“Some book,” said Brrr cautiously.

“How much more the Wizard might have achieved had he gotten the whole book! But the Wizard abdicated-some say he was deposed, as he deposed the Ozma Regent before him-and notions of those magic gospels were forgotten for a while during the short, giddy reigns of Glinda the Good and the Scarecrow after her.”

“Yes,” said Brrr, unable to resist boasting about his connections. “I was once quite au fait with the Scarecrow, as it happens.”

“Indeed you were. Of course you were. Then you will remember how Shell, Elphaba’s brother, ascended to the throne in that smooth, unresisted way. The Scarecrow as good as a butler, the way he melted away without a murmur.”

“I was traveling at the time, but I learned of it later.”

“It was Shell’s ministers, combing the Treasury for negotiable commodities to fund his army, who came across the page on dragons.”

Avaric explained further. Since the writing on the reverse side of the page had seemed to be the second half of a spell, not otherwise identified, no one had paid it much mind at first. But then the Emperor had engaged a scholar of magic at Shiz-a Miss Greyling, spelled g-r-e-y, or maybe it is spelled g-r-a-y-something like that-to decipher what she could of the spell’s conclusion and to infer, if possible, the spell’s name and intention.

“That would take some talent,” Brrr ventured.

“She spent several years over it,” continued Avaric. “Eventually she made her report to the Emperor. As near as she could tell, the verso of the manuscript page was the second part of a spell to reveal hidden inscriptions. Codes, watermarks, the like. A universal spell for the deciphering of runes. Perhaps even the location of individuals in hiding; could it be? Either that or, perhaps, a recipe for oatmeal fritters. It was hard to be sure.

“‘What we need,’ our Emperor Shell replied, ‘is the rest of this text so we could use it to reveal the location of the Grimmerie to us. A circular ambition, but once we had the Grimmerie, what else we might be able to do!’”

“What does the Grimmerie look like?” asked Brrr. “Not that I was ever one for books or that sort of thing. My expertise was limited to flat pieces done on private presses.”

“Few could ever have seen it,” said Avaric. “So there’s no reliable description. By the size of the page that Shell has in his treasury, it is a big codex, a tome-a foot square, perhaps.” He looked narrowly at Brrr. “You were one of the few to go to the Witch’s castle while she was thought to have it in her possession. I mean, the others-dead or disappeared. The entire Tigelaar family, who held the castle called Kiamo Ko before the Witch took up residence, was captured and imprisoned. One of them, that child named Nor, escaped from Southstairs a few years ago-she might know the whereabouts of the Grimmerie.”