The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There(21)

“That’s the only way to look at things, I always say,” propounded the Duke. “Slantways, sideways, and upside down.”

The Vicereine put her brown hand on September’s arm. “Tea leaves are nothing to the reading of coffee grounds, if you want the unvarnished truth. Coffee is a kind of magic you can drink.”

“My caffeinated bride! You malign me!” the Duke protested. “Tea is no less high enchantment! My family are all great and learned wizards of tea, and our children will carry on the family lore,” he assured September.

“They will sing the Carols of Wakeful Working!” insisted the Vicereine. “They will cast the Jittery Runes!”

“Not before the Glamours of Soothing Souls!” roared the Duke. “Not until they have mastered the Calm Crafts!”

Darjeeling kicked the carpet with a dainty foot. “I’m rotten at Turkish, you know,” she confessed.

Peaberry tossed her nutmeg curls. “Well, I loathe the Lemon Sabbat,” she sniffed at her sister.

“They will know both,” the Vicereine said, laughing and holding up her hands for peace. “You see how it all went so wrong! In the old days, the Robust Cavalry and the Chamomile Brigades tore each other to bits. We are Wet Magicians, all of us royal bodies. We are loyal to our bailiwicks. We’ve lived in Fairyland-Below since before they hung the stars up, and we’ll be here after they burn out. After all, coffee plants come up from under the ground, and yes—tea plants, too! We’re the ones who coax them along, who tell them who to be when they grow up strong. There’s loads of us down here. That’s Baron of Port.” She gestured to the man with the violet skin. “That is the Waldgrave of Milk with the horns and the pale hair, the Pharaoh of Beer with the wheaty hair, the Dauphin of Gin dancing up on his table. And the dark lady reclining with cacao seeds around her waist is the powerful and sought-after Chocolate Infanta. We practice our Wet Magic, deep and mystic and difficult, hard to hold in the hand but sweet in the belly. Coffee is the best of them, obviously. It’s a drink that’s a little bit alive—that’s how it makes you feel so alive and awake.”

Matcha tugged her mother’s shimmering skirt. “Tea is alive, too, Mummy. That’s why we have tea parties. So the teas can play together, and tell each other secrets.”

The Vicereine picked up her green-haired girl in her arms. “Yes, of course, my little leaf. And when you speak of tea or coffee or wine or any of our liquid spells, the drink must be matched perfectly with the drinker to get the best effect. If the match is a good one, the coffee will get to know you a little while you drink it, to know you and love you and cheer for your victories, lend you bravery and daring. The tea will want you to do well, will stand guard before your fear and sorrow. Afternoon tea is really a kind of séance. And at the end of it all, the grounds—or leaves!—left in the bottom of your little cup are not really prophecies but your teatime trying to talk to you, to tell you something secret and dear, just between the two of you. So my husband is being a bit boorish about it, because he is a Duke, and Dukes are the wild boars of the noble kingdom, but he only wants to know what tea is your tea.”

September thought about her pink-and-yellow teacups in the sink back home, and how she had hated them and their slimy clumps of leaves. She felt poorly on it now, thinking of tea as a thing alive, which wanted only the best for her.

“I don’t want to be a Princess,” she said finally. “You can’t make me be one.” She knew very well what became of Princesses, as Princesses often get books written about them. Either terrible things happened to them, such as kidnappings and curses and pricking fingers and getting poisoned and locked up in towers, or else they just waited around till the Prince finished with the story and got around to marrying her. Either way, September wanted nothing to do with Princessing. If you have to mess about with that sort of thing, she reasoned, it’s better to be a Queen, anyway. But the thought of a Queen made her think of Halloween, and her hand tightened on her cup.

“I suppose we could just call you September, Girl of the Topside. That doesn’t sound very grand, though.” The Duke scrunched up his long nose.

“What about a Knight?” suggested Ell shyly.

September brightened for a moment, but the memory of her shadow still hung in her mind, and she slumped again. “I used to be a Knight,” she said. “It’s true. But a whole year has passed. And I haven’t a sword anymore, not even a Spoon, and I haven’t a quest, except for a hope of fixing things that I broke myself, and questing is really about fixing things that other people break. I don’t know that I am a Knight any longer. A Knight should feel triumphant about their adventures, and I suppose I do, but I also feel strange and sorry because of all that happened after.”

“It doesn’t trouble me to tell you,” said the Vicereine, in the tone mothers use to talk children out of too-expensive toys, “Knights are a dreadful sort, when you get to know them. Oh, in storybooks it’s all shining armor and banners, but when it comes to it, they’re blunt weapons, and always wielded by someone else.”

“Perhaps.…” An odd idea was forming in September’s heart like tea slowly steeping. “Perhaps, if I am to look at everything slantways and sideways and upside down, as the Duke says, and I’m not a Knight any longer, I could be a Bishop instead. In chess, Bishops go diagonally. They’re surprise attackers, and you hardly ever see them coming.”