The Panther Iago regarded them in a vaguely bored way. “But I hoped you’d stay for luncheon,” he purred. “I would have laid my head on your lap.”
“Thank you kindly, but I don’t think I’d like that,” said September brightly.
“You’re stealing her Marid,” the cat said tonelessly. “Do you want one of her cannons, too? They’re about the same: stupid, dangerous, and useful.”
“He doesn’t belong to her!”
“Well, he certainly does.” Iago grinned. His pink tongue flopped out between sharp teeth. “But I won’t tell. Iago won’t, no.”
“Why wouldn’t you? She’s your mistress!”
“Because I’m a cat. A big one, the Panther of Rough Storms, in fact. But still a cat. If there’s a saucer of milk to spill, I’d rather spill it than let it lie. If my mistress grows absentminded and leaves a ball of yarn about, I’ll bat it between my paws and unravel it. Because it’s fun. Because it’s what cats do best.” He tried to smile, but his teeth got in the way. “If I have a mind, I could even help. After all, it would be much more efficient … more modern … if you could fly to your destination instead of walking all that way. Being a Lieutenant has its small pleasures. Very small, sometimes. I could grant special dispensation to your Wyvern and remove his chains. Temporarily, of course. She would approve of that.”
A-Through-L slowly sat back on his haunches, sending up a cloud of dust.
“I could fly? Really fly? Like when I was small?”
Iago rolled his eyes. “Yes, like when you were small. Like when you were a wee lizard with nary a care in the world, licking your eyeballs and sucking crows’ eggs. Just like life was in that distant Eden of your scaly, wormy youth. How wonderful it will be, I’m sure. Shall I remove them for you?”
Ell looked down at his chains. With his claws, he lifted them in awe and let them fall against his hide. Several times, he opened his mouth to speak, but was overcome. Once, and only once, he allowed himself to look up into the forbidden sky. And at last, he shook his great head. The sun glinted on his horns. “I … I can’t,” he said wretchedly. “Not while my sister M-Through-S can’t fly. Not while my brother T-Through-Z can’t. Not while my mother wanders on foot. The Marquess is splendid—oh, she is so splendid! If she should appear right this second, I would abase myself in gratitude. But I cannot take her beneficence. I cannot bargain for my own joy alone—no one else gets to fly. Why should I? I am not special, or worthy. If she should appear right this very second, I would beg her, ‘Let your magnanimousness find some other soul who longs to fly and unlock her chains.’ I will walk wherever it is I wish to go. I will walk to my grandfather the Municipal Library, and he will praise me for my unselfishness. I have walked my whole life. More will not
hurt me.”
September’s eyes filled with tears. Why did I not just say no? She thought wretchedly. But her own voice answered her back: To save him, so that he could say no if he liked. Glue cannot say yes or no. I did the right thing, I did.
Iago shrugged his furry shoulders. “As you like. Saves me the work of picking the lock with my incisor.”
His almond-shaped eyes fixed suddenly on Saturday and narrowed. The Panther padded over to Saturday and sniffed at him. With slinky deliberateness, he licked the boy’s face. “Keep in touch, blueberry-boy. And if you should see my sister again, September, lick her cheek for me.”
Iago strode away, tail held high. The three of them, Ell, September, and Saturday, leaning on September for strength, tried to look as though they belonged and were not doing a thing wrong as they walked quickly to the gate of the Briary, never looking back, not once.
“September,” said the Wyverary wonderingly when the brambles and golden flowers and babbling moat were behind them at last, “where did you get those shoes?”
CHAPTER X
THE GREAT VELOCIPEDE MIGRATION
In Which September, the Wyverary, and Saturday Leave Pandemonium and Make Their Way Across Fairyland by Means of Several Large Bicycles
“Well,” said A-Through-L, sniffing hugely through his scarlet nostrils, “we had better be on our way. Autumn begins with A, you know. The Provinces are very far away.”
September stopped in a shadowy alley. On one side of the street rose the toasty-brown woolen wall of a bakery; on the other, the gold lamé of a bank. A Switchpoint on the corner readied its hands, flexing and cracking its hundred bronze fingers.
“Ell, aren’t you ashamed of me?” cried September miserably. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m awful?”
The Wyverary scrunched up his face uncomfortably and hurried on. “Do you remember where I found you? By the sea? Well, the Autumn Provinces are all the way over by the other sea, on the other side of Fairyland. If I ran dead fast, stopping only to nap and drink, I might make it in something like good time. But you wouldn’t. You’d fly right off, or break your bones on my spine as I bounced you!”
“Ell! I’m working for the Marquess! I didn’t even stand up to her a little bit! I met the villain—surely, it’s obvious she’s a villain—and I wasn’t brave; I wasn’t!”
Ell nuzzled her gently with his enormous head. “Well, no one expected you to, love. She’s a Queen, and Queens have to be obeyed, and even the very bravest aren’t brave at all when a Queen tells them they ought to do something. When the lions came to put on my chains, I just sort of lay there and cried. At least you stood on your feet, wee as they are. You said no once—that’s more than I’ve ever done! And for me! To save me! A silly half-library lizard. What kind of friend would I be if I scolded you for saving me?” He made a little, weird, wild sound deep in his throat, something like cluork. “When I am weak, when I am poorly, I cannot bear to be scolded. But if it will make you feel loved, I will scold you right proper, I will.”
“And you broke my cage,” added Saturday. “You didn’t have to.” His voice was strange and slushing, as if a crashing wave had stood up and asked after tea. “The Marquess likes it best when you don’t want to do as she says, but you have to do it anyway. That’s like … a big bowl of soft cream and jam to her.”
“Besides, what’s the difference, really, between fetching a Spoon for the witch and fetching a sword for the Marquess? Not much, I’d say.”
September thought about it. “I suppose it’s because I offered to get Goodbye’s Spoon for her. I wanted to do it. To make her happy and to do something grand, so that maybe I could be a little grand, too. But the Marquess demanded that I do it, and then she said she’d kill you if I didn’t—and me if I didn’t do it fast enough. That’s not the same thing at all.”
“It’s service, though, either way,” said Saturday softly.