A/N: And we are back with another chapter at long last! A big thank-you to all my viewers, reviewers, favouriters and followers; as always, I hope the chapter lives up to the standards established thus far, and don't be afraid to correct the inevitable typos that creep in at 3 in the morning.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked still isn't mine.

It was perhaps the most diverse secret meeting that the Deviant Nations had ever seen.

VIPs from all over the world had crowded into the boardroom, representing some of the most influential (and unusual) factions in the entire realm. Only the highest-ranking officials and most vital members of staff had been invited to this emergency conference, and they had been selected from only the most pivotal of the groups of interest involved in the war. "No small fry allowed, well-meaning amateurs need not apply," as the Mentor had put it: if Dorothy and her friends were to hear about what was discussed, they would do so only with official clearance.

The Mentor naturally sat at the head of the table, accompanied by Elphaba, Glinda, Dr Kiln, three or four of her most important generals, a couple of admirals, and the Greenspectre Chapter Master – still resplendent in his eight arms and myriad battle scars.

Further down the table, the First of the Shapeless sat back in his chair, a living kaleidoscope of identities and species rippling back and forth across his protean flesh; every single face he wore was grinning fit to burst, a good indication that he'd guessed what Elphaba was going to announce. As far as security could tell, he'd attended alone, and a thorough magical examination of the conference room confirmed no shapeshifters other than Leoverus in attendance… but given that the Amorphous League had learned how to resist detection even by Unbridled Radiance's supposedly sure-fire methods, there was no way of telling if he really was the only Shapeshifter in the room.

Opposite him, a trio of mirror golems sat quietly, unresponsive to all queries. These were the representatives of the Mistress of Mirrors, and though they had no eyes with which to see, Elphaba couldn't help but notice the way their mosaiced skulls swept back and forth across the room like security cameras: they might not be able to see anything, but the Other Nessa certainly could; as always, the Mistress of Mirrors was watching everything. All things considered, Elphaba couldn't make up her mind if she should find this reassuring or unsettling.

At the far end of the conference room, Rostov Branderstove glowered down at the assembled delegates in baleful silence, his tentacled bulk taking up nearly a third of the table space; he'd left his weapons and his bodyguards outside, but Elphaba had no doubt that he could probably kill everyone at this table in a matter of seconds if so inclined unless the resident magicians had time to counter him. Obviously, he hadn't been too happy to hear of Elphaba's proposition, but Fiyero had managed to give it a sales pitch charismatic enough to dampen the Leviathan's wrath – long enough to hear Elphaba out at any rate.

A mangled old woman sporting a prosthetic arm and the remains of a much younger face, a green-skinned witch with several dozen crystals sprouting in her back, a witch-turned-journeyman-shapeshifter, a mage-surgeon with a penchant for knitting, an eight-armed fanatic, a master shapeshifter who'd used to be a neurotic lion, three golems made of mirror shards, a giant human-octopus hybrid… frankly, the presence of Dorothy, Fiyero, Boq and Brr would scarcely have stirred a ripple even if they'd brought some of the Dolls with them.

Elphaba had the floor for this particular conference, having called for it in the first place. Back in Oz, she'd be electric with anxiety and brimming with defensive rage had she found herself in this predicament, ready for the moment when someone started laughing at her. But now, after months on end in the Deviant Nations and with the reputation of a hero on her side, her nerves had calmed (at least somewhat)… and after witnessing the results she'd seen upstairs, for once in her life, she was absolutely brimful of confidence.

"Well," she began, briskly. "I assume everyone here's caught the gist of why I called this meeting?"

There was a noncommittal chorus of mumblings from around the room. "Something about a guaranteed means of killing the Empress," supplied one of the generals.

"I heard differently," Branderstove growled. "I heard that someone was planning on sparing the Empress's life – in clear violation of our agreement, I might add."

Rumbles of consternation rippled up and down the conference room; suddenly, almost everyone wanted to know if this was the truth, their reactions at varying levels of confusion and outrage: easily the most offended of the group was the Mentor, for though she hadn't spoken a single word in the last few minutes, her eyes had narrowed with growing anger, battle-scarred brow had furrowed so deeply it looked as if her skull might split in two, and her prosthetic arm was digging trenches in the armrest of her chair. By contrast, the mirror golems merely sat in silence, observing the proceedings with mechanical detachment.

