The Girl Who Drank the Moon

At five years old, Luna’s magic has doubled five times. Glerk worries that she’s going to burst at some point, but Xan suggests that maybe things will never be difficult. The narrator notes that while Xan loves finding homes for abandoned babies, she hates sad, hard, or unpleasant things. Later, Glerk rocks Luna to sleep and feels her magic pulsing. Xan tells him he’s imagining things and focuses on raising Luna, who is a mischievous and curious child, magic or not.

Xan visits the Free Cities two times per year. She takes Luna once per year, but doesn’t take her for Star Child Day, doesn’t tell her about the abandoned babies, and doesn’t tell her about the Protectorate. She knows that she’ll have to tell Luna at some point, but she reasons that it’s too sad and Luna is too little. On one trip with Luna, Xan tries to shrink a tumor in a woman’s brain as Luna touches a lump of bread dough and says that it’s a hat. Annoyed, Xan asks a boy to take Luna outside. Later, Xan sees that the bread dough actually is a hat—Luna’s magic shimmers silver and blue around it.

Xan works quickly for the next few days as Luna wreaks havoc. She climbs to impossible heights and turns houses into birds, and she has no idea what she’s doing. Xan cleans up after her and finally puts Luna to sleep with magic, which makes her feel horrible. Zosimos was very clear that Xan should never do something like that. Xan scoops up Luna and thinks that she’s missing something and needs to remember her childhood, which was sad. She knows that sorrow is dangerous, but she doesn’t know why. The narrator notes that 500 years is a lot to remember. Xan remembers flashes of a castle, scholars, and something scary. She knows there’s something that she’s supposed to remember.