“I miss sunrise even more. The green scent of dawn in the forest? The color blushing back into the world, different every day.”

Magpie remembered a long winter of night she’d once spent in the northern icelands and how desperately she’d craved daylight. “Why did the Djinn make it like this? Always night?”

“Ah, well, it suits the seraphim.”

“Who?”

“Well, they’re us, really. What we become? There are two parts to a creature, Magpie, the spark and the skin. The longer we’re in the Gardens, the closer we are to our spark, and the more we relinquish our skin and all the drama and fleshly stuff of being alive. Love and anger and jealousy? Our hungers and longings. We couldn’t go on like that for eternity. We’d go mad.”

“But haven’t you been here twenty-five thousand years?”

Bellatrix smiled. “I? But I am mad! The Magruwen always said I was the most obstinate faerie who ever lived. Sure he never thought he’d have such proof as this, me clinging to my skin all these thousands of years! This isn’t what it’s meant to be like, child. Everyone I ever knew . . . except Kipay, of course . . . they’ve come and become. And I’ve stayed just the same.”

“And the dragons?” asked Magpie, looking up at them.

“Ah, bless the Djinn for giving the dragons the temperament for immortality. They’ve no need to become. They’re perfect just as they are. They’ve been good companions to me these past five thousand years, especially Fade. I visit the seraphim sometimes too, up in the high planes. But I admit I prefer the riverbank, the faeries fresh from life in all their beautiful skins, bursting with gossip of the world! And then there’s you, best of all.” She reached for Magpie’s hand and squeezed it. “Glorious with life!”

Magpie blushed. Glorious with life. Bellatrix’s words chased away any fancy she still harbored about the darkness and she felt herself, for the first time since falling through the Blackbringer, settle solidly in her own skin. She hadn’t left any piece of herself behind there, and it was a lucky thing. She knew absolutely that there would have been no hope of defeating the devil if she had.

“You’ve a world to go home to now, and much to do. I wish I could come with you.”