Authors: Lisa Mantchev
Similar self-preservation instincts made her cast her arms wide-open again. Every tiny hair upon them stiffened like the nub ends on a thousand quill pens. The rush of air was the same, through her hair, in her ears, but something different emerged in place of feathers. This time, Bertie heard the echoes of wishes never made. Nameless longings leapt inside her heart of hearts like acrobats. Recognizing kindred magic, the scrimshaw medallion hummed against her skin, warming in response—
Seconds before she would have smashed into the rocks, Ariel caught her about the waist, tethering her body to his chest. He fought the heart-stopping plummet with only a small exhalation of breath to mark his efforts.
His smile was quizzical as they landed. “Did duress get the best of you?”
Thankful that the sands welcomed her feet instead of her face, Bertie couldn’t quell the disappointment that burbled up inside her. “I’ve forgotten the trick of flight, if ever I knew it.”
“Given enough time and practice, you’ll harness the winds again.” Ariel ran his hands down her arms, as though searching for feathers that had refused to manifest. “Especially since you have the best of instructors at your disposal.”
“It’s not your responsibility to teach me such things.” Remembering her father’s defection, the words came out harsher than she’d intended. Bertie wrestled to contain her misdirected anger as she looked up at the Scrimshander’s Aerie, reduced by distance to a tiny hole in the side of the White Cliffs.
Ariel spared a glance at the cavern’s entrance, which was exhaling smoke like the Caterpillar’s hookah in
Alice in Wonderland.
“He’s gone so soon after your glorious return? That’s hardly good manners.”
“A lack of manners is the least of his transgressions in my opinion.”
“Just say the word, and we’ll give chase through the skies.”
“And you’ll carry me, hanging about your neck like the proverbial albatross? Don’t be ridiculous. You’d tire of me before the day was out and drop me in the nearest gully.” But sarcasm couldn’t stop Bertie’s heart from slamming into her ribs as an errant wind howled around them. Deep inside her, all the unnamed longings of her soul raised the question:
What is it you really want?
Nate appeared in the distance, approaching at a run even as Ariel leaned closer, his hand sliding along her arm in invitation.
“I wouldn’t, and well you know it.”
Bertie gathered up the feathered bits of her mind that knew the joy of flight, carefully tethered them with red thread, and shoved them as far down as she could into the dark earth of her soul. “I can’t just leave.”
“He’s out there somewhere, isn’t he? Circling the skies as a fulmar.” The air elemental took her hand in his own, threading a bit of wind between their enmeshed fingers like the captured ribbon tail on a kite. “Give chase. You promised Ophelia, didn’t you?”
I have gone to find her.
Bertie could picture the Scrimshander’s note, though it had surely been reduced to cinders and ash by the fire. “My father made his decision. He’s gone after Sedna.” Pulling away from Ariel, she clasped her elbows for warmth, suddenly freezing now that she wasn’t burning, and began to climb the nearest dune. Half a second later, she slammed into Nate’s chest, as solid as an anchor when the world around her was a storm-tossed ocean.
“Are ye hurt?” Without waiting for an answer, he ran his hands over her arms, squeezing to make certain her bones were just where they ought to be. His dark eyes took in her soot-smeared clothes, her no-doubt disheveled hair and face, the blistered skin upon the very end of her nose that even Bertie could see when she went a bit cross-eyed. “I take my eyes off ye fer a second an’ the next thing I realize, there’s smoke pourin’ out o’ th’ cliffs! I thought ye’d been burnt t’ a crisp until I spotted ye on th’ beach!”
The worried look on his face shouldn’t have irritated her, but it implied everything she hated most about damsels in distress. “The fire was an accident, one that won’t be repeated.”
Despite three trips to one of the Caravanserai’s famed bathhouses, he still smelled of salt and seaweed, Sedna’s fragrance yet clinging to him in the way that her starfish hands could not. “Ye shouldn’t ha’e wandered off wi’out me.”
“Perhaps the Mistress of Revels wanted a moment without her loyal hound nipping at her heels.” The air elemental’s soft laughter acted like gasoline upon a fire, and Nate flared up.
