The highwheel pilot opened her jacket and pulled out several long strips of dark meat. She passed them around, along with a fancy oakwood flask. Penny gnawed her jerky contentedly.
“What … is it?” asked September dubiously.
“What do you think? Dried tire. I share and share alike with fellow velocipeders. Only fair; it’s a hard life. Don’t turn up your nose at it! It’s as good as any other meat. A little gamy, sure, but they’re wild. Not all fattened up like mutton. Go on, eat. And drink—that’s good axle grease in there. Just as nice as yak blood.”
Ell chomped his and swallowed it right quick. September chewed slowly. This could hardly qualify as food at all, let alone Fairy food. But it wasn’t awful, not nearly. And not rubbery in the least. It was as though someone had found an extremely skinny, tough old turkey and burnt it thoroughly in the oven. The flask smelled rich and salty, and when she drank, she came near to spitting it out—or throwing it up—for it was indeed the closest thing to raw blood she had ever tasted. But she felt strength in her afterward, sinewy and springy and warm. Saturday ventured a little tire and a sip of grease but could not stomach it. He nursed a bit of stone he had dug up from the earth instead. Penny stuck out her tongue in disgust.
“That’s not nice, love,” admonished Calpurnia. “Changelings, you know? No manners at all.”
“Is she? Really?”
Penny picked at her golden shoes. All changelings must wear identifying footwear, September remembered, as though from a hundred years ago. “Didn’t like the ’chestra,” Penny mumbled. “Can’t play nothin’.”
“She’s right. I went to a recital—the poor thing was playing her grummellphone upside down. Fortunate-like, I keep my pockets full of oilcan candy in case I’m in need of bait. I offered her a handful, and she jumped right into my arms. Took to the velos much better—practically born to it, you might say!”
“But a changeling,” said September, “that’s when a Fairy takes a baby and leaves a Fairy in the crib.”
“It’s more like … a cultural-exchange program,” Calpurnia said, ripping off a chunk of tire in her teeth. Her eyes were wild and golden, and the starlight was all caught up in her wings. September tried not to stare. “Well, unless they leave a poppet. That’s just a bit of a joke. But usually, we swap them out again when they grow up, and everyone’s the wiser for solid communication between realms. It’s nice. Well, not nice, but fun. I’m not having that for my Penny, though! Princess of the Highwheels, I’ll have her up to be!”
“I talk to the little velos,” whispered the child. “They say, ‘Penny, where’s your seat?’”
“I don’t approve of the changeling orchestra. It’s not pretty; it’s just a zoo, really. For rich Fairies—who are in good with Miss Fancy Curls herself—to peer at. Couldn’t bear that for such a sweet thing as Penny. Time was, changelings were the toast of the town, fed with biscuits and new cream and got to dance at the Thistle-Balls in the spring, dance until their shoes wore through and then dance some more—”
“That doesn’t sound quite nice either…,” said September uncertainly.
“Well, it’s a certain sight better than being strapped to a grummellphone until your spine grows W-shaped!”
“Grum’phone sounds like a cow chucking, anyway,” Penny groused.
“That’s right, chickie-love. And you never have to play one again. Anyway, I don’t approve of chamber music in general. It’s stuck-up on itself. Much prefer the velo horns.”
“What was her name before?” asked September.
“That’s private. No one needs to know that but her.”
“Molly!” piped Penny. “I was a Molly! And I had a Sarah and a Donald, and they were a sister and a brother. And I had a velo of my own! Only it wasn’t wild, and it didn’t talk. It was pink, and it had a little bell and three wheels instead of two. But I didn’t have a Calpurnia, so I must have been sad. I don’t remember, really.”
They were all silent for a while, staring into the fire as those not possessing tires and spokes have done since the dawn of the world. The Wyverary drifted helplessly to sleep, sitting up. He snored lightly; it sounded like pages turning. Calpurnia scratched under her hat.
“Where are you lot off to, then? You’ll pardon, you don’t seem like the lifestyle type. Short-term transport, am I right?”
“The Autumn Provinces,” answered Saturday, his voice echoing low among the snorting, snuffling highwheels as they teemed around their watering hole and spun their spokes in antique mating dances.
September found she did not want to say why they were going. She delicately wrapped the sash of the smoking jacket around her recovered Spoon. Calpurnia whistled.
“Ayup, that’s a respectable haul! We ought to make that in a week or two. Hope you brought comestibles of your own!”
“A week or two!” cried September. “But that’s not fast enough! We need to get there and back in seven days.”
Penny giggled. “Can’t do it!”
But Calpurnia was thinking. She scratched her chin with three long brown fingers, then licked them and held them up to the wind. “Aye, but we might … if you think you can handle your alpha. I don’t like to do it, but I’m not so dense as to miss that you’re running hard, and that almost always means there’s a beast behind you.”
September nodded miserably.
“Well, a velo is a lazy thing in the end. They don’t like to go as fast as they can go. It suits them just as well to roll along leisurely-like. This is the Great Migration—they’re all homebound, to the spoke nests, to mate and die. Some of them feel the mating drive stronger than others. Some only feel the dying drive. Makes them lag. But if you and I apply a bit of encouragement, they’ll bear down on the road like it’s dinner. And by encouragement I mean whipping of course and I know it’s not civilized and I cringe to think of it but sometimes with steeds it’s all you can do.”
“Don’t want to whip my velos,” Penny whimpered.