‘You’ve got to put on your red-hot shoes and dance the night away?’ said Lily.

‘Somethin’ like that, yes.’

‘While everyone else lives happily ever after?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Granny. ‘That’s up to them. What I’m sayin’ is, you’re not allowed to go round one more time. You’ve lost.’

‘You know a Weatherwax never loses,’ said Lily.

‘One of ’em learns tonight,’ said Granny.

‘But we’re outside the stories,’ said Lily. ‘Me because I … am the medium through which they happen, and you because you fight them. We’re the ones in the middle. The free ones—’

There was a sound behind them. The faces of Magrat and Nanny Ogg appeared over the top of the stairwell.

‘You need any help, Esme?’ said Nanny cautiously.

Lily laughed.

‘Here’s your little snakes, Esme.’

‘You know,’ she added, ‘you’re really just like me. Don’t you know that? There isn’t a thought that’s gone through my head that you haven’t thought, too. There isn’t a deed I’ve done that you haven’t contemplated. But you never found the courage. That’s the difference between people like me and people like you. We have the courage to do what you only dream of.’

‘Yes?’ said Granny. ‘Is that what you think? You think I dream?’

Lily moved a finger. Magrat floated up out of the stairwell, struggling. She waved her wand frantically.

‘That’s what I like to see,’ said Lily. ‘People wishing. I never wished for anything in my life. I always made things happen. So much more rewarding.’

Magrat gritted her teeth.

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t look good as a pumpkin, dear,’ said Lily. She waved a hand airily. Magrat rose.

‘You’d be surprised at the things I can do,’ said Lily dreamily, as the younger witch drifted smoothly over the flagstones. ‘You should have tried mirrors yourself, Esme. It does wonders for a soul. I only let the swamp woman survive because her hate was invigorating. I do like being hated, you know. And you do know. It’s a kind of respect. It shows you’re having an effect. It’s like a cold bath on a hot day. When stupid people find themselves powerless, when they fume in their futility, when they’re beaten and they’ve got nothing but that yawning in the acid pit of their stomachs — well, to be honest, it’s like a prayer. And the stories … to ride on stories … to borrow the strength of them … the comfort of them … to be in the hidden centre of them … Can you understand that? The sheer pleasure of seeing the patterns repeat themselves? I’ve always loved a pattern. Incidentally, if the Ogg woman continues to try to sneak up behind me I shall really let your young friend drift out over the courtyard and then, Esme, I might just lose interest.’

‘I was just walkin’ about,’ said Nanny. ‘No law against it.’

‘You changed the story your way, and now I’m going to do it mine,’ said Lily. ‘And once again … all you have to do is go. Just go away. What happens here doesn’t matter. It’s a city far away of which you know little. I’m not totally certain I could out-trick you,’ she added, ‘but these two … they haven’t got the right stuff in them. I could make jam of them. I hope you know that. So tonight, I suggest, a Weatherwax learns to lose?’

Granny stood silent for a while, leaning on her useless broom.

‘All right. Put her down,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll say you’ve won.’

‘I wish I could believe that,’ said Lily. ‘Oh … but you’re the nice one, aren’t you? You have to keep your word.’

‘Watch me,’ said Granny. She walked to the parapet and looked down. The two-faced moon was still bright enough to illuminate the billowing fogs that surrounded the palace like a sea.

‘Magrat? Gytha?’ she said. ‘Sorry about this. You’ve won, Lily. There ain’t nothing I can do.’

She jumped.

Nanny Ogg rushed forward and stared over the edge, just in time to see a dim figure vanish in the mists.

All three figures left on the tower took a deep breath.

‘It’s a trick,’ said Lily, ‘to get me off guard.’

‘It isn’t!’ screamed Magrat, dropping to the stones.

‘She had her broomstick,’ said Lily.

‘It don’t work! It won’t start!’ shouted Nanny. ‘Right,’ she said, menacingly, striding towards the slim shape of Lily. ‘We’ll soon wipe that smug look off your face—’

She halted as silver pain shot through her body.

Lily laughed.

‘It’s true, then?’ she said. ‘Yes. I can see it in your faces. Esme was bright enough to know she couldn’t win. Don’t be stupid. And don’t point that silly wand at me, Miss Garlick. Old Desiderata would have defeated me long ago if she could. People have no understanding.’

‘We ought to go down there,’ said Magrat. ‘She might be lying there—’

‘That’s it. Be good. It’s what you’re good at,’ said Lily, as they ran to the stairwell.

‘But we’ll be back,’ snarled Nanny Ogg. ‘Even if we have to live in the swamp with Mrs Gogol and eat snakes’ heads!’

