They walked across the meadow, toward the tents.

“Have you been here before?” asked the tall man.

“I went to the last market, nine years ago. I was only a boy,” admitted Dunstan.

“Well,” said his tenant, “remember to be polite, and take no gifts. Remember that you’re a guest. And now, I shall give you the last part of the rent that I owe you. For I swore an oath. And my gifts last a long time. You and your firstborn child and his or her firstborn child… It’s a gift that will last as long as I live.”

“And what would that be, sir?”

“Your Heart’s Desire, remember,” said the gentleman in the top hat. “Your Heart’s Desire.”

Dunstan bowed, and they walked on toward the fair.

“Eyes, eyes! New eyes for old!” shouted a tiny woman in front of a table covered with bottles and jars filled with eyes of every kind and color.

“Instruments of music from a hundred lands!” “Penny whistles! Tuppenny hums! Threepenny choral anthems!”

“Try your luck! Step right up! Answer a simple riddle and win a wind-flower!”

“Everlasting lavender! Bluebell cloth!” “Bottled dreams, a shilling a bottle!” “Coats of night! Coats of twilight! Coats of dusk!” “Swords of fortune! Wands of power! Rings of eternity! Cards of grace! Roll-up, roll-up, step this way!” “Salves and ointments, philtres and nostrums!” Dunstan paused in front of a stall covered with tiny crystal ornaments; he examined the miniature animals, pondering getting one for Daisy Hempstock. He picked up a crystal cat, no bigger than his thumb. Sagely it blinked at him, and he dropped it, shocked; it righted itself in midair and, like a real cat, fell on its four paws. Then it stalked over to the corner of the stall and began to wash itself.

Dunstan walked on, through the thronged market. It was bustling with people; all the strangers who had come to Wall in the previous weeks were there, and many of the inhabitants of the town of Wall as well. Mr. Bromios had set up a wine-tent and was selling wines and pasties to the village folk, who were often tempted by the foods being sold by the folk from Beyond the Wall but had been told by their grandparents, who had got it from their grandparents, that it was deeply, utterly wrong to eat fairy food, to eat fairy fruit, to drink fairy water and sip fairy wine.