“What?”

“Neh. Humans killed ’em out ages ago! Firedrakes too.”

“All of them?” Poppy asked, aghast.

Magpie knew that faeries lived in isolation, ignorant of the world, but she was still shocked. How could it not be known in Dreamdark that the dragons were extinct? Seeing Poppy’s horrified expression, Magpie felt the tragedy anew. She herself had first heard the chronicle of the dragon-slaying many years ago, but it still clenched her insides to think of it. Such a frenzy of butchery it had been that even thousands of years could not cleanse humanity of its stain. Magpie chewed her lip. There was no need to school Poppy in the ugliness of the world, was there? She said casually, “Ach, who knows? There’s whole volcanoes a dragon could slip down into like a bubble bath. Sure they’re hiding. . . . But tell me, what about you?”

Poppy said, “Nothing to do with mannies and monkeys! Just growing things. Dreaming new flowers. Making potions.”

“Potions?”

“Aye. I’ve never been great with glyphs,” she admitted with a pretty blush. “But potions I can see and stir. They make sense to me.”

Potions were a very different art from glyphs, an earthy magic Magpie associated with hearth witches and healers. “What sort of potions?” she asked.

“Oh, say, for better night vision or a singing voice, or seeing lies or remembering your dreams. And for things like wrinkles and warts—”

“Causing them or curing them?”

Poppy laughed. “Both! And there are potions for telling if a babe is a lad or lass before it’s born. And love magic—”

Magpie snorted. “Love magic! I don’t think you’ll be needing any potions to make lads fall in love with you.”

“Me?” Poppy grimaced. “Lads? Echh. Nay, please! But oh, my cousin Kex has been hounding me fierce for a potion to woo the queen.”

Magpie froze and narrowed her eyes. “Queen?” she asked.

“Aye! Haven’t you heard yet?” Poppy laughed a hard laugh. “The heir of Bellatrix has been found, blessings be!”

“That fake’s nothing to do with Bellatrix!” Magpie snapped.

Poppy looked at her, surprised. “Oh, I know that!”

“You do?”

“Aye. Well . . . I don’t know it, quite. But I don’t believe it. It all happened too fast, her showing up here and getting crowned queen.”

“But . . . how did it happen?”

Poppy shrugged. “She had Bellatrix’s crown and tunic. She had some scroll proving who she was. And she had . . . well, she had a city full of folk whose legends were worn out. They just wanted to believe her that bad. To have a new legend, you ken?”

Magpie remembered how, for a moment, she too had wanted to believe in Vesper. Ashamed, she grimaced and asked, “Are faeries so bored they got to invent legends?”

“Bored, aye, and afraid. I know I am. Afraid nothing exciting’s ever going to happen again!”

“Not all excitement’s good,” Magpie warned. “Most isn’t.”

“Well, boredom’s none so fine either. There’s only so much dancing a faerie can do. And it’s not just faeries,” Poppy said. “The imps and creatures have a story of their own. They’ve been waiting for years—so I hear—for the faerie they believe will bring back the Dawn Days.”