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A couple of footmen blocked the stairs to the hall.
Magrat's eyes narrowed. Getting out was what mattered.
'Hai!'
'Ouch!'
And then she ran on, slipping at the top of the stairs. A glass slipper slithered across the marble.
'How the hell's anyone supposed to move in these things?' she screamed at the world in general. Hopping frantically on one foot, she wrenched the other shoe off and ran into the night.
The Prince walked slowly to the top of the steps and picked up the discarded slipper.
He held it. The light glittered off its facets.
Granny Weatherwax leaned against the wall in the shadows. All stories had a turning point, and it had to be close.
She was good at getting into other people's minds, but now she had to get into hers. She concentrated. Down deeper . . . past everyday thoughts and minor concerns, faster, faster . . . through layers of deep cogitation . . . deeper . . . past things sealed off and crusted over, old guilts and congealed regrets, but there was no time for them now . . . down . . . and there . . . the silver thread of the story. She'd been part of it, was part of it, so it had to be a part of her.
It poured past. She reached out.
She hated everything that predestined people, that fooled them, that made them slightly less than human.
The story whipped along like a steel hawser. She gripped it.
Her eyes opened in shock. Then she stepped forward.
'Excuse me, Your Highness.'
She snatched the shoe from the Duc's hands, and raised it over her head.
Her expression of evil satisfaction was terrible to behold.
Then she dropped the shoe.
It smashed on the stairs.
A thousand glittering fragments scattered across the marble.
Coiled as it was around the length of turtle-shaped space-time known as the Discworld, the story shook. One broken end flapped loose and flailed through the night, trying to find any sequence to feed on ...
In the clearing the trees moved. So did the shadows. Shadows shouldn't be able to move unless the light moves. These did.
The drumming stopped.
In the silence there was the occasional sizzle as power crackled across the hanging coat.
Saturday stepped forward. Green sparks flew out to his hands as he gripped the jacket and put it on.
His body jerked.
Erzulie Gogol breathed out.
'You are here,' she said. 'You are still yourself. You are exactly yourself.'
Saturday raised his hands, with his fists clenched. Occasionally an arm or leg would jerk as the power inside him squirrel-caged around in its search for freedom, but she could see that he was riding it.
'It will become easier,' she said, more gently now.
