"Oh, they've all kinds of voices, and they say all kinds of things. Herbs sort of sing, and flowers gossip like biddies."

"And trees?" Magpie asked, laying her hand on the bark of the old linden.

"Ah, trees, well, you know trees are earth elementals," she said. "Some tell tales, but they tell far less than they know."

"Sure they know a lot."

"Aye. The ancient ones like old Father Linden here have drunk the dew of the Dawn Days. Think of it, they've been alive in the world for all the lifetimes of faeries stretched end to end, all the way to the beginning! But they keep their secrets close. I rarely hear them speak at all."

"Oh, aye? Pity. I wonder if he remembers me," she mused, glancing at the place where the red door had been swallowed by a skin of bark.

"I'm sure he does! Others do. They told me you'd returned." Poppy paused and grew serious. "I missed you so when you left. Why did you? Why did you go?"

Magpie frowned. "My mother . . . It's the wind blood, I ken. She's never gotten used to being in one spot. They only stayed till I was big enough to travel, and we never stayed anyplace half so long again."

"But what is it you do . . . beyond?" Poppy asked. To the faeries of Dreamdark, leaving the forest was like leaping off the edge of the world.

"Well . . . ," Magpie mused, wondering where to start. Not with devils, sure, or chasing witches, or hanging upside down in a monkey king's dungeon. "We go find faerie clans and we try to learn their magic. Papa writes it down in books so it won't die out with the old folks. Right now they're with a clan on Anang Paranga that still practices shape-shifting."

"Shape-shifting?" Poppy marveled. "And your parents will learn how to do it?"

"Aye. We also search for clues of what happened to the Djinn and try to keep magic relics out of the hands of monkeys and mannies, who're always messing about where they oughtn't."

"You've seen humans?"

"Piff. Thousands. Mannies are nothing special."

"But aren't they giant-big?"

Magpie shrugged. "Not so big. About like a stack of raccoons. There's plenty of bigger things. You should see elephants. Whales!"

"And dragons?" asked Poppy.

"Dragons?" Magpie frowned at her. "There aren't any dragons left."

"What?"

"Neh. Humans killed 'em out ages ago! Firedrakes too."

"All of them?" Poppy asked, aghast.

Magpie knew that faeries lived in isolation, ignorant of the world, but she was still shocked. How could it not be known in Dreamdark that the dragons were extinct? Seeing Poppy's horrified expression, Magpie felt the tragedy anew. She herself had first heard the chronicle of the dragon-slaying many years ago, but it still clenched her insides to think of it. Such a frenzy of butchery it had been that even thousands of years could not cleanse humanity of its stain. Magpie chewed her lip. There was no need to school Poppy in the ugliness of the world, was there? She said casually, "Ach, who knows? There's whole volcanoes a dragon could slip down into like a bubble bath. Sure they're hiding. . . . But tell me, what about you?"

Poppy said, "Nothing to do with mannies and monkeys! Just growing things. Dreaming new flowers. Making potions."

"Potions?"

"Aye. I've never been great with glyphs," she admitted with a pretty blush. "But potions I can see and stir. They make sense to me."

Potions were a very different art from glyphs, an earthy magic Magpie associated with hearth witches and healers. "What sort of potions?" she asked.

"Oh, say, for better night vision or a singing voice, or seeing lies or remembering your dreams. And for things like wrinkles and wartsa""

"Causing them or curing them?"

Poppy laughed. "Both! And there are potions for telling if a babe is a lad or lass before it's born. And love magica""

Magpie snorted. "Love magic! I don't think you'll be needing any potions to make lads fall in love with you."

"Me?" Poppy grimaced. "Lads? Echh. Nay, please! But oh, my cousin Kex has been hounding me fierce for a potion to woo the queen."

Magpie froze and narrowed her eyes. "Queen?" she asked.

"Aye! Haven't you heard yet?" Poppy laughed a hard laugh. "The heir of Bellatrix has been found, blessings be!"

"That fake's nothing to do with Bellatrix!" Magpie snapped.