"We'll get to that in a minute," Elphaba assured them. "Long story short, yes, we've been trying to find a sure-fire method of killing the Empress once and for all: I'm pretty sure everyone in this room has tried to kill her at some point in the past, and the attempts have all failed for one reason or another. Dr Kiln provided the Mentor and I with a new problem to solve, however: as long as I'm in this dimension, the Empress stands a distinct chance of being reborn in my mind. If anyone wants to know more about how the hell that would work, feel free to take a look at the copies of the good doctor's research if you've a few hours to spare."

"And that's why we're planning on a non-lethal solution is it?" demanded Branderstove, scarcely bothering to mask his contempt. "To save your life?"

"If you'll allow me a minute to-"

There was a polite series of coughs from the trio of generals. "If you're thinking of imprisoning the Empress, Miss Thropp," said one of them, "I'm afraid that unless you've found a means of negating her powers entirely, it won't work. We've tried this several times in the past, and all attempts have failed, including the time we buried her alive in concrete. The Empress is simply too powerful to be contained: even magic-nullifying enchantments aren't enough to suppress her abilities-"

"One thing at a time, please," Elphaba sighed. "Anyway, Dr Kiln and I have been done some research on the subject, and it's my sincere belief that we have an alternate means of stopping the Empress once and for all. And no, it doesn't require her to imprisoned in any way, shape or form… and it's only non-lethal in the narrowest definition of the term."

The Mentor's eyes narrowed. "Elaborate."

"I thought you'd never ask. Dr Kiln? Bring out the test subject."

From the depths of the small office cart of supplies he'd brought in, Kiln produced a clear glass container and placed it at the centre of the conference room: beneath the lid, a sickly-pale lump of boneless flesh writhed and oozed, clumsily undulating its way across the container as it struggled to escape. When Elphaba had last seen the test subject, it looked rather like a mutant slug, but after a few hours of regeneration, it had grown by several inches… and with the tiny embryonic fingertips sprouting from its underbelly, it now resembled a large and distinctly malformed caterpillar.

"What the hell is that?" Leoverus demanded, his many faces contorted with mingled fascination and disgust.

"This," said Elphaba, "is a piece of the Empress."

There was a revolted pause.

Once again, the Mentor gave Elphaba a dubious look. "I read Dr Kiln's reports on the sample of the Empress's tissue brought back from Loamlark: at the last photograph provided, your test subject was significantly larger. What exactly have you been doing?"

"We've been trimming samples for experimentation: we couldn't waste our only test subject in the first trial. As for what we actually tested… well, maybe it's better to show than tell: Kiln, the stage is yours."

Dr Kiln reached into the depths of the cart and produced a long pole syringe, followed by a large bottle of a very distinctive multicoloured liquid. By now, Leoverus had already recognized the League's potion and had clearly guessed what Elphaba and Kiln intended to do, for his entire body had erupted into dozens of tiny, gleaming smiles.

Everyone else could only watch in confusion as Kiln very carefully loaded the dose of potion into the pole syringe. It took a while, for there was well over a litre and a half to prepare, but as Kiln himself added, "You never can be too careful with these substances." Then, pausing only to extend his arm by at least five feet, he lifted the lid of the container ever-so-slightly and – taking great care not to let his hand get too close to the tip of the syringe – injected it into the test subject's pulsating back. The wriggling lump of Alphaba's tissue immediately shuddered in alarm and confusion, lashing out with sharp little fingernails as it wobbled towards the open lid – but Kiln was already slamming the container shut as he withdrew the syringe.

Then, before the stunned eyes of the delegates, the caterpillar-like tissue sample began to change. All at once, the vestigial blobs clustered across its underside extended dramatically, aging from stubby infantile digits to adult fingers in a matter of seconds. Muscles blossomed across the blobby mass of tissue, and fresh bone gave it a vertebrate firmness. Nails erupted from the fingertips, extending into long, elegantly-manicured talons that scratched deep trenches in the glass, while at the opposite end of the sample, flesh and bone began to erupt outwards until it was recognizable as a forearm complete with an elbow – and the growth didn't stop there, either: as the oozing white stump stretched outwards, forming an upper arm, a shoulder, and even the beginnings of a spine.

