View of the torch-lit gardens. The north side of the hall held door after door, each ornately carved with mystic

symbols and designs, and stretching as far as she could see. Torches blazed from wall sconces on either side

of each door, as well as up and down the hall on both sides. Mikki’s eyes were drawn to the long marble

boxes that covered the area between the doors. The boxes were filled with flowers that were—amazingly

enough—not roses.

The air in the hallway was filled with a sweet, delicate fragrance that reminded her of daylilies. Actually, the

flowers did look a little like daylilies, only their leaves were too big and round, even though the huge,

trumpetlike white blossoms were lilylike. But the blossoms were weird . . . they were . . . she walked closer.

They were surrounded by a glittering haze, like mist that had been sprinkled with glitter. What the . . . ? Then

something about those blossoms pricked her memory.

“They’re moon flowers! We have them in Oklahoma. They only open up like this at night. During the day

their blooms close tight and droop down so they look almost dead.”

“Yes, we call them moon flowers here, too.”

“But what is the foggy stuff that looks like it’s coming out of the blossoms?”

“It’s not coming out—it’s being drawn in.”

“It’s being drawn in? What is it?”

“The essence of dreams. Every night the moon flowers capture the essence of dreams and draw them into the

rooms beyond, where the women of the realm take that essence and fashion it anew to send back into the

world to create the magick that is born of dreams.”

“All that’s happening behind those doors?”

“It is.” He smiled at her look of innocent wonder.

The smile she flashed him in return was brilliant, and when she squeezed his arm he thought his heart would

burst from his chest and he had to remind himself that it was the magick of the realm that had excited her

thus, not his presence. But no matter. Her happiness pleased him, whatever its source, and he was determined

to enjoy it, as well as the joy being in Mikado’s presence brought him, for as long as her destiny allowed.

“Lead on, Mikado, and I will follow you into the rooms of dreams.” She nodded, drew in a deep breath and

touched the knob of the first door. It swung inward. Mikki moved into the room and blinked, trying to make

sense of what she was seeing.

The room was misty with the sweet scent of moon flowers. All the women were blowing glass bubbles—that

much wasn’t hard to understand. It was warmer there than in the hallway, though not as hot as the open

ovens that stood in each corner of the room should have made it. The women looked up from their tasks when

she and the Guardian entered. They ignored Asterius but dropped quick curtsies to her and greeted her

cheerfully.

“Don’t let me interrupt. Keep doing . . . uh, whatever it is you’re doing,” Mikki said hastily.

“They are creating dream bubbles.”

Asterius was standing very close to her, and his low voice rumbled into her ear, causing the skin on her neck

to prickle.

“See how, as each bubble grows, so, too, does the dream within it?” She nodded, watching raptly as the

women blew into long, slender tubes, turning and fashioning, until the molten lumps at the ends of the tubes

were formed into bubbles that looked like delicate, iridescent glass globes of all different colors. As the

bubbles got bigger and bigger, Mikki could see that there was something inside them. She moved closer and

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realized that she was looking at fantastic scenes. In one bubble, a young girl leaped off a cliff, but instead of

falling, the child floated through a violet-colored sky singing to birds that looked like flying penguins. In

another bubble, two knights jousted while scantily dressed women cheered them on. In yet another, an old

woman was looking into a handheld mirror, and within the mirror her face grew younger and younger, until

she was a tight-skinned teenager.

“You’re seeing the essence of dreams reworked.”

“So those are actual dreams that people will have?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“How do they get from here to the people’s minds?”

“ in‘Ђ†Like that.” He lifted his chin toward a woman whose bubble had reached the size of a grapefruit. She

stopped blowing into the tube and lifted the bubble to eye level. In the scene taking place inside, Mikki could

see a woman dancing through a knee-deep sea of blue grass as the sky rained flowers all around her. The

palace worker tapped the bubble once with her fingernail, and it broke off neatly from the tube. But it didn’t

fall to the ground and break, as Mikki expected it to. Instead, it floated. The worker blew one last breath of

air on it, and the bubble lifted, eventually disappearing into the ceiling.

“Would you like to create a dream, Empousa?”

Mikki jumped as the woman who had just sent the bubble through the ceiling offered her the newly emptied

tube.

“Oh, thank you, but no. Tonight I’m just watching.”

“As you wish, Empousa.” The woman smiled at her and went back to work.

Mikki grabbed Asterius’s hand and pulled him toward the door. “I want to see more!”

“As you wish, Empousa.” He tried to sound formal and aloof for the benefit of the women, who were

watching and listening, but the small hand that nestled so easily within his was a treasure beyond price, and he

could not conceal the happiness that lit his face when she touched him so easily. He didn’t care that they

were watching; he didn’t care that pain sluiced through his arm. All that mattered was that she did not take

her hand from his until they reached the next door, which she touched open. He followed her in, smiling at

her little gasp of pleasure.

This room was much cooler and smelled like moon flowers and spring rain. A clear stream bubbled through

the center of the room, coming from nowhere and disappearing into nothingness. On one side of the stream,

women lounged on puffy cushions the color of blushes, talking and laughing while their hands trailed into the

water. Every so often one of the women would pull something that looked like a coin from the water, study it

carefully, then, with a snap of her fingers, the coin would disappear in a puff of pink smoke.

On the far side of the stream, women sat comfortably cross-legged, dipping round hoops into the water. A

young woman caught sight of her and called, “Greetings, Empousa!” and soon the rest of the Dream Weavers

greeted her.

“Don’t let me interrupt you; I just want to watch,” Mikki assured them. Then she lowered her voice and

moved closer to Asterius. “Okay, what are they doing?”

“The stream carries coins from all of the wishing wells in the mundane world. The women choose a coin, and