Or didn’t die at all, and might want their wings back, Carmer thought.
“Father imbued it with new power,” explained Pru, stroking individual wings in the cloak affectionately, as if she, too, remembered who they belonged to. “And now it serves a higher purpose: me.”
Carmer’s mind raced. If the Mechanist’s cloak had been given more magical properties by the Unseelie king—if it could make its wearer invisible, and even protect a faerie from iron—then suddenly, the idea of a faerie princess sneaking onto an airship and destroying an entire engine car seemed much more feasible.
And so did the idea of the same faerie princess capturing an innocent cabin boy and manipulating his memories.
“Bell,” Carmer breathed.
Pru’s head snapped up, quick as a snake. “What did you say?”
“Bell Daisimer,” Carmer said with more confidence than he felt. He tried to imagine how fierce and no-nonsense Grit sounded whenever she confronted an enemy (and sometimes, unfortunately, a friend).
“Where is he?” Carmer demanded.
Pru hung her head until the dark curtain of her hair fell forward, obscuring her pale face. “That was rather rude, you know.”
Somewhere, the soft drip, drip, drip of water echoed.
“We barely know each other, and I’ve done all I can to keep you comfortable here, even though I bet you’re a sneak and don’t really know what a telephone is, and I’ve shown you my collection and my favorite present and yet you DARE TO MAKE DEMANDS OF ME?”
Pru did not yell so much as her voice seemed to come out of every corner of the room; it blared out of the phonograph horn and echoed from the conch shells framing her mirror. Even the mouths of the serious faces in her stolen pictures opened and closed along with her words.
“I . . . I didn’t—” Carmer stammered. The ground started to sink under him, forming a shallow basin. The seaweed around his limbs tightened and flipped him over onto his face before he could even cry out. He struggled against his bonds, but they might as well have been ropes inches thick.
“It’s my turn to ask the questions,” said Pru as water began to bubble up out of the ground, soaking Carmer through, running into his nose and tickling his lips like a cold, unwanted kiss.
“GIDEON SHARPE IS of no concern to me,” said Grit flippantly. She hoped it was flippant enough. “I’m here to discuss another prisoner you’ve taken. His name is Bell—”
“That boy of yours sure seems concerned,” interrupted Mister Moon. “Wailin’ into his sheets at night. ‘Gideon! Oh, Gideon! Stop, you’re hurting him!’” Mister Moon held a fluttering hand to his forehead.
Grit’s first instinct was to launch herself at that stupid throne, cursed bones of the king’s enemies or not, but she held herself back. If Mister Moon knew Carmer was having nightmares, it meant he’d been spying on them. And though she’d hoped to bargain civilly with the king for Bell’s release, the uncomfortable truth was that humans had little protection under faerie law—and Mister Moon would probably sooner bargain with a Seelie unicorn shooting sunbeams out of its eyes than with her. She’d have to come at this from a better angle.
“Sharpe is paying for his crimes,” Grit said flatly. “He acted against his court, and you judged him for it. But you know who you don’t have the right to judge and torture however you want?”
“I’m gettin’ an idea,” drawled Mister Moon.
“The so-called filthy street fae scum,” spat Grit. “The Wonder Show faeries aren’t under your power.”
“Not yet.”
“Not anymore. They’ve forsworn their courts. They haven’t broken any laws.”
“They’ve shared their magic with humans,” sneered Mister Moon.
“So have I!” countered Grit, throwing up her hands. “And it just so happened to help stop a raving lunatic from enslaving us all. Want to lock me up for that as well?”
Mister Moon shrugged and whistled through his teeth—the shrieking whistle of the Wild Hunt’s train, so loud Grit had to cover her ears.
Well, so that was his opinion on the matter.
“You’re forgetting something else, redcap,” Grit said. “No one’s noticed the Wonder Show faeries’ magic. No one was panicking in the streets or crying about the end of days and burning Friends as witches. No one was felling forests—”
“No more than usual—”
“No one was noticing anything, and no one was getting hurt, until you started bringing down Tinka’s ships!”
