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Iago, the Panther of Rough Storms, lay calmly out of harm’s way, behind the broad side of a tiger-striped, flower-wheeled Model A Ford with a burlap sack over its spare tire. For in the lottery of steeds, the Marquess had found herself behind Aroostook’s wheel, and she had driven the length of Fairyland inside September’s automobile.
“It’s mine,” the Marquess screamed as she nocked another arrow. “You nasty little thieves! You give it back! Give it back!”
September stared. Her mouth hung open. The Marquess was crying.
Now, whispered Halloween, the Hollow Queen.
“She gave it to me!” wailed A-Through-L. “You’ve no right! I hate you! I hate you! Hate begins with H and I’ve never used it once but I’ll use it on you! I hate your lions and I hate your hat and I hate your horrible cold Gaol and I won’t give you anything!”
“You’re drunk!” Blunderbuss barked. “Go sleep it off!”
Now, hissed September’s shadow. Do it now, before she sees you!
“You stole it from me. Just give it back and I’ll let you go. I promise. It’s mine. It’s all I have left!”
The voice of Ajax Oddson filled the plaza of marionettes. Saturday, who had forgotten ever having heard it before, clapped both hands over his ears.
“What’s this in my own backyard? Why, it’s two old friends and all their secret scars! You know what that means!”
As soon as she heard the Dandy’s booming voice, September cried out: “Now, Maud, now!”
Out of September’s own shadow came a second, a shadow hiding in shadow. The new shadow wore lace petticoats and long gloves and a very fine hat. She peeled off the black outline of Halloween’s body and flew to herself, stretching out her hands with a terrible, eager love. The Marquess’s shadow caught the Marquess up in her arms and whirled her round like a dancer at a ball. The Marquess looked into her own eyes in wonder and shock. Violet and green fireworks shot into the air above them. They began to spell out their words.
But before they could form into the D of DUEL, September unholstered her Rivet Gun from her back and shot the Marquess in the head.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GIRL WITHOUT WARNING
In Which Many Secret Longings
See the Light, A-Through-L Loses His Treasure, and the Marquess Gets Her Comeuppance
A house snatched them all up out of Mummery in one swoop, as though it had been crouching in wait for hours and sprung out just when its cue had sounded. It looked much like a Spanish mosque—if a giant had firmly stepped on it. All the curly broken door frames and crumbling tiled mosaics lay in pieces and parts, each blue-green wall propping up the other. Fragrant stacks of red wood and pools of seeping black mud dotted the halls. Moss covered every shattered pillar. September and her shadow, the Wyverary and his Blunderbuss, Saturday and Aroostook, the Marquess and her shadow, stood before a beautifully carved archway leading into a little courtyard where a shabby fountain gurgled valiantly as though it had never stopped since September last saw it. The arch read, as it always had:
THE HOUSE WITHOUT WARNING
Lye stood waiting for them, tears of liquid soap streaming down her face. All she could see was the Marquess, her friend, her Good Queen Mallow, Maud, the girl who ruled Fairyland for a little while, and lost everything, and clawed her way back. And now the Marquess was riveted to her shadow once more. September strapped down her smoking Rivet Gun on her back. The conspiracy had done its work. Ajax could not touch them here, or make them duel. He had no power in Lye’s world. That is what happens when a person lives alone for so long—no one else can change their ways.
“What have you done?” the Marquess whispered.
Her shadow brushed a strand of magenta hair lovingly out of her face. “I missed you. Lye missed you. You got so lost for so long.”
The Marquess crouched down like a cornered wolf, looking wildly from shadow to shadow to golem to girl to wombat to Wyverary to Marid to Model A. Iago licked his front paw.
“She didn’t miss me,” she said when her eyes fell on September.
“She did it for me,” said Maud, her shadowy face moving against a crumbled wall. “We had such a lovely time together in the underworld. Oh, Mallow, don’t you remember me? All the things we did together? Don’t you remember Father’s farm and the house in Winesap and Mr. Map? Our ducks and our magic and our friends? We defeated Goldmouth. We put a pot of cocoa on every table in Fairyland. We knew Yes Magic and No Magic and a hundred other kinds. We were so good, once upon a time.”
“I want my book back,” Mallow whispered wretchedly.
“What are you talking about?” asked Lye, hurt that her Mallow had not run into her clean green arms at once.
“The wyvern has it. He stole it. It’s mine. Please, please give it back. You can do whatever you want to me, put me in a dungeon or put me back to sleep or drown me till I’m dead. I accept that I’m outnumbered. I won’t struggle. Just give me my book back and you can have me.”
Ell glared at her through his sea-glass spectacles. He clutched The Mystery of the Blue Train in his claws. September hadn’t seen it in the chaos. It had a silver arrow through the cover. “But it’s not yours! Not everything in the world is yours just because you want it. My great-grandmother gave it to me because she loves me and it’s how I know she loves me.”
Mallow sunk to her knees. Her shadow sank softly down behind her. “Wyvern, where do you think the library got it? A novel by Agatha Christie? Published in London and New York in 1928? Tell me, is Agatha a spriggan or a pooka? Or a dragon? It’s mine. I had it in my satchel when I stumbled through into Fairyland from my father’s attic. Most people don’t think it’s her best but I loved it. I used to sit up in bed in my little house in Winesap and read it over and over. I read my books of magic, too, and my neighbors’ whole collection of Fairy romances, but I always came back to the jewel thief and the heiress and the wonderful train. I lost it when I moved to the Briary, after I cut down Goldmouth and sewed him up into a ball so he could never hurt anyone again. I searched for years, as Mallow, as the Marquess, but I could never find it. It was the only human thing I loved. It is the only human thing of mine left. If you don’t give it back to me I shall start screaming and never stop.”
