He had dreamed and dreamed, century after decade after day. Now those dreams washed over him anew. Memory opened, and all that had passed lay plain before him. And much had passed. The lass spoke true. He had indeed dreamed her, but the dream, he saw, had come from across that border, somewhere in the deep realms of Fade’s mind. Or rather, he thought, from deeper still. He knew Fade’s dreams. These wild fancies of faeries—a faerie who could weave the Tapestry!—had not been born in a dragon’s mind. In that far moon-washed world there was another mind he knew well, one obstinate soul who wouldn’t shrink from such a trick. He had gone where her imps couldn’t find him, so she had found another way of reaching him.

“Bellatrix,” he said, opening his eyes and blinking down at the lass.

“Aye, and Fade too, Lord,” Magpie said.

“You’ve seen him?”

“Aye.” She twisted around and waggled a finger through the hole in the back of her shift. “This is from his claw. He caught me falling off a cliff when my wings were crushed. Of course, he made me fall in the first place. He gave me a mad shiver. He—” She squinted up into the Djinn’s bright face. “He frets for you, Lord. He about roasted me when he heard the Blackbringer was back.” To the relief of the faeries and the crow, the Magruwen ebbed down to a thin column of flame. Breath came easier, and they were able to relax their squinting eyes.

“It was he who told you about the Astaroth,” he said.

“Aye,” she admitted. “But he made me think you killed him. But you didn’t, did you? Somehow, he’s the Blackbringer.”

“What makes you think this, faerie?” he asked, sounding more intrigued than angry now.

“He has eyes like yours,” she said. “And he’s not like a snag. And”—she gestured to Talon at her side—“Talon guessed the darkness was a skin, or I don’t reckon I’d have thought of it at all.”

The Magruwen turned to Talon. “What do you know of skins, Rathersting?”

“Er—” he stammered. “Next to nothing—”

“He made one, Lord,” Magpie piped up.

“Indeed.”

“Aye, he’s got it right here. Would you like to see it?”

Talon blushed around his tattoos, and the Djinn nodded.

Talon fumbled the skin out of his pocket and held it up with trembling hands. Its threads took on the orange glow of the Djinn, but the subtle sparkle of many other colors gleamed in its folds. The Magruwen’s eyes moved over it quickly from top to bottom, then bottom to top, and then, after a glance at Talon, top to bottom again. “Who taught you this?” he asked.

“Orchidspike the healer taught me to knit with the needles her foremother had from you, Lord. But I taught myself to spell a skin together.”