PROLOGUE – The Two Glindas
 
 
The storm had not moved.
 
The gods had drifted back to their arguments and ledgers, but the ceiling of cloud above Olympus still hung low and bright, humming with the aftertaste of lightning. The scale beside the throne rocked lazily, as if exhausted by having tilted at all.
 
Wiz stood near the platform’s edge with the Book of Glinda in one hand, the Hourglass warm at his belt, and the Ruby Slippers burning on his feet.
 
He felt older and not at all wiser.
 
The Minotaur waited a few paces back, visibly uncomfortable this high above dirt and blood. Loki lounged near a pillar, as if the whole proceeding had been an especially entertaining play.
 
“Well,” Loki said, stretching. “Chains fall, gods mumble, markets tremble, and no one died in the hall. That’s a good day by Olympus standards. Time to go, I think. Before someone has the bright idea to draft you into permanent committee service.”
 
Wiz nodded, the motion stiff.
 
He turned toward the stairs.
 
The Book tugged at him.
 
It wasn’t heavier in his hand, but it was heavier in his mind. The white-and-gold cover caught the light; the word GLINDA gleamed along the spine like a smile too wide to be sincere.
 
It’s not mine, the Warden said quietly. Not anymore.
 
“I know,” he thought.
 
You don’t, she replied. Not yet.
 
He took one step toward the descent.
 
“Captain.”
 
Zeus’ voice rolled across the stone.
 
It wasn’t loud.
 
It didn’t need to be.
 
Every god in the ring turned as if pulled by the same chain. The Minotaur froze. Loki’s smile flattened.
 
Wiz turned back.
 
“Yes?” he said.
 
Zeus had not risen from the throne. He leaned back now, elbow on the armrest, fingers curled around his chin, studying Wiz the way a man might study a tool he wasn’t finished sharpening yet.
 
“You are taking that with you,” Zeus said, nodding at the Book.
 
“Yes,” Wiz said slowly. “You just put it in my hands.”
 
“As I must,” Zeus said. “The decree will need a mortal mouth. Courts will need a text to pretend to obey. Emerald—whatever you build in the ruins—will need a manual.”
 
A faint murmur of interest ran around the circle at the word “Emerald.”
 
Rum’s shadow brightened.
 
“Ah, so we’re naming it now,” Rum purred.
 
“But,” Zeus went on, “I do not intend for my halls to be left without a copy.”
 
Wiz’s fingers tightened reflexively on the Book.
 
“There is only one,” he said. “The Warden’s pages, rebound. You saw Hephaestus peel the leather off himself.”
 
“Pages can be copied,” Zeus said. “Covers can be repeated. Doctrine can be doubled without losing power.”
 
That’s not how it works, the Warden said sharply. Words live in how they are carried, not just how they are traced.
 
Daisy Medusa, who had been whispering with Demeter and Columbia near one of the pillars, straightened like a woman who had been waiting for a cue.