“It’s ancient history,” she said. “This was nine years ago. Where are they all now? How did they disappear so thoroughly? If they are still alive, Liir would be twenty-eight or-nine-Candle likewise-Trism thirty-two-and…And…”

And, she thought, the child, the child; the child whom Candle had borne? But still she could not speak.

Brrr sat very still.

She sat up straight. “I have given you as much as I know. The truth is, once I went blind, I began to doubt my own oracular capacity. Perhaps Commander Cherrystone’s terrible attack on me was exactly the thing. I can smell a person,” she said, “I can smell a lie, but I can no longer see the truth right in front of my face.”

“You’ve corroborated a lot,” he agreed. “Still, how did you know so much about the movements of Trism and Candle?”

“Candle came back, for one night,” said Yackle. “She came back to thank me for…for everything. Sensibly, she wouldn’t tell me where she was going; this meant I could not have it forced out of me. She was a week or so ahead of Cherrystone.”

She appeared to look out the window. “I think of her often,” she said. “I liked the young girl. She was braver than most.

“Braver than you,” she continued.

“That’s not saying much,” said Brrr.

“I can smell a lie,” she said, “and I believe that you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“I have,” he said. “We’re looking for Liir, don’t you know? To make sure the Munchkinlanders don’t rally behind him as the proper Eminence. To make sure that Shell’s claim to the breadbasket of Oz isn’t challenged-”

“There is no more time to lie,” she told him, rather peacefully. If she could have found his huge paw and patted it for comfort, she would have. “You haven’t really come here to find out about Liir and Trism and Candle and all. You knew most of that already. You knew about Liir and how he would suffer, thinking that Trism and Candle had fallen in love. Fine for him to love two-not so fine for him to watch two others loving in turn.”

“I take a lot of notes,” said Brrr, “but I don’t pay attention to that aspect of people’s lives.”

“You don’t want to,” she noted, “because it is too close to home, I suspect.”

“None of your business,” he growled. “If you are so ornery and right all the time, then how am I lying? What have I come for that you haven’t yet told me? Tell it to me now and we’ll have done with this interview. I can smell death frying up in the skillet alongside the lunchtime bacon. Let’s finish up.”

She stood and with unerring accuracy she pointed a bony finger right along the seam of his nose. “You want to find out the location of the Grimmerie,” she said. “You want the great book of magic. Sure you’d be glad enough to learn where Liir is, and his little circle of oddities. But Liir isn’t the firebrand that Elphaba was; he’s nothing without that encyclopedia of spells. The Emperor has dispatched you here to see if I can tell you where the book is. Elphaba’s magic book, and someone else’s magic book before it was hers. You’ve been lying all along. Liir is only part of it. You want the book.”