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what to do with him. She had apparently made up her mind when she opened her mouth to speak. “Tell me something, Caleb. What did you offer my employees that made them willing to spy on me in my own kingdom?”
    “Only if you tell me something first,” Caleb replied.
    The soldier who had punched him a moment ago reared back, ready to slam his balled fist into Caleb’s solar plexus again. She held up her hand and stopped him.
    They both stared quietly at each other for a long drawn-out moment before she finally responded. “She is alive and well.”
    Caleb’s heart fluttered with excitement. “I want to see her.”
    “I’ve answered your question. Now answer mine.”
    Caleb tugged against the soldiers who held him in place. “Let me see her!”
    “Answer my question!”
    “I offered them a reward for any information they could find on Dorothy.”
    “You offered them money?”
    “Yes.”
    “And they willingly spied for you? For money?”
    He shook his head. “No. They did not spy for me. I only wanted information about Dorothy. I told them I was not interested in anything that didn’t directly relate to finding her.”
    “And what exactly did you offer as a reward?”
    “One thousand sovereigns.”
    She let out a surprised laugh. “And just how did you expect to follow through on your promise? I don’t recall allowing any money into the hybrid compound.”
    She glanced over at Captain Taylor. “Did he have any money on him when you captured him at the wall?”
    Taylor shook his head.
    She regarded Caleb with a quizzical look. “How did you expect to follow through with your promise of a reward?”
    He lowered his head. “We saw the soldiers coming while we were still halfway down the wall. As soon as we hit ground, I buried the money I brought with me before we set up the small camp, well away from my hiding spot, where your soldiers captured us.”
    “How much did you bring with you?”
    Caleb stared at his shoes. The soldier grabbed a fistful of mane again and pulled his head up.
    “How much did you bring?” she repeated.
    “Five thousand sovereigns.”
    Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You don’t pack light, do you? That was nearly forty kilograms of gold.”
    Caleb was shocked at how quickly she had calculated the total weight.
    “You determined the weight of all those coins in your head?”
    “I’m not the Southern Marshal because I’m pretty.”
    Caleb smirked. “But it doesn’t hurt that you’re pretty.”
    That remark got him another punch to the gut, but it was worth it.
    Unfazed, the Southern Marshal tilted her head at him. “I’m just impressed you made it over the wall at all.”
    Caleb rolled his shoulders with the memory of the heavy pack, but it was time to get this conversation back on track.
    “I answered your questions. Now when can I see her?”
    “You may see her as soon as we get back to my castle, but only on one condition.”
    “And what is that?”
    “You fulfill your destiny and become a leader to your people.”
    Caleb dropped his shoulders and let out a big sigh. “They’re not my people.”
    “Of course they are. Just because you were raised apart from them does not make you no longer one of them. They want to look up to you, Caleb. They want you to be their leader. I want you to be their leader.”
    Caleb reflected on her final statement. That was the one thing that did not make sense. Why was she taking such an interest in the hybrids? Why had she given them refuge from the persecution throughout OZ, only to place them behind an electrified fence and make them captives inside a prison within a prison?
    He just couldn’t believe she did all this out of the goodness of her heart. She had to have some angle, some reason. And somehow her focus had fallen on him.
    “Why do you want me to be their leader?”
    “When I sent out the call that I was offering a haven for hybrids, they came from all over OZ. Not just some of them. All of them came. I gathered