Mister Moon straightened in his seat on the throne, his black-nailed fingers gripping the armrests.
“Before you start swingin’ ’round accusations you know nuffin’ about,” he said, swinging his own long legs to the floor with a squelching stomp, “you might want to take a second and remember where you come from, Princess.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“Oy, and that’s the problem right there, innit?” Mister Moon slapped his bony knee. “You’re the heir to a Seelie throne. The future keeper of an entire kingdom. You come from a line of fae that once brought humans to their knees in fear and awe of us. And now, you’re wastin’ your breath on the same fae that would rather sing for their supper from the Big Folk than honor the old ways, who’d forsake their court and kin and stretch thin what power we have left. So I suggest you shut that pretty little trap o’ yours until you remember where your loyalties lie.”
His words hit Grit like a slap in the face. But what did Mister Moon know about her anyway? She was loyal to her kingdom, wasn’t she? She’d nearly sacrificed herself to protect them! She was loyal to Carmer, who’d cemented his own allegiances when he became a Friend of the Fae. What did it matter if she wasn’t exactly ready to blindly follow a few rules so old and musty they practically had mothballs?
What did it matter if this wasn’t the life she would have chosen, if she’d had the chance, as long as she did her best? She was doing her best.
. . . Wasn’t she?
“The courts have ruled Faerie since before your grandmother sang her first forest, and probably before her grandmother, too,” said Mister Moon, easing back a little in the throne. “Seelie and Unseelie: two sides of the same coin, as those humans you’re so fond of say.” He flicked his cigarette butt away; it spun artfully end over end to the slimy floor. “Ain’t no such thing as a third side of a coin.”
Grit bit her lip. “Coins have edges, though,” she said. “Don’t they?”
The Free Folk certainly lived on the edge of faerie society. The edge of a coin was the in-between, the impartial and seemingly insubstantial line that somehow still balanced the whole thing as it spun.
And boy, was this coin spinning.
“The thing about edges . . .” mused Mister Moon, tapping his long fingers on the arms of the throne. “I’m no engineer, like our Friend Mr. Carmer . . . but they have to stay pretty small, don’t they? We can’t have edges runnin’ ’round, growing as big and powerful as they please. That’d change the shape of the whole thing.”
He smiled, revealing a mouthful of teeth filed into deadly points and a forked tongue. “Someone’s gotta smooth out the rough edges. Don’tcha think?”
CONTRARY TO WHAT a good many people in his life might’ve thought, Bell wasn’t an idiot. He was an aeronaut and an adventurer and, okay, a bit of a thrill-seeker. He’d never shied away from a good time. But even if he occasionally flirted with the fine line between “a little bit reckless” and “just plain stupid,” he prided himself on at least knowing the difference.
And that made it a lot harder to resist the urge to take advantage of all the hubbub this “other princess’s” arrival was causing, grab whatever sharp implement he could get his hands on inside the shipwreck, climb to the top of the deck, and start hacking his way through meters-thick magical jellyfish gut. How would he outswim his guards all the way to the surface? How could he be sure he was close enough to swim to shore, even if he did? No. That escape attempt would have
firmly fallen into the stupid category.
But that didn’t mean he had to sit there and do nothing. Judging by the chatter in the usually silent waves, these monsters were in the mood for gossip. And Bell was ready to be an all-too-willing listener.
He stayed away from the guards on the foredeck and retreated farther into the ship, to the captain’s quarters—a space he’d claimed for himself. (If he had to be imprisoned on a sunken ship, Bell figured, he might as well do it in style.) He knew the fae, especially Pru’s mermaid friends, liked to watch him sleep through the window. Usually, he found this incredibly creepy, but today . . . well, today, Bell was about to find out if his most charming smile had cross-species appeal.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he spotted three familiar-looking mermaids swimming the same way as the rest. Toward the castle? he wondered. Surely, that would be where a visiting princess would be headed. Bell waited for them to pass by. He took a deep breath, tried not to be too worried it might be his last, and rapped on the window.
