unimaginably distant past the Djinn had gathered to dream the world. Here the Magruwen’s dragon, Fade, had curled round them while they worked, his serpent shape crushing a great arc in the forest that remained to this day, Fade Hollow, a crescent clearing where nothing grew but blood-red moss. Here, down an avenue of arching branches, lay the fabled city of Never Nigh, where the great faeries of the Dawn Days once had lived. There King Valerian and the ice princess Fidrildi had joined hands on the balcony of Alabaster Palace and said their vows. And there their daughter Bellatrix, the greatest of all, had been born and rocked in a cradle of willow.
Spells were woven tight as a basket around Never Nigh, and as the forest closed around her, Magpie gasped and faltered. It was as if she had swum into a current of light. A pattern of radiance flared all around her, weaving and moving, then flickered away into the far reaches of her vision. She alighted upon a branch to clear her head.
“Mags!” cried Bertram, whisking past with a caravan in tow. “All right there?”
“Fine, feather!” she called back. She blinked and looked around, seeing no more spinning lights but only the dense bower of the forest. It was the spells, she thought. Those luminous patterns she’d glimpsed in the air must be the ancient spells of protection the Djinn had spun round Never Nigh so long ago. Somehow she had seen them. Ever since she’d felt the Vritra’s death with her memory touch, these strange traceries of light had been seeping into her sight, and they seemed to be growing brighter. What new oddity was this, to see what was invisible to other eyes, to see magic?
Magpie shook her head and spread her wings, stepping back into the air to follow the crows down the avenue. When she saw the city, thoughts of the lights faded from her mind.
The trees grew wild and strange here, of any shape the Djinn had had a mind to try as they honed their treecraft. The trees were the city. Their roots wove across the ground like interlacing fingers and spiraled up into walkways and bridges. Everywhere paths meandered in hidden ways and from every nook and fissure in the bark sprouted fanciful spires. The massive arms of the yews were festooned with palaces and hanging gardens. Each generation of faeries had added its own flourishes and the grove was a marvel of towers and domes, balconies and catwalks, chimneys and carved gates and porticos and stained-glass windows. For all the exotic places Magpie had been, no city could hold a candle to Never Nigh for sheer audacious beauty.
The crows and their caravans rocketed beneath soaring bridges and over domes tiled with gold, down the main thoroughfare toward the Ring, the gathering place where they would set up stage. Magpie glimpsed tiny stairways and lamp-lit courtyards among the branches as she flew. She swooped past a nectar parlor, a haberdasher, a teahouse, and Candlenight’s Bookshop, her father’s childhood home. As the way widened and branches opened to the Ring, she caught sight of Alabaster Palace gleaming white in the branches above, and her breath caught in her throat.
The crows spiraled in to land and Magpie eased the floating spells off the caravans and set them gently down on the moss. Then, as the crows shrugged off their harnesses, she turned her gaze up to the treetop palace.
It was white as sugar, its many graceful spires flowing seamlessly into one another as if the whole palace was shaped from one immense block of marble, but with a look of lightness, like it could float into the sky. It stood as a monument to greater times. No one had lived in it, Magpie knew, since that day twenty-five thousand years ago when Bellatrix had announced to the cheering folk that the devil wars at last were at an end.
“Dance and rejoice, my friends, my faeries, and my kin,
No longer fear to fly at dusk, no longer hide within.
Come out and feel the pulse of night,
clawless, fangless, free.
The
Spells were woven tight as a basket around Never Nigh, and as the forest closed around her, Magpie gasped and faltered. It was as if she had swum into a current of light. A pattern of radiance flared all around her, weaving and moving, then flickered away into the far reaches of her vision. She alighted upon a branch to clear her head.
“Mags!” cried Bertram, whisking past with a caravan in tow. “All right there?”
“Fine, feather!” she called back. She blinked and looked around, seeing no more spinning lights but only the dense bower of the forest. It was the spells, she thought. Those luminous patterns she’d glimpsed in the air must be the ancient spells of protection the Djinn had spun round Never Nigh so long ago. Somehow she had seen them. Ever since she’d felt the Vritra’s death with her memory touch, these strange traceries of light had been seeping into her sight, and they seemed to be growing brighter. What new oddity was this, to see what was invisible to other eyes, to see magic?
Magpie shook her head and spread her wings, stepping back into the air to follow the crows down the avenue. When she saw the city, thoughts of the lights faded from her mind.
The trees grew wild and strange here, of any shape the Djinn had had a mind to try as they honed their treecraft. The trees were the city. Their roots wove across the ground like interlacing fingers and spiraled up into walkways and bridges. Everywhere paths meandered in hidden ways and from every nook and fissure in the bark sprouted fanciful spires. The massive arms of the yews were festooned with palaces and hanging gardens. Each generation of faeries had added its own flourishes and the grove was a marvel of towers and domes, balconies and catwalks, chimneys and carved gates and porticos and stained-glass windows. For all the exotic places Magpie had been, no city could hold a candle to Never Nigh for sheer audacious beauty.
The crows and their caravans rocketed beneath soaring bridges and over domes tiled with gold, down the main thoroughfare toward the Ring, the gathering place where they would set up stage. Magpie glimpsed tiny stairways and lamp-lit courtyards among the branches as she flew. She swooped past a nectar parlor, a haberdasher, a teahouse, and Candlenight’s Bookshop, her father’s childhood home. As the way widened and branches opened to the Ring, she caught sight of Alabaster Palace gleaming white in the branches above, and her breath caught in her throat.
The crows spiraled in to land and Magpie eased the floating spells off the caravans and set them gently down on the moss. Then, as the crows shrugged off their harnesses, she turned her gaze up to the treetop palace.
It was white as sugar, its many graceful spires flowing seamlessly into one another as if the whole palace was shaped from one immense block of marble, but with a look of lightness, like it could float into the sky. It stood as a monument to greater times. No one had lived in it, Magpie knew, since that day twenty-five thousand years ago when Bellatrix had announced to the cheering folk that the devil wars at last were at an end.
“Dance and rejoice, my friends, my faeries, and my kin,
No longer fear to fly at dusk, no longer hide within.
Come out and feel the pulse of night,
clawless, fangless, free.
The
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