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He looked up at the trees, away froh the old on branches that were now almost bare "What about Farid? Isn’t he a reason to stay?"

Meggie lowered her head again She was taking great care to sound casual "Farid doesn’t er It’s been even worse since he died"

Poor Meggie She’d fallen in love with the wrong boy But when did love ever bother about that?

She tried very hard to hide her sadness when she looked at hi us?"

"You and your mother certainly I’m not so sure about me" He ilvlitated Elinor’s voice "Morti place And why do I have to tell a bookbinder not to eat jahed Well, that was soh But next ain "I do miss Elinor very much I miss her house, and the library, and the café by the lake where she always tookElinor and Darius quarreling, andto coh I’d love to tell the that’s happened to us, not that they’d believe a word of it Although--perhaps I could take a glass man back with me as proof"

For a moment she seemed to be far, far away, taken back to her old world, not by the words of Fenoglio or Orpheus, but by her own But they were still sitting beside a pond in the hills around Oie’s hair and pulled so hard that she shrieked, and Mo was quick to shoo the little creature away It was one of the rainbow-colored fairies, Orpheus’s creations, and Mo thought he detected so happily, she carried her pale blond plunder up to her nest, which shimmered in as many colors as the fairy herself Unlike the blue fairies, those rosy as winter ca Man even claimed that they stole from the blue fairies, too, as they slept in their nests A tear hung on Meggie’s lashes Perhaps the fairy had caused it, or perhaps not Mo gently wiped it away

"I see So you do want to go back"

"No! I tell you, I don’t know!" She was looking at hilio if we simply disappear? And ould the Black Prince think, and the Strong Man, and Battista? What will become of them? And Minerva and her children, and Roxaneand Farid?"

"Yes, what?" said Mo "Hoould the story go on without the Bluejay? The Piper will take the children, because even the desperate mothers won’t be able to find the Bluejay for him Of course the Black Prince will try to save them, he’ll be the true hero of this story, and he’ll play the part well But he’s already played the hero too long, he’s tired -- and he doesn’t have enough men So the men-at-arms will kill him and all his followers one by one: the Prince, Battista, the Strong Man and Doria, Gecko and Snapper--well, perhaps those till be no great loss Then the Piper will probably chase the Milksop out and rule Ombra himself for a while Orpheus will read unicorns here for him, or a fear machinesyes, I’lio will drown his sorrows in wine and drink himself to death And the Adderhead will be in over a nation of the dead I think the end of the story would go soie looked at hiold

Resa’s hair had been just the same color when he had first seen her, in Elinor’s house

"Yes Perhaps," said Meggie quietly "But would the story really end so very differently if the Bluejay stayed? How could he give it a happy ending all by himself?"

"Bluejay?" A couple of toads ju Man plowed his way through the undergrowth

Mo straightened up "Maybe you’d better not call that na his own voice

The Strong Man looked as horrified as ifthe trees "Sorry," he , and all that wine last nightIt’s the boy You know, the one orks for Orpheus, the one that Meggie --" He stopped short at the sight of Meggie’s expression "Oh, whatever I say sounds stupid!" he groaned, pressing his hand to his round face "Plain stupid! But that’s how the words come out of my mouth I can’t help it!"