Defying Gravity, 26/?, by ainsleyaisling
Title: Defying Gravity, 26/?
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Summary: Glinda and Elphaba - and Fiyero - working hand-in-hand, the way it was supposed to be . . . maybe . . .
This chapter: Elphaba gets the information she wasn't really looking for.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Sequel to "The Effects of Gravity," a link to all chapters of which, plus the posted chapters of this story, can be found here. The previous chapter of this story can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
She left the broom tucked high up in a tree and crossed the lawn to the house as soon as she was sure her father would be gone. The frozen grass crunched under her feet and the hem of her skirts brushed against frost-glittering tombstones as she walked between them. There was, she saw, a bundle of darkened and dried winter holly on her mother's stone, bound with a silver ribbon, both holly and ribbon glistening with a night's worth of frozen dew. A pair of wobbly wheel tracks led from the grave back to the mansion, accompanied by a set of deep, large footprints.
The familiar wooden slats of the porch echoed loud under her boots. She thought about just going into the house, but instead raised a half-frozen hand and knocked.
The servant who opened the door looked distinctly taken aback. She imagined they'd all assumed they were safe, that she was never coming back. Trying to smile, she felt her mouth twisting into a grimace. "I'd like to see my sister, please," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. The servant, one of the downstairs footmen, was a half-blood Munchkin and she managed to look down her nose at him. "Would you tell her I'm here?" That sounded right, she thought - not as if she believed the house her home or herself to have any rights of ownership, but as if she knew her importance all the same.
The servant backed up, but his hand didn't leave the door. "If you will excuse me," he said, and shut the door.
Elphaba waited. It took several minutes, but eventually the door opened again and the footman backed quickly out of the way to allow Nessa to wheel herself toward the doorway. Elphaba tried to smile again, but thought the effect was probably spoiled by the fact that her lips were numb.
"Elphaba," Nessa said evenly. The change in her was easy to see - Fiyero hadn't mentioned anything, but he wasn't Nessa's sister. Nessa's eyes were tired and her face drawn, her hair still in its girlish ribbons setting off the contrasting aging of her features. She was thinner, and her brow more furrowed, as though she weren't able to stop frowning. Her hands on the wheels of her chair were nervous, the fingers fidgeting. "We didn't expect you."
"I know." Elphaba glared at the footman until he disappeared, and then turned her attention back to her sister. "I wanted to see you, to talk with you."
Nessa's mouth thinned. "We saw Fiyero," she said, seemingly as a way of making conversation.
"Yes." Elphaba pulled her hands into the sleeves of her borrowed coat, unwilling even to admit that much weakness. "He told us."
"Your coat is too short."
Elphaba rolled her eyes at the impossibility of concealing anything from her sister. "It isn't mine, it's Glinda's." One foot twitched of its own accord, and she gave in to her baser needs. "Can I come in? It's freezing."
Nessa hesitated for only half a second, then said, "Of course. Come in." She rolled herself backward, and the footman, who apparently hadn't actually gone away, opened the door wider and allowed Elphaba entrance.
The warmth of the foyer struck her immediately, and her lips and fingertips began to burn. "When did you arrive?" Nessa asked.
Elphaba stomped each foot a few times, feeling the blood begin to flow. "Last night," she admitted.
Nessa looked back over one shoulder as she wheeled herself toward the parlor. "Not on the train? You'd have been here by dinner."
"No, in the night."
Nessa drew herself into the parlor and wheeled around to face Elphaba, her brow contorting into a deeper frown. "How?"
"It's a secret," Elphaba said, for a moment as if she were telling her baby sister a bedtime story.
Nessa's eyebrows lifted for a moment, but then her face settled back into its accustomed frown. "Whatever you like. Father's not here."
"I hoped he wouldn't be," Elphaba said, dropping her voice. "I wanted to talk with you - privately."
For a moment Nessa looked intrigued, but then she simply spread her hands open in her lap. "Well?"
Elphaba shrugged out of Glinda's coat and set it on a chair, sitting down on another one. "Are we safe here?"
Again, something unidentifiable crossed Nessa's face. "Lark," she called, her face neither changing nor turning to look toward the door.
The footman reappeared as if by magic. "Madam?"
"Close the door," Nessa said, her voice gone even more stern and cold. When the footman moved to do so, she added, "Leave, then close the door. And make sure my sister and I aren't disturbed."
