Magpie had never been to school. She’d learned at campfires while fanning cheroot smoke out of her face, or in selkies’ caves or dungeons, or wherever the caravans set down for a season. With her parents and grandmother she’d excavated the ruins of the Djinns’ forsaken temples in four far-flung lands, those of the Ithuriel, the Sidi-Haroun, the Iblis, and the Azazel, and she had helped her father bind and translate the ancient manuscripts they unearthed there. She had learned her glyphs from dozens of faeries in as many forests, from books she stole back from monkeys, even from the eyeless imps who swam the unfathomable springs of the water elementals.

Now here she was at the fount of all mystery, the Tapestry, with the Djinn King himself for a teacher. She knew her parents would pay toes for this chance and so, ordinarily, would she. But her mind kept turning to the shadow that hunted in Dreamdark and the look in Poppy’s eyes as she dissolved right out of life.

“It will take you years to learn to read it,” the Magruwen went on, plucking each thread and glyph as he named it so it glowed brighter. “Diamond, flamingo, rust, snow . . .”

“But I don’t have years!” she said. “The Blackbringer—”

“Be still. The Tapestry will be no use to you unless you can understand it.”

Unhappily, Magpie listened. “Fig, lava, zinc, spider, teeth . . .” She wouldn’t have thought that here, beyond her body, she would be in danger of getting the wiggles, but she couldn’t help herself. The Djinn’s rasping voice began to wear away like a file at Magpie’s patience. She fidgeted.

He came to a glyph she recognized, and she called out its meaning. “Threshold!” It was part of the spell Snoshti had taught her for traveling to and from the Moonlit Gardens. It hit her how when she’d held that glyph in her mind, this was what she’d called upon, this bright symbol—it was something real—and she began to understand how it all worked. In her excitement, she felt a tingling in her fingertips. She gasped, and froze. Three curls of light were winding away from her like water snakes.

“Stop!” the Magruwen commanded, but it was too late. The threads careened into the Tapestry and sent a ripple through its weave. They burrowed into the fabric and cinched tight, making one more ugly knot.

“I’m sorry!” Magpie said. “I didn’t mean to!”

The Magruwen’s voice seethed through her mind, filling it like the Blackbringer’s had. “You have no control. It’s stronger than you, this gift. It will crush you.”

“Neh, Lord. Please! I can learn.”

“Look what you’ve done!” He guided her eyes closer to the new knot. “Wild faerie feelings set loose? Is that the way to weave the world? There was not even a tear in the fabric here. Do you see what you have done?”