*Maddy*
When I was a child, my father came home from one of his mysterious merchant trips with a large, fabric bound book. It was large enough to cover my entire lap, and so heavy I couldn’t lift it on my own. The cover was embroidered with whirls and swirls of silver and gold thread, the outer edges detailed with delicate symbols and lettering none of us could read.
“It’s very old, Starling,” he’d said to me, laying the book carefully in my lap as I trembled with childlike excitement. “You must be extremely careful. You never know what kind of magic may be inside, and what gods we’ll upset if any pages are torn.”
He’d said it in jest, of course. At least I thought so at the time. But he’d been right to be careful with the massive text. Inside were stories of a land lost to time, each
