Hawthorn the troll reached into the satchel he still wore slung over his huge, mossy shoulder. He pulled out a notebook and a handsome silver pen with indigo ink inside. He had a moment of panic, for he loved his paper and pen. He’d named them Inspector Balloon and Mr. Indigo back in Chicago, where he’d been a child and a Changeling, stuffed into a human body like a thousand-pound crystal into a brown paper bag. But trolls are canny creatures, and Changelings love little so much as making trouble, and out of both of these together, Hawthorn had stitched an idea. He stepped forward with authority. He was only thirteen, but a troll’s thirteen is a very serious age. Hawthorn didn’t know it, but he sounded awfully like Nicholas Rood, the psychologist who’d raised him. Nicholas had quite the bossiest voice he’d ever heard, and Hawthorn had once done Madame Tanaquill’s laundry.
“Step right up,” he bellowed, and if you have ever heard a troll bellow, you will understand why even Kings and Queens found their feet obeying before they knew what had smacked their eardrums. “Tell me your name and I shall write it out very nicely for you and pin it to your chest with one of your brooches or cloak-pins or, if you are a dinosaur or a bird or a rock or a slice of cheese, we’ll just sling it round your neck on somebody’s spare jewels. Do remember to spell it out for me if anyone’s got runes or umlauts or apostrophes or extinct letters in! Who’s first?”
The Marquess stepped forward. She spelled her name through clenched teeth. M-A-R-Q-U-E-S-S. A sour and sneering titter bubbled up from the royal horde.
“Oh, darling, that’s not how you pronounce it,” clucked Titania. “And anyhow, don’t you know that’s a boy’s title?”
“How embarrassing!” chuckled Madame Tanaquill, covering her mouth with a shimmering hand. “Who raised you, child?”
The Emperor of Everything wrinkled his noble nose. “I suppose they’re letting anyone wear the big hat nowadays. Look around; this room is half bumpkins and half barbarians. I’d wager she’s never so much as dog-eared a page of the Whomsday Book!”
“Or stayed up till all hours reading Ichabod Lurk’s Peerage, Spearage, and Fearage under her blankets!” smirked the Headmistress.
The Marquess flushed horribly, redder than her hair and blacker than her dress. “If I had my lions, you wouldn’t dare say such things!”
Whipstitch waved his ringed hand in the air. “If wishes were dishes we’d all tuck in, lovey! If I had my Button-Down Guard, you’d have a poleax in your eye! We all have our disappointments.”
“Have you got lions? Or have you got a wee brace of kittens you just call lions to puff up their chests a bit, the way a dirty little wastrel calls herself a Marquess and thinks she’s somebody?” Titania asked, tilting her shining head in sympathy.
Hawthorn didn’t pause. He kept writing out name tags, one by one, tearing strips out of Inspector Balloon, wincing with each tear. Tamburlaine pinned them to chest after chest like particularly unhappy medals.
“Shut up,” hissed the Marquess. “I chose it, you miserable, rouged-up idiots! Why shouldn’t I have a boy’s title? People listen to boys! They fear boys—they fear a King and hope a Queen will show them mercy! Why shouldn’t I be a Marquess? I rule the world! I say how things are pronounced! I say what belongs to boys and what doesn’t!”
“You don’t, though,” interrupted September calmly. The calm came up from inside her, pooling into her heart, smoothing everything clean. It had been so long. She had done so much—faced down a Yeti, shot her own shadow, seen the world from a prison cell, raced up to forty years old and back to seventeen again. September found she no longer feared the Marquess much at all. She even looked a bit short and sorry to her now. “You don’t rule the world. You don’t rule anything but yourself. You can still be a Marquess, if you like. But it means nothing more than saying you’re somebody’s old Auntie they only see once a year at Easter. You’re just like everyone else. It’s your turn to hope there’s a box of mercy in the pantry.” September sucked in her breath. The words formed in her mouth but she didn’t want to say them. She needed to think. She needed half a moment to breathe. But you couldn’t breathe in front of this lot. Breathing showed weakness. She didn’t need Tanaquill to tell her that. “I rule Fairyland—”
“No!” squawked a voice from the rear of the assembly. Not one voice, but eight, all speaking together in perfect harmony. “Nope! Nope! No! Don’t say another word, Missy! Make way!”
The Stoat of Arms barreled through the grand hall, the seal of a nation come alive. If you have ever seen a passport, try to remember the strange tangle of animals stamped on the cover, for all nations have them. Now, imagine them all leaping off that little leather book and yelling and squawking all together. The Stoat of Arms was not one creature, but a blue-skinned, black-horned unicorn rampant and a little girl in knight’s armor standing upon the backs of two enormous golden stoats. A rainbow of silver stars, black roosters, and sunflowers arched above their heads, and a tiny, twinkling Fairy balanced on her right toe on the tip of the topmost silver star. Applause greeted the miniature zoo—everyone there, save September and her friends, had known the Stoat of Arms long and well in their day.