The servant nodded curtly and left, shutting the door behind him.
Nessa rolled herself a bit closer to Elphaba and said, "Well?"
Elphaba looked at her lap for a moment, then decided there was no point in subterfuge. "Nessa. Fiyero told me some things that worried me - I wanted to see you when Father wouldn't be here. He said - that there were meetings Father kept you out of, that he talked about things when you weren't in the room."
Nessa's eyes widened in an expression of childlike curiosity that seemed a caricature in her stern face. "What kind of things?" she asked.
There was something in her face - curiosity, but not surprise. "You know," Elphaba said, not asking. "That he's hiding things."
Nessa nodded. "What did Fiyero say?"
"He said Father asked him about the Vinkus's military strength, about their ability to spy and to smuggle goods. About how they've dealt with the Animal restrictions, and -"
"I knew it," Nessa whispered harshly. She leaned forward in her chair, closer to Elphaba. "I've known, I've known something was wrong, all these people that kept coming around the place - he said it was normal business but I knew." She sat back again, heavily, her chair clunking an inch backward on the floor. "He's betraying us all, Elphaba. I didn't want to believe it . . ."
"What?" Elphaba asked helplessly.
Nessa shook her head. "You have to know, that's why you came, isn't it?" Suddenly her face paled and she looked afraid, really afraid. "Did the Wizard send you? Did you tell any of this to the Wizard - or did Fiyero?"
"No one's told the Wizard anything, Nessa, calm down," Elphaba said, reaching out a hand to her sister's knee. "What are you talking about, Father's betraying us all?"
"The Resistance," Nessa whispered again, a sharp edge to her voice. "He's in league with them, he's thrown himself in with them. He's against the Wizard, Elphaba."
Elphaba was too overcome by shock to speak for a moment. Finally she was able to clench her burning, tingling hands into fists in her lap and force out, "And that worries you?"
Now it was Nessa's turn to look stunned. "Worry me? You of all people should know - the Wizard is the only way to get anywhere in Oz, Elphaba. He could elevate us, he could make Munchkinland so much more, so much richer - but instead our father has chosen to go against him, practically openly! Munchkins going in and out of the house - doesn't he know how dangerous it is to go against the Wizard?"
"So - you - think it's a bad idea, to -"
"Do you think he learned nothing from what happened to the Quadlings? After they were invaded their provincial chieftain 'accidentally' died in the Guard's custody! Just because there'd been rumors that he'd been encouraging the natives to resist." Nessa pressed her hands tightly together in her lap. "You have to help me, Elphaba. Maybe you can convince him -"
Elphaba laughed, short and harsh.
"All right," Nessa continued, unrepentant. "But you can try to make sure the Wizard understands, can't you? That - the entire house isn't disloyal? You can be subtle, I think - I'm afraid of what will happen if we lose the Governorship . . ."
Elphaba bit her lower lip, her teeth rasping awkwardly against the dry, windburned skin. Still, there was only one possible answer. "I'll help you," she said.
Nessa let her breath out, her shoulders slumping slightly. "Thank you, Elphaba."
Elphaba swallowed, and nodded. "Can you hide me until night?" she asked softly. "I can't leave until it's dark, and it's cold outside . . ."
Nessa nodded quickly. "Stay in my room, they've already cleaned it. I'll tell everyone you've left and that's what they'll tell Father. If you'll wait a few moments, I'll get you something to eat."
Elphaba got to her feet, collecting Glinda's coat around her shoulders, as lingering shivers from her night outside still ran through her. "Thank you," she whispered.
~~Glinda~~
It was near midnight when Elphaba finally arrived - starting an hour after full dark Glinda had waited, shivering in Elphaba's cloak as she huddled near the fire, with the window open so that her roommate could return without injury. When Elphaba did fly in, her hair was disheveled and blowsy around her pale face and her lips nearly blue. She staggered a bit as she climbed off the broom, and it was clear that she was shivering.
"Elphie!" Glinda said, immediately getting to her feet and rushing to shut the window, half-catching Elphaba's broom as it nearly fell from her fingers. "You're frozen, come to the fire. And take that coat off, it's as cold as you are and you'll be warmer without it. Here, put your cloak on."
