“On the other hand,” she continued, “a different choice. A lot less fruitful for you, perhaps. Nothing certain about the outcome.”

But that was the whole point. There is never anything certain about the outcome of a child’s life. She was reminding him about the child of Liir and Candle. Elphaba’s granddaughter, just possibly.

“You think you came up from the crypt to tell me about-” But in the presence of either the dwarf or the tiktok oracle, Brrr kept himself from saying the child. Yackle saw that he wasn’t going to give their secret away, at least not yet, and she grinned at him like a saucy schoolgirl. “But,” he continued, “you didn’t come to tell me anything. You were sensing the approach of the Grimmerie, that’s all. That’s what you were doing.”

“Never mind about why I jumped out of my sarcophagus. That’s ancient history now!” she said gaily. “Anyway, whoever insisted that two things can’t be true at once?” She put her old pale hand on the kinky hair of his chest where a medal for courage might have hung, did he still own one. “Make the right choice, Sir Brrr, when your time to choose arrives,” she said. “Oh, liberty at last!” Hiking her white sheets to her shoulder, she tottered forward with the tentative steps of the truly elderly. It was as if the return of her eyesight had reminded her how very infirm she must be. Ilianora moved beside her, ready to catch her by the elbow should she fall, but Yackle managed to keep her balance for the five steps left to her, from the crowd of Ozians to the threshold of the Grimmerie.

“Don’t you dare touch that book,” said Mr. Boss, the buzz of a fly, no more.

Brrr watched as Yackle reached out for the cover. It was made of a material he couldn’t identify, something that had properties of leather and cloth both-the slick coolness of leather, the cross-grain of cloth. The color of the binding suggested light on water, as if the warm color was emanating from a depth inside the book.

The spine was set with jewels arranged in an arabesque-every color but emerald-and an iron lock to clasp the secrets tight. But the pin was freed from the staple, and the hasp lay back upon its hinges.

Yackle lifted the cover and turned it over. The book didn’t allow any page to slide open; it turned itself to one page, a third of the way from the front, as if, for right now, the book consisted only of that page, and the other pages were glued shut.

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” asked Brrr.

“No one knows quite the shape of their death,” said Yackle, “but I daresay I will recognize it when I see it.”

The paper had a purple aspect at first, and the writing thereupon was silver. As they looked-they were all looking by now, even Shadowpuppet leaning forward, even Mr. Boss, craning from where he lay pinned on the ground-the color subsided to a taciturn peach, not unlike the tanned hide of a pig. The ink seemed less silver and more black. Almost as if the book were trying to resemble other books, as much as it could.