Brrr wanted to rub his eyes, but in his arms Shadowpuppet…Malky…was squirming to escape in the sudden fog. “Stop, or I’ll snap every limb off of you, one at a time,” Brrr rasped, coughing. He had to do with trying to rub his face into his forearm. When his eyes stopped streaming, the smoke was lifting. Everyone was suffering from the stinging soot. Ilianora was wiping her face with her silvery veil, the dwarf with his beard. The boys were clutching one another and whimpering: They had all of a sudden seen one revelation too many, and they wanted to go home. Yackle rubbed her eyes, too.

“Look,” she said, pointing. The dragon wing was lifting at an angle. Brrr stared: The Clock was taking orders from no dwarf. It had its own agenda. The second dragon wing had started to lift in the opposite direction, an effect like curtains parting at a window, before it dawned on Brrr that it had been Yackle who had told them to look. But he couldn’t even turn to see what her face was like now that-could it be possible?-her eyesight had been restored by the dragon smoke. He just obeyed her instruction, and looked.

4

A SLIDING PANEL of stage flooring moved out, a wooden tongue on oiled bearings. In a drawer, on a carpet of green and gold silk, the Grimmerie waited for them.

Brrr didn’t need to describe it for Yackle anymore. He didn’t need Ilianora to identify it. It wasn’t a tiny stage prop. It was the real Grimmerie.

The volume sat half unwrapped in a traditional Vinkus hunting shawl, a fringed cloth with roses on a black background. There was something almost lascivious about the arrangement to Brrr, who had never admired books particularly. He didn’t remember that a mere book might reek of sex, possibility, fecundity. Yet a book has a ripe furrow and a yielding spine, he thought, and the nuances to be teased from its pages are nearly infinite in their variety and coquettish appeal. And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe.

“Nobody has the clearance to touch the Grimmerie,” said Mr. Boss, but his voice had gone faint; he was immaterial now, incidental, and they all knew it.

Yackle took hold of Brrr’s paw. She regarded him up and down with real eyes, which were, Brrr saw, adamantine blue and cloudless. “You’re not quite as I’d pictured,” she admitted. “A little baggy here and there. Still. Are you ready?”

Brrr was fairly certain Yackle wasn’t the angel of death come to take him to the breast of Lurlina. Still, he raised an eyebrow enquiringly, his underarms dampening. “I don’t think I’m quite that ready,” he replied. “I’ve made my fair share of mistakes and all, but hey. There’s always next time.”

Yackle laughed. “You idiot. Pay attention. Are you ready to choose, I mean. You came hoping to find information about the Grimmerie, and instead you stumbled upon the actual article. If you take this dangerous volume into custody, you might have redeemed yourself. There’s rehabilitation in this for you-or so you’ll be tempted to hope.