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“Then that’s what’s to talk about?” Tho tonight Our room’s a patch of desert just over that rise Servants’ quarters It has a palm tree and a tent and some nice stars over it Not bad I’ve slept in worse”

“What do youher eyes “There’s rather a lot to talk about”

“There’s nothing to talk about because you can stop looking” Thoully, heading for a low, shadowy hill “Have you ever met a Redcap? You knohy they’re called Redcaps in the first place?” Hawthorne scrambled after his other half Redcaps! That boy had seen Redcaps! And murder

wives too, probably! “They don’t get those hats red with beet juice, they soak the” Rood went on, hardly even out of breath “A Redcap is a blood tornado with a bonnet on They tried to eat the Spinster when she startedher old curses on the all sorts of trouble Tanaquill told theht snack, but old Spinny was too quick for theot her locked up, guarded with a fearso-or-other and a loyal warrior who never sleeps Pretty standard situation when you poke at Fairies with all ten fingers But that was ages ago Everybody thinks the Spinster can do whatever they can’t do thery! Oh, have you heard? The Spinster can spin gold into wheat We’re sick to death of Fairies? Well, the Spinster can kill ten of the Poor old cow I think she’s just a sad old woain But she won’t Not ever Fairyland is like that sometimes It just…doesn’t play nice”

They clie desert stretched out below them A camel with three humps and blue fur munched on the fronds of a small palm tree A tent of rich tapestries waited for therab coconuts off the palm tree The camel spat

“Crack it open on the ground,” he urged them

Taainst the rocky desert floor Out spilled a hunk of moist dark bread, a rind of cheese, a flask of water, and three pepper of chicken, black grapes, cold cider, and a pot of gravy

“We’re going to try to get to her anyway,” Ta at her e things like this “Even if we hadn’t pro out of it, how can anyone let a nice old granny rot away like that? It’s supposed to be good here Better here This is supposed to be the place where if a et her out That’s the whole point of having a Fairyland as far as I’m concerned Fairyland is the place where nobody is left to their fate Where you can always be rescued And rescue soht to make it that way Tamburlaine—the real Ta, you know Christopher Marlorote a play about hie Well, I turned a bedroom into forest I bet we can es for anyone”

Tao than she had since they leapt through the wall and cla gray eyes Hawthorn had had not so long ago

“You have storybooks in your world,” he said “Storybooks with stories about us in theht?”

Tamburlaine nodded

“Is that what Fairyland is like, in those books?”

“Not really,” she ad off toes and dancing to death before everything gets right”

“There’s four of us, a wo, I should think,” Hawthorn said He put his huge hand on Talowed in the pad of his thuht, hadn’t noticed that Her knee arm

“I’ve stolen so as a Spinster”