Elphaba let Glinda hustle her to the fireside and pull the coat, which was cold to Glinda's touch and practically stiff under her fingers, from her shoulders. Reluctant to expose her own arms to the chill lingering in the room, Glinda instead opened the cloak as she and Elphaba settled on the floor near the fire, and pulled Elphaba close to her side, wrapping the cloak around both of them. Elphaba's dress, and the exposed skin of her wrists and her hands, were so chilled that an immediate shudder went through Glinda.
Elphaba pressed her face into Glinda's shoulder, the icy cold of her nose seeping through the fabric of Glinda's sweater and her dress and contributing to her chill. After a moment, Elphaba said, "It's worse than I thought. It's nothing I could have thought of."
Another chill went through Glinda that had nothing to do with the cold. She pressed a hand over Elphaba's, wincing at the feel of flesh so tight and devoid of warmth that it might have been dead, and asked, "Your sister?"
Elphaba nodded, and extracted the hand from beneath Glinda's to press it to her mouth. After a while, she spoke again. "My father's working with the Resistance. Or at least conspiring with them."
Glinda nodded, trying to pull Elphaba closer. "We suspected, didn't we? From the things he was asking Fiyero?"
"You don't understand." Elphaba shivered against her side, the harsh trembling running all the way through her body and refusing to stop. "It's Nessa, it's Nessa who's against them. Nessa wants to be loyal to the Wizard at all costs."
Glinda was quiet for a moment, thinking. The late hour and the cold transmitted from Elphaba's body seemed to make her brain sluggish. "Is that so terrible?" she asked finally, softly. "She's just naive, Nessa, she doesn't understand -"
"She does," Elphaba said, in a tone so empty that Glinda froze. "She understands. She's afraid of losing her power -"
"She can't understand everything," Glinda reminded her quietly. "Elphie, she can't know anything about the Wizard, that he isn't really as wonderful as everyone says. You've never told her, have you?"
She hadn't meant it as an accusation, but the words fell on the silence between them like bricks. Elphaba shifted against her side and tucked her half of the cloak tightly against one arm.
"No," she said at last. "I haven't. I could have, and I never did." She shook her head and seemed to pull slightly away from Glinda. "I told Fiyero, and not my sister."
"Fiyero asked to be involved," Glinda said, now feeling utterly guilty. "You can't have thought any good could come from getting Nessa into this - you thought you were protecting her -"
"I could have told her everything, she's going to be the Governor," Elphaba said. Her voice was still dull and hollow. "I didn't trust her."
The silence was so extreme that Glinda could have sworn she could hear herself blink. She let a particularly loud crackle from the fire break the quiet before she said, "And now you can't. Can you."
Elphaba shook her head. "Now that I know how afraid she is - she asked me to protect her. I have to make the Wizard think she's safe, and loyal."
"Which she is."
"Yes." Elphaba nodded slowly. "She is. And I think she'd throw our father to the winds if it kept the Governorship in the family - kept it for her."
"Surely not," Glinda said. The chill that rushed anew through her blood belied her expressed certainty, and she gently extracted herself, leaving Elphaba all of the cloak, to tend the fire and make the flames leap higher.
"She's afraid," Elphaba said, "and I don't know if she's more afraid of losing her power, or afraid for her own safety." She licked her visibly dry lips and continued, "And now I'm afraid for her. We know - I mean, she's right. Everyone knows the Guards killed the Quadling chieftain, and we know what the Wizard and Morrible are capable of if they think the Governor's house is disloyal. I want her to know the truth, but I can't involve her now, not if she's afraid . . ."
Elphaba's voice trailed off as she met Glinda's eyes. Sure that they were thinking of the same thing, Glinda shivered again as the memory swept through her of a day three years ago when she'd trembled with fear as she agreed to conspire treason with Elphaba. But they were both so far past the point when she could be considered uninvolved, on her own strength, not on Elphaba's part. She hobbled on her knees back to Elphaba's side and pressed her warm palms against Elphaba's cheeks, which felt like ice.
Elphaba's eyes softened. "Your hands are warm," she said.
"I don't think anything of you is," Glinda murmured. "You'd better get your boots off and change your clothes, they're just keeping you chilled."
"I'm afraid of what's going to happen," Elphaba whispered.
"I know," Glinda whispered back. "But you have the information you went for. Now you know what you have to do, don't you?"
Slowly, Elphaba nodded.
