Wicked: 12. City of Emeralds Summary & Analysis

Five years later, Fiyero visits the Emerald City to attend the opera with a colleague. Beforehand, he stops at a unionist chapel in Saint Glinda’s Square, though he’s never been particularly devout. There, he spots a familiar figure: Elphaba, sitting in the shadows, seemingly deep in prayer. When he greets her, she insists he’s mistaken and claims not to know him. Nearly an hour later, he sees her leave the chapel and secretly follows, tracking her like prey across the city’s warehouse district. Finally, he calls her name. Without thinking, she turns around, silently confirming she is Elphaba after all.

Elphaba reluctantly invites Fiyero inside her residence. He shares that he has three children and works in the Office of Public Works water division at Kiamo Ko, then asks where she’s been all these years. Elphaba explains she left Shiz after Dillamond’s death, angered by how little anyone cared, and she’s been living underground ever since. Fiyero is the first person from their old circle to find her. He tells her that Glinda married a baronet. Elphaba says this must be their only meeting, but as he leaves and they shake hands, Fiyero senses how much Elphaba truly longs for connection, despite her words.

Throughout the fall, despite Elphaba’s better judgment, she and Fiyero continue meeting at her home. Fiyero shares that Boq married Milla and moved back to Nest Hardings in Munchkinland—the site of Elphaba’s ancestral estate, Colwen Grounds, where her great-grandfather, the Eminent Thropp, still lives. In time, their meetings turn into a full-blown affair that both come to treasure. Fiyero feels he’s falling in love, adopting Elphaba’s code name in rebel circles, “Fae,” as his private name for her. In quieter moments, Elphaba admits that she still loves her father, Frex, and Nessarose. She believes Nessa could one day be truly powerful if she shed her blind religious devotion, and she intends for Nessa—not herself—to inherit the Eminent Thropp’s title when the time comes.

Throughout their affair, Elphaba never lets Fiyero touch her with his hands below the waist, and one night he notices a faint scar near her groin. Over time, tension grows between them. Elphaba is committed to her secret, radical work—of which she shares very little with Fiyero—believing that some must necessarily be sacrificed in order to achieve true freedom for all. Fiyero, who is more idealistic, can’t accept this outlook. Where Elphaba has been shaped by a lifetime of cruelty and betrayal, he still clings to the somewhat naïve hope that people are inherently good.

One winter afternoon, Fiyero stops for coffee at a café where an explosion had torn up the garden wall the night before. The café manager makes condescending remarks to Fiyero about Munchkinlanders, but Fiyero responds coldly. Sipping his drink, he gazes out the window, where he sees a tense scene unfolding between a lone Gale Force officer and 12 prisoners—some Quadlings and a family of Bears. The officer strikes the cub’s head with a club, and Fiyero looks away in horror. The café manager angrily pulls the curtains shut. Fiyero realizes the previous explosion was likely an attempt to free these prisoners, and that nobody is coming to help them now.

Fiyero keeps what he witnessed to himself, afraid that sharing his newfound sympathy for Elphaba’s cause might make her lose interest in him. Soon after, Elphaba says they can’t meet for two weeks—her group is planning something big, but she won’t reveal what. When Fiyero questions how she knows the Wizard isn’t secretly manipulating her, she insists she’d recognize it if he were. She admits only that she’s part of a five-person sleeper cell, their leader unknown to them all thanks to a masking spell. Their ultimate mission, she tells him as they make love that night, is to kill the Wizard.

Later, as Fiyero shops for Lurlinemas gifts—scarves for both Elphaba and his wife, Sarima—he unexpectedly runs into Glinda, who’s out with Crope. She insists they all stop for tea. Over chatter about her husband Sir Chuffrey’s work and a recent run-in with Nessarose in town, Fiyero notices Glinda seems anxious, even lonely. When she asks if he’s heard from Elphaba since her disappearance, he lies smoothly, saying no. Glinda presses for a dinner with the old “charmed circle” crew soon, and Fiyero politely agrees to try but explains he needs to get back to Sarima. Before they part, Glinda quietly asks him to tell Elphaba she misses her, should he ever see her again.

Fiyero ultimately never sees Glinda again, nor does he tell Elphaba about the encounter when he meets her two weeks later. Elphaba urges him to leave town on Lurlinemas Eve for his own safety, hinting that she has a secret operation planned. But Fiyero says he’d rather spend the holiday with Elphaba. She makes him promise to remain indoors instead, and though he agrees, he secretly decides to follow her—partially to learn what she’s been up to, and partially to keep her safe. He trails her to a theater, watching from the steps of a nearby library as she enters a large crowd. He sees her reach into her cape and place her hand upon some object, though he can’t see what it is.

When Madame Morrible arrives at the theater in a carriage, it becomes clear to Fiyero that she was Elphaba’s target all along—and Elphaba confirms this with the look on her face. But before Elphaba can make a move, a group of young schoolgirls swarms Morrible, and Elphaba, despite her belief in sacrificing for the greater good, is unwilling to risk innocent lives. After Morrible enters the theater unharmed, Fiyero loses track of Elphaba and returns to her apartment, only to be ambushed by Gale Force officers and killed. Elsewhere, Elphaba, spattered with blood, appears at the doorstep of a convent and is seen to by Mother Yackle, who promises her refuge.