The mermaids’ heads swiveled around as one, just a little too disconnected from their bodies for Bell’s comfort. Bell took in their mottled gray-green skin and seaweed hair filled with squirming parasites and held back a shudder.
“Hello, ladies,” he said with a little wave.
The middle one regarded him sourly.
“My apologies,” Bell corrected. “Ladies and gentleman.”
A rocky start, to be sure. But the night was young—or the day, possibly. It was kind of hard to tell down there.
17.
DON’T DROWN THE MESSENGER
Nan Tucket was standing outside the doorway of the Moto-Manse when she heard a crash.
It was a different crash from the belly-rumbling gong that echoed when she rang the doorbell, of that she was fairly certain. Which meant that someone was most likely home, and that she was standing out in the cold for no good reason.
She blew on her hands, which were cold even through her gloves, and rapped on the door.
“Hey!” she said. “Felix Cassius Tiberi-something . . . oh, darn it, I forget. Carmer! It’s Nan, from Rinka Tinka’s Roving Wonder Show! Can I come in, please?”
Because my toes are about to fall off? she thought. There was another sound, like something shuffling along the floor. He probably had a cat or something that was scampering about in there, warm and dry, while here she’d been instructed to wait until she could deliver her message in person.
Thud.
Now that would have been a very big cat. Nan pressed her ear to the door.
“Carmer?”
She heard more indistinct sounds of movement and looked up; the sound was coming out of an open second-floor window of the moto-mansion.
“Is everything all right up there?” Nan called to the window.
There was no response.
Something was wrong, Nan knew it. It was like being in the air and realizing that her balance was off—that split second when she felt the whole thing going south before her mind fully realized it. That split second between adjusting your footing, if you could, or falling.
Nan wasn’t an acrobat and a wire walker for nothing. She wedged a foot onto the doorknob, accidentally tapping the ridiculous doorbell—the resulting boooooiiiinng sent the whole house shaking again—and vaulted up, grabbing the top of the door casing. Another push and she cleared the door entirely, pulling herself up into the open window.
Really, she thought as she hoisted herself up, people ought to be more careful. It’s lucky I haven’t decided to use my talents as a cat burglar.
All other thoughts were swept away, however, as she entered the sleeping compartment of the moto-mansion. The boy called Carmer lay on the floor, a broken lamp—which must have been the cause of the crash—next to him. His eyes were closed and his limbs thrashed about wildly. Horrible gurgling, gasping sounds came from his throat.
“Carmer!” Nan jumped down from the window and onto the floor. There was barely enough room for the both of them in the narrow hall; two bunk beds and another sleeping berth took up most of the space on either side.
Nan hovered over the boy, unsure of what to do. Was he having a seizure? She didn’t even know what a seizure looked like, but she’d heard about people having fits. Was she supposed to protect his head, or turn him on his side? She had no idea.
She grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him, hard.
“Carmer, wake up!”
He opened his eyes, but Nan could tell he was most definitely not awake. His eyes were glowing gold, the lids covered in a shimmering powder that Nan was wise enough not to touch.
Nan had seen gold dust like that once or twice before, on the Roving Wonder Show, and she had an inkling it meant Carmer wasn’t dealing with any normal affliction. No one ever said the word “magic,” of course, for fear of being laughed right out of the sky, but there was no dismissing the favorable winds that came out of nowhere to push their caravan along when they were running behind, or the doors that opened and closed by themselves, or the cheery music that sometimes echoed through the camp at night when no one was awake to play it.
But something much darker was afoot here, Nan was certain. Carmer’s skin was flushing from bright red to practically purple, to deathly pale and back again. He couldn’t breathe, she realized. Every few moments, in between the horrible gurgling sounds, his chest would heave in a great gasp, like a drowning man breaking his head above the water, only to be sucked back down again. A large bowl of water next to the bed had been overturned in his struggles. Rivulets of it ran across the wooden floor, getting both of them wet. It looked like it came straight from the pond; bits of dirt and plant life still clung to the inside of the bowl.
