"Fiiiiyyyyeeerooo!" Elphaba screamed. The air throbbed with her magic and mist swirled around her broom. She landed on the top of Kiamo Ko and spread the Grimmerie on its lifeless stones.
"Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen," she chanted, "eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen! Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain; when the beat him let him feel no pain! Let his bones never break and however they try to destroy him, let him never die. Let him never die! Eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka nahmen . . . eleka nahmen nahmen atum atum eleka, eleka . . . ugh!"
The words blurred before Elphaba's eyes and she brushed tears from the Grimmerie's fragile pages. "What is this chanting?" she asked the sky, "I don't even know what I'm reading. I don't even know what trick I ought to try. Fiyero—where are you? Already dead or bleeding, one more disaster I can add to my generous supply?"
Elphaba sobbed against the unfeeling stone of Kiamo Ko until the air stilled and her magic ceased to flow, and then Elphaba died; the woman who rose from the ashes of mourning slammed the Grimmerie closed and stood on the narrowest edge of Kiamo Ko's roof, daring Fate to steal her sorry life.
"No good deed goes unpunished," she told the castle, "no act of charity goes unresented, 'no good deed goes unpunished': that's my new creed. My road of good intentions led where such roads always lead. No good deed goes unpunished!"
The green woman remembered happier days, a laughing sister dressed in pink. "Nessa," she whispered. The raven-haired woman remembered better days, a serious professor with knowledge to impart, "Dr. Dillamond," she breathed. The cold-eyed woman remembered a solitary night of passion shared, "Fiyero," she cried, "Fiiiyyeeero!"
The black-garbed woman stepped back and sank to her knees on the roof's edge. "One question haunts and hurts," she told the black stones, "too much—too much to mention: was I really seeking good or just seeking attention? Is that all good deeds are when looked at with an ice cold eye? If that's all good deeds are, maybe that's the reason why no good deed goes unpunished. All helpful urges should be circumvented. No good deed goes unpunished. Sure, I meant well—well look at what well-meant did! Alright, enough! So be it, so be it then. Let all Oz be agreed, I'm Wicked through and through!"
The grieving woman arched her back and reached for the center of her magic, pulsing deep inside her chest. "Since I cannot succeed, Fiyero, saving you," she whispered to the wind, "no good deed will I attempt to do again! Ever again! No good deed will I do again!"
The bitter woman rose—and Elphaba sank into the stones, her place usurped by the Wicked Witch of the West.