And then the whole thing went gloriously, wonderfully wrong: just as it looked as if the sample might progress as far as a ribcage, its suddenly began to twitch and writhe as if in pain; before the stunned eyes of the delegates, its skin tone suddenly went from stark white to an all-too-familiar shade of green. Its fingers distended, swiftly growing beyond its skeleton and oozing down in lengths of boneless, shapeless flesh, looking for all the world like the empty fingers of a glove. The spine began to twist and slither of its own accord, until bone began scales and the entire spine column had transformed into the long, whip-like body of a snake. Toes began to sprout from the shoulder, an entire foot jutting suddenly from the boiling flesh; nipples erupted across the elbow and forearm like buboes; and from the upper arm, a crude, vaguely-feminine face formed, staring out at the world with milky, blind eyes… and then opened its toothless jaws and let out a piercing scream, something halfway between the yowl of a fox and a human infant's wailing.

That was about as organized as the transformation got: within seconds, the snake had oozed back into the spinal column, the face had sunk beneath the flesh, and the entire arm had dissolved into a frenzied procession of changes. Fingers became teeth, tongues waggled across the length of the shoulder, the head of a dog exploded from the elbow; flesh became steel, clay, candlewax, diamond, before reverting to flesh again; a new arm wretched itself from the stump of the spine, and clawed helplessly at the air before dissolving back into bone. For another ten seconds, the shapeshifting arm flopped, wiggled and shuddered like a fish out of water, before finally shivering to a halt and lying still as the last of the transformations swept over it.

Then, it melted.

Like wax under an open flame, the arm glistened, warped, oozed and finally sank down into a rapidly-expanding puddle of flesh. The out-of-control transformation had taken a little over a minute to run its course, but now in a matter of seconds, the tissue sample had dissolved into bubbling, characterless sludge.

An astonished pause followed, as the delegates slowly digested what they'd just seen.

Branderstove was the first to break the silence: "What the hell just happened? What did you inject that thing with?"

"A deliberate overdose of the Amorphous League's potion," said Dr Kiln, beaming. "As the First of the Shapeless was kind enough to explain, first dosages of the potion have to carefully measured in order for the user to acclimatize to its power. Overdoses cause Shapelessness to ensue without the will to control it, resulting in random perpetual transformation and eventually cellular breakdown." He indicated the container of human slurry, grinning so broadly that the corners of his mouth reached his earlobes. "Quite effective, yes?"

"Then how can this work in your favour? If it's dead-"

"It's not," said Elphaba. "We've already confirmed that it's still showing signs of neural activity down there: it didn't have much in the way of brain, admittedly, but it had enough of a nervous system to possess instinctive drives, and we can detect those down there in the slime. The sample is very much alive."

"And this is permanent?"

Once again, Kiln grinned from ear to ear. "Oh yes. Quite permanent."

"I can confirm that," added Leoverus. "We still have a few unfortunate novices who've overdosed and been reduced to this state: we keep them in jars, if only because it's the most comfortable place to put them and nobody knows how to cure or kill them as of yet. By now, most of them have lost what remains of their identity to decades of sensory deprivation, so there's not much thought left in them."

There was a pause, as Branderstove considered this. Then, a horrible grin slid hideously across his gigantic face.

"So," he said, "if I understand correctly, you're proposing to stop the Empress by pumping her so full of this stuff that she melts down into human gravy and stays that way until her mind is reduced to roughly the same consistency. Have I correctly gotten the gist of your proposal, Elphaba?"

"Pretty much."

"And until her brain completely shuts down, you'd essentially be condemning the Empress to a state of total paralysis – in a body she'd no doubt find antithetical to everything she stands for, no less?" A long, black tongue slithered lustily over Branderstove's lips. "She'd be conscious and aware of her predicament from beginning to end – as I was?"

