Authors: Lisa Mantchev
“Three townships, three walls, three gates we must pass through.” Bertie was hardly surprised. Three was a powerful number, be it portents or punch lines.
“We need t’ hurry if we want t’ arrive before they lock th’ gates.” Nate pointed off to the side of the road, where a stone mileage marker smugly noted the vast distance they had yet to travel. “Th’ courier said ’twas a few days’ journey.”
“A single rider on horseback might manage that pace,” Waschbär concurred, “but not this contraption, loaded down as it is with a year’s worth of edibles.”
“
Some
of us were of the opinion that no calamity could be greater than running out of food.” Peaseblossom shot a significant look at the boys.
“We’ll just have to hurry,” Bertie said, “riding late as we are now, as long as we can stand it, and getting up early. We have to win that wish-come-true.”
“What sort of performance are you planning for Her Gracious Majesty?” Waschbär wanted to know.
Something in Bertie’s midsection twisted up at the thought of writing another play. Her last effort, ostensibly for the Innamorati’s Brand-New Play, had unfortunately manifested in real life during the perilous journey to rescue Nate from Sedna. “If the Queen has heard enough about us to send a messenger to issue an invitation, my guess is Her Gracious Majesty is expecting something more impressive than a village puppet show.”
Moth took offense. “Are you impugning our performance?”
“I’ll impugn
you.
” Peaseblossom put up her dukes, then added a duchess for good measure. “I’m not performing with you three cannibals again, after what you did to my Henry.” She hadn’t mentioned her marzipan paramour recently, but her ire returned over the untimely ingestion of her boyfriend.
“We can perform without you,” Mustardseed countered. “No one is irreplaceable.”
“Yeah! I can channel Juliet just as well as you.” Cobweb jabbed his chest with a maraschino cherry stem.
“You can’t perform a secondhand show for the Queen,” Waschbär interjected. “You need something prepared in her honor, offering up a reflection of her glory!”
Peaseblossom had even more important things on her mind, it seemed. “What are you going to wear?”
The ruin of the Mistress of Revels’s emerald skirts and embroidered bodice commanded a moment of regretful silence. “When we stop to make camp, we’ll take a quick inventory of the costumes and properties. Surely Valentijn packed me something suitable for an audience with the Queen.”
“You’ve never suited a queen before,” Mustardseed said, his mouth quirking up at the corners. “Or are you forgetting Gertrude?”
Cobweb snickered. “She’s not quite a chop-your-head-off ruler, but almost!”
“Shut up, Cobweb.” Preferring her head remain just where it was, Bertie refused to think of Her Gracious Majesty as anything remotely resembling the Queen of Hearts. Instead, she closed her eyes and made a vow to herself, to her parents.
I’ll win that wish-come-true. For all of us.
CHAPTER SEVEN
If You Do Take a Thief, Let Him Show Himself
Traveling through the night
without stopping, by sunrise the troupe caught up with the tail end of a cavalcade headed for the Distant Castle. Wagons and carts ahead were piled high with exotic goods, riders saluted from horseback, and conveyances strange occupied the road: carriages lacquered the shiny red-black of ripened cherries and richly canopied
jinrikisha
pulled by shirtless servant boys in brilliant blue trousers. Though none of the fantastic parade matched the Innamorati for grandeur, the number of troubadours rehearsing their scales rivaled the melodies of the birds in the trees. Some performed solo while others were accompanied by musicians on fantastical stringed instruments, gongs, drums, and panpipes. They greeted Bertie and company with hand gestures, nods, and calls of “Beautiful weather ahead!” and “Lovely morning for traveling!” followed by “No trouble at all this season with brigands and thieves, praise be to Her Gracious Majesty!”
Waschbär made a derisive noise at this revelation. “That simply means they are busy elsewhere.”
“And if we chance upon your former comrades?” Bertie’s question was a bit garbled, posed around a mouthful of flatbread, spiced beef, and garlic sauce. They’d decided to break their fast while traveling, and she was doing her best to enjoy the sandwich, given it was the last food from the Caravanserai. “Should we let you do the talking?”
The sneak-thief set down his food, looking as though his appetite had fled into the hedgerow. “My hope is we’ll be able to avoid such an encounter.”