Author: ainsleyaisling
Rating: PG
'Verse: Musical AU; some details from bookverse
Summary: Glinda and Elphaba - and Fiyero - working hand-in-hand, the way it was supposed to be . . . maybe . . .
This chapter: Elphaba gets the information she wasn't really looking for.
Disclaimer: Wicked belongs mostly to Gregory Maguire, and musicalverse belongs to Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and possibly Universal.
Notes: Sequel to "The Effects of Gravity," a link to all chapters of which, plus the posted chapters of this story, can be found here. The previous chapter of this story can be found here.
~~Elphaba~~
She left the broom tucked high up in a tree and crossed the lawn to the house as soon as she was sure her father would be gone. The frozen grass crunched under her feet and the hem of her skirts brushed against frost-glittering tombstones as she walked between them. There was, she saw, a bundle of darkened and dried winter holly on her mother's stone, bound with a silver ribbon, both holly and ribbon glistening with a night's worth of frozen dew. A pair of wobbly wheel tracks led from the grave back to the mansion, accompanied by a set of deep, large footprints.
The familiar wooden slats of the porch echoed loud under her boots. She thought about just going into the house, but instead raised a half-frozen hand and knocked.
The servant who opened the door looked distinctly taken aback. She imagined they'd all assumed they were safe, that she was never coming back. Trying to smile, she felt her mouth twisting into a grimace. "I'd like to see my sister, please," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. The servant, one of the downstairs footmen, was a half-blood Munchkin and she managed to look down her nose at him. "Would you tell her I'm here?" That sounded right, she thought - not as if she believed the house her home or herself to have any rights of ownership, but as if she knew her importance all the same.
The servant backed up, but his hand didn't leave the door. "If you will excuse me," he said, and shut the door.
Elphaba waited. It took several minutes, but eventually the door opened again and the footman backed quickly out of the way to allow Nessa to wheel herself toward the doorway. Elphaba tried to smile again, but thought the effect was probably spoiled by the fact that her lips were numb.
"Elphaba," Nessa said evenly. The change in her was easy to see - Fiyero hadn't mentioned anything, but he wasn't Nessa's sister. Nessa's eyes were tired and her face drawn, her hair still in its girlish ribbons setting off the contrasting aging of her features. She was thinner, and her brow more furrowed, as though she weren't able to stop frowning. Her hands on the wheels of her chair were nervous, the fingers fidgeting. "We didn't expect you."
"I know." Elphaba glared at the footman until he disappeared, and then turned her attention back to her sister. "I wanted to see you, to talk with you."
Nessa's mouth thinned. "We saw Fiyero," she said, seemingly as a way of making conversation.
"Yes." Elphaba pulled her hands into the sleeves of her borrowed coat, unwilling even to admit that much weakness. "He told us."
"Your coat is too short."
Elphaba rolled her eyes at the impossibility of concealing anything from her sister. "It isn't mine, it's Glinda's." One foot twitched of its own accord, and she gave in to her baser needs. "Can I come in? It's freezing."
Nessa hesitated for only half a second, then said, "Of course. Come in." She rolled herself backward, and the footman, who apparently hadn't actually gone away, opened the door wider and allowed Elphaba entrance.
The warmth of the foyer struck her immediately, and her lips and fingertips began to burn. "When did you arrive?" Nessa asked.
Elphaba stomped each foot a few times, feeling the blood begin to flow. "Last night," she admitted.
Nessa looked back over one shoulder as she wheeled herself toward the parlor. "Not on the train? You'd have been here by dinner."
"No, in the night."
Nessa drew herself into the parlor and wheeled around to face Elphaba, her brow contorting into a deeper frown. "How?"
"It's a secret," Elphaba said, for a moment as if she were telling her baby sister a bedtime story.
Nessa's eyebrows lifted for a moment, but then her face settled back into its accustomed frown. "Whatever you like. Father's not here."
"I hoped he wouldn't be," Elphaba said, dropping her voice. "I wanted to talk with you - privately."
For a moment Nessa looked intrigued, but then she simply spread her hands open in her lap. "Well?"
Elphaba shrugged out of Glinda's coat and set it on a chair, sitting down on another one. "Are we safe here?"
Again, something unidentifiable crossed Nessa's face. "Lark," she called, her face neither changing nor turning to look toward the door.
The footman reappeared as if by magic. "Madam?"