In spite of herself, Elphaba couldn't help but wince. This was the part of the plan that she wasn't exactly proud of masterminding: as repugnant and deadly as the Empress was, leaving her trapped in a useless body until her mind gave up the ghost was a fate that Elphaba wouldn't have wished on anyone. It brought back too many unpleasant memories of how the Animals of Oz had gradually dwindled into unintelligence during their time in captivity, and though Elphaba tried to tell herself that there wasn't that much comparison to be made, it was hard to salve her conscience.

She knew that this was the only guaranteed method of stopping Alphaba; any other way, she might be able to escape, to regenerate or even be reborn in Elphaba's mind. Even self-sacrifice wasn't a guarantee if the Empress still had the power to teleport away. But still, even after all the deaths and disasters on her conscience, the idea left a bad taste in her mouth, and the fact that she'd felt so proud of herself for coming up with it – and still felt proud of herself – only made things worse.

"Yes," she said at last. "That's pretty much the gist of it."

Branderstove chuckled, a low, bubble gurgle at the back of his throat. "Well, I never thought I'd say this, but… I think I can appreciate a nonlethal solution, especially if it means leaving the bitch to suffer for all eternity. You have my undivided attention."

"And mine," concurred Leoverus. "However, I must ask: how do you plan on injecting the Empress with enough potion to cause an overdose? She isn't likely to sit still for this, and overdoses in humans require much more potion than what you had to use for one lone tissue sample."

By way of an answer, Kiln reached into the cart and held up a large dart about the length of Elphaba's thumb. "One of these can carry perhaps a quarter of the necessary dosage for effecting an adult human being," he explained. "Of course, the Empress's tolerance levels will likely be higher thanks to her regenerative powers, so this can't be the job of a lone assassin armed with a sniper rifle – but it can be done. With our alchemists producing the potion in bulk, we can easily arm at least a hundred soldiers with perhaps five to ten darts per person; it can be delivered by blowpipe, by air gun, even by handheld mortars if the armourers are correct."

"Then you propose – what? – an ambush?"

"A lure," Elphaba clarified. "I'll bait the Empress into a duel, luring her away from Exemplar and into a gathering of camouflaged sharpshooters: once she's busy focussing all her energies on me, the snipers will pincushion her from all angles while I fly clear. With the element of surprise on our side and too many incoming attacks to shield herself from at once, she'll be caught off-guard. I don't know how many dart's will need to hit the target or how long it'll take for the transformations to run their course, but I know this much: we have the perfect means of defeating the Empress without risking the lives of civilians or giving her a chance to return. We can stop Unbridled Radiance once and for all."

There was a muttering from among the delegates, and Elphaba did her best to gage the mood: Leoverus and Glinda were clearly all in favour; Branderstove was overjoyed at the prospect of finding something worse than death to inflict on the Empress; the generals and admirals looked intrigued by the prospect; the Chapter Master was smiling mysteriously; and as for the mirror golems, they remained as impassive as ever. In fact, the only delegate who didn't look at least somewhat accepting was the Mentor, who was now frowning deeper than ever.

"How can you guarantee that this will work?" she asked quietly. "Working with an incomplete specimen doesn't give you the full picture of just how resilient the Empress really is: from what Dr Kiln tells me, dismembered organs like these can't manifest the full scope of her regenerative powers. For all we know, she might very well be immune to the potion entirely."

Elphaba took a deep breath, forcibly smothering an irritated outburst. "Based on what evidence, exactly?"

"The fact that we've tried to poison her on several occasions and every single attempt has failed."

"Our potion isn't a mundane toxin, Mentor," said Leoverus. "This is a formula that's been enhanced, enchanted and empowered over decades of modification: I'd argue that it's every bit as magical as the Grimmerie itself."

"So? The Empress has proven resistant to magic – even the spells of the Grimmerie. Potency is no guarantee of success at this point."

"Then what do you propose?" demanded Branderstove. "If her mind can be reborn in Elphaba's then then the only option is to kill them both."

"We go with my original plan, then: a witch-crystal-powered suicide attack. We either lure her out of hiding and have Elphaba blow herself up in mid-duel, or we have Elphaba captured so that the explosion will annihilate Exemplar as well."

