It goes on around glass, because deep in the riverbed, I catch the glint of it. Thick, clouded, and raw. Raw, jagged glass seemingly…growing from the riverbed. Embedded. Emerging. Not little pebbles or discarded shards. This is so thick it’s like glacier ice, big enough to be boulders. Why would—why would glass just be sitting there? In the open?

I shake it off quickly. Magic is magic. Who knows what purpose it serves?

Crow is the quarter for farming and art, and by “art,” I mean “extremely magical art.” To be completely godsdamn honest, I had no idea magic could look anything like this; on the edges of small plots of farmland, there are incredible sculptures of glass—thin, refined glass—filled with living lights bouncing around inside, like trapped fireflies. When we get too close the sculptures move, and I let out the ugliest yelp of my life. Malachite almost beheads one with his sword, but Lucien pulls him back at the last second.

The glowing glass sculptures roam around Crow’s grounds—prides of wildcats, snakes slithering underfoot, jellyfish floating in midair as though it were water. It’s so surreal to see witch children running around, playing among and with the living sculptures, transforming in a blink into little fox kits, little bear cubs, and back again, their laughter ringing all the while as they chase one another.

“The sculptures look best at night.” Nightsinger smiles placidly.

“What are those?” Fione points. I follow it to what looks like another clump of solid, raw glass, this time jutting out of the grass and looking decidedly out of place in the midst of so many refined glass sculptures. There are more of them, scattered about and stabbing up from the ground in variable heights and shapes. Obelisks, almost. The children don’t go near them, giving them a wide berth as they play.

I watch Nightsinger’s eyelashes flicker. “Nothing of import. Please, let us continue.”

There are mushroom gardens, some of them as tall as trees and as little as sewing needles, a few oozing beads of fluorescent sap and others curling tendrils in and out like breathing, and some belching forth puffs of great glittering gas when footsteps approach. Fione and Malachite both lose their minds when we come across a human-tall mushroom that’s clear and faceted and deep blue, like it’s made of sapphire, and I can listen to their incoherent babbling for only a moment before I’m completely lost in the jargon. Something about subterranean life cycles and spore rarity and volcanic conditions.

“You have to present one of ’em to your partner,” Malachite explains. “If you wanna get joined. Married, whatever. You gotta hunt one down but it’s spiritsdamn hard. And they’re never that big.” He looks at my bewildered face and waves me off. “S’a whole beneather thing.”