“She left ye behind as well. Mayhap she wanted a moment wi’out ye makin’ cow eyes at her.” Nate looked at him as though he could cheerfully tear Ariel’s head from his shoulders and stuff it down whatever remained of his neck.
Mustardseed grinned at Bertie. “I was never any good at geometry, but you’re stuck in a triangle, aren’t you?”
“Shut up,” she ordered even as Moth asked, “But what if there were four of them?”
“That’s a love rectangle, and five people would be a love pentagon.”
“And what are six people in love?” Cobweb demanded.
Mustardseed thought it over a moment. “Manslaughter, I suppose.”
“It might yet come to that.” Trapped once more between sky and sea, Bertie looked from Ariel to Nate.
I have flown and fallen, and I have swum deep and drowned, but there should be more to love than “I survived it.”
Nate spit once in the sand as he turned back to her. “I just wish ye’d be careful.”
“Unless you plan on covering me head to foot in cotton wool”—a notion Bertie didn’t put past him—“you’re going to have to come to terms with the idea that I might occasionally encounter something dangerous, be it Sea Goddess or wayward fire or questionable meat on a stick.”
Here the fairies broke into delighted cries of “Where!?” and “Bugger, she’s just trying to illustrate her point” followed by “She’s illustrating with meat? Whatever happened to pen-and-ink sketches?”
Ariel contributed nothing to the speculation, instead crossing his arms one over the other. The action recalled his butterfly familiars from the skies, and they flocked to him with eager wing beats.
“Bats!” Moth flailed at the air. “Vampire bats!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peaseblossom said with a sniff. “Vampire bats don’t sparkle.”
“They do! They’re a great glittery menace!” Moth countered, still cowering behind Cobweb and Mustardseed.
The butterflies disappeared under the collar of Ariel’s silk shirt, and if winged insects could shoot withering glances, then surely they disappeared with great disdain. Peaseblossom took advantage of the silence to begin the Inquisition.
“But you haven’t told us what happened in the Aerie. Did you try to ‘kindle a fire’ again?”
“When will you learn the words you write have consequences?” Moth said, wagging a finger under Bertie’s nose.
“I didn’t write anything.” She gestured to Waschbär, standing just behind them. “Our friend still has the journal among his things, I hope.”
Despite a long-distance sprint through the sand, the sneak-thief was neither red nor panting. He yet wore his rucksack slung about his impressive shoulders and patted the bag with one dexterous hand. “As you commanded me, good Mistress of Revels.”
“But what about the Scrimshander?” Cobweb wanted to know. “Did he turn into a rotisserie chicken?”
Flinching at the suggestion, Bertie shook her head. “No. He was gone before I got there.”
“Don’t worry!” Peaseblossom hastened to reassure her friend. “He can’t stay away forever.”
“Sure he can,” Moth said, oblivious and cheerful as the boys skimmed about Bertie’s head. “He’s a wild animal, isn’t he?”
Mustardseed and Cobweb added their thoughts, which included, “I guess he could fly until his arms give out” and, “They aren’t arms, stupid, they’re wings.”
Bertie was suddenly very tired: tired of walking, tired of explaining, tired of dealing with her fae friends, and tired of catching the surreptitious glowers exchanged by Nate and Ariel. As the fatigue seeped inward, it brought with it the mocking laughter of the Sea Goddess. Every breaking wave along the shore seemed to echo her voice, every foam-tipped eddy looked like the crooking of a starfish finger, the strands of seaweed Sedna’s vicious tresses. Bertie licked her lips and tasted evil in the air. “She can’t have coalesced yet.”
Nate’s breath came in short pants, as though to reassure himself there was yet air to breathe. “Aye, she’s back. I can smell her.”
“So can I.” Ariel ducked between Bertie and the still-distant shoreline, as though to shield her from view of the water creatures that might lurk in the tide pools. With a muttered oath, Nate did the same, looking aggrieved that he hadn’t thought of it first.
“Don’t think it protective only o’ ye when I suggest we hurry back t’ th’ Caravanserai,” he muttered, jerking his thumb at the massive sandstone outpost. “Fer myself, I don’t care t’ linger here another moment.”
