I listen wide-eyed to Sky as she talks, even as I'm crushing up the healing flower and painstakingly collect every drop of nectar. I feel the numb grief in her mind as the memories spill out, but I don't need to listen to her thoughts. They come out into the open as words. Sky talks with her eyes closed as if to block out the pain, sitting against the tree.

"Even when I was little, everyone knew I was powerful. Most fairy magic isn't any more advanced than transformation spells and granting wishes. But I... I could do much more than that. I could do the most complicated spells with almost no training at all."

"That must have been incredible," says Cressida encouragingly.

"And lonely," I say quietly. Sky nods.

"I was different. The only one like me. But that wasn't so bad. Not really. Not at first. It was as I got older when I got worse. I could do strange, fantastical things, but I never really had complete control over what I did, and the spells were more powerful then I could handle. As I grew up, I tested the boundaries. Nobody had ever been where I was going before, and I was curious as to how far I could go. Every spell I did was a bit bigger and bolder than the last. And the more risks I took, the less control I had."

"That's not so bad," says Cressida sympathetically. "You were the only one. It's natural that you would want to know more about yourself."

Sky smiles wanly. I dip a cloth lightly into the healing mixture and dab it gently against the wound. Sky hisses in sharply as it makes contact, and I try to distract her from the pain once more.

"So... how far did you go?"

Sky sighs, her eyes still tightly closed. "Before long, I was experimenting with new, dangerous spells. The results were unpredictable, and the fairy leaders warned me to be careful. Then, as the danger grew and grew, they ordered me to stop. But nothing bad had happened to me so far, and I thought they were wrong to stop me from seeing what I could do. So I carried on practising in secret..."

She trails off, and I don't push her, sensing that she's come to the most difficult part of her tale. She breathes in deeply, and continues.

"There was a little girl I knew, Lila. She was a lot younger than me. Still barely knew how to use magic. She was the sweetest little girl in the whole world. Kind to everyone. She never made me feel different or lonely. She made me feel happy."

A picture comes to my mind. The little fairy from Sky's mind, with huge, trusting eyes, dark curls bouncing over her shoulders, a bright smile, violet wings folded at her shoulders.

A tear slips from between Sky's closed eyelashes and slides silently down her cheek.

"What?" Cressida whispers, looking scared suddenly. "What happened?"

Sky breathes in deeply. I wait, gently pulling away the cloth to give her wound space to heal. She doesn't even notice, but draws her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly. Not for the first time, I see past the tough, defensive armour she wears to somebody else. Someone in pain. Lost and broken.

"I was practicing a new spell," she whispers into her knees. "As I said, I had been lucky so far. The success went to my head, and I became arrogant. I felt like I could do anything. I decided to try something much more advanced, much more dangerous. There were a million ways it could've gone wrong, but I had been doing so well it was almost as if I stopped believing that things could go wrong. I thought I could handle it. So I went to an isolated spot on the grounds of the school to practise... and I took Lila with me.

'Lila had a little doll that she brought to school with her. She slept with it in the dormitory every night, and she played with it at break. She asked me to play too, but I soon got bored. I was itching to try more magic. So I told her that I was going to try to bring her doll to life.

'It was a really, really stupid idea. Everyone knows it's dangerous to experiment with life and death, even if you're only enchanting a toy. But Lila didn't know any different, so she gave it to me. She trusted me completely. So I...s-summoned the magic..."

Sky trails off as her words start breaking off into devastated gasps. Sobs jolt through her body. Cressida puts her hand awkwardly on her shoulder, and I touch Sky's arm tentatively. Her breathing slows slightly.

"I... couldn't control it," she continues tearfully. "The power just... surged out of me. It was the strongest magic I've ever seen. And... and it... it-"

Dread flows through me. I already know the answer, but I don't want to hear it. Not spoken aloud. It feels like, once she tells us, the memories will break Sky completely. Shatter the protective wall she's been building since the incident. Make the grief grow too suffocating and terrible to hold in.

But Sky's come too far to stop now.

"It killed her," she breathes. Her voice is heavy with a thousand tears, and I feel the awkwardness slide away as Cressida and I wrap our arms around her and let her sob into our shoulders.