Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.

It almost contradicts itself," she says after a moment. "It's as if there is love and loss at the same time, together in a kind of beautiful pain.

they start in the ice garden, through the twins grow impatient with leisurely pace that celia prefers to take around the frozen trees. before they have traveled halfway through the space they are begging to ride the carousel instead.

Is magic not enough to live for?" Widget asks."Magic," the man in the grey suit repeats, turning the word into a laugh. "This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it. Look around you," he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. "Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what's worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence.""But some people can be enlightened," Widget says.

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself.