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Though there had been winter at the window, it was spring that awaited them on the threshold.
And in the garden itself, spreading even as they watched, the source of that season: the home of their joy forever; the place they'd fought and almost died to save:
The Fugue.
It was emerging from the book's scattered pages in all its singular majesty, defying ice and darkness as it had defied so much else. The months it had spent amongst the tales in the book had not been wasted. It came with fresh mysteries and enchantments.
Here, in time, Suza
Even at that moment, in sleeping cities across the Isle, the refugees were waking and rising from their pillows, and throwing open the doors and windows, despite the cold, to meet the news the night was bringing them: that what could be imagined need never be lost. That even here, in the Kingdom, rapture might find a home.
After tonight there would be only one world, to live in and to dream; and Wonderland would never be more than a step away, a thought away.
Together Cal, Suza
they'd feared gone forever coming to greet them, eager for shared rapture.
There was time for all their miracles now. For ghosts and transformations; for passion and ambiguity; for noon-day visions and midnight glory. Time in abundance.
For nothing ever begins.
And this story, having no begi