“I’m coming to it, child,” Bellatrix answered. “For thousands of years after I came here I had contact with the Magruwen. The hedge imps came and went between us, bearing messages. Those years were stretched so thin with longing and remorse, they passed very slowly for me. And the change was happening very slowly, too. If one wasn’t a . . . captive . . . of the past, one might not notice. But I was, and did. From faeries crossing the river I saw how far our folk had fallen. Their magic was paler and paler all the time. The old folk who arrived told of young faeries with no gift for their clan’s ancient ways. There was talk of a new species, humans. And the Magruwen was changing. There was a hardness and weariness in his messages. Even before the dragons began to die, it worried me. And after? After Fade was murdered there were no more messages at all. Not even a farewell. The Magruwen destroyed Issrin Ev and my imps couldn’t find him. I heard nothing more of him. It was Fade, later, who told me he slept.” She pulled the brush slowly through Magpie’s hair. “That was when the idea came, a little sparkle of an idea, wild . . . maybe impossible. But like a scavenger imp, I couldn’t get it out of my mind!”

Magpie smiled at that.

“The faeries needed a new champion, and it wouldn’t be me. Even if I could somehow go back—and I had tried—there was little I could have done. The Tapestry was falling apart and darkness was waiting on the other side, and the Djinn were sleeping through it. The faeries—the world—needed a new kind of champion. . . .” She paused. “So I imagined you.”

Magpie started, stunned. “What?” she gasped.

Bellatrix pulled the brush through her hair and went on, her voice rich with feeling. “Don’t you see? The dreams, the shared dreams of the dragon and the Djinn King. At last, their dreams brought new life into the Tapestry.”

“The Tapestry,” repeated Magpie. “The Magruwen spoke of it. What is it?”

Bellatrix shook her head sadly. “That faeries have forgotten the Tapestry; that is the greatest tragedy of all. It’s the fabric of all creation and it’s woven of dreams, the dreams of the Djinn. Dreams are real, Magpie. They’re seed and water and sun. They’re everything.” She paused, let Magpie’s hair run out of her hands. “That is what you feel, child, what faeries have lost the power to feel, and what you’ve begun to see in glimpses.”

Magpie turned to look at her. “The pulse? The light? The—the living light?” she stammered.