Elphaba Grimmerie Other World

'The Paraffin Necklace,' admitted the Wizard. 'Well, it was a public affair. A statement needed to be made. There now, against my better judgment, I have told you what you wanted to know. Now it is your turn. Where can I find the book that this page is from?' The Wizard took the paper out of his pocket and pressed it out onto his lap. His hands were trembling. He looked at the page. 'A spell for the Administration of Dragons,' he said, wonderingly.

'Is that what it is?' she said, surprised. 'I could not be sure.'

'Of course. You must have a hard time making this out,' he said. 'You see, it does not come from this world. It comes from my world.'

He was mad, obsessed with other worlds. Like her father.

'You are not telling the truth,' said the Witch, hoping she was right.

'Oh, what care I for the truth,' he said, 'but I am truthful, as it happens.'

'Why would you want that?' said the Witch, trying to buy some time, trying to figure out how she could barter for Nor's life. 'I don't even know what it is. I don't believe you do either.'

'I do,' he said. 'This is an ancient manuscript of magic, generated in a world far away from this one. It was long thought to be merely legendary, or else destroyed in the dark onslaughts of the northern invaders. It had been removed from our world for safety by a wizard more capable than I. It is why I came to Oz in the first place,' he continued, almost talking to himself, as old men are prone to do. 'Madame Blavatsky located it in a crystal ball, and I made the appropriate sacrifices and-arrangements- to travel here forty years ago. I was a young man, full of ardor and failure. I had not intended to rule a country here, but just to find this document and return it to its own world, and to study its secrets there.'

'What kind of sacrifices?' she said. 'You do not stint from murder here.'

'Murder is a word used by the sanctimonious,' he said. 'It is an expedient expression with which they condemn any courageous action beyond their ken. What I did, what I do, cannot be murder. For, coming from another world, I cannot be held accountable to the silly conventions of a naive civilization. I am beyond that lisping childish recital of wrongs and rights.' His eyes did not burn as he spoke; they were sunk behind veils of cold blue detachment.

- Wicked, Book 5