The white cat in the tableau ran to a doorway at the rear of the stage, and mewed-three harsh mews, cut off, more like words. Not so much “meow” as “now-now-now!”

Several bits of shadow, with masks and cudgels, shaped themselves into more or less human form, and they surged forward, four, five of them-the sleeping man woke, and cried out twice-and then the cudgels were upon him. The toy blood realistically sprayed the stage. The puppet cat watched, and then licked the blood off its mirrors.

The glass cat in Brrr’s arms began to squirm. Brrr held it more tightly. It protested with meows like insults.

“Now, settle down, you,” said Brrr. “Don’t want you running away and hiding just when we’re getting ready to fold up shop here and skedaddle. Can’t imagine either army would treat you as well as I do.”

“You oaf,” cried Shadowpuppet. “I can’t breathe.”

“What in tarnation’s corner!” Brrr thrust Shadowpuppet away, as if it were possessed, but caught himself from dashing it to the ground. He barked at the dwarf, “My only comfort, my pet, and you paint it a small villain? Is this how you catch your audiences, sowing discord and suspicion among them?”

“Don’t look at me,” said the sergeant-at-hand. “I’m staff, not management.”

“And you-” Brrr winced at the wriggling thing. “You suddenly borrow enough language to lodge a complaint mightier than a meow? Have you been enchanted by this, this puppet play-or are you smoked out by it?”

“You!” said Ilianora. “You were an informer on Elphaba and-and-” She nearly couldn’t say his name. “And Fiyero? You?” She grabbed Shadowpuppet from Brrr and squeezed it so hard its tail broke off, and splintered upon the cobbles.

The glass cat-was it a Cat?-reared and shot its claws. Ilianora, weeping, flinched away and flung the Cat on the ground. It didn’t shatter, but a front leg bent laterally in an unnatural way, as if the Cat had taught its forearm how to cast a shuttle across a loom. It sat there and just managed to crane around enough to lick the blood from the stump of the severed tail. The blood was thin and brown, like shit water.

“Shadowpuppet! Were you spying on the Witch? Were you in the Wizard’s employ? How could you-how you could-a traitor-a turncoat-”

“The word you want,” said the dwarf, “is fink. Or, if you’re being fancy, collaborationist.”

Brrr felt he suddenly understood what it might mean if he said I am beside myself! The world contorting again, long after he had thought it possible to learn anything new. It was like being back in the Great Gillikin Forest, suddenly recognizing that the musical repertoire of humans that he was overhearing was in fact language, implying meaning, implying a secret world he might uncover. The bone-icing creepiness of realizing that an Animal can masquerade as an animal! He hadn’t known it possible.

“Oh, we all have our disguises,” said Shadowpuppet irritably. “You think only a big Cat can practice sedition?”