Lily tripped on the front stoop when she arrived home. She stood on her toes to check herself in the entryway mirror and tugged a lingering blob of glue—and with it, a clump of dark strands—from her hair.
Gran sat in her chair and watched a colorized episode of I Love Lucy, and she flashed Lily a smile at the touch of her shoulder. “This is a good one!” Gran said, pointing at the screen. Lily hugged her, then headed to the kitchen to see her mom.
She found her leaning over a pot, a tendril of hair pulled loose from her bun, as it always had when she’d soothed Lily through dozens of scraped knees. She still wore her scrubs from her day shift at work, turquoise this time, like she used to wear.
“Hey there!” She wrapped Lily in a one-armed hug, with her right hand still clutching a wooden spoon that dripped curry sauce. The scent triggered Lily’s memory of the odd-tasting berries Cedric had picked for her. “How was your day?” her mom asked. “Anything fun happen?”
“Not really,” Lily said with a shrug. She thought of Sheila, and tried not to appear uncomfortable.
“Well, my day was fun. I booked our cabin in the mountains for July. Dad says he can take two weeks off of work. Can you imagine? Two whole weeks, just for us? We’ll go hiking every day, and kayaking, and maybe we can even convince you to do some fishing?” She shot Lily a wry smile.
“Sure, mom. That sounds great. As long as Dad cleans the fish.”
“Of course. You’ll be in charge of marshmallows, as long as you promise not to barbecue them this time.”
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault!”
Her mom laughed. “It will be just like old times.” Lily hugged her, holding on a moment too long. “Go, set the table,” her mom said, wiping away tears. “Dad will be home soon.”
Over dinner, Lily’s dad regaled them with stories. He recounted the time a black bear lumbered onto the trail while he was hiking, and how it stomped and huffed to warn him away. Then he told about the time he grounded a sailboat in a cove off the coast of Maine and watched lobsters scuttling across the ocean floor. And then, of course, there was the tragic saga of how he and his little sister tried to teach their pet gerbil to fly. With each story, Lily’s mom burst into laughter, placed a hand on his arm, and interrupted him to add a detail he’d missed. Lily hung upon their every word and tried to memorize each moment.
Yet in the quiet of her room, once clean dishes stocked the cupboards and the laughter had quieted, Lily sat on her bed, turned the stone fragment in her palm, and longed for different stories. Her dad had shared great tales that night, but she knew he had so many more. For years he’d summoned fantastic creatures and shepherded the dreams of men. He knew enough fairy tales—all of them true!—to fill an entire anthology, but since they’d returned he’d not said a single word about the Realm.
A knock sounded on the door, and Lily jumped. She hid the stone in the pocket of her pajamas and tried to suppress the flush that crept over her face.
“Hey, Scout.” Her dad poked his head in, then sat beside her bed and wrapped her in a bear hug. Lily squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on his embrace, but her questions still nagged her.
“I love you, Lily Bean,” he said, pulling away and tousling her hair. “You have a good night, okay?”
“Thanks, Dad. I love you too.”
He rose and placed a hand on the doorknob, but Lily called him back. “Dad? Um, can you . . . can you please sing to me?”
“Sing? Yeah, sure.” He sat on the foot of her bed, and then cleared his throat. “Yes, we have no bananas—”
“No, Dad! That’s not what I mean!”
“All right, all right. How about a hymn? ‘Amazing Grace’?”
“Actually, can you please sing like you used to? About the Cave of Lights?”
His face fell. “I don’t think so, Lily.”
“Why not?”
He studied her for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his face was hard, set like stone. “Because we need to move on.”
“Why? Why don’t you ever want to talk about the Realm? For years you’d sing to me about it and tell me stories, and I had no idea it was a real place. Now I’ve been there, and actually understand it, but you won’t talk about it.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and rubbed his forehead, just as Lily was prone to do. “There’s a reason Toggybiffle never commissioned me as a guardian,” he finally said. “I loved my work as a steward. Dreams reflect something of who we are, something precious.” He sat up, and when he fixed her in his gaze, the gravity in his eyes unnerved her. “But mankind is also capable of terrible evil, Lily. Unspeakable evil. There are things I witnessed in the Catacombs that I wish I’d never seen, and I’m trying to forget them.” He grasped her hand. “I almost lost you both. Do you realize that? It’s my job to take care of you and your mom, and I can’t put you at risk again. I can’t take that chance.”
Lily reached into her pocket and worried the stone with her fingers. “But Dad, Eymah and the shrouds are gone now. Pax beat them. It should be safe.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Don’t you think Pax would protect us?”
“Of course he would, but that still doesn’t mean we should be reckless. Don’t forget that he’s the one who sent us back.”
“Maybe he made a mistake about that.”
He shook his head. “Pax is more wise than you and I could ever imagine. He doesn’t make mistakes.”
“Maybe we misunderstood him, then. What if he didn’t mean for us to stay away forever?”
“Lily, what is this about? Why are you suddenly so upset?”
“Maybe all the stones aren’t gone.” Lily’s heart quickened. She withdrew the stone from her pocket, but still hid it within her enclosed fist. Just tell him, she thought.
“That’s unlikely. Yours was the last, Lily. And you saw what happened to it.”
“But what if it wasn’t completely destroyed? What if there was a piece left? Then, couldn’t we get back?”
“Theoretically, sure. But it wouldn’t be the right thing. Pax told us to return home. He didn’t tell us to watch for a way to get in through the back door.”
Lily slid the stone back into her pocket and bit the inside of her lip to keep it from quivering.
“Let it go, Lily Bean,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “We’re all together now. That’s more important than having adventures.” He kissed her on the forehead, and then, with a last tousle of her hair, stepped out.
Lily stared at the ceiling. As night crept into her room, thoughts spiraled and tangled in her mind: dragons and paper-mache, tater tots and shrouds writhing in smoke. A treehouse full of creatures that she didn’t know how to manage. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, she drifted into a fitful sleep.
A tapping on the window woke her. She blinked several times, looked at the clock, and realized that her alarm wouldn’t go off for another hour. Outside, the first rays of dawn cast the street in a dusty rose light.
Another tap. Lily blinked again and saw Rigel hovering outside her window, rapping the glass with his beak. He flitted back and forth frantically, scattering a trail of silver dust behind him.
Something was wrong.