She shot up again. “Mel! Mel, maybe Lady Yashul did help us! Before we left, she said something about if we wanted to go back and… and a lock- a wrong lock? No, that’s not it. Um… Something about a door and returning and keys. Mel, do you remember? You’re enchanted to record that stuff, right?”

“Indeed, Milady. Only grant me a few moments. Let me see… hmmm… yes… hmm… ah! Yes. Here it is: ‘Should you find the other keys and wish to return here, use all three keys on any fairy door and turn them each one full circle. They shall open the way to their doors, and you can find your way back to us.’ Those are her words to the stroke.”

Eibhlin’s heart pounded in her chest, dulling her hearing. It seemed too great a thing to have the answer so easily found, but she couldn’t hold down the hope pressing on her chest. She picked up Mel and her bag, pulled on her shoes, and returned to the tree, removing the keys’ chain as she did. Singling out the first key, she said, “Are you sure she said any fairy door?”

“Upon my honor as the Messenger of History.”

With hands shaking anew, Eibhlin found the keyhole and slipped in the key. She turned it. She heard a click, but unlike the other doors, the key did not catch, and she continued to twist the crystal key in the lock. The lock clicked three more times, on each quarter of the turn. In her hand, she felt the key shivering, and she thought she heard a quiet hum, like the fading notes of a tuning fork. Upon the fourth click, the keyhole shone. The two other keys clinked together, and as Eibhlin looked down at them hanging on the chain, their humming filled her mind. She took up the second key. Just as with the first, it turned easily within the keyhole, clicking four times. But now, the girl knew something was happening. The humming sounded nearer, clearer, sharper, like the strike of a bell. In went the third key. Quarter turn. Click. Half. Click. Three-fourths. Click. Full circle. Click.

A ring like a hammer striking glass echoed and rang in her mind. Point. Counterpoint. Eternal sound ever being reborn. When she removed the third key, the light in the keyhole burst forth, swirling and twisting and climbing across the tree till it framed the shape of decorative double doors, the tree showing behind it as though the light were an enormous, intricate window.

Eibhlin reached out and touched the light. The doors swung in, and she stepped through. On the other side was a circular room of dark blue, dark as night, with white stars swirling above her as though in a dance. The door through which she had come opened in the center of the room, a golden outline hanging in space. In the wall sat seven more doors. The first was dark, stained wood and intricately carved. The second was of simple gray stone. The third was also stone, but this one the color of sand. The fourth door Eibhlin nearly overlooked, so dark was its shade it nearly blended in with the wall. The fifth door sparkled and reflected the swirling stars across its smooth, stone face. Beside the fifth door was another one of wood, this time knotted and rough as if it were bark pulled straight from the tree. Then there was the seventh door. It was an odd little thing in that it was quite an ordinary door. It was painted a pleasant shade of green, but it had no other decoration and, when compared with its present company, was quite modest.

It was also the only door for which Eibhlin did not already know the destination. She went over and tried the knob. The door was locked. Eibhlin took her keys and repeated the process from the door of light behind her. With each completed circle, Eibhlin heard a sound like before, only this time quieter and yet clearer, as though she now stood beside the source. When she finished turning the last key, she tried the knob again. With the sound of a latch lifting, the door yielded.

What lay on the other side of the door struck Eibhlin dumb. The door opened to a wide, flat plain. Grass and flower garbed themselves in festive colors bright as spring and rich as summer. Trees stood near and far, alone and in groves, their leaves singing along with a warm wind. From one close tree hung fruit like prisms, sunlight shattering on contact into rainbows that skipped along the ground as the wind played with the branches. Nearby, a stream laughed as it ran through the grass, like a child at play. Above it all was a deep blue sky that felt as though it were so full of color it would start dripping down the sides, like too much water in too small a bucket. Through the sky, white clouds drifted lazily by, as though ignorant of the bustle and energy around them. Eibhlin even thought she saw one of them yawn, though it might have been her imagination. And streaking across the sky and filling the air, invisible unless noticed in the corner of her eye, was the rich, soft gold of the sun. But it was more than just light. In this place, it almost seemed tangible, as though it might actually kiss her.

Eibhlin tried to speak, tried to ask the kithara on her back what place this was, but her tongue wouldn’t form the words. She could only quietly gasp, “Mel.” And then with a light laugh. “Mel!”

“Yes, Milady,” said the instrument in a voice that said that, if it could cry, it would be choking back tears. “Yes, Milady. This is true magic.”

“And it is also my realm,” said a voice.