"Close the door," Nessa said, her voice gone even more stern and cold. When the footman moved to do so, she added, "Leave, then close the door. And make sure my sister and I aren't disturbed."
The servant nodded curtly and left, shutting the door behind him.
Nessa rolled herself a bit closer to Elphaba and said, "Well?"
Elphaba looked at her lap for a moment, then decided there was no point in subterfuge. "Nessa. Fiyero told me some things that worried me - I wanted to see you when Father wouldn't be here. He said - that there were meetings Father kept you out of, that he talked about things when you weren't in the room."
Nessa's eyes widened in an expression of childlike curiosity that seemed a caricature in her stern face. "What kind of things?" she asked.
There was something in her face - curiosity, but not surprise. "You know," Elphaba said, not asking. "That he's hiding things."
Nessa nodded. "What did Fiyero say?"
"He said Father asked him about the Vinkus's military strength, about their ability to spy and to smuggle goods. About how they've dealt with the Animal restrictions, and -"
"I knew it," Nessa whispered harshly. She leaned forward in her chair, closer to Elphaba. "I've known, I've known something was wrong, all these people that kept coming around the place - he said it was normal business but I knew." She sat back again, heavily, her chair clunking an inch backward on the floor. "He's betraying us all, Elphaba. I didn't want to believe it . . ."
"What?" Elphaba asked helplessly.
Nessa shook her head. "You have to know, that's why you came, isn't it?" Suddenly her face paled and she looked afraid, really afraid. "Did the Wizard send you? Did you tell any of this to the Wizard - or did Fiyero?"
"No one's told the Wizard anything, Nessa, calm down," Elphaba said, reaching out a hand to her sister's knee. "What are you talking about, Father's betraying us all?"
"The Resistance," Nessa whispered again, a sharp edge to her voice. "He's in league with them, he's thrown himself in with them. He's against the Wizard, Elphaba."
Elphaba was too overcome by shock to speak for a moment. Finally she was able to clench her burning, tingling hands into fists in her lap and force out, "And that worries you?"
Now it was Nessa's turn to look stunned. "Worry me? You of all people should know - the Wizard is the only way to get anywhere in Oz, Elphaba. He could elevate us, he could make Munchkinland so much more, so much richer - but instead our father has chosen to go against him, practically openly! Munchkins going in and out of the house - doesn't he know how dangerous it is to go against the Wizard?"
"So - you - think it's a bad idea, to -"
"Do you think he learned nothing from what happened to the Quadlings? After they were invaded their provincial chieftain 'accidentally' died in the Guard's custody! Just because there'd been rumors that he'd been encouraging the natives to resist." Nessa pressed her hands tightly together in her lap. "You have to help me, Elphaba. Maybe you can convince him -"
Elphaba laughed, short and harsh.
"All right," Nessa continued, unrepentant. "But you can try to make sure the Wizard understands, can't you? That - the entire house isn't disloyal? You can be subtle, I think - I'm afraid of what will happen if we lose the Governorship . . ."
Elphaba bit her lower lip, her teeth rasping awkwardly against the dry, windburned skin. Still, there was only one possible answer. "I'll help you," she said.
Nessa let her breath out, her shoulders slumping slightly. "Thank you, Elphaba."
Elphaba swallowed, and nodded. "Can you hide me until night?" she asked softly. "I can't leave until it's dark, and it's cold outside . . ."
Nessa nodded quickly. "Stay in my room, they've already cleaned it. I'll tell everyone you've left and that's what they'll tell Father. If you'll wait a few moments, I'll get you something to eat."
Elphaba got to her feet, collecting Glinda's coat around her shoulders, as lingering shivers from her night outside still ran through her. "Thank you," she whispered.
~~Glinda~~
It was near midnight when Elphaba finally arrived - starting an hour after full dark Glinda had waited, shivering in Elphaba's cloak as she huddled near the fire, with the window open so that her roommate could return without injury. When Elphaba did fly in, her hair was disheveled and blowsy around her pale face and her lips nearly blue. She staggered a bit as she climbed off the broom, and it was clear that she was shivering.
"Elphie!" Glinda said, immediately getting to her feet and rushing to shut the window, half-catching Elphaba's broom as it nearly fell from her fingers. "You're frozen, come to the fire. And take that coat off, it's as cold as you are and you'll be warmer without it. Here, put your cloak on."
