A beautiful stained-glass skylight dappled everything in petals of blue and green light, and every inch of the space below was filled of wonders: I spotted an aquarium filled with fish that seemed to be on fire. A golden cage in which slumbered a fuzzy, purple-winged moth the size of a small dog. A table covered with ingenious contraptions and bottles and curling glass tubes. I wandered, awestruck, past a sumptuous globe, taller than I was, with many little black crosses piercing its crust. Some were solitary, far out among the wastes and woods, but most stood in huddles around cities and
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