It had not been the kind of flight he’d had in mind.

Down in his cave, the Magruwen paced and muttered. He held a withered, ancient thing, a pomegranate so old the skin was no longer red, but brown and brittle as parchment. As delicate as it looked, however, it was unharmed by the Djinn’s fiery grip.

“I’ve drifted in the ocean’s womb . . . ,” the riddle had said. He should have guessed then, but the other clues hadn’t matched. The vultures, that was clever, weaving them into the riddle to seem like one creature. It was so clear now. “Fires put out . . .” The Magruwen wondered which one it had been, which Djinn, where. This was the world to which he had awakened, a world diminished by one Djinn, a tremendous absence that he should have recognized instantly. One of his six brethren had been extinguished, and more had gone out of the world than that one smoldering fire. And something else . . . something else had come back in.

“So,” he whispered. “Ocean spit you out? Have this world, then. I don’t use it anymore.”

He was so weary. He retreated into the depths of his cave and sank back into oblivion, subsiding once again to a smolder, the pomegranate still tight in his grasp. He dreamed that an immense tapestry was hanging from the eaves of the world. He’d dreamed of it many times, but this time the tapestry shivered and fell to dust and all that remained was the deep black of space with no world spinning in it, graceful and green. No world at all.

FIVE

Magpie and the crows flew by night, high enough above the human lands that the jumble of gypsy caravans they towed wouldn’t attract attention. They didn’t worry about meeting anyone up here. The pathways of the skies were traveled by winds and white geese, wheeling bats and butterflies, but they never encountered other faeries here, and it had been decades since they had seen a witch silhouetted against the moon.

“Take ’em down, my lovelies!” Calypso croaked, sweeping along the line of airborne caravans. “The sun, she stirs! Time to fill our bellies and shut our eyes!”

There was a bloom of light on the horizon. Day was coming on. They bade the wind goodbye and dropped down toward the forest far below. This stretch of Iskeri was the last place of safety before the channel they would cross the next night on the way to Dreamdark. They eased through the treetops and set their five caravans down gently in a nook between roots.

The gypsy wagons were a marvel of color in the shady woods. They were carved with sunbursts and stars and painted in jewel tones, with real gems glimmering like mosaic tiles in the designs. The big spoked wheels were radiant red, the roofs were vaulted and the windows round, and each had a bright copper chimney and weather vane, one a dragon, one a whale, a tiger, a phoenix, and a heron with its wings spread wide.