Things like crowns had a troublesome effect on clever folks; it was best to leave all the reigning to the kind of people whose eyebrows met in the middle. Three witches gathered on a lonely heath. A king cruelly murdered, his throne usurped by his ambitious cousin. A child heir and the crown of the kingdom, both missing… Witches don’t have these kind of dynastic problems themselves – in fact, they don’t have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more complicated than certain playwrights would have you believe, particularly when the blood on your hands just won’t wash off and you’re facing a future with knives in it…

‘Things have to come to an end, see. That’s how it works when you turn the world into stories. You should never have done that. You shouldn’t treat people like they was characters, like they was things. But if you do, then you’ve got to know where the story ends.’ It seemed an easy job… After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn’t marry a prince? Quite hard, actually, even for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. That’s the problem with real life – it tends to get in the way of a good story, and a good story is hard to resist. Servant girls have to marry the prince. That’s what life is all about. You can’t fight a Happy Ending, especially when it comes with glass slippers and a Fairy Godmother who has made Destiny an offer it can’t refuse.