“Yes, thank you, cheers,” said the two stoats, the girl, the unicorn rampant, the black roosters, and the Fairy altogether in one voice. “Hortense, kindly refrain from petting us, how many times have we had this discussion? In four hundred years you might have learned to control yourself.” A lady in a samite gown and a hippo’s head snatched her hand back guiltily. “Well, I think we can all agree this is an unprecedented and completely intolerable situation! I know you all far too well to think you will play nicely with the other children! Oh, come now! Has the Knapper stabbed someone already?”
“Nope!” called a cheerful-cheeked man wearing a cloak of knives. “He’s fine!” He waggled Whipstitch’s hand in the air, but the Elegant Emperor looked very pale and woozy.
“You see?” cried the stoats and the girl and the unicorn and the chickens and the Fairy. “Be honest, ladies and gentlemen, how many of you have spent the last quarter-hour fomenting rebellion, plotting to murder, or thinking of how nice the city would look if it were on fire?”
Many, many hands raised up, some sheepish, some defiant, some rather bored.
“Fortunately,” continued the Stoat of Arms, all eight of its voices filled with disgust, “you won’t get the chance. Fairyland is very well acquainted with all of you and has had quite enough of your nonsense. She is frankly exhausted by the last several thousand years of shenanigans and cannot imagine why all of you are so obsessed with who sits on a certain chair and wears a certain hat. However, if you will insist on treating her as a prize in a silly game, so be it.” The two golden stoats smacked the floor of the grand hall with their front paws twice, in just the same way as a judge might bang her gavel. “In three days’ time, which will be Thursday, for those of you who lived before calendars became sentient, let all who wish to rule Fairyland gather at the Ghostloom Gate on the north side of the city. Thursday shall be known far and wide as the day of the Cantankerous Derby! All hopefuls, thoroughbreds, long shots, cheaters, townies, speed demons, and dark horses shall commence a Wondrous Race, beginning in Pandemonium, and ending at Runnymede Square in the ancient city of Mummery! The winner shall receive the Crown, the Sceptre, and a nice blue ribbon with #1 written on it. All are eligible! Ravished, Stumbled, Changelings, Fairies, Gnomes, Rocks, and Trees! Participation comprises a binding contract to accept the results of the race. Sandwiches and coffee will be provided!”
“That’s all?” cawed Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord. “Then you shall all cer
tainly be calling me Your Grand High Such and Such by Monday morning! I’m faster than any of you sorry lot!”
“I beg to differ,” scoffed the Piebald, the Stallion of Time. His mane was all of clock hands, and his tail was a long pendulum.
“SANDWICHES AND COFFEE WILL BE PROVIDED!” roared the Stoat of Arms. “And that is most certainly not all! You must present yourself at Runnymede Square in the ancient city of Mummery bearing the Heart of Fairyland, or be disqualified! The Cantankerous Derby is a Race with a Hunt hidden inside! In the meantime, the Briary has ample room to accommodate you all in comfort and safety, from inclement weather, privation, but most importantly, from one another. Please proceed in as orderly a fashion as you are capable of to the Second-Best Parlor, where you will find the Scuttler, who keeps the running of the Briary. He will show you to your room and present you with a schedule of meal times, exercise hours, and social activities divided by who is least likely to eat one another before Thursday. Are we understood?”
A murmur of mixed doubt, eagerness, muffled outrage, and longing for lunch passed through the gathered court.
“But I am Queen of Fairyland,” September said softly. She nervously touched the crown of jeweled keys upon her head. Now that it was about to be whisked away from her, suddenly September did not feel quite so sure she wanted nothing to do with Queenery. “Why can’t it be me?”
The Stoat of Arms turned toward her with several haughty gazes—which is the same thing as apologizing to somebody who has been in government as long as the Stoat. “Indeed you are, madam. For three days. And Fairyland is very glad to have you. But please—such things are to be discussed in private, Your Majesty. You and I will adjourn to the Royal Closet, which I have already certified as ruffian-free. As for the rest of you, go! It’ll take the poor Zinnias weeks to make the grand hall livable again!”
The Zinnias, since our Stoat will certainly not deign to tell you a thing about them, are the Royal Guard of the Briary, a platoon of very stern armored emu-birds with zinnia flowers blooming all over their breastplates and their helmets. This might make them look silly to you or I, but Pandemonians know that each of those flowers can fly free like an assassin’s throwing star, and they are sharper than they seem. Flowers are always more serious than they appear.
You would not think a room could empty so quickly, but given the chance at a bit of cake and a place to plot in private, few creatures will dawdle. Half the Kings and Queens of Fairyland vanished in the space of a hiccup, blinking out of the grand hall and appearing in the Second-Best Parlor before anyone could tell them not to drink all the brandy. A quarter flew or hopped or bolted straight to the Helledoors, the blooming doors of the Briary proper, each violet petal etched with scenes from reigns long forgotten—though perhaps not quite so forgotten today as they were yesterday. The stragglers slipped through halls and secret nooks and trapdoors they knew like their own best beloved brothers and sisters. And the Stoat of Arms, with all its many and varied limbs, pushed, prodded, nudged, and jostled September away from her friends toward a long, slender hallway with no splendid flowers or decorated door. It looked dark and lonely. September protested loudly, but Stoats have won several prizes for stubbornness over the centuries, and you would have better luck protesting the sun.
“I want them to come with me!” she cried.