Poppy looked at her, surprised. "Oh, I know that!"

"You do?"

"Aye. Well . . . I don't know it, quite. But I don't believe it. It all happened too fast, her showing up here and getting crowned queen."

"But . . . how did it happen?"

Poppy shrugged. "She had Bellatrix's crown and tunic. She had some scroll proving who she was. And she had . . . well, she had a city full of folk whose legends were worn out. They just wanted to believe her that bad. To have a new legend, you ken?"

Magpie remembered how, for a moment, she too had wanted to believe in Vesper. Ashamed, she grimaced and asked, "Are faeries so bored they got to invent legends?"

"Bored, aye, and afraid. I know I am. Afraid nothing exciting's ever going to happen again!"

"Not all excitement's good," Magpie warned. "Most isn't."

"Well, boredom's none so fine either. There's only so much dancing a faerie can do. And it's not just faeries," Poppy said. "The imps and creatures have a story of their own. They've been waiting for yearsa"so I heara"for the faerie they believe will bring back the Dawn Days."

"Bring back the Dawn Days?"

"Aye."

"The creatures got a story about a faerie?"

"A secret story."

Magpie was flummoxed that she'd never heard it herself. The crows couldn't keep secrets to save their beaks. "But . . . you don't think they mean Vesper, do you?"

"Nay. When first she came I wondered. She does make you want to believe! Wait until you see her; you'll understand."

Magpie let out a humorless laugh. "Ach, I've seen her!"

"Oh, aye?"

"And she's not like to forget it soon. . . ." Magpie chewed her lip.

"What do you mean?"

"I, er . . . sort of . . . turned her hair into worms."

Poppy stared at her for a long moment, her face frozen in disbelief. At last she whispered, "Nay . . ."

"Aye."

A guffaw erupted from Poppy that threatened to knock both faeries from their branch. Her face turned as red as her hair and she couldn't stop laughing. Magpie had to start in too, and soon both lasses were clinging to the branch, wheezing with laughter. When she was able to gasp out the words, Poppy asked, "How did you do it?"

Magpie's laughter died away. "I don't know! I didn't even vision any glyphs. I don't know what glyphs I'd even use if I was trying. It just . . . happened."

Poppy looked puzzled. "Are you sure it was you who did it?"

Magpie shrugged. She knew how it sounded. That wasn't how magic worked. She thought of the curls of light that had wavered off her fingertips. She wasn't about to tell Poppy that and get a blank stare in return, so she said, "Well, Vesper believes it, so I reckon I've made a nice new enemy, my first day back in Dreamdark."

"Oh, Vesper, shea"" Poppy began, but fell suddenly silent. "Old Father," she said with surprise, her eyebrows shooting up as she glanced at Magpie. "Blessings to you and the earth at your roots." Her head cocked toward the linden tree in an attitude of listening. "Aye, very pleased she's come back. Why? I don'ta"" She looked at Magpie, wide-eyed, and said, "Old Father Linden wonders why you've come back to Dreamdark."

"For true?"

Poppy nodded, seeming stunned that the ancient tree was speaking.

"Wella"er . . . ," Magpie stammered, caught off guard. "I . . . I came to find the Magruwen."

Poppy looked even more stunned. Her expression hovered between disbelief and dismay. "You're jesting."

Magpie shook her head. She saw Poppy's eyes go softly out of focus as she listened to the tree for a time before saying, "Nay, faeries have all but forgotten him. He's only legend now." She paused. "The dreamer . . . I like that." She paused again, then murmured, "Aye, I never thought of it that way. . . ."

There followed a long listening that made Magpie antsy. Poppy's eyes were far away and her brow creased with worry, and Magpie longed to hear what she was hearing. She tried not to wiggle. Long moments passed before Poppy said faintly, "Aye, old Father, I'll tell her . . . ," and blinked her eyes back into focus.

"Poppy!" said Magpie. "What did he say?"

"Did you know they used to call him the dreamer?" she asked slowly. "Because he dreamed a world into creation he couldn't even live in."

"The Magruwen?"

