“Aye. My parents figured out a long time ago that magic is slipping out of the world, but it turns out it’s worse than they know,” she said, thinking of the Tapestry, the unweaving, the Astaroth. “Far worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“I been finding out some things lately,” she said. “Some real dire things. But the one to worry on first is the Blackbringer.”

“What was all that you were saying back at the castle? About it being the . . . what was it? Asterisk?”

“Astaroth,” she corrected. “He was a wind elemental, as ancient as the Djinn, who helped them make the world.”

“Eh? I never heard of that.”

“Neh, no one did. Things went bad betwixt ’em. The Astaroth made the devils, so the Djinn did away with him. I thought Fade meant they killed him, but now I think maybe they just changed him somehow, into the Blackbringer.”

“What’s this about Fade?” Talon asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

“Er . . . ,” Magpie said, and nimble lies filled her mouth, ready to tumble out. But she bit them back. “Well,” she said slowly, her eyes holding his gaze steady. “When Snoshti took me away before . . . I met him.”

“What?” he asked with a laugh, thinking she was joking. “Where?”

“In the canyon where he lives.”

He stopped laughing. “I thought he was dead.”

“He is.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been to the Moonlit Gardens.”

She just looked at him.

“Impossible!” he exclaimed, remembering only as he said it, What do I know of impossible? Less and less every minute, sure, he thought, and paused before asking, “Okay, but . . . how?”

“That blessing ceremony I told you about . . . ,” she said, and took a deep breath, blushing. “Talon, listen, this is all going to sound mad, but here it is.”

She told him everything in one swift rush. By the end of it he was just staring at her, and she said peevishly, “You wanted to know, now you know. Say something.”

“So it’s . . . the Tapestry? The . . . energy . . . that’s all around us? Like a river?”

Magpie cocked her head and looked at him keenly. “You feel it too?”

He nodded. “When I’m knitting, it’s like my mind falls into a river full of glyphs that just takes me. . . .”

Magpie was nodding too, and that wondering smile was playing at the corners of her lips. “Flummox me,” she said. “And Poppy felt it too. I guess I’m not alone like I always thought.”

“Do you think all faeries feel it?” Talon asked.

“I know they used to, before the Djinn forsook us.”

“Maybe when the Magruwen dreamed you, his dreams sort of spilled over and touched other sprouts who were being born too.”

“We are all the same age,” she mused. “And we were all born in Dreamdark. I wonder if it’s just us or if there are others too.”

“I wonder.”

“So you . . . believe me?” Magpie asked timidly.