"And what makes you think she won't be able to survive that? What if she's able to escape? The same trick won't work twice: if she manages to slip away before Elphaba here blows her top, then the Empress won't show her face on the battlefield ever again and you'll have sacrificed your best operative for nothing."

"You don't think the same thing will happen if she figures out that you're planning to use the potion on her?"

"Maybe," Elphaba conceded, "But darts are a lot subtler than say, the sight of me being converted into crystal: with darts, we'll at least have an opportunity to try again multiple times if we miss. If we screw up the suicide-bombing, we'll never get to try again."

"It's still too risky, Elphaba."

"You're acting as if any plan we'd come up with would be completely risk-free."

"Not the point! There are too many variables to account for in this plan of yours."

"Oh, come on! You said you wanted to avoid anything that depleted our forces too much, you said you wanted to make sure the Empress wouldn't be able to escape, and you said you wanted to avoid her taking over her mind – what more do you want?"

"For one thing," the Mentor grumbled, "I'd like confirmation that the erosion of the Empress' identity doesn't count as death as far as dimensional sync is concerned. How do you know that this isolation-induced death of personality won't result in the Empress being reborn in your mind anyway?"

Elphaba thought again of her latest prophetic vision, of her future self on her knees and begging for Dorothy to put her out of her misery. As frustrating as it was to admit it, the Mentor had a point: there were still a lot of unknown factors in this new field of study that they couldn't account for just yet… but unfortunately, the suicide-bombing plan was just as open to mistakes. If the darts didn't work, then the Empress wouldn't automatically know that she'd been struck with the potion and they might have a chance to try again; if the bombing failed, even if the Mentor could find potential candidates with the magical power to serve as suicide bombers, the Empress would simply refuse to engage from then on.

Plus, if the Mentor was willing to try suicide-bombing Exemplar, there'd also be a few too many civilian casualties on Elphaba's conscience for her liking – ie: any at all.

"I don't," she admitted, wearily. "But I think there's another reason why you don't think this plan will work, Mentor, it's because you're taking this even more personally than Branderstove – or me, for that matter."

A deathly silence followed.

"…I beg your pardon?"

"You're refusing a practical solution that actually avoids collateral damage and the risk of expanding No-Man's Land even further, Mentor. You want to make your solution as destructive as possible, just so you can be satisfied with leaving the Empress dead. How else am I supposed to look at this situation? It's not just a practical matter with you: you want revenge-"

"Choose your next words very carefully, Elphaba."

"It's true, though, isn't it? You want revenge for everything the Empress has ever done to you and to the Deviant Nations; you might not want her to suffer for all eternity, but you can't take the idea of her being alive by the end of this war, even if she can't harm anyone else. If this were really a practical matter, you could disperse her liquid remains for thousands of miles and be satisfied with the fact that the Empress was gone for good. But because you want to watch her being charred to a crisp, you're prepared to take an option that might not work and kill hundreds – if not thousands of innocent people."

The Mentor's face twitched dangerously. "I think I've established my reasons for not wanting to trust your unproven strategy-"

"-in favour of your unproven strategy?"

"Can you actually prove that the Empress wouldn't be able to resist the effects of the potion?"

"Can you prove that you're able to tackle this problem objectively?"

"Pot-kettle, Elphaba; I need advice from you about being objective like a moose needs a hat-rack."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, admiral. But the point stands: you're the one who's not thinking objectively."

"Because I'm thinking of a plan that might not get hundreds of people needlessly killed if it fails?"

"Or perhaps because you're unwilling to sacrifice your life now that you've actually got something to live for?"

"Nice, Mentor," Elphaba snarled. "Real nice. And you want me to choose my next words carefully?

"I'm just saying that you've become too enamoured with a miracle solution that'll grant you everything you want, you're ignoring the obvious caveats. Give me one good reason why I should commit my forces to a plan that – even if it works – leaves our mortal enemy alive. Even if we disperse her body, even if her identity really is rendered down to nothing, I'm not willing to take the chance that the Empress might one day recoalesce. I don't intend to leave this as a problem for the next generation to deal with, Elphaba."

