Spinning Silver

by Naomi Novik

In the walls a thousand shifting degrees of light softly gleamed and faded, and when I pressed my fingers hard to the cold surface, for a moment they splintered into color around my touch.

But the world I wanted wasn’t the world I lived in, and if I would do nothing until I could repair every terrible thing at once, I would do nothing forever.

He would only shrug and look at me expectantly again, waiting for high magic: magic that came only when you made some larger version of yourself with words and promises, and then stepped inside and somehow grew to fill it.