The story begins with Agnes Nitt leaving Lancre to seek a career at the Opera House in Ankh-Morpork, recently purchased by Seldom Bucket, formerly a cheesemonger. When Granny Weatherwax realizes Nanny Ogg has written an immensely popular "cookbook" but has not been paid by the publisher (and that the nom de plume of 'A Lancre Witch' may lead people to believe that she rather than Nanny wrote it), the witches leave for Ankh-Morpork to collect the money. They also hope to recruit Agnes into their coven, to replace Magrat Garlick who left the coven when she became Queen of Lancre (in Lords and Ladies). This has the side benefit of distracting Granny from becoming obsessive and self-centered, or so Nanny believes to her great relief. En route, they meet Henry Slugg, an Ankh-Morporkian opera singer who adopted a Brindisian persona of Enrico Basilica to further his career but yearns for Ankh-Morporkian cuisine after years of Brindisian pasta, squid and tomato sauce; and Granny makes a deal with Death for him not to claim the fatally-ill son of an innkeeper.