Elphaba opened her mouth, a smartass remark already in motion… and realized too late that she was about to say something she was going to regret. She'd let her anger and frustration take the reins once again, and she was going to make a bad situation even worse – again!

"Yeah," she snapped, "and while we're on the subject of the next generation, I'm sure Allaran and Alyss would be very proud to see the depths you've sunk to for the sake of revenge."

The Mentor blinked.

Then, her face contorted into a snarl of fury. A split-second later, the conference table let out a low, tortured groan as several tonnes of kinetic force began pressing down on it at once, until the entire table split in half with an earsplitting crack. Even Elphaba couldn't help but take a step back in alarm.

For five hearstopping seconds, the two of them stood perfectly still and utterly silent on either side of the conference room, Elphaba kicking herself for flying off the handle again, the Mentor seething in rage, both waiting for the other to make the first move.

Just as it looked as if the partnership was going to end in a full-blown wizard's duel, a voice rang out across the conference room, instantly shattering the impasse.

"Enough!"

All eyes turned in the direction of the voice: at first, it looked as if it had come from one of the mirror golems, but none of them had mouths with which to speak. Then, all three golems rose their feet and stood shoulder to shoulder, flat-planed torsos forming a single pane of mirror… and across their gleaming breastplates, a figure appeared. At first, it was only a blurry, indistinct silhouette on the other side of the mirror, but as it drew closer, it became more defined – until at last it poured itself into reality as a solid, recognizable figure.

The Mistress of Mirrors stood before them, resplendent in her glossy black robes, her face hidden beneath a hood; logically, she shouldn't have been able to see anything with her face cowled, but with Nessa's powers, it wasn't as if she needed to see with her eyes alone.

"I assume I need no introduction," she said briskly.

The Mentor sighed. "You'd assume correctly. You have something to contribute to this debate, Mistress of Mirrors, or are you just protesting the lack of progress?"

"I know this isn't exactly a situation that calls for the democratic method, but I strongly recommend that you accept Elphaba's solution for all the reasons you've suggested thus far and more."

"Do you have any method of poisoning the Empress with the potion or getting our assassins into the palace?"

"You know as well as I do that the Empress has the power to block my ingress."

"Do you have any means of confirming that she wouldn't be able to resist the effects of the potion?"

"No."

"Then what is the point of even discussing this? More to the point, why exactly was this serious enough to merit your personal involvement? Why are so in favour of Elphaba's solution?"

Without saying a word, the Mistress of Mirrors lifted her hood, revealing Nessa's pale, smiling face.

In the background, Dr Kiln hid his own face in his hand. "Oh boy," he muttered. "Here we go…"

Meanwhile, If the Mentor was in any way shocked by what she'd seen, she gave no sign of it: if anything, she looked even angrier.

"So it was you all along," she said icily. "I can think of several reasons why you'd want to keep your bitch of a sister alive, Nessarose… but then, the first allegiance of a Purified citizen of Unbridled Radiance is to the Empress."

"I'm surprised you noticed," Nessa admitted. "I'm not exactly the typical model. You've got good eyes for your age, Mentor."

"Just the one, in fact. But I don't need to see it to know it: you've got that familiar stink about you. Plastic and vanilla, old dolls and bland perfume. Every single version of the Purified I've fought over the years, no matter the upgrades, has had that smell about them under all the other fragrances. So tell me, Nessa, why should I listen to a word you say?"

"Because I'm no ordinary Purified. Because my mind is free, unlike all the other brainwashed slaves that my sister calls 'nobility.' I called in a favour to have my Purification sabotaged, and now I stand before you, an independent operative, ready to do my part to end my sister's reign once and for all. Besides," she added cheerfully, "do you really think I'd have been able to tolerate anyone here if I was really one of the Imperial Faithful?"

"I've known Purified ambassadors to clamp down on their bigotry just long enough to plant a bomb at a conference table."

"Long enough for an alliance of several months? I doubt any ordinary Purified would collaborate with you as long as I have, Glinda."

