Ozma Embankment

The Ozma Embankment is a thoroughfare in the Emerald City, situated between the Law Courts Bridge and the abandoned rose gardens of the Royal Mall. It is part of the city's ceremonial and administrative district, a route that connects the judicial quarter to the former royal parklands. On Lurlinemas Eve, during a heavy snowfall, Elphaba walks along the Embankment as part of her final reconnaissance before the planned assassination of Madame Morrible. She is described as marching with her head tucked down, her silhouette in dark stockings and large boots showing against the snow, passing cenotaphs and memorial tablets to the "Magnificent Dead" of various campaigns. The Embankment is a place of official memory and state commemoration, lined with monuments that Elphaba ignores as she moves toward her target. The scene underscores her isolation and determination, as she walks through a landscape of imperial commemoration while preparing an act of insurrection. The Embankment's location, between the bridge and the mall, places it on the edge of the Palace district, yet Elphaba ultimately turns away from the Palace, cutting through the fashionable district of Goldhaven instead, indicating that her target is not the Wizard but Madame Morrible, who is attending an oratorio at the Lady's Mystique theatre. The Ozma Embankment thus functions as a liminal space in the narrative, a point of transition between the city's official power centers and the more intimate, theatrical setting where Elphaba's long-planned act of vengeance is meant to occur.