“Nor I,” put in the four fairies with one voice.
“It would serve a double purpose to pack the caravan and seek out Aleksandr,” Waschbär reminded Bertie. “The Innamorati did want to hire you, good Mistress of Revels, to continue work on their Brand-New Play.”
Bertie glanced from the Caravanserai to the much closer and yet-threatening shoreline. “I’m not sure the amphitheater is far enough from the ocean for my taste, but it’s better than no plan at all.”
Never mind that it saves me from returning to the Théâtre Illuminata—and Ophelia—without the Scrimshander.
Decision made, Bertie began the foot-sucking slog back to the caravan. Resting upon the glittering white sands of the beach, painted wheels and wooden slats looked decidedly out of place. With practiced hands, Ariel tended to the needs, such as they were, of the mechanical horses. Their dull silver flanks gleamed pewter and mercury in the midday light, their amber eyes the same glowing yellow as the sun. Cobweb, Mustardseed, and Moth shoved the detritus from the morning meal between the flowered cotton curtains that covered the caravan’s windows despite Peaseblossom’s repeated protests that they’d just have to clean it out later. Nate scattered the blackened bits of wood that were the only evidence of their bonfire, but the stench of things-burning wouldn’t quit Bertie’s nostrils, and every turn of her head brought a fresh wave of acrid smoke.
“You make a particularly fetching chimney sweep, good Mistress,” Waschbär noted in passing as he tossed bundles of food and boxes of medical supplies atop their gaily decorated conveyance.
“That bad, is it?” Bertie contemplated her sooty sleeves and could only venture to guess just how dirty her face must be.
“You could paint shadow puppets on the walls with your fingers.” He paused in his rapid work to offer her a paw.
A bit puzzled by the gesture, she accepted his hand, only to find a damp handkerchief blossoming in her palm like a water lily. Bertie smiled at him with gratitude in between swipes at her forehead and cheeks until she saw him quiver with ill-suppressed laughter. “I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?”
“You are that,” came the cheerful confirmation. “Never fear, there are ablutions to be had within the Caravanserai’s famed walls.”
The sneak-thief’s word was golden. Minutes later, the troupe drove the caravan back into the marketplace accompanied by rolling wheels and the tinkle of countless silver bells. Up close, the deceptively beige bricks that composed the walls sparkled with flecks of gold and silver and rose. The scents of unnamed and unknown spices mingled with onions, garlic, and baking breads, prompting the fairies to clamor for sustenance. Ignoring their pleas, Waschbär directed Ariel straight into the Water District, down a narrow roadway peppered with laundry services and bathhouses. In unseen underground rooms, furnaces heated massive copper boilers, their presence marked only by the smoke and steam they belched into the sky. The air here was sultry, damp, and redolent of Mrs. Edith’s lavender water and starch. Bertie could feel her hair beginning to frizz as they approached a blue-tiled archway marked by an elaborately scrolled sign:
T
HERMAEPOLIS
B
ATHS OF
A
LL
T
EMPERATURES
S
TEAM
R
OOMS,
M
ASSAGE
B
EAUTY
T
REATMENTS
C
OIFFURES
L
ADIES
O
NLY
“There you are,” Waschbär said with a flourish when Ariel halted the caravan. “One luxurious bathing experience, as promised.”
Though her grubbiness was surely something to behold, Bertie hesitated. Within the Water District, the murmured threats of the Sea Goddess echoed in every puddle. She would have made do with a pitcher and a washcloth, except the building that housed the Thermaepolis included a needle-sharp spire that stabbed at the sky.
Taller yet than a watchtower.
From which she could scan the beach for signs of Sedna’s return and the skies for signs of her father. Jumping down from the caravan, Bertie landed on the cobblestones with a thump and a scowl.
The sneak-thief followed, but it was only to offer an unwelcome suggestion. “You might consider postponing your bath long enough to pay a visit to Serefina.”
“The herb-seller?” Bertie specified, though she disliked using the misnomer. The woman was far more powerful than any mere apothecary.
Waschbär leaned in a bit and lowered his voice. “She might be able to offer some safeguard against the reappearance of the Sea Goddess.”