‘Of course,’ said Lily, arching an eyebrow. ‘That’s what I said. One needs people like you around. Otherwise one is never quite sure one is still working. It’s a way of keeping score.’

She watched them disappear down the steps.

A wind blew over the tower. Lily gathered up her skirts and walked to the end, where she could see the shreds of mist streaming over the rooftops far below. There were the faint strains of music from the distant carnival dance as it wound its way through the streets.

It would soon be midnight. Proper midnight, not some cut-price version caused by an old woman crawling around in a clock.

Lily tried to see through the murk to the bottom of the tower.

‘Really, Esme,’ she murmured, ‘you did take losing hard.’

Nanny reached out and restrained Magrat as they ran down the spiral stairs.

‘Slow down a bit, I should,’ she said.

‘But she could be hurt —!’

‘So could you, if you trip. Anyway,’ said Nanny, ‘I don’t reckon Esme is lyin’ in a crumpled heap somewhere. That’s not the way she’d go. I reckon she did it just to make sure Lily forgot about us and wouldn’t try anything on us. I reckon she thought we were — what was that Tsortean bloke who could only be wounded if you hit ’im in the right place? No-one ever beat ’im until they found out about it. His knee, I think it was.^{61} We’re her Tsortean knee, right?’

‘But we know you have to run really fast to get her broomstick going!’ shouted Magrat.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Nanny. ‘That’s what I thought. And now I’m thinking … how fast do you go when you’re dropping? I mean, straight down?’

‘I … don’t know,’ said Magrat.

‘I reckon Esme thought it was worth findin’ out,’ said Nanny. ‘That’s what I reckon.’

A figure appeared around the bend in the stairs, plodding upwards. They stood aside politely to let it pass.

‘Wish I could remember what bit of him you had to hit,’ Nanny said. ‘That’s going to be nagging at me all night, now.’

THE HEEL.

‘Right? Oh, thanks.’

ANY TIME.

The figure continued onwards and upwards.

‘He had a good mask on, didn’t he,’ said Magrat, eventually.

She and Nanny sought confirmation in each other’s face.

Magrat went pale. She looked up the stairs.

‘I think we should run back up and—’ she began.

Nanny Ogg was much older. ‘I think we should walk,’ she said.

Lady Volentia D’Arrangement sat in the rose garden under the big tower and blew her nose.

She’d been waiting for half an hour and she’d had enough.

She’d hoped for a romantic tête-à-tête: he’d seemed such a nice man, sort of eager and shy at the same time. Instead, she’d nearly been hit on the head when an old woman on a broom and wearing what looked, as far as she could see through the blur of speed, like Lady Volentia’s own dress, had screamed down out of the mist. Her boots had ploughed through the roses before the curve of her flight took her up again.

And some filthy smelly tomcat kept brushing up against her legs.

And it had started off as such a nice evening …

‘’ullo, your Ladyship?’

She looked around at the bushes.

‘My name’s Casanunda,’ said a hopeful voice.

Lily Weatherwax turned when she heard the tinkle of glass from within the maze of mirrors.

Her brow wrinkled. She ran across the flagstones and opened the door into the mirror world.

There was no sound but the rustle of her dress and the soft hiss of her own breathing. She glided into the place between the mirrors.

Her myriad selves looked back at her approvingly. She relaxed.

Then her foot struck something. She looked down and saw on the flagstones, black in the moonlight, a broomstick lying in shards of broken glass.

Her horrified gaze rose to meet a reflection.

It glared back at her.

‘Where’s the pleasure in bein’ the winner if the loser ain’t alive to know they’ve lost?’

Lilith backed away, her mouth opening and shutting.

Granny Weatherwax stepped through the empty frame. Lily looked down, beyond her avenging sister.

‘You broke my mirror!’

‘Was this what it was all for, then?’ said Granny. ‘Playin’ little queens in some damp city? Serving stories? What sort of power is that?’

‘You don’t understand … you’ve broken the mirror …’

‘They say you shouldn’t do it,’ said Granny. ‘But I reckoned: what’s another seven years’ bad luck?’

Image after image shatters, all the way around the great curve of the mirror world, the crack flying out faster than light …

‘You have to break both to be safe… you’ve upset the balance …’

‘Hah! I did?’ Granny stepped forward, her eyes two sapphires of bitterness. ‘I’m goin’ to give you the hidin’ our Mam never gave you, Lily Weatherwax. Not with magic, not with headology, not with a stick like our Dad had, aye, and used a fair bit as I recall — but with skin. And not because you was the bad one. Not because you meddled with stories. Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop’ly, after you went I had to be the good one. You had all the fun. An’ there’s no way I can make you pay for that, Lily, but I’m surely goin’ to give it a try …’

‘But … I … I … I’m the good one,’ Lily murmured, her face pale with shock. ‘I’m the good one. I can’t lose. I’m the godmother. You’re the wicked witch … and you’ve broken the mirror …’

… moving like a comet, the crack in the mirrors reaches its furthest point and curves back, speeding down the countless worlds …

‘You’ve got to help me put … the images must be balanced …’ Lily murmured faintly, backing up against the remaining glass.

