone else yet either, so perhaps the rest of Oz wasn’t as gloomy as this outer layer.