“You never told me she was born,” breathed the dragon. It sounded to Magpie like an accusation.

“She’s still very young. I wasn’t certain.”

“And now?”

“Now I am certain. Here she is, Fade.” Bellatrix stepped aside and swept her hand toward Magpie. “Hope.”

“Hope,” spat the dragon. “This is what all your scheming has wrought, Bellatrix, wearing your voice away year after year with your fancies, for one small sprout?”

“Aye, one sprout who can do what the Djinn will not. The Tapestry is failing, Fade, and he does nothing!”

“It is not for you to decide,” said the dragon in a dangerous tone.

“Nay? Why not? It was his will that made the world so it’s his whim to let it die?”

Magpie was keenly aware of how helpless she was at this moment, flightless and in the path of dragon nostrils larger than her entire body. And as he stared at where she lay tumbled in the nightspink, she had a feeling that even the intensity of those orange eyes could set her on fire.

“You meddle in the mysteries of the Djinn!” His voice rose from a rumble to a low roar.

“Mysteries?” Bellatrix roared back. Like the champion of legend she was, she stood fearless before the dragon. “Aye. Perhaps you’ll shed some light on those mysteries, dragon. I know you know! Why did he forsake us?”

Fade said nothing.

“Nay. Faithful Fade. I know you’ll never tell. Secrets! All the years I’ve been in this place, I’ve watched the faeries come, each generation weaker than the last. What’s happened to them? I’ve guided screaming dragons over the bridge! How did that come to pass? How did humans creep into being to slaughter all your kind? Who was watching the affairs of the Djinn then? And now? Devils are roaming free with but this one small sprout against them, and if it weren’t for her, and for your part in this and mine, there would be no hope at all!”

Magpie watched wide-eyed as the two legends argued about her.

“Fade,” Bellatrix went on, her eyes flashing in the moonlight, “the Blackbringer is free.”

A burst of flame shot from Fade’s nostrils, sending twin fireballs straight at Magpie. She had to fling herself aside and roll to a crouch as the flowers sizzled and blackened where she had been. He turned his great head to the canyon and snorted great jets of fire out into it, seeming to cleanse his head of it before risking turning back to the two faeries.

“The Blackbringer, free?” he hissed.

“Aye.”

“Then it’s already too late. What can one sprout hope to do against such a foe?”

“Without the Magruwen’s help? Perhaps nothing. Fade, he must be persuaded. You could—”

“I will not defy him.”

“Not even to save faeries? Imps? Dryads, hobs, finfolk, and every other creature?”

“Nay, not if it’s his will.”