Changeling (21 page)

 
 
 
When I woke up, I was so warm and comfortable I thought at first I was back in my own bed in Belvedere Castle. Then I realized it was much too quiet, and the air smelled stuffy and kind of flowery.

I opened my eyes. Reflected candlelight danced in the shiny side of a big black box about an inch from my nose. I wallowed upright in a huge pile of velvet-covered cushions and stretched.

Honey peered down at me over the edge of the box. “You slept like the dead,” she said. “The maid's been trying to get in and fumigate for hours.”

Her voice brought it all back: Sammy the Scalper, the Chorus Line, the Producer and his cabinet of Tech heads, the lights of Broadway going out, Changeling turning them back on again.

“Where's Changeling?” I asked.

“Changeling's taking a bath, darling. Your Satchel is on the breakfast table, hobnobbing with my magic coffee-grinder. The Bram Stoker doesn't do solid food, I'm afraid.”

Honey's room was decorated entirely in red, black, and pale yellow. So was Honey. She'd lost the Shirley Temple look for black tights and a loose red silk shirt, and had scraped her blonde ringlets back into a curly ponytail.

A door opened and Changeling walked into the room.

I wasn't sure, this morning, exactly how I felt about Changeling. On the one hand, she was so totally not from around here. She didn't know Folk lore; she didn't know the rules. I wasn't even sure she really believed in fairies yet. If she
looked
just like me, she should
be
just like me, you know? Like nixies are like other nixies? But she wasn't.

On the other hand, she could see things I couldn't and knew things I didn't. Without Changeling's Tech magic, I'd be negotiating with Sammy the Scalper over which body part to trade for a ticket to
Peter Pan
. Or decorating the Producer's cabinet of heads. I owed her. Big-time. And I didn't feel good about
that
either.

Changeling marched over to me. She still wore her embroidered jacket, its flowers a little faded from their bath in New York Harbor, but she'd traded her ragged skirt and T-shirt for black jeans and a crisp white shirt.

“Honey told me that my old clothing was not appropriate for Wall Street,” she told me. “I did not allow her to replace my jacket, however.” She examined me with a slight frown. “Do you think that dress is appropriate for Wall Street?”

“Probably not.” I bit my lip. “You look very nice, Changeling.”

“Thank you.”

All at once, I realized just how grubby and itchy I felt. I scrambled out of my nest and told Honey I wanted a bath.

Honey's bathroom was mostly occupied by a black marble bathtub the size of a small pond. Honey showed me how to turn on the water and where she kept the bath oil, and left me alone.

I stripped off the spidersilk dress, washed my hair and skin in the rose-scented water, and then just floated.

What I should have been doing was planning how to find the Dragon of Wall Street and how I was going to get his Scales from him once I found him. But every time I tried to focus on the subject of dragons, my mind skated off to what Honey had told me about changelings.

It made a Folkish kind of sense. Living with the Folk, I was growing Folk-y. Living with mortals, Changeling was growing mortal. But what did that
mean
, exactly? Would I grow magic as I grew Folkier? Would Changeling eventually lose hers? Was her skill with computers mortal knowledge or fairy magic? What kind of supernatural had she been originally? How had she been chosen to lead the life I would have had if the Folk hadn't switched us?

Honey tapped on the door.

“I do hope you haven't drowned,” she called out. “Management would absolutely hate that.”

“Out in a minute,” I shouted.

What about Honey? She used to be mortal like me. Now she was a supernatural with her own set of unbreakable rules to live by. How did she deal with that? Why wasn't talking to her like talking to a moss woman or a nixie or even Astris or the Pooka? Astris liked me, but she didn't understand me. Honey understood me. But Honey drank mortal blood.

It was all very confusing.

When I was totally waterlogged, I got out and put on the black jeans and white shirt Honey had left for me—not the sneakers, though: I never wear shoes in summer. The spidersilk dress I rolled into a ball and stuffed into my pocket.

Back in the bedroom, Honey was curled up in a red leather chair with a white porcelain mug. Changeling sat at a black lacquer table eating scrambled eggs and drinking hot chocolate. I sat down to help her.

