Then I tripped over a loose magma block and fell face-first into a pile of rainbow wool.
“I meant to do that,” I said into the wool.
“You always do,” said Biscuit, and I could hear the smile in her voice even with my face buried in approximately forty stolen wool blocks.
I pushed myself upright and looked around. The palace was extraordinary, even now — enormous vaulted ceilings of dark stone, lava falls running down carved channels along the walls, and every kind of glittering block imaginable stacked in careful towers: amethyst clusters from the End, festival banners from Blockville, rainbow wool from Rainbow Meadows, sea lanterns from places I couldn’t even name. Mira had collected it all, every beautiful thing, and brought it here where nobody could see it.
That was the part that always made my chest feel a little twisty.