"Aye," answered Poppy, sadness sweeping over her face. "He made a world he couldn't even touch. Have you ever thought of that?"

Puzzled, Magpie shook her head.

"Wouldn't you think . . . creatures of fire . . . wouldn't you think they'd make a different sort of world? One that wasn't so . . . fragile?"

Magpie saw what Poppy was getting at. For fire elementals, spinning through the eternal blackness of the beginning, to come together and make this delicate place, these fern fronds, these woods . . . it was a beautiful dream, but not a sensible one. They could wear skins to keep from setting fire to their creations, but it wouldn't be the same. Magpie's grandfather had said it was like holding hands while wearing gloves. The air elementals could at least dance through the treetops in their true forms and caress the birds they carried in their arms, but the Djinn never could, not without burning everything to cinders. The textures of things, which they'd rendered with such artistry, must always have been a mystery to their own touch.

"Maybe they didn't make it for themselves," Magpie murmured. "Maybe they made it for . . . us."

"Maybe. And it's perfect, nay?"

Magpie nodded. It was.

"He's asleep in a deep place now," Poppy said.

Magpie's stomach flipped. "Did the tree tell you wherea""

"There's a school for humans just outside Dreamdark. In the gardens there's a dry well. That's where the Magruwen dreams, at the bottom of it, alone and forgotten."

Dazed, the two faeries stared at each other. Magpie realized she'd had only dim expectations of succeeding in her quest. It hit her now that she was truly going to see the Djinn King, and a shiver seized her.

"In a well," Poppy said, a sheen of tears blurring her eyes. "The Djinn King! At the bottom of a well in the belly of the world. It isn't right!"

"Neh, it isn't. Did the tree say . . . why?"

Poppy shook her head. "Nay, but he did say it's high time someone had the nerve to wake him."

Magpie took a deep breath. "I reckon it is."

"But Magpie . . . you don't really mean to?"

"Aye, but I do. Come on, I got to go tell the crows!" She stood and sprang from the branch, shooting out through the tickling leaves. "Thank you, Father Linden!" she called as she went.

"Blessings, old Father," Poppy said reverently to the tree, then opened her own wings and followed.

ELEVEN.

Magpie and Poppy snuck around the side of the stage caravan just as the play ended and cheers erupted in the Ring. They slipped in through the back door to wait while the crows took their bows.

The caravan was even messier than usual. Gowns and tentacles were strewn everywhere from quick costume changes, and every trunk was flung open, so the lasses had to leap over them with a lift of wing. "It's some fright in here," Magpie said, but Poppy was taking it all in with shining eyes.

"It's grand," she said, surveying the glitter of velvets, snakeskins, and manny jewelry that covered nearly every surface. "Is that where you sleep?" She gestured up at Magpie's little bunk.

"Aye, home sweet . . ." Magpie's words trailed off when she saw that her patchwork curtain was yanked askew. "What the skive?" she growled, flying to it and not seeing how Poppy's eyes widened in shock to hear her curse. Her book lay out on her quilt. She always put it under her pillow, and she always drew her curtain closed. She thought immediately of Lady Vesper. Her eyes narrowed and she sniffed the air, detecting in it a scent of intrusion. It wasn't faerie, though, but creature. And there was a hint of something else, clean as snow and utterly foreign.

"Magpie," said Poppy, who'd been watching with curiosity as the huntress awoke in her friend. "What is it?"

"Someone's been in here," Magpie answered, reaching for her book. She could feel her protective spells were still intact so she was startled when a slip of paper dislodged from the pages. It fluttered to the floor at Poppy's feet, a trail of light unfurling behind it like the tail of a comet. Poppy picked the paper up and Magpie could tell her friend didn't see the blaze-bright aura that hung on it, slower to fade than the brief traceries she'd seen that morning flying into Never Nigh. Poppy handed the paper to her and she took it and sniffed it like a feral creature.

The strange pure smell was strong on it. Wary, Magpie turned the paper over and read it, and the ferocity left her eyes and was replaced by puzzlement.