Honey wiped a trace of crimson from her upper lip, and I noticed her fingers were bandaged in white gauze.

“Does it hurt?” I asked around a mouthful of egg.

“It itches,” she said. “My fault entirely. I couldn't resist touching your dress. I've never seen a real spidersilk one before.” She put the mug on the floor and unfolded her legs. “This is all very cozy, darlings, but we really need to discuss this Wall Street expedition of yours. What are your plans?”

I took another bite of egg and chewed, thinking fast.

The Financial Maze belonged to the Folk who lived for gold: giants, kobolds, wyrms, some dwarves. No big European dragons—the Dragon of Wall Street had long ago eaten all the serious competition. Not for the first time, I wished that I knew more than the basic facts about the non-Park neighborhoods of New York.

I swallowed. “Well, I thought I'd get as close as I could and trust to luck.”

Honey's fangs showed at the corners of her smile. “Wall Street isn't like New York Harbor, darling,” she said.

“It's not even like Broadway. You can't count on running into a friendly investor or a helpful broker who'll show you the ropes. There's no such creature.”

“Then I'll just have to do without help. If you can tell us how to get to the Treasury, maybe I can ask for a job—you know, like that debutante whose date got stolen by the ogre's daughter? She pretended to be a housekeeper until she figured out how to break the spell the ogre had laid on him.”

Honey laughed. “The only job you're likely to get at the Treasury is as an afternoon snack.”

I was getting annoyed. “Then what am I supposed to do? Because if I don't get the Dragon's Scales, I'll never get home. Changeling either.”

“Calm down, darling. I'm just introducing a note of reality into your charming fantasy. Not to beat around the bush, what you need is a native guide.”

“Does that mean you're coming with us?”

Honey shook her head. “Daylight, you know.
Ruinous
for my complexion. No, I'm going to send you to my friend Fleet. She's lived in the Maze all her life.”

Another strange supernatural; another new adventure. It was hard to remember I'd ever wanted one. I poured some more hot chocolate. “What kind of supernatural is Fleet?” I asked resignedly. “How does she like to be asked for things? What will I have to give her in return?”

“Oh, Fleet's not a supernatural,” Honey said. “She's a mortal changeling. Like you.”

I stared at Honey, who gave a Shirley Temple-esque giggle. “I surprised you, didn't I? It's true, though. There's a whole street of changelings in the Maze. Maiden Lane. But first you have to get there.” She turned to Changeling. “You're good at remembering things, aren't you?”

While Honey and I talked, Changeling had piled the dirty plates on one corner of the table with the forks laid neatly across them, and was arranging some little enamel boxes she'd found in a flowerlike pattern. “I have an eidetic memory,” she said without looking up from her work. “What do you want me to remember?”

“A series of directions,” Honey said. “Street names, left turns, right turns, things like that. You have to get it exactly right. A mistake could be fatal.”

“I will not make a mistake,” Changeling said.

I tried to pay attention while Honey taught Changeling the way to Maiden Lane, I really did. But there aren't any streets in the Park. Names and turns slid in one ear and out the other like water through a pipe. Instead, I watched Changeling arrange boxes. Her hair had dried into a crinkly halo. I touched my own curls and wondered how alike we actually looked. I thought my eyes might be a little greener and my face a little rounder, but I wasn't sure. I wished that Honey's room had a mirror.

Changeling glanced up and caught me staring at her. I laughed nervously, and Changeling turned back to her boxes. “What comes after Worth Street?” she asked Honey, and then it was all “turn left” here and “take the third right” there until Honey was satisfied that Changeling had the directions memorized. Then it was time to go.

I picked up Satchel and slung it across my chest. “I hope Management won't charge you too much for all those contaminated cushions,” I said, looking at the black-and-red nest beside the coffin.

Honey smiled a rather nasty smile. “Management can go file its fangs,” she said. “Come on, darlings. You don't want to be caught in the Financial Maze after dark.”

