Through a veil of shock, Magpie was dimly aware of a voice. She had a fleeting vision of her father’s eyes, but it faded. Her thoughts sank back into the darkness. Surely she’d left herself there. What sat here in the world looked enough like her to fool the others, she thought, but it was an illusion. A shell echoing with the drone of the endless ocean. She was back in the darkness where she could find Poppy and Maniac and guide them out. She hoped. Because if she wasn’t there with them, they were alone. And if she wasn’t there, where was she? Not here. She knew the feel of her own skin and this wasn’t it, this blurred and fragile shell. It couldn’t be.

Exchanging a worried look with Calypso, Orchidspike went on in her chatty tone, “Robin asked her all about the world he’d only read of in books, and what a picture she wove of beyond! Flocks of macaws that swoop hundreds-strong through the sultry bowers of rain forests, hollow mountains that cough fire, striped cats as big as cattle, and faeries who ride to war on lizardback with fangs pushed through their earlobes. Shooting stars, hooded snakes, spiny trees, islands of ice cutting through the sea like slow ships! And sure you lot have seen all that with your own eyes, but to Robin? It was like a dream.

“I had to shoo him out so she could rest, but not feet nor wings would carry him away, and he slept outside her window and she found him there, and this time it was he who woke to the sight of her eyes, and after that there was no question of parting! Do you know they found a frog who would marry them that very night?”

“That very night?” repeated Pup.

“Aye! And they drifted off together on a lily pad down Spinney Creek. After a week, when Kite’s wings had healed, Robin brought his bride back to Never Nigh.” Orchidspike’s look of fond remembrance became clouded. “She was not well received.”

“Lady Kite? Why not?” asked Pup.

Orchidspike shrugged. “Half the lasses were in love with Robin themselves. How was Kite to make friends among them? Neh, she was never happy here. It was good you birds came along when you did!”

“And good for us,” added Bertram. “If not for her long-life potions, we’d be dust long since.”

“And how spry you are! ‘Tis a fine bit of sparkle!”

“Aye, she tricked it off a witch doctor. Wicked lot, but they have their uses,” answered Calypso.

In the corridor, Talon’s head was swimming with witches and witch doctors, hooded snakes and love at first glance and long-life potions. Such a world beyond Dreamdark! He could well imagine how Robin must have felt back then—but without the love part, sure. Of course, without that.