On realness by Patricia A. McKilllip

The witch shrugged. "I have you now. You conjure firebirds out of your head. I'll have your magic out of you and then I'll change all my hens into firebirds."

"It won't be enough," Gyre told her softly. "It will never be enough. Not once you have heard its true voice and seen the face it hides. All the power I possess could not make out of all the white hens in the world a single feather of the firebird." (Patricia A. McKillip, In the Forests of Serre. New York: Ace Books, 2003, p. 178)

Ah yes. There is real, and there is unreal. The link with the book's title is to a more comprehensive post on the same book. Here's the Wikipedia article on McKillip.

Thanks for reading.