We will get you a dress with magic, just as in the stories," he said seriously."But they're only stories, Gillie, Magic isn’t real." "We will make it real.

If it occurred to Thursey that there was really no relationship between marrying your own true love and having a fortune showered upon you, she didn't bother about that. In a story you might as well have both, it was make-believe anyway.But if I had to choose, she thought. If I had to choose . . . she stared at her ragged dress hanging from its hook, and her ragged mended sandals on the shelf, then put the books away. How would I ever have such a choice, except in a made-up story?

Crystal shoesAnd a mare to ride on,A milk white mare,And a silver woven in my hair.

The castle always looks so mysterious," she said, awed. "Is it wonderful, living there?""It isn’t so mysterious when you're there. I'd rather look at it from the hills. It's just—full of people, at least the servants' parts are, crowded and ordinary. Things should be mysterious, but there's nothing mysterious in the palace.""Should things be mysterious?""There's mystery in the hills and in the wind on the grass. And in the stories you like. Isn't life mysterious?

You shall have," Gillie said, "the king's bread and goat milk.""The magical goat milk?""The same.""Will it make me beautiful?""It cannot. You are already that.

Gillie caught Delilah's hand before it struck, and held it firmly in his own. He stared at her for a long time, but said nothing. Then at last he spoke softly, "Don't you hurt her. Not ever. If you ever hurt her I will come back and witch you, old trollop, and you will wish you had never been born." His words were so soft, so measured, and so filled with meaning that a shiver went through the room.

And Anwin said, "It turned out just as an enchantment should.""But Anwin, it wasn't an enchantment really, it just—""Yes, child, it was the greatest enchantment of all." He winked at the prince. "Gillie understood all along what the enchantment was.