The Mentor fumed. "Very well, then," she growled. "Assuming you're not here for the sake of your Empress, you're here for the sake of your sister – both the real one and the alternate, no doubt. You're here in the hope that Elphaba's plan can somehow save your beloved half-sibling from being brutally murdered over the course of ending her tyranny. Heartwarming, I'm sure, but you're still not in a position to convince me: family precludes you from approaching the problem objectively."

"I had a feeling you might say that. But I think I have a few bargaining chips that might change your mind."

"Once again, Nessarose, why the hell should I listen to you?"

Nessa smirked. "Because I'm the only way you'll ever get to see your daughter again."

For what felt like eternity, a deathly silence reigned in the conference room, and when the Mentor finally replied, it was in a shocked, disbelieving tone of voice that she probably hadn't used in decades.

"…w-what?"

"Alyssiana Tiggular is alive and well, Glinda, and she is within my reach. But if you want to be reunited with her, then you'll have to accept Elphaba's plan."

"You're bluffing," said the Mentor, but without conviction. "You… you have to be bluffing. I had the best spies in the country combing Unbridled Radiance's secret archives for months on end just to find some trace of her, and they all confirmed that the records of Alyss's capture had been expunged. How could you-"

"A lot of time and a lot of effort. It took years to pick up the trail that the Empress's men left in their wake and even longer to follow the breadcrumbs to their destination, especially since they left no documents as you said. But everyone has a reflect. Everyone casts shadows, and everyone makes echoes… and echoes don't vanish as swiftly as you think: they linger for eons, growing fainter with every year, but never becoming truly inaudible. They can be heard if you have the ability and the patience to listen, and once I was done sorting through the tangle of other sounds that had layered it, I finally found the orders sending your daughter away. I heard the navigator provide coordinates to an orphanage in the city of Joyous Day, deep in Unbridled Radiance; once again, no record were kept, but they had more than enough mirrors for me to see where Alyss went while she was in the building. Once they were finished giving her a new face, she was moved to a much more remote orphanage in the far north of the Empire, well away from anything of strategic value – presumably so your operatives would never bump into her by mistake. She was taken in by a reasonably well-to-do family: they were kind parents, patient, tolerant… but they were still devout citizens of the Empire. Granted, they weren't successful enough to warrant Purification, but they knew when to call for professional help when Alyss tried to run away. The Disciplinarians gradually broke her of that habit; it took a nearly two years of therapy – psychoactive drugs, mental enchantments, hypnotherapy and physical torture – but she eventually forgot almost everything she once was and became just another citizen of Unbridled Radiance."

The Mentor could in stare in disbelief: she looked older than ever by now, the horror seemingly aging her by centuries.

"…almost?" she blurted at last.

"By the time I found Alyss, she was a grown woman and had been Purified for quite some time – a reward for her work hunting down rare tomes for the university – but her diary confirms that she still has strange dreams of her life before her childhood conditioning. Even Purification couldn't erase those memories: she still remembers the songs you used to sing to her; she still remembers being given piggyback rides by her big brother. And that is how I can guarantee that you can be reunited with her… if you accept Elphaba's proposal."

The Mentor very slowly sat down, ashen-faced with shock. "She's still one of the Purified, though," she said hoarsely. "She'd still consider me an abomination."

"And that's where Elphaba comes in. You see, you'll need to do something about the Purified if you hope to end the threat posed by Unbridled Radiance: they won't just stop once the Empress is dead, even if you render her down into a Distortion. They'll carry on according to their conditioning, furthering the Empire in her name no matter how much of Unbridled Radiance you destroy; even if the empire's been fractured and dissolved into nothingness, they'll never stop trying to rebuild it. But as it happens, I've found a solution – one that lies within the memory banks of Paragon, the very thinking engine that help the Empress direct the war.

"You see, the Empress has a secret method to ensure that the Purified can receive upgrades: she can't broadcast such orders through ordinary comms channels – after all, she can't afford to let anyone know that her "perfect people" might need improvement, so, whenever it's time for an update, Paragon sends out a signal that only the Purified can detect thanks to their augmentations; upon hearing this, they've been conditioned to head for the nearest Temple of Ascendency and shut down until they can be upgraded. But if we can take control of Paragon, we can ensure that the modifications made to the Purified will cleanse them of all programming and conditioning: they will be able to think for themselves and in defiance of the Radiant Laws… and more importantly, they'll be able to help you take control of the country and ensure peace. And," she added with a wink, "they'll be to interact honestly and sincerely with their families."