Elphaba let Glinda hustle her to the fireside and pull the coat, which was cold to Glinda's touch and practically stiff under her fingers, from her shoulders. Reluctant to expose her own arms to the chill lingering in the room, Glinda instead opened the cloak as she and Elphaba settled on the floor near the fire, and pulled Elphaba close to her side, wrapping the cloak around both of them. Elphaba's dress, and the exposed skin of her wrists and her hands, were so chilled that an immediate shudder went through Glinda.
Elphaba pressed her face into Glinda's shoulder, the icy cold of her nose seeping through the fabric of Glinda's sweater and her dress and contributing to her chill. After a moment, Elphaba said, "It's worse than I thought. It's nothing I could have thought of."
Another chill went through Glinda that had nothing to do with the cold. She pressed a hand over Elphaba's, wincing at the feel of flesh so tight and devoid of warmth that it might have been dead, and asked, "Your sister?"
Elphaba nodded, and extracted the hand from beneath Glinda's to press it to her mouth. After a while, she spoke again. "My father's working with the Resistance. Or at least conspiring with them."
Glinda nodded, trying to pull Elphaba closer. "We suspected, didn't we? From the things he was asking Fiyero?"
"You don't understand." Elphaba shivered against her side, the harsh trembling running all the way through her body and refusing to stop. "It's Nessa, it's Nessa who's against them. Nessa wants to be loyal to the Wizard at all costs."
Glinda was quiet for a moment, thinking. The late hour and the cold transmitted from Elphaba's body seemed to make her brain sluggish. "Is that so terrible?" she asked finally, softly. "She's just naive, Nessa, she doesn't understand -"
"She does," Elphaba said, in a tone so empty that Glinda froze. "She understands. She's afraid of losing her power -"
"She can't understand everything," Glinda reminded her quietly. "Elphie, she can't know anything about the Wizard, that he isn't really as wonderful as everyone says. You've never told her, have you?"
She hadn't meant it as an accusation, but the words fell on the silence between them like bricks. Elphaba shifted against her side and tucked her half of the cloak tightly against one arm.
"No," she said at last. "I haven't. I could have, and I never did." She shook her head and seemed to pull slightly away from Glinda. "I told Fiyero, and not my sister."
"Fiyero asked to be involved," Glinda said, now feeling utterly guilty. "You can't have thought any good could come from getting Nessa into this - you thought you were protecting her -"
"I could have told her everything, she's going to be the Governor," Elphaba said. Her voice was still dull and hollow. "I didn't trust her."
The silence was so extreme that Glinda could have sworn she could hear herself blink. She let a particularly loud crackle from the fire break the quiet before she said, "And now you can't. Can you."
Elphaba shook her head. "Now that I know how afraid she is - she asked me to protect her. I have to make the Wizard think she's safe, and loyal."
"Which she is."
"Yes." Elphaba nodded slowly. "She is. And I think she'd throw our father to the winds if it kept the Governorship in the family - kept it for her."
"Surely not," Glinda said. The chill that rushed anew through her blood belied her expressed certainty, and she gently extracted herself, leaving Elphaba all of the cloak, to tend the fire and make the flames leap higher.
"She's afraid," Elphaba said, "and I don't know if she's more afraid of losing her power, or afraid for her own safety." She licked her visibly dry lips and continued, "And now I'm afraid for her. We know - I mean, she's right. Everyone knows the Guards killed the Quadling chieftain, and we know what the Wizard and Morrible are capable of if they think the Governor's house is disloyal. I want her to know the truth, but I can't involve her now, not if she's afraid . . ."
Elphaba's voice trailed off as she met Glinda's eyes. Sure that they were thinking of the same thing, Glinda shivered again as the memory swept through her of a day three years ago when she'd trembled with fear as she agreed to conspire treason with Elphaba. But they were both so far past the point when she could be considered uninvolved, on her own strength, not on Elphaba's part. She hobbled on her knees back to Elphaba's side and pressed her warm palms against Elphaba's cheeks, which felt like ice.
Elphaba's eyes softened. "Your hands are warm," she said.
"I don't think anything of you is," Glinda murmured. "You'd better get your boots off and change your clothes, they're just keeping you chilled."
"I'm afraid of what's going to happen," Elphaba whispered.
"I know," Glinda whispered back. "But you have the information you went for. Now you know what you have to do, don't you?"
Slowly, Elphaba nodded.