Magic won't save us. The power it would take to conjure on such a scale, the tithe would destroy us. The only hope...is hope. You don't need tokens for it - it's in your heart or nowhere. And in your heart, child, it had been stronger than I have ever seen.

It's all a quilt of fairy tales with a patch here and there of truth.

She knocked and waited, because when the door was opened from within, it had the potential to lead someplace quite different.

Once upon a time, there were two moons, who were sisters. Nitid was the goddess of tears and life, and the sky was hers. No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers.

That faeries have forgotten the Tapestry; that is the greatest tragedy of all. It's the fabric of all creation and it's woven of dreams, the dreams of the Djinn. Dreams are real, Magpie. They're seed and water and sun. They're everything.

As for Ellai, she told her sister what had passed, and Nitid wept, and her tears fell to earth and became chimaera, children of regret.

Be your own place of safety, she told herself, straightening. No crossbar in the world could protect her from what lay ahead, and neither could a tiny knife ticked in her boot - though there her tiny knife would most certainly remain - and neither could a man, not even Akiva. She had to be her own strength, complete unto herself.