"Dear me!" exclaimed Ozma, gazing at the Mimics in the throne room. "How are we ever to transport all these creatures to their cavern home? We can't have them here to overrun Oz, even though they are now harmless," she added, shuddering with revulsion at the shifting shapes of evil assumed by the Mimics.
"That is simple," said Ozana. "Is there a room in the palace with a great many mirrors?"
"Yes," replied Ozma, "the Grand Ballroom which adjoins the throne room—its walls and ceiling are composed entirely of mirrors."
"Then let us go to the ballroom," said Ozana.
Ozma and Glinda led Ozana to the entrance of the Grand Ballroom. Dorothy and the Wizard and Toto followed.
Ozana paused before the great door which was flung wide open. In her bell-like voice she murmured the words of a powerful fairy spell. Immediately King Umb and Queen Ra, followed by the other Mimics in the throne room, advanced as though they were in a trance to the portal of the mirrored ballroom. Then they passed into the room itself. Ozana continued to chant her fairy spell. Now came a whole procession of the Mimic creatures, first from all over the Royal Palace and finally from every part of the Emerald City. They came trooping in by the hundreds, wearing a myriad of fantastic shapes and forms. At length the very last Mimic had entered the ballroom, and, huge though the room was, it seemed to the onlookers that it must surely be filled to overflowing with the Mimic horde.
By this time, the Scarecrow, Scraps, Tik-Tok and the rest who had been bound with ropes by the Mimics were freed and they with Trot, Cap'n Bill, Betsy Bobbin, Button Bright and the others all crowded about the entrance to look curiously into the ballroom. Even the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger and Hank the Mule crowded into the throne room. The three beasts had awakened from the sleep cast on them by Queen Ra when Ozana had re-woven the spell that protected the Oz inhabitants.