Marina Waverly had kissed a human, and she could not stop thinking about him. She had seen him once, through the thin place where the Glen touched the human world. He stood by a stone well, tall and laughing, and he dropped a coin and made a wish. She wanted to be his wish. She wanted to bring him home to the Glen and live beside him forever. But Marina had never once left the Glen. She did not know the way out, and no fairy had told her. She found Lysander Windwhisper at the edge of the mushroom ring, mending a boot with thread. He was the exiled scout, the only fairy in the Glen who had crossed into the human world. His left wing hung bent and useless at his back. The elders had grounded him for it. No one else would even speak his name. "You went there," Marina said. "The human world. You know the path." Lysander did not look up. "I know the path. It cost me a wing." He pulled the thread tight. "The elders say the Glen is closed. They mean it." "I have to reach him," Marina said. "There's a man. By a well." Now he looked up. His blue eyes went soft, then worried. "You'd throw yourself over the edge for a human you've seen once?" "Yes," she said. He sighed. He knew that kind of want. She saw it on his face. A small voice cut between them. "You can't go." Marina turned. Her little sister Sophie stood in the grass, pink dress, rose crown crooked, pink teddy bear hugged to her chest. Her purple eyes were wet. "The elders said the humans hurt Lysander," Sophie said. "They'll hurt you too. Please stay." Marina knelt. "I'll come back. I promise." "You always say promises and then you climb things," Sophie whispered. But she stepped aside. Lysander stood and brushed off his knees. "There's a crack in the old willow, past the water. The roots grow down into their world. It's narrow. It's steep. You climb down in the dark." He pointed between two leaning trees. "The elders bricked the other ways. They forgot that one. I didn't." Marina ran to the willow. The crack was there, black and cold, breathing air that smelled nothing like the Glen. She pressed her hand to the bark. "Marina," Lysander called. "Once you go down, the roots close behind you. You can't come back up the same way. I never could." She stopped. Behind her, Sophie began to cry. Ahead, the well, the man, the wish. Marina stepped into the crack. The roots swallowed her whole. Then, above, she heard a soft wooden groan as the way sealed shut. She was in the human world now. She had no path home. And she did not even know the name of the man she had crossed worlds to find.

Marina climbed out from the willow roots into a world of stone and noise. The well stood a few steps away, exactly as she had seen it. But the man was gone. She turned in circles. People filled the square, carts rolled past, and none of them was him. She had crossed worlds and lost him in a single breath. She hid behind the well and shrank herself small, no bigger than a sparrow. Her wings buzzed. She flew up over the rooftops to search. Below her spread a town so wide it had no end. Hundreds of doors. Hundreds of windows. He could be behind any one of them, and she had no name to ask for. Then a horn sounded. The crowd pushed toward one high wall, and Marina followed the sound. Over the rooftops rose a castle with blue towers and bright flags snapping in the wind. Guards opened a great gate. A line of riders came out, and at their center rode the man from the well. Marina's heart jumped. She darted after him, keeping high and out of sight. He rode beside a king with a short beard and a golden crown, and a queen with auburn hair and a purple gown. Two small children rode a pony between them, a boy in a red vest and a girl with a blue ribbon. Servants bowed as they passed. People called out as the riders went by. "Long live the prince!" a woman shouted, waving a cloth. Marina stopped in the air. The prince. Her man was a prince. The king lifted a hand to the crowd, and the queen smiled down at the children. They were a royal family, and he belonged to them. She flew close enough to hear. The king's voice was warm and easy. "Smile for them, Adrian," he said. "They came to see their future king." Adrian. She had his name at last. She pressed both hands to her mouth to keep from crying out. The riders turned back toward the castle gate. Marina followed them through the air, past the blue towers, into a courtyard full of guards. The gate groaned shut behind her. She landed on a high stone ledge, tiny and hidden, and watched the prince dismount below. She had found him. She knew where he lived and she knew his name. But she looked down at the guards with their spears, the thick walls, the locked gate. She was a fairy the size of a bird, alone in a castle full of humans who would scream if they saw her. Getting to this place had been the easy part. Now she had to reach a prince guarded by an army, and make him love her, without letting a single soul know what she was.

From her stone ledge, Marina watched Prince Adrian cross the courtyard below. He was close enough to see, yet she could not reach him. If she flew down now, a guard would swat her like a moth. She needed Adrian to look up and see her on purpose. But a fairy the size of a sparrow was easy to miss in a castle full of noise and movement. She thought of home. In the Glen, fairies made themselves seen with light. Marina cupped her hands and pulled her glow to the surface of her skin. She flared bright, then dim, then bright again. Adrian walked on. No one looked up. Her little light was nothing against the afternoon sun. Then a small voice spoke behind her. "You always did make a mess of things." Marina spun. Sophie sat on the ledge, her pink wings folded, her teddy bear clutched to her chest. Her sister. The one who had begged her to stay. The one who should have been a whole world away, behind a sealed crack. "You followed me," Marina whispered. "The passage closed. How?" "I jumped in before it sealed," Sophie said. Her chin trembled. "I wasn't going to lose you too." She wiped her eyes, then looked down at the prince. "That's him? The one you threw everything away for?" Marina's throat tightened. "I have to make him see me, Sophie. And I can't. I'm too small." Sophie stared at the sky for a long moment. Then she smiled, the same sparkling smile Marina had missed. "Small doesn't mean quiet. Watch." Sophie closed her eyes and hummed an old Glen song. Her glow spread past her skin, out into the air, where it gathered and took shape. Marina had forgotten her sister could do this. A creature formed from pink and purple light, a dragon the size of a real one, with sweeping wings and green eyes and a flame at its tail. "It's not real," Sophie whispered, straining. "Just light. But he won't know that." The glowing dragon swept down over the courtyard. Guards shouted and dropped their spears. Servants ran. Adrian froze, staring up with wide brown eyes. "Now, Marina," Sophie said. "Fly in front of him. He's looking up at last." Marina dove. The dragon circled above, pulling every eye to the sky. In that moment of chaos, she darted down and hovered right before Adrian's face, glowing with all her strength. He saw her. His mouth fell open. For one heartbeat, the prince looked straight into the eyes of a fairy no bigger than a bird, and he did not scream. "A fairy," he breathed. Then the dragon of light burst apart, raining sparks. Guards swarmed toward the prince, shouting about witchcraft and danger. Hands reached to pull Adrian inside. He kept staring at the empty air where Marina had been. She had made him see her. Now the whole castle hunted the thing that had.