The dream didn't start in the bubble. It started in the silence.
Glinda was standing on the balcony of Kiamo Ko. The air was thick with smoke that tasted of sulfur and burned sugar. Below her, the cornfields of the Vinkus were an ocean of fire, casting long, twisting shadows against the castle walls like grasping fingers.
She was gripping the iron railing so hard her fingernails cracked against the metal. She was waiting. She was praying. She was waiting for the broomstick to rise out of the smoke. She was waiting for the cackle. She was waiting for the escape.
But nothing rose.
Instead, the heavy wooden doors behind her blew open with a violent bang.
Elphaba stumbled onto the balcony. But she wasn't the powerful Wicked Witch the posters warned about. She was small. She was trembling. She was holding her pointed hat in her hands like a beggar's bowl.
"Help me," Elphaba whispered. Her voice was raw, scraped hollow by hours of screaming. "Glinda, please. They're coming."
Glinda tried to move. She wanted to run to her. She wanted to grab her green hand, pull her onto a bubble, and float away from this nightmare forever.
But Glinda's feet were fused to the floor.
She looked down in horror. Her pink dress had hardened. The silk had turned to stone. She wasn't flesh and blood anymore. She was a statue. A beautiful, smiling, cold marble statue.
"I can't," Glinda screamed inside her head, but her statue mouth didn't move. She could only smile that perfect, frozen smile she had practiced in mirrors for years.
Elphaba looked at her. The betrayal in her eyes was sharper than any spell in the Grimmerie. It cut deeper than a knife.
"You promised," Elphaba cried, tears cutting clear tracks through the soot on her face. "You said we couldn't be brought down."
The mob roared from below—a sound like a beast hungry for blood. A bucket of water arched through the air, moving in slow, terrifying motion.
Glinda watched it fall. She screamed silently behind her marble lips, battering against her stone prison. Move, Elphie! Move!
The water hit.
It didn't wash Elphaba away. It melted her.
It wasn't a quick death. It was slow. Visceral. Agonizing. Elphaba's green skin began to run like wet paint. Her flesh sloughed off her bones. She reached out a melting hand toward Glinda, grasping for salvation, her fingers dissolving into sludge.
The slime hit Glinda's statue skirt.
"You watched," the melting pile of green sludge hissed from the floorboards. "You stood there and you watched."
The green sludge began to climb up the statue. It stained the white marble. It seeped into the cracks. It wasn't just slime; it was guilt. It was heavy, black, suffocating guilt.
"It's your fault," the voice gurgled, bubbling wetly as the jawbone dissolved. "You're the one who is Wicked, Glinda. You're the one who lived."
The green reached Glinda's throat. It filled her mouth, choking her on her own silence.
"I'M SORRY!"
Glinda woke up screaming the words she hadn't been able to say two years ago.
She thrashed in the bed, tangling in the pink silk sheets, flailing as if she were drowning. She fell off the mattress, hitting the cold floor hard with her shoulder.
She scrambled backward into the corner of the room, curling into a ball, shaking violently. She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound, but the hiss was inside her skull.
You watched. You watched.
"I didn't mean to," she sobbed into her knees, her body convulsing with the force of her grief. "I couldn't save you. I couldn't stop them."
The room was silent. The morning light was just beginning to bleed through the curtains, indifferent to her terror. There was no mob. No smoke. No melting witch.
Just a girl in a pink bedroom who had survived when she shouldn't have.
Glinda gasped for air, wiping her wet face. She felt dirty. She felt covered in it—the memory of that day. The moment she realized she had won the popularity contest but lost her soul.
She pushed herself up, stumbling toward the bathroom. She needed to see. She needed to check.
She slammed into the counter, gripping the cold marble until her knuckles turned white. She stared into the mirror.
She expected to see a monster. She expected to see the guilt written on her face—green stains, black rot, something that showed the ugliness of her cowardice.
But the mirror lied.
The reflection was perfect. Her skin was alabaster white. Her hair was a halo of spun gold. Her eyes were wide and hazel.
She looked like an angel.
Glinda stared at herself, horrifyingly beautiful. This was her punishment. She had to look like "Glinda the Good" every single day, forced to be the face of the regime that destroyed her best friend.
"You're a liar," she whispered to her reflection. "You're a fraud."
She grabbed a bar of soap and began to scrub her hands. She scrubbed frantically, trying to wash away the phantom sensation of the melting hand grabbing her dress. She scrubbed until her skin was red and raw, until it burned under the hot water.
It doesn't wash off, her mind whispered. You can't wash off a betrayal.
Dropping the soap, Glinda turned and walked out of the bathroom, her silk dressing gown trailing behind her like a ghost.
She entered her walk-in closet.
It was a vast, circular sanctuary bathed in soft, artificial pink light. Racks upon racks of dresses and gowns lined the curved walls—a dizzying array of tulle, satin, and sequins that stretched up to the ceiling. It was a cathedral of vanity.
She drifted through the space, her fingers trailing over the expensive fabrics, but her eyes were distant, glazed over. She wasn't seeing the clothes; she was seeing the melting green sludge from her dream. She touched a sequin, and it felt like cold scales. She touched velvet, and it felt like ash.
She was a prisoner in a cell made of silk.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound on the bedroom door made her jump violently.
"Glinda? Your Royal Goodness?"
It was Mistress Malla.
Glinda looked down at her hands. They were shaking uncontrollably. Not from the cold. From the shame. The skin was angry red from her scrubbing, pulsating with the memory of the dream.
"One moment!" her voice cracked, sounding small and broken.
She couldn't face them yet. She couldn't let them touch her. If they touched her, they might feel the rot inside.
She ran to the cedar chest at the center of the closet and pulled out a pair of white opera gloves.
She shoved her hands into them, yanking the stiff satin up her arms. She pulled them tight, hiding the red, raw skin. Hiding the hands that had failed to catch her friend.
"Glinda?"
"Coming," she whispered.
The door opened. Mistress Malla entered, her arms full of fabrics, followed by two assistants carrying the weight of the day's expectations.
"It is time to dress, Your Goodness," Malla said briskly, ignoring Glinda's pale face and wild eyes. "The Council is waiting."
Glinda stood still as a statue—just like in the dream—while Mistress Malla and her assistants swarmed her.
She didn't help them. She barely breathed. Her mind was still trapped on that balcony in Kiamo Ko. She disassociated, floating somewhere above the room, watching them dress a doll.
Zip. They laced her into a structured corset that squeezed the air from her lungs, binding her ribs like a cage.
Rustle. They draped her in a magnificent gown of ruffled pink tulle. It was heavy, layered with sparkling crystals that caught the light, with a bodice that looked like a blooming rose. It weighed forty pounds. It felt like a shroud.
Click. They fastened a diamond choker around her neck. It felt cold against her pulse.
Heavy. They placed the ornate silver crown on her head, its spires reaching toward the ceiling.
Glinda stared at her reflection in the tall closet mirror.
The woman looking back was a vision of pink perfection. A glittering symbol of hope. A Queen.
But inside, she was just a scared girl standing in the mud, screaming for a friend who would never answer.
"You look radiant," Malla said, adjusting a final curl.
Glinda straightened her spine. She locked her jaw. She put the mask back on.
"Thank you, Malla," she said, her voice hollow.
She would go out there. She would smile. She would rule the kingdom that killed her best friend.
Because it was the only way she could make it up to her.
***