“Poppy!” said Magpie. “What did he say?”

“Did you know they used to call him the dreamer?” she asked slowly. “Because he dreamed a world into creation he couldn’t even live in.”

“The Magruwen?”

“Aye,” answered Poppy, sadness sweeping over her face. “He made a world he couldn’t even touch. Have you ever thought of that?”

Puzzled, Magpie shook her head.

“Wouldn’t you think . . . creatures of fire . . . wouldn’t you think they’d make a different sort of world? One that wasn’t so . . . fragile?”

Magpie saw what Poppy was getting at. For fire elementals, spinning through the eternal blackness of the beginning, to come together and make this delicate place, these fern fronds, these woods . . . it was a beautiful dream, but not a sensible one. They could wear skins to keep from setting fire to their creations, but it wouldn’t be the same. Magpie’s grandfather had said it was like holding hands while wearing gloves. The air elementals could at least dance through the treetops in their true forms and caress the birds they carried in their arms, but the Djinn never could, not without burning everything to cinders. The textures of things, which they’d rendered with such artistry, must always have been a mystery to their own touch.

“Maybe they didn’t make it for themselves,” Magpie murmured. “Maybe they made it for . . . us.”

“Maybe. And it’s perfect, nay?”

Magpie nodded. It was.

“He’s asleep in a deep place now,” Poppy said.

Magpie’s stomach flipped. “Did the tree tell you where—”

“There’s a school for humans just outside Dreamdark. In the gardens there’s a dry well. That’s where the Magruwen dreams, at the bottom of it, alone and forgotten.”

Dazed, the two faeries stared at each other. Magpie realized she’d had only dim expectations of succeeding in her quest. It hit her now that she was truly going to see the Djinn King, and a shiver seized her.

“In a well,” Poppy said, a sheen of tears blurring her eyes. “The Djinn King! At the bottom of a well in the belly of the world. It isn’t right!”

“Neh, it isn’t. Did the tree say . . . why?”

Poppy shook her head. “Nay, but he did say it’s high time someone had the nerve to wake him.”

Magpie took a deep breath. “I reckon it is.”

“But Magpie . . . you don’t really mean to?”

“Aye, but I do. Come on, I got to go tell the crows!” She stood and sprang from the branch, shooting out through the tickling leaves. “Thank you, Father Linden!” she called as she went.

“Blessings, old Father,” Poppy said reverently to the tree, then opened her own wings and followed.

ELEVEN

Magpie and Poppy snuck around the side of the stage caravan just as the play ended and cheers erupted in the Ring. They slipped in through the back door to wait while the crows took their bows.

The caravan was even messier than usual. Gowns and tentacles were strewn everywhere from quick costume changes, and every trunk was flung open, so the lasses had to leap over them with a lift of wing. “It’s some fright in here,” Magpie said, but Poppy was taking it all in with shining eyes.