“What do I do, what do I do?” she asked. She had been told Carmer might be in trouble, but she hadn’t expected this kind of trouble.
“Grab some iron, girl, and quick!” said the floor.
Nan jumped so high her head nearly hit the ceiling.
“What’s the matter, never seen an old lady before?” groused the rough voice again.
Nan grabbed for Carmer’s kicking legs, trying to still them, and peered down cautiously at the pooling water on the floor. She could just make out the reflection of a weathered face, blinking in and out of view.
“The fire poker will have to do,” muttered the old woman’s reflection. “Now go, make sure it’s good and hot, and wake him up before the poor boy drowns!”
The water trickled along the slope of the floor, spreading out until it was too thin to make out the old woman’s face. Nan looked around desperately, found the stairs, and jumped the whole way down into the kitchen. The fire was nearly burned down to embers, but she pushed in the poker as deep into the heat as she could. The precious seconds waiting for it to heat up seemed interminable; she strained her ears for sounds of continued life from the boy upstairs.
When she could take it no longer, Nan ran back up to the second floor. Carmer was alarmingly still.
“Sorry about this!” Nan apologized to his prone form, and pressed the end of the hot poker into his palm.
With a great gasp, Carmer sat up like a shot.
“Water . . .” he said faintly, coughing and sputtering.
“Haven’t you had enough of that?!” Nan exclaimed.
Carmer shook his head and motioned for the bowl. Nan handed it to him with shaking hands. There was only a little bit left in the bottom of the bowl, but Carmer proceeded to splash it directly onto his face.
It made him cough even harder, but it also cleared the shimmering powder from his eyes. He let the bowl drop with a clang and sagged against the bed frame.
They sat in silence for a few moments. Nan felt just as exhausted as Carmer looked, though she hadn’t been the one mysteriously drowning on air only moments before.
“Thank you,” Carmer said finally. “I can’t believe I forgot . . .” He trailed off and stared at Nan, seeming to realize for the first time who he was talking to
. “How did you find me?”
Nan was sure How did you get in here? would follow close behind.
“I was warned you might be in trouble,” Nan said. “So I came to check on you. It’s a good thing she got your letter in time.”
If it was at all possible, Carmer looked even more gobsmacked than before.
“She?”
A DISEMBODIED HAND met Grit on her way out of the throne room. It was Lieutenant Axel Hudspeth’s.
Oh, no, she thought. No no no no no . . .
A few steps down the hall revealed a small leather boot . . . and then a leg. Grit sped up, following the scattered body parts of the automaton—another hand, a model bayonet, a foot, a shiny brass button from his coat—like a trail of gruesome bread crumbs through the maze of the Unseelie court’s halls. The shiny, dripping walls pressed in on her from all sides as she broke out into a run, calling Carmer’s name.
She nearly tripped over his head.
The painted eyes stared up at her, unseeing. The face was wet and dirty and chipped at the chin.
A subtle movement in the air caught Grit’s attention, distracting her from her panic.
Princess Purslain Ashenstep appeared, wearing—of all things—the Mechanist’s cloak around her bony shoulders.
Grit had never met the Unseelie princess—she imagined both of them were discouraged from straying too far from their palaces—but she’d heard a few stories. Fewer of them were good.
“I like your Friend,” Purslain said in a singsong voice, turning side to side so that the light from the glowworms bounced off the wings in her cloak. “I think I’ll keep him.”
Grit lunged.
Purslain disappeared, stepping back into nothingness. A laugh echoed in the hall; she reappeared behind Grit and waggled her finger.
“Be careful, Grit,” said Purslain, pulling down the hood of the cloak. “Some people might think you were about to strike me just then. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Because any direct attack on me, or one of my subjects—especially in my own house—would be grounds for war between our courts, wouldn’t it?”
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