The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There(67)

The Red Wind feinted and lunged for the invisible Alleyman, catching him with a loud crunch of bodies. Prince Myrrh, finding himself suddenly free, rushed to hide behind his mother. The shadow of the Marquess stepped aside in dismay. He reached out for her, wordless and sorrowful. “I can’t protect you,” the Marquess said desperately. “I have no magic. You should have waited for her. Your real mother, who looks like you and could break them all with a word.”


The Red Wind and the Alleyman suddenly disappeared over the edge of the roof, and all the shouting stopped.

“What’s happening?” September cried. “A moment ago we were in my house, or her house—”

“You followed me, child,” said the Silver Wind. “As you’ve been following me all the while. I am weak and small under the world, for there is no open air to whip me into my full power. But I could be a silver thread for you, flashing on in the dark. It is one of my specialties. The Green Wind loves to spirit away the discontent. I love to pull lost things out of the dark. You followed me across your own cornfield with the Black Wind in my boat. You saw me in the Upside-Down, in the onion-field, and in the cellar at the bottom of the world, a little silver sigh on the stairs when you did not know how to get out. You followed me again, back through the doors until you caught me, and I brought you here, just as fast as wind. The Alleyman was waiting for us,” the Silver Wind added darkly. “You rode on Cymbeline here, the Tiger of Wild Flurries, and you said your name was Glasswort, which I thought very strange, and that you very much enjoyed being a heroine and might look into it as a new career.”

September had to laugh, even in the midst of the chaos on the roof. I hope you did enjoy it, she thought. Because I do not enjoy at all not knowing what happened to me between the bottom of the world and the top. And to miss riding a tiger!

Prince Myrrh looked startled at the sound of her laugh. He stared at her with big, dark, wounded eyes.

“Hullo, Myrrh,” September said.

“H … Hullo,” he said softly.

But though he might have said more, the Red Wind swirled up behind him, her scarves flying. The Black Wind drew a crossbow covered in burls and blackberries and shot just beneath the red hat, which seemed now to be in the Red Wind’s grip, now to be gripping her. The arrow winged too far to the left and missed. He fired once more, and this one connected, driving home beneath the hat, but too far beneath and off center to be a fatal shot. Still, the cap crumpled to the roof, and the Red Wind stood over it, her face blazing.

Where the Alleyman fell, a stone knocked loose. Beneath it, a little plaque gleamed. September and the Winds crowded close around to read it.

RULES OF FAIRYLAND—BELOW

BEWARE OF DOG

ANYTHING IMPORTANT COMES IN THREES AND SIXES

DO NOT STEAL QUEENS

A GIRL IN THE WILD IS WORTH TWO IN CHAINS

NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF TEMPTATION

EVERYTHING MUST BE PAID FOR SOONER OR LATER

WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP


“But I know those words!” September cried. “I’ve been seeing them everywhere!”

The Black Wind nodded. “The Rules are older and deeper than groundwater. They are always in motion, always making themselves understood and obeyed. They are always following, always a part of the very land. They are Physicks—not Queer nor Quiet nor Questing, but pure Law. Halloween destroyed all the postings, but she couldn’t destroy the Rules. And here in Tain, the center of everything, she couldn’t even smash all the words themselves. This one, loyal public service board stayed whole. And haven’t you been following them, even if you didn’t know it? Haven’t you paid and paid, haven’t you found things in threes, haven’t you been tempted in your need?”

September had—and she was about to say so when the Red Wind yawned, bored stiff.

“Oh, bother that, brother Black! Let’s talk about something interesting! I haven’t had a brawl like that since the Cloud War!” The Red Wind exulted. She shook her dark red hair and pulled a pair of carved crimson pistols from her belt, tossing them into the air, catching them by the barrels, and offering them handle-first to Prince Myrrh. “If you mean to be King,” she said, “you might as well start by ridding your kingdom of a villain.”

Prince Myrrh stood up and gazed steadily at the Red Wind. He did look regal, for all his wolf ears twitched and his lip trembled. “I don’t mean to be King at all,” he said. “I have had a great long while to think about it, and I don’t want to. You can’t make me. I just got here. Anyway, being King is a fool’s game. You’ll only get toppled eventually, and in the meantime, all Kings seem to do is hatch schemes and plot. I’m a practical boy—I don’t see a need to scheme when I could just live my life and read books and learn magic and sit out in the evenings, perhaps make a friend who is not too interested in history. I just want to be a boy. I want to experience things like eating and jumping and running and dancing.”

“A King may dance,” said the Black Wind, whose voice was deep and beautiful as a full well.

“But not whenever he likes,” countered Prince Myrrh. “He may only dance when it benefits others, or when someone important wants to dance with him, or when dancing might accomplish some royal goal. I want to dance because I feel like it, because the water tasted sweet or the sun was shining—oh, how I would like to see the sun shine!”