‘Good? Good? Feeding people to stories? Twisting people’s lives? That’s good, is it?’ said Granny. ‘You mean you didn’t even have fun? If I’d been as bad as you, I’ve have been a whole lot worse. Better at it than you’ve ever dreamed of.’

She drew back her hand.

… the crack returned towards its point of origin, carrying with it the fleeing reflections of all the mirrors …

Her eyes widened.

The glass smashed and crazed behind Lily Weatherwax.

And in the mirror, the image of Lily Weatherwax turned around, smiled beatifically, and reached out of the frame to take Lily Weatherwax into its arms.

‘Lily!’

All the mirrors shattered, exploding outwards in a thousand pieces from the top of the tower so that, just for a moment, it was wreathed in twinkling fairy dust.

Nanny Ogg and Magrat came up onto the roof like avenging angels after a period of lax celestial quality control.

They stopped.

Where the maze of mirrors had been were empty frames. Glass shards covered the floor and, lying on them, was a figure in a white dress.

Nanny pushed Magrat behind her and crunched forward cautiously. She prodded the figure with the toe of her boot.

‘Let’s throw her off the tower,’ said Magrat.

‘All right,’ said Nanny. ‘Do it, then.’

Magrat hesitated. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘when I said let’s throw her off the tower, I didn’t mean me personally throwing her off, I meant that if there was any justice she ought to be thrown off—’

‘Then I shouldn’t say any more on that score, if I was you,’ said Nanny, kneeling carefully on the crunching shards. ‘Besides, I was right. This is Esme. I’d know that face anywhere. Take off your petticoat.’

‘Why?’

‘Look at her arms, girl!’

Magrat stared. Then she raised her hands to her mouth.

‘What has she been doing?’

‘Trying to reach straight through glass, by the looks of it,’ said Nanny. ‘Now get it off and help me tear it into strips and then go and find Mrs Gogol and see if she’s got any ointments and can help us, and tell her if she can’t she’d better be a long way away by morning.’ Nanny felt Granny Weatherwax’s wrist. ‘Maybe Lily Weatherwax could make jam of us but I’m damn sure I could knock Mrs Gogol’s eye out with the fender if it came to it.’

Nanny removed her patent indestructible hat and fished around inside the point. She pulled out a velvet cloth and unwrapped it, revealing a little cache of needles and a spool of thread.

She licked a thread and held a needle against the moon, squinting.

‘Oh, Esme, Esme,’ she said, as she bent to her sewing, ‘you do take winning hard.’

Lily Weatherwax looked out at the multi-layered, silvery world.

‘Where am I?’

INSIDE THE MIRROR.

‘Am I dead?’

THE ANSWER TO THAT, said Death, IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NO AND YES.

Lily turned, and a billion figures turned with her.

‘When can I get out?’

WHEN YOU FIND THE ONE THAT’S REAL.

Lily Weatherwax ran on through the endless reflections.

A good cook is always the first one into the kitchen every morning and the last one to go home at night.

Mrs Pleasant damped down the fires. She did a quick inventory of the silverware and counted the tureens. She—

She was aware of being stared at.

There was a cat in the doorway. It was big and grey. One eye was an evil yellow-green, the other one pearly white. What remained of its ears looked like the edge of a stamp. Nevertheless, it had a certain swagger, and generated an I-can-beat-you-with-one-paw feel that was strangely familiar.

Mrs Pleasant stared at it for a while. She was a close personal friend of Mrs Gogol and knew that shape is merely a matter of deeply-ingrained personal habit, and if you’re a resident of Genua around Samedi Nuit Mort you learn to trust your judgement rather more than you trust your senses.

‘Well now,’ she said, with barely a trace of a tremor in her voice, ‘I expect you’d like some more fish legs, I mean heads, how about that?’

Greebo stretched and arched his back.

‘And there’s some milk in the coolroom,’ said Mrs Pleasant.

Greebo yawned happily.

Then he scratched his ear with his back leg. Humanity’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

It was a day later.

‘Mrs Gogol’s healing ointment really seems to work,’ said Magrat. She held up a jar that was half-full of something pale green and strangely gritty and had a subtle smell which, you could quite possibly believe, occupied the whole world.