“But why? You could have ruled well again and been loved! Maybe your time was done, maybe defeating King Goldmouth and restoring Fairyland was your destiny, and when it was finished…”
The Marquess grimaced. She ran her hands back over her hair—the black curls returned. She ran her hands over her dress—black crinoline flowed over her, and lace, and jewels. She placed her hat firmly back on her head and dried her eyes.
“I am not a toy, September! Fairyland cannot just cast me aside when it’s finished playing with me! If this place could steal my life from me, well, I, too, can steal. I know how the world works—the real world. I brought it all back with me—taxes and customs and laws and the Greenlist. If they wanted to just drop me back in the human world, I can drop the human world into theirs, every bit of it. I punished them all! I bound down their wings, and I set the lions on them if they squeaked about it. I made Fairyland nice for the children who come over the gears, I made it safe. I did it for every child before me who had a life here, who was happy here! Don’t you see, September? No one should have to go back. Not ever. We can fix this world, you and I. Uncouple the gears and save us both! Let this be a place where no one has to be dragged home, screaming, to a field full of tomatoes and a father’s fists!”
September reeled. She had thought she was done with crying, but she could not bear the Marquess’s tale. Tears flowed hot and frightened and bitter. Iago howled, mourning for Mallow or the Marquess or Fairyland, September could not be sure.
“I’m sorry, Mallow…”
“Don’t call me that,” the Marquess snapped.
“Maud, then. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you going to tell me how wicked I am?”
“No.”
“Good. Now do as I say, little girl, or I shall throttle your friends in front of you and let Iago have the meat of them.”
Iago grimaced a little.
September still clutched the pearly clock to her breast. She could not imagine it—living a whole life here and then, suddenly, horribly, being a lost child again, all of everything gone. It was too awful to think of. Gently, September turned the clock over in her hands. But the Marquess, poor Maud, was broken now, and she wanted to break Fairyland, too, to make it like her, sad and bitter and coiled up like a snake, ready to strike at anyone, friend or foe. September slid her fingernail under the latch. The door of the clock’s workings sprang free. What if it had been September, and she had lived here so long that she forgot home?
September’s hands found the stopped gears. She knew she could do it. Clocks were easy. Her mother had taught her about clocks ages ago. Even if it were me, she thought, I could not chain Ell’s wings like that.
September drew the Wrench from her side. It was huge and long, its copper hand shining brightly.
“It will be as big as I need it to be,” she murmured.
And the Wrench sighed. It melted in her hand like a popsicle in the summertime, until it was delicate and tiny, a jeweler’s tool. Before the Marquess could tell her not to, September gripped the offending wheel within the heart of Maud Elizabeth Smythe’s clock with her Wrench and pulled at it.
“Don’t you dare!” cried the Marquess. She ran her hand along Iago’s black spine. He just looked up at her, his emerald eyes sad.
“Mallow…,” he whispered. “I’m tired.”
“Please! I can’t go back!” The Marquess snatched September’s hand, squeezing it horribly tight.
“Don’t you touch me!” cried September. “I’m not like you!”
The Marquess laughed her knifelike laugh again. “Do you think Fairyland loves you? That it will keep you close and dear, because you are a good girl and I am not? Fairyland loves no one. It has no heart. It doesn’t care. It will spit you back out just like it did me.”
September nodded miserably. They were both crying, struggling with the Wrench. September plunged her fingers into the clock, desperately trying to turn the wheel on her own. The gears cut her chilled hands and soaked the clock’s innards with blood.
“No, no, I won’t let you! I won’t go home!” The Marquess sobbed. And then she did an extraordinary thing.
She let September go. The Marquess took a step back, as big a step as she could manage in that tiny place. The storm flashed lightning and rain behind her. “I won’t let you. Either of you. Not you, not Fairyland. I won’t let you win.” She put her hand on her chest. “I have magic yet. If you will set the clock working again, then I must be still. I have read quite as many stories as you, September. More, no doubt. And I know a secret you do not: I am not the villain. I am no dark lord. I am the princess in this tale. I am the maiden with her kingdom stolen away. And how may a princess remain safe and protected through centuries, no matter who may assail her? She sleeps. For a hundred years, for a thousand. Until her enemies have all perished and the sun rises over her perfect, innocent face once more.”
The Marquess fell down. It was so fast—one moment, she stood; the next, she had dropped like a flower snapped in half. She lay perfectly still on the floor, her eyes shut, serene.
September turned the wheel with her tiny wrench. The hands moved, slowly at first, and then whirred faster and faster.
In the room, suddenly, a soft alarm bell began to ring.
CHAPTER XX
SATURDAY’S WISH
In Which Escapes Are Made, a Great Wrestling Match Occurs, and a Stranger Appears