The hall seemed to be empty of sensitive vampires. We followed Honey through a maze of long corridors lined with shiny wooden doors with brass plaques on them: “Lillie Langtry,” “Lynn Fontanne,” “George M. Cohan.” Finally, we came to a hall so encrusted with painted red dragons and gold curlicues and Chinese characters for luck and joy that at first I didn't even see that there was a door at the end.

“This opens on Canal, at the heart of Chinatown,” Honey said. “The Financial Maze is the next district south. Do watch where you're going, darlings. Canal is delightful, but the Financial Maze is something of a Forest Perilous.” She sighed. “I wish I could come with you. I so want to know how it all comes out.”

I wanted to tell Honey how much I liked her and how grateful I was for the cushions and the bath and the clothes. But I wasn't sure that vampires like to be thanked, so I said, “Would you like me to come back and tell you about it?”

“You darling!” She threw her arms around my waist in a big hug. Even through my clothes, I could feel how cold she was. “Break a leg. And don't worry about a thing, darling. You and Changeling are a great double act. The Dragon won't know what hit him.”

The dragon door led to a room about the size of the Producer's elevator, with a second door in the facing wall. When Honey closed the door on her side, we were in total darkness. Then I heard a click, and Changeling swung the second door open onto bright sunlight and the chatter of many voices.

CHAPTER 19

 
 
 
We stood outside the Bram Stoker's back door, breathing in the sharp perfume of unfamiliar spices.

The street was an immersion course in Chinese Folk lore. In the space of a few breaths, I saw a troop of monkey spirits with long tails waving from the back of their camouflage shorts, three doll-like hu-hsien in miniskirts and high-heeled boots, five blue demons, a pair of fu dogs (one red, one green), and countless tiny flying dragons like bright silk scarves. Red-and-gold signs advertised shops and services: CELESTIAL CLOTH BY CHIH NÜ, THE CHIN CHIA GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR YOUNG SUPERNATURALS, and LI ORGANIZING SERVICES.

The crowd thinned out, and I caught sight of a wide slate-gray canal dotted with red-sailed boats and gilded barges. The sky was blue, scarlet flags were flying, and everybody seemed to be shouting cheerfully. I turned to Changeling to see how she was handling the noise.

Changeling was handling it just fine. Changeling on a mission was a different creature from Changeling tagging along on somebody else's adventure.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “We have to go this way.” And she barged through a knee-high flock of shinseën, who wagged their white beards and scolded her in high, old-man voices. I followed, apologizing.

I wasn't in a hurry to leave Chinatown. Countless stalls spilled their piles of cabbages and magic fish and amulets and embroidered slippers and bolts of violently colored silk into the street. A tray of tiny, jewel-bright frogs caught my eye. I bent over them, enchanted; a jade green one winked a ruby eye at me. Changeling jigged impatiently. “We have to
go
,” she announced.

“Just a sec. I want to see this frog,” I said, but she kept bugging me until I gave in. We walked along the canal to a red-and-gold bridge, which we crossed at a trot. Changeling paused to check a sign, then turned down a side street.

The side street was, if anything, noisier and more jam-packed than Canal, but Changeling wasn't fazed. She wove through the Chinese Folk like a needle, trailing me, threadlike, behind her. The street branched and branched again. To my relief, the crowds thinned, then vanished completely. Changeling didn't even seem to notice, but marched purposefully on, turning right and left, seemingly at random, but heading always southward, deeper into the Financial Maze.

I wasn't liking the Financial Maze much. To me, it felt like an anti-Park: dusty, silent, empty, hard. Its gray buildings loomed over us like sheer, many-windowed cliffs. I was almost happy to see a will-o'-the-wisp flickering mistily at the mouth of an alley. In a world of silence and stone, it was at least familiar.

Of course, if you look at a will-o'-the-wisp, it thinks you're going to follow it. Next thing I knew, this one had darted out of the alley and started dancing around our heads. Changeling batted at it irritably. This just attracted more will-o'-the-wisps, and soon we were at the center of a misty-bright dandelion.