“I take it you didn’t part with the brigands on amicable terms.” Bertie hoped Peaseblossom wouldn’t catch her wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “What did you steal from them?”
“Freedom.” Waschbär lingered over the word as another might a mouthful of wine. “An unforgivable theft to such men and women.” His voice dropped a notch. “They have done far worse in their careers than plunder and pillage, though I tried to take no part in that. When I could stomach no more of their mercenary acts, I stole away in the dead of night, and I vowed I would never again deprive anyone of valuables they cherished.”
“That was when you decided to steal only unwanted things?”
“Yes.” Waschbär shifted, perhaps discomfited more by the memories than her question. “I took refuge in the bustle of the Caravanserai, but soon I was drawn beyond its walls to the White Cliffs and your father’s Aerie.”
“You took the scrimshaw medallion.” Bertie reached for it, twisting her fingers in the chain.
He confessed to the theft with a nod. “Once I would have lingered in the marketplace, rife as it was with gold pocket watches and velvet coin purses and fat money clips, but my newly made vow set me on a different path. I sought solace in the long road, traveling until my feet were sore, sleeping under the stars. Eventually, I reached a bustling city. A circuitous route left me in the alleyway behind your Théâtre Illuminata, and Fate led me to a window open in the Properties Department.”
“An open window, eh?” Cobweb fisted his hands on his hips. “I can just imagine who opened it!”
Bertie coughed, recalling the incident in which she’d tested the magical barriers of the theater by tossing the aforementioned fairy at the opening, resulting in a frizzling and a decided lack of underpants on his part. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
The sneak-thief didn’t notice the conversational footnote, his mind still following the narrative. “I couldn’t so much as touch a single item in the Properties Department, though I left the scrimshaw as a gift for your Mr. Hastings. What had drawn me to the theater in the first place yet beckoned, luring me down a long hallway and up a narrow staircase, to a glass-paned door.”
And then Bertie could guess the rest of the tale. “The unwanted thing that lured you there was in the Theater Manager’s office, wasn’t it?”
Waschbär shook his head. “Not one unwanted item, but two: the journal and the opal ring, both cleverly concealed in a hidden drawer of his desk.”
“The ring came from the theater as well?” Bertie frowned, not expecting that new puzzle piece. “With every mystery solved, another is born, it seems.” Looking down the road, she realized the other travelers had left the troupe in the dust, forging ahead while Waschbär told his tale. “The mechanical horses aren’t going to get us there in time, are they?”
Nate consulted the map. “We have enough time t’ reach th’ gates. Stow yer frettin’.”
Bertie leaned forward, putting her head on her knees. “I’m too tired to fret.”
“Ye can nap, if ye like.” Nate offered his shoulder for a pillow with a welcoming pat. “Rest yer head.”
“I’ve too much thinking to do to sleep. I need to conjure up a dazzling and brilliant performance for the Queen.” But every idea seemed more pebble than diamond, especially when Bertie admitted most of them were worries about Ariel: where he might be, whose company he might be keeping now, wondering if he’d care at all that they’d left the Caravanserai without him. Mimicking the mechanical horses, shiny brass gears in her head spun wildly with thoughts of him, each full revolution bringing her back to the beginning of her musings.
Did he scent that one-in-a-thousand wind and leave for good?
“Yer face is fair squinched up,” Nate noted. “An’ I don’t think it’s th’ sun in yer eyes.”
“It’s warm, isn’t it?” Bertie sidestepped the observation, hoping to compose her features and knowing she didn’t quite manage it.
“He chose not t’ come wi’ us, ye realize?”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now.” Would that she could have managed the statement with greater conviction! “And I didn’t say a thing about Ariel.”
“Ye didn’t need to.” It was almost as though he chose the shortest words possible, pounding them into the wood of the caravan with a voice like a hammer. “Yer every thought crosses yer face. What caused such a thing?”
I should tell him about trading the mask.
Though she wanted no falsehoods between them, secrets were not the same thing as lies, and some part of her desperately needed a secret right now, however small. Bertie hugged it close to her, clinging to it as a child would a stuffed bear or a blanket when the night-light failed and the floorboards creaked. Something brushed over her nose, and she thought it a spiderweb or a bit of mist before realizing the secret had surfaced upon her skin, forming the thinnest of barriers between her soul and the outside world.