"And how exactly do you know that these modifications will work?"

"I have it on good authority from one of the best mage-surgeons in the country," said Nessa, offering a mischievous grin.

Kiln blushed and coughed sheepishly, hastily covering a smile of his own with his hands.

"But here's the thing," Nessa continued. "Paragon only sends out these upgrade signals at the command of the Empress herself, and they can only be delivered in the thinking engine's central processing chamber. If a petitioner doesn't possess her face and her blood, the machine won't listen to them; in other words, you can't use the Amorphous League for this – no offence intended, Leoverus."

"None taken."

"Long story short, a bit of realistic makeup can fool Paragon, but unless it's got the Empress's blood and facial layout, it won't work. Now, I could be wrong, but this sounds like a more-than-acceptable reason for not throwing Elphaba's life away in a suicide attack that might not even work."

Nessa took a deep breath. "But in the end, the choice is yours: you can either destroy the Empress, satisfy both your paranoia and your desire for vengeance – and destroy your one chance to achieve everything you ever wanted in the process… or you can take a chance and trust that your allies know what they're doing. Once again, the choice is yours."

There was a pause. Then at last, the Mentor very slowly sank back into her chair.

"I'm going to need proof of your claims," she said quietly. "And as this is a personal matter, I'd rather discuss this in private. Ladies and gentlemen, if you please…"

As one, everyone rose from their seats and began filing out through the doors – most likely because nobody wanted to find out what the Mentor would do if she didn't like Nessa's guarantees. Elphaba reluctantly followed, dragged along by a bemused-looking Glinda with Kiln in tow.

"Not you, Dr Kiln," the Mentor called after him. "I'm going to need your expert opinion on these matters…"

Half an hour later, the Mentor emerged from the conference room, white as chalk from head to do and looking haggard to the point of decomposition… and yet there something new about her mangled face, an emotion that looked almost obscene on those scarred, mismatched features:

Hope.

"I think," she said at last, "We might just be able to make Elphaba's plan work."

Behind her, Nessa and Dr Kiln were smiling happily. Elphaba wanted to smile back – after all, they were finally setting out to save the Deviant Nations in a way that everyone could be happy with…

…and yet, all she could think about were visions of the future – for new ones were now streaming in, and they were unlike any Elphaba had seen before.

…Again, the future Elphaba is kneeling before Dorothy, begging for death…

…the Empress is deep in conversation with men in unrecognizable uniforms, discussing strategies over a map that depicts neither Oz nor the parallel world…

…Colonel Gloss is singing a song about a trout as he assembles a jigsaw puzzle…

…a heap of Elphaba's empty clothes lies crumpled on the floor; under the vacant robes, a tiny rag doll made of green cloth smiles vacantly out at the world. Dorothy takes the little doll into her arms and weeps…

…the nursery is crowded; new methods of control are in place and the curse of unwanted youth is deliberately spread; a parasite in the guise of a child lurks in the darkness…

…a white mask sits on the shores of an underground lake…

"…I think it's the witch-crystal! You've been taking it for so long it's begun enhancing your prophetic abilities as well…"

…a vast city of identical towers sprawls from horizon to horizon, populated by perfect, faceless beings, and though they have no eyes or features of any kind, it's clear they hate her merely for existing…

…a door has been opened, and the Empress is dragging Elphaba towards it…

…an ancient king in robes of sunset hue walks across the midnight sky, the eye and the pyramid chained behind him…

…a father and his child sit in a hospital room together: they have been here for decades, but they are meeting for the first time…

…a dragon lies coiled in a vast underground chamber, surrounded by books. Sensing an intruder, it rears up and bellows a challenge – revealing that it has a human face…

…a woman is crying over an empty cradle…

…and in the shadows between visions, a lone pair of icy blue eyes can be seen glinting in the darkness, watching everything.

Waiting for the perfect moment…

A/N: Any idea what it might mean? Any idea what'll happen next?