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She has potential, the girl.
Madame Morrible can't see it, but that's because she doesn't have a showman's soul, a touch of theatrics to pull the strings of her act together and tie it all neat and tidy with a fancy little bow. She wants brute force and can't recognize that sometimes just some shadows in the wall work just as well.
She is weepy, after the disappointment and disappearance of her friend, but she still valiantly tries to put on the face they require of her. Not a brave face, no. A lost one, one grateful to be with them. He wonders how much she resents them and what she plans to do about it.
He knew a dozen girls like her, back home. The ones with painted smiles and pretty faces and poised hands, with too much self-preservation to stand against power and enough selfishness to want a piece of it. He has seen her type, with the nice sounding lies, again and again. The waitress at the dinner, the heiress with an uncle, the student wanting some cash for the night.
She plays her role well, steps easily into fluffy pastel dresses, all softness and sweet words in her wind chime voice as she lets him parade her to the foolish people of Oz. They love her, and how could they not? She is all honey and milk and cotton candy pink.
They eat her appearances with wild eyes, and he wants to devour her whole.
Girls like her, pretty and blonde, almost always come with light eyes. Not her. She has dark eyes, huge and black at night, with her long lashes casting webbed shadows on her delicate face. He likes that about her. He's always loved dark eyes. They just looked more beautiful, more deep and coy.
They drive him crazy, her fawn-caught-at-the-barrel-of-the-gun eyes. He imagines doing the same thing to her.
He hides between the crowd as he watches her give some speech or other to the idiots of Munchkinland with her plastic smile firm in her face. Her delicate face. She has doll features, like one of the pretty and fancy ones made of porcelain. It's quite easy to imagine her breaking as he presses into her.
Still, he knows she won't. She didn't when the guards held her and not when her friend left and not when he came to her guest room one evening and dragged her to the bed, his mouth on her pulse.
She is doing her best to pretend she doesn't see him, from up in the stage. He likes that, her performer's soul. She's his assistant as he pulls his tricks, the pretty girl that's just there to show how talented he is, the one who gets sawed in half but reassembled, the one that's saved just in time from drowning.
He imagines her in an assistant's garb, as her speech concludes. Thighs and a jacket. No, better yet. A burlesque one-piece suit, rose pink and golden tassels, fake gemstones sewn in that would shine almost as much as her. A big white feathery boa coiled around her like a snake. Yes, she'd do wonders in that world. She already performs and titters and dances at whatever tune was laid for her.
Finally she finishes her speech with one last radiant fake smile, and her eyes sweep over the crowd. They linger on him. He tips his hat at her, and feels the undivided weight of her dark gaze on him.