Because she wouldn’t lie to Nate, she changed the subject. “The herb-seller said Sedna is tracking me through the water like a shark.”
He shuddered. “Th’ last thing we need is the Sea Goddess givin’ chase just now.” Nate glanced about them, eyes trained upon the landscape the way he might scan the seas for an incoming squall. “Though there’s not much chance o’ her manifestin’ in th’ middle o’ this dusty road.” He spoke with conviction, but under that ran a murky green thread of fear.
“Was she awful to you?” The moment she spoke, Bertie wanted to take the words back and eat them, no matter how vile they tasted. Nate flinched away from the question as though she’d slapped him hard; indeed, his cheeks reddened and something horrible to look upon filled his eyes. Before he could speak, she hastened to set things to rights. “Let’s strike a bargain and not speak of Ariel or Sedna again today.”
Adjusting the reins with visible relief, Nate nodded. “What would ye speak of instead?”
“Anything else. Shoes and ships and ceiling wax—”
“Oh, aye,” he said, picking up the rhyme, “an’ will ye give a cabbage t’ th’ Queen?”
The idea teased a laugh from Bertie. “Not a fitting gift. I’ll try to think of something other than leafy produce.” Then, their heads filled with conjuring tricks, silk flowers, and rabbits pulled from top hats, they fell into the sort of conversation they might have had months ago back at the theater, their words wandering over the landscape just as the caravan did. It was only when Bertie’s stomach growled that she realized the sun hung low in the sky, a glowing pink spotlight aimed at their backs.
“My thoughts exactly.” Nate guided the caravan off the road near a bend in the river.
“We can’t stop now,” Bertie protested, despite the fact that after more than a full day’s journey, her backside was aching numb.
“That’s enough fer now, considerin’ we didn’t sleep at all last night.” The pirate matched her, wince for wince, when he clambered down. “Everyone off afore I chuck ye overboard.”
The fairies and Waschbär descended, indefatigable and in good cheer, the former frolicking in the grass like winged puppies and the latter dismounting the conveyance as though it were no more than a hobbyhorse. The sneak-thief turned out his pockets, thus displacing Pip Pip and Cheerio, who tumbled one over the other with squeaks and bites.
“Mind th’ vermin,” Nate said, lifting one booted foot as they gamboled past him.
Three of the four fairies and Waschbär immediately sought out the nearest trees to relieve themselves. A bit more decorous, Peaseblossom emerged from a nearby thicket a moment later, twisting her little tunic about her hips and looking disconcerted.
“I’d forgotten what it was like on the open road. I think the Lost Boys must have had an easier time of it than Wendy.”
Bertie did her best not to laugh. “You’re going to wish we’d stayed at the Caravanserai when we’re sleeping on the ground tonight instead of in a feather bed.”
“Don’t speak of the Caravanserai,” Mustardseed said with a groan. “I miss the food already.”
“Aye, well, if ye want t’ eat anytime soon, we’d best get t’ it,” Nate observed with a glance at the sky. “Waschbär, ye see t’ th’ fire an’ I’ll tend t’ dinner.”
“Will do!” The sneak-thief took a small hand ax into the trees. When he returned, he carried a stack of logs, each as long and as fat as his forearm. With his usual speed and dexterity, he scraped back the grass, clearing a place for a fire.
The fairies sorted through the food supplies, tossing down flour and salt and the side of bacon. Bertie sliced off pieces of the smoked-and-salted pork while Nate committed the curious alchemy of baking ship’s biscuits, rubbing white fat into salted flour and transforming the crumbling mass into small rounds of dough. Peaseblossom had to search the entire caravan to find the necessary pans, but soon bacon frizzled in one skillet and biscuits in another. There was also dried fruit, a wheel of sharp cheese, and a stone jar of pink pickles the fairies thought might be either radishes or beets.
It was full dark by the time they sat down to eat, but they did so by lantern light with good appetite and humor. The metal plates Peaseblossom had unearthed were so thin that when Bertie drew her fingernail about the edge of hers, it sang an odd melody, the vibration of which settled into the empty space at the back of her throat. Bone-tired and her belly full, she thought she could have fallen asleep in the grass quite happily.