CHAPTER ONE

THE DOOR THAT WAS LATE

If you were asleep you might have even seen them, a belief of fairies flyering together in a cloud, following The Bright Queen across the sunless sky. Excitement moved among them almost as fast as the light passing through their paper-thin wings as they flyered. The door that was late had finally opened! The fairies knew what would be waiting behind that door. There would be four of them, nameless and dreaming. But not for much longer, the excited fairies also knew. The Bright Queen was going to summon True Names for them. It happened that way always. Just as light always moved a little faster than light was really supposed to, when passing through a fairy's wing. Just as cupcakes always grew so bountiful across the shadowless land below them, not to mention all those petit fours.

But isn’t that just typical. Yes, isn’t that always the way. Isn’t it always on the most normal of days, at the most normal of moments, that things begin to change. At least, that’s how it goes in the Sunless Land.

The Sunless Land is where fairies make their homes. I know some people out there still believe they live inside trees, but we’re talking about fairies here, not chipmunks. Fairies live in cupcakes.

Okay, okay, there are forests in the Sunless Land. And, okay, okay, ancient legends say that fairies might have once lived in them. But it still doesn’t count because that was before the sun was lost, and this is Icinghead’s story, a real story, not some made up fantasy about the Bright Ages.

Speaking of which, before I go any further with Icinghead’s story, I would just like to pause here and say one thing and then I will absolutely get out of the way. Here it is: I’m just so glad you are reading this book. Because, you are obviously a magic-clever child. Or, inside of you is a childhood that was magic-clever enough to have stuck around and become roommates with your adulthood. Either way: good for you!

As for forests, I’m sticking to what I said before. Cupcake fairies do not live in forests, they grow them. And with great patience and care. In a land with no sun it takes a whole year for a flower to grow just one petal. It takes a hundred years for a tree to go from seed to sprout. And it is those fairies who make it happen. A fairy will stay up all night singing sun-lullabies to a pine tree so it will sleep deeper and green sounder. She will spend her mornings coaxing an ailing thistle to bristle. Fairies have even been known to dance for ladies slippers. In a land with no sun only devotion can make green things grow.

What does grow well in the Sunless Land are cupcakes, and they make wonderful homes—except for the ones that grow near the river and run a little soggy. The only fairy who doesn’t live in a cupcake is the queen. She lives in a castle, and that castle is the centerpiece and pride of the cupcake village. It grows many layers tall, with bountiful heaps of shining icing shaped into swirls and flowers, and on its roof is a cluster of candles that never go out. Every year the queen adds another candle, so the longer she is queen, the brighter her castle.

Icinghead’s queen was guilty of being there longer than any other. Her castle had become so bright that a real garden, with green plants, grew beside it. The cupcake fairies called her The Bright Queen, and they called her garden Candle Light Garden.

Castles are also where fairy babies come from. It’s true, so stop rolling your eyes.

It happens like this: One day the queen will notice a new door in her castle. She knows that when the door opens there will be a new room behind it, and inside this room she will find four fairy babies, asleep in a crib.

It’s always four with cupcake fairies. All magical being appreciate the number four, but cupcake fairies positively live by it. They grow to be a full four inches tall and are considered adults at four years of age. But it doesn’t stop there. They each have four wings: their bright-wings and their night-wings, as well as four fingers, and four toes. They also have four thumbs: one on each hand and one on each foot. (Some of you out there may have been told these foot-thumbs are actually extra-big toes. If you have, you’ve been misinformed. Long before the sun was lost and all the fey folk and unmagicals so suddenly disappeared, long before the wondrous Bright Ages and the dangerous Dream Ages, tribes of cupcake fairies used to challenge each other to thumb-wrestling matches. With their feet.)

Soon the cupcake fairies hear about this new door in the castle, and come flyering over to it for a visit. Cupcake fairies love babies, and they always want to open the door right away and see any new ones.

But the queen always tells them they must wait.

“When the door is ready, my little people, it will open.”

So the cupcake fairies must look at the new door, and wonder. It could be any kind of door at all, but almost never the same door twice. It could be shaped like a flower, or a puzzle, or the twisting of flame. (There was once a door shaped like a wave, that rolled around and around the castle, and you could only go through it by swimming. When it finally opened, the queen announced that everyone would have to wait until an hour after lunch so they wouldn’t get cramps.) But whatever shape the door is, behind it will be sleeping four fairy babies. Unless the door is shaped like a crown, which hadn’t happened in a guilty queen’s age.

And now, magic-clever reader, I really will keep my promise to you and tell you Icinghead’s story. And the best place to start is with her door.

Icinghead’s door was shaped like a door. A plain, ordinary, almost boring door. The kind of door people go through all the time without ever thinking: “Hey, I’m somewhere else now.” The only special thing about this door was that it was late. Really late. It took a long time to open. Longer than any other door. The cupcake fairies grew tired of waiting. They even stopped visiting the castle.

But, finally, the door opened. And the queen went from fairy to fairy, letting them know it was time. They all followed her back to the castle, flyering together in a cloud.

The lightening bugs watched them go by, and blinked on and off, on an off. In the Sunless Land, it was these tiny bugs who made the daylight. Countless of them filled the sky, working hard all day to bestow the light they carried in their homesick hearts. It was a sparkling light that made everything seem a little closer than it really was. But when evening came, the lightening bugs would get tired and land for the night. Then the world would grow dark. No stars would come out, not in that cloud-clasped sky. But, just as it was about to become completely dark, the moon would rise, a circle of light so faint the fairies couldn’t see it if they looked directly at it. The moon made everything seem a little farther away then it really was.

The cupcake fairies followed the queen into the castle and up the stairs, then through the new door and into the new room. There they finally saw the crib with four new babies asleep in a row, having their final pure dreams before they would wake up for the first time and know the world.