The Hanging City

Before they left, King Nasser gave them a white horse with wings. "The little dragon suggested it," he said. "He says wings are faster than feet."

Luna laughed, and her glow was brighter than ever. As they flew over the plains of tales, she said to Sara, "Did you see? The story you finished... its colours have grown stronger, and the fog has backed away from it. That means there's still hope."

But Sara was quiet. She was looking at the key in her hand and thinking about the words that had poured out of her in the palace. How had they come so easily? After all those months of silence?

The horse carried them over amazing lands. They flew over a golden desert full of sand palaces, where sailing ships sailed across the dunes as if they were the sea, and Sara knew it was the land of the Thousand and One Nights. They flew over a little village where all the people were animals wearing clothes: a fox in a hat selling cheese, a tortoise in spectacles reading a newspaper, and a rabbit running late for something. "The Village of Fables," laughed Luna. "Every animal your grandparents ever told stories about lives here."