Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
She turned her stern face on him then, and the line of her mouth softened into a frown. “Ach, well, you may yet be surprised,” she said, then looked back up at the Magruwen. “Lord,” she implored. “Please . . . how better to start a new age than to right old wrongs? All those sparks the Blackbringer stole leave a lot of cold places behind in the world, empty shoes and torn lives, and why not start fresh by stealing them back and making things whole? Whatever it was faeries did in the past, whatever treachery, it’s done, and sure the past can’t be undone, but it can be forgiven. I swear I’ll do everything I can to make you proud of faeries again, and how much finer will it be to build a new age on forgiveness than on anguish?”
“There will always be anguish.”
Magpie heard what he said but paid closer heed to what he didn’t say. He didn’t say there would be no new age; he didn’t say he could never forgive. With a stir of hope she tried one last thing. “And Lord, what of this? I saw all those lights in him! What if he keeps their sparks burning inside him? What if he needs them? What if they give him strength, and we can take them away?”
The Magruwen’s vertical eyes looked hard at her. After a moment he said, “Put the hair there, crow, and leave me. All of you.” He turned away. “I’ll have the seal for you tomorrow.”
Magpie waited, holding her breath. At length the Djinn muttered, almost inaudibly, “And one star. One. Only one.”
The faeries had rejoined the crows and were well into Dreamdark when, behind them at the school grounds, the earth began to tremble.
The quaking was rhythmic as the approaching footsteps of some slow giant. In the manor, windowpanes rattled and fell still, rattled and fell still, again and again. White-faced, the humans listen in silence until the headmistress looked out the window to see smoke roiling out from the old well. Its plumes were braiding themselves in patterns as they rose to disperse on the wind. She gasped, and her gasp unlocked the moment. Schoolgirls shrieked. White frocks fluttered.
“To the chapel!” cried the headmistress, grabbing lasses and shoving them in the right direction.