Dorothy stood in the throne room because she had nowhere else to go. She'd walked every road that promised a way out, listened to every fool who claimed to know the trick of getting home, and ended up here anyway. Queen Icelia sat watching her with eyes like winter glass. The queen gestured toward a window. Outside, red flowers blanketed the ground as far as Dorothy could see, their petals bright as blood. People wandered through them, smiling at nothing, reaching for things that weren't there. "Those who accept my terms but fail to pay," Icelia said. "They forget where they meant to go. They forget to want anything at all." Dorothy looked at the flowers and felt something cold settle in her chest. The queen reached into the air and pulled out a pair of red shoes that sparkled like they'd been dipped in crushed glass. "Wear these home," Icelia said. "Three clicks of the heels and you'll wake in Kansas. But the shoes require payment. They'll take your memory of why you went there." Dorothy stared at the shoes in the queen's pale hands. Home without Aunt Em's face. Home without the reason she'd fought to get back. She'd be standing in the yard with no idea why her chest ached or what she'd lost. "No," she said, and the word came out steady. She turned and walked toward the door, past the emerald towers visible through the windows, past the queen's cold smile. She still didn't know how to get home, but she knew the difference between arriving and returning.

Dorothy walked out of the throne room and found herself on a white stone path. The palace rose behind her, all towers and bridges, but every archway she passed through led to the same view: red flowers stretching to the horizon. She reached a pair of iron gates covered in twisted metal vines. Beyond them, the poppies started. A wooden sign wrapped in the same red flowers stood beside the path, its words half-hidden: TURN BACK. Someone had tried. Someone had known it wouldn't be enough. On the ground near the gate lay a wand with a gold handle and purple crystal, the kind of thing that should have protected whoever carried it. Dorothy picked it up, felt its weight, then set it back down. Magic hadn't saved them. A woman in a blue dress walked past Dorothy toward the flowers. Her face was calm, almost peaceful. Dorothy grabbed her arm. "Don't," she said. The woman looked at her with unfocused eyes and smiled. "It's the only way through," she said, and pulled free. Dorothy watched her step into the poppies. Within three steps, the woman's smile widened into something empty. Within six, she was swaying. Within ten, she stopped walking altogether and just stood there, staring at nothing. Dorothy backed away from the gate. Every road out led through those flowers. She'd seen it from the throne room windows, confirmed it walking the palace grounds. The queen had known. That's why she'd offered the shoes—because there was no other path, and Dorothy would eventually get desperate enough to take them. But now Dorothy understood the choice wasn't between the shoes and walking through the poppies. It was between losing herself Icelia's way or finding another route entirely, even if that meant going back through the palace to search for one. She turned away from the flowers and started walking along the palace wall, looking for a door she'd missed.

Dorothy followed the palace wall, running her hand along the smooth white stone. Every fifty feet or so, she found a door. Some opened into courtyards with fountains. Some led to hallways that curved back toward the throne room. One took her to a library where dust gathered on books no one read. None of them led out. She turned a corner and stopped. Ahead, a massive gate rose from the ground, emerald green and covered in fresh poppies. The flowers cascaded down the bars like a warning she'd already learned to read. Beyond it, she could see open ground—not the endless red field, but actual earth and the dark line of a forest thick with thorns and green leaves. A way that wasn't through the poppies. The gate was still rising, closing off the gap between its top edge and the archway above. She had maybe a minute before it sealed completely. Dorothy ran. Her boots hit the white stone hard, and she fixed her eyes on the shrinking space. Thirty feet. Twenty. She could make it if she was fast enough, if she didn't think about what the forest might hold or whether this was another trap. Ten feet from the gate, her foot caught on something and she stumbled. A shoe. Silver, delicate, lying on its side like someone had kicked it off in a hurry. She didn't stop to pick it up. Someone else had tried to run. Someone else had failed. The gate was still moving. She hit the closing gap at full speed and squeezed through sideways, her shoulder scraping against emerald bars, poppy petals brushing her face. The gate slammed shut behind her with a sound like a door locking. Dorothy stood on the other side, breathing hard, staring at the forest ahead. She'd gotten out of the palace. But she had no idea what she'd gotten into, and there was no going back now. The choice had been made for her the second she'd started running.