The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland 1)

ber took the child’s hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

“Not me,” the girl whispered. “Please let it not be me.”

The Glashtyn walked down the line, staring each of the children in the eye. The leader glared hard at September, and yanked her chin upward to check her teeth. But finally, he passed her by. The horse heads conferred.

“That one!” cried the leader, and a ripple of relief passed through the crowd. For a moment, September’s breath stopped, sure he was pointing directly at her.

But it was not her.

The little Pooka girl screamed in utter, animal terror. She shivered into a jackal and clambered around September’s legs, clawed up her back and onto her shoulders, wrapping her tail around her throat.

“No! No!” the Pooka wept, shrieking and clinging to September.

“What’s happening?” September choked, stumbling under the weight of the panicked jackal-girl.

“She’s the tithe—and nothing to be done,” said the ferryman Charlie Crunchcrab. “Might as well be grown-up and dignified about it. The ferry pulls on through Glashtyn territory. They have a right to their fare, too. No one knows what day it will come, or who they will choose, but, well, you all have to get to the City, one way or any way, is true?”

“No! Not me! I don’t want to go! Mama, please! Where’s my mama?”

But September could see her mother, near one of the chaises, a long black jackal with golden ears, lying on her side, paws over her face in grief.

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard!” The girl clung to September.

“That’s evolution, love. Take as taking can.”

“What are they going to do to her?”

“None of your business,” snapped the Glashtyn leader.

The Pooka wailed, “They’ll eat me! And drown me! And lash me to the ferry and make me pull it back and forth under the river!”

“It’s good enough for us,” growled one of the other Glashtyn. September saw for the first time that each of them clutched reins and ugly, cruel bits in their fists.

“Please, please, please,” sobbed the child. She shivered back and forth from girl to jackal to girl with alarming speed, the whites of her eyes showing. September reached up to pet her and pried her slowly loose, the claws from her hair, the tail from her throat. She cradled the jackal pup awkwardly, for she was not a very little creature. Her snout flashed into a mouth and back into a muzzle as she wept.

“Isn’t there anything else you could take?” September said wretchedly. “Does it have to be a child?”

“There must be blood,” answered the Glashtyn quietly. “Do you offer yourself as replacement? That is certainly traditional.”

To her credit, September considered this for a moment. She was a strong swimmer and would likely not drown, and they hadn’t said, exactly, that they meant to eat anyone. Being only Somewhat Heartless, she could not cradle a trembling child in her arms and not feel sorry for it and want to keep it from being tossed overboard. But she did not want to be a tithe, and she did not want to die, even a little bit, and she did not even want to brush shoulders with the smallest chance of it.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t. Isn’t there anything else? I have rubies.…”

The horse-man snorted. “Dead rocks.”

“I have a jacket and a shoe.”

They stared at her.

“Well, I haven’t anything else! But I can’t let you have her—she’s just a kid, poor thing! How can you frighten her like this?”

The Glashtyn’s stare bored into her. The blue fire in his eyes was calculating.

“You have a voice,” he said slowly, “and a shadow. Choose one, and I will take it instead of the skin-shrugger.”

You might think that is no kind of choice. But September was suspicious. No bargain in Fairyland could be that easy. And yet—she could not lose her voice, she could not! How would she talk to Ell? How would she sing? How would she explain to her mother where she had gone? And she could not let the girl, whose arms were clutched even now around her neck, go down into the dark river. Even if they did not drown her and eat her, the girl didn’t want to go, and September could get very cross about that sort of thing.

“My shadow,” she said. “Take it. Though it hasn’t any blood, you know.”