"I'm glad." Raine did know the games of stubborn people avoiding topics, in part because she occasionally did such things herself, but regardless was distracted by his question about mushrooms. "I'd be inclined to assume they have some magical attributes, yes," she said, in response to that, and hummed briefly, thinking. "To the best of my knowledge, most fungi aren't equipped to reach quite this size. They simply can't generate sufficient nutrients past a certain point." Aggressive, four-foot-tall mushrooms she had encountered; twenty-story-tall mushrooms were new. "But this is, after all, the Dreaming. It's possible that what we would think of as the normal rules of reality don't apply in the same way." This was her first purposeful venture to the Dreaming, and she really didn't have much of a frame of reference. Perhaps Solomon did.

But the earlier question still nagged at her, and the prospect of experimenting with the mushrooms did not spark quite enough enthusiasm to turn her mind completely away from it. She could come up with any number of reasons why he hadn't done as he said he would, ranging from stress and absent-mindedness to a marked difference in regard, but the primary source was after all right in front of her, and there was little to lose in requesting clarification. "May I inquire why this is the first I've heard from you since then?"