September walked back toward her friends, counting her steps. Losing only means going home, doesn’t it? Back to where I came from. I would see Mother and Father and Aunt Margaret again. I would sleep in my own bed. But a hot desire not to lose stole through September. It burned out everything else. The Headmistress was a tyrant. She’d said so. You stand up to tyrants. That’s what all her father’s books said.
Did she know any Latin at all? City Hall had a Latin motto on the front of it. September wracked her memory searching for it. All that she found was that it started with F. Saturday and Blunderbuss very much wished they could help, but neither of them had actually heard the word Latin before and could not begin to guess what would happen next, except that it would probably be over quickly. Saturday twisted his opal necklace fretfully. He could not even enter the dueling grounds. The air around September and the Headmistress had gone hard as glass.
Hushnow cawed out: “Ten for the crown I’m going to prance around in while you all blubber and moan, see if I don’t!”
The Headmistress whirled around, her gray skirts flaring, showing fiery-colored petticoats beneath. Treacle, the butterfly, hovered behind her, and for a moment it looked as though the lady herself had a pair of bubbling wings of every color. She drew a quill pen from her hair and leveled it at September.
“Amo, Amas, Amat!” the Headmistress thundered.
The air before her quivered, then sizzled, then snapped open. Three knights appeared, slender and short and dreamy-eyed. They wore rose-colored armor with blazing hearts painted on their helmets and their shields, for the words the Headmistress had flung at September were I love, you love, he or she loves. One carried a sword, one carried a poleax, and one carried a lance. They each had their names engraved upon their magenta-and-gold breastplates: AMO, AMAS, AMAT.
Ell whispered urgently—September did not understand a word he said, but she repeated after her Wyverary, beating her voice into shape, hammering it into something strong and bold and fierce. She’d never made a battle cry before, but she did her best.
“Exsarcimus, Exsarcitis, Exsarciunt!” she cried out. The flying Reference Desks above startled and snapped into formation.
The air before September quivered, then bulged, then parted like a theatre curtain. Three fellows marched out, all very grubby and muscly and ruddy in the cheeks. They wore armor, too, but theirs looked like steel overalls with blazing hammers and needles etched on them, for the words Ell had given September were We fix, you fix, they all fix. One carried a pair of screwdrivers, one carried a saw, and one carried a wrench not unlike September’s own. They each had their names embroidered on a patch above their hearts: EXSARCIMUS, EXSARCITIS, EXSARCIUNT.
The soldiers flew at one another. Amo skewered Exsarcitis with his poleax. Exsarciunt fenced Amas deftly, sword against saw. They ranged all over the Mystery Kitchen while Greenwich Mean Time raged against them, flying helplessly up and down his brass pole. Finally, they managed to break each other’s defenses at the same instant, and both fell. Exsarcimus twirled her screwdrivers like six shooters and leapt onto Amat, piercing him through the heart on his pink breastplate. All six of them vanished into smoke where they collapsed, no more alive than the dust on an overdue book.
“Castigo, Castigas, Castigat!” screamed the Headmistress.
This time there was no quivering of the air. Her army of verbs seemed to fly directly from her fingers—three soldiers all in black. Their shields showed an awful crest: a child standing in a corner with his hands over his eyes, for the words the Headmistress had parried with were I punish, you punish, he or she punishes. One brandished a ruler for the rapping of knuckles, one held a wooden paddle for cruel spankings, and one hoisted a quiverful of forks for the suppers wicked children had to go without. They each had their names pinned to their chests: CASTIGO, CASTIGAS, CASTIGAT.
Ell paused for a moment, thinking furiously. Then, suddenly, he laughed, and the laugh of a Wyverary, terribly pleased at his own cleverness, bouncing off the walls of a library is a wonder to hear. He whispered his magic words quickly into September’s ear. This time, he only needed two.
“Vincam! Vincemus!”
Twin warriors burst into thin air. They wore crowns, one of gold and emeralds, one of laurel leaves. They had forged their armor from shining trophies and medals. Garlands and sashes hung from their necks and their shields bore the sigil of a prize ribbon with dozens of ruffles, for Ell’s fighting words were I will win. We will win. Yet their weapons were nothing like swords and maces. One took aim with a tiny glass dart, dancing with blue light. The other took off her gauntlet to reveal a silvery mechanical hand. They each had their names stitched onto glorious long cloaks: VINCAM and VINCEMUS.
The crowned pair looked pityingly at the Headmistress’s punishments. Vincemus did no more than waggle her finger at Castigo and Castigas. Green fire flowed out from her metal knuckles in a thin, sharp jet. I punish and You punish fell instantly to the ground. Vincam tossed his dart casually, as though he had only dropped it, silly him! But it caught Castigat between the eyes and he vaporized before he could throw a single fork.
A-Through-L had used the future tense. His duelists brought weapons no one would get bored enough to invent for a hundred years. Vincam and Vincemus bowed, first to each other, then to September, shaking her hand, then Saturday’s hand, then patting Blunderbuss on the head and punching Ell playfully on the knee. They saluted, clapped each other on the back in a brotherly fashion, and disappeared in a golden fire burst.
The Headmistress had gone both red and black in the face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re a nasty little cheat,” she snarled between the hitching of her tears. “You copied off your classmate there. Everyone saw you. You fail. You will be held back for eternity! See me after class!”
“Don’t be a bad sport, Olivia,” crooned Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord. “It’s not her fault you don’t have a second. Nobody makes friends with the strictest sourpuss in school.”
“But I just got here,” the Headmistress whispered, whose name was indeed Olivia. Once, long, long ago, before she ever heard the word Fairyland, she taught in a very famous school. If I were to tell you what it was called, you would be
shocked out of your shoes, and I should get a very stern talking-to from the administration. “I don’t want to go back. It’s lonely when you’re dead and you’ve only got Latin to talk to.”
And we might feel sorry for her—September certainly did. She had gone to the underworld herself, after all. But if only Miss Olivia had decided on a sensible retirement in the Autumn Provinces instead of trying to become a terrible tyrant once more, then we would instead be telling the story of the kind lady who does her crosswords every morning by the window and likes mugwort cakes for tea, instead of the woman in the gray bustle crumbling before them like the pieces of a shattered eggshell. Tiny dark shapes ran toward her, hurling tiny growls and roars before them. The book bears dove into the Headmistress, trying to get a bite of her narrative before the Dodo’s Egg took her back completely, snatching at her syntax and her orderly punctuation until nothing remained but her quill pen lying on the floor of the Library.
September looked away. She could not help it. Even if the Headmistress had only gone back where she’d come from, the sight of it made her want to cry, and she did not want Hushnow or Greenwich to see her do it.
“You’ve got to take it,” cawed the Raven Lord. “The pen. It’s your proof of victory. They’ll want to count up at the end.”
“I don’t want it. That’s ghastly,” September said evenly, quietly.
Hushnow worried his feathers with his long black beak. “Everything good is also ghastly. Your lovely roast chicken dinner was once a live rooster singing up the dawn. Your toasty woolen jumper was cut off the back of a happy sheep. Even those pretty books I can see behind you—most of them got written by someone as dead as dust and you spend your afternoons dog-earing ghosts. You can ignore the ghastly, but it doesn’t go away. Might as well enjoy the good. Even the demented know that. And it’s such a nice pen.”
September knelt and picked it up. Its feather was deep indigo, its nib silver. She wanted to leave it where it lay. She wanted to go find an empty bookshelf to curl up in and forget the sight of the Headmistress fading to nothing. But instead, she put the quill in her pocket and stood up straight.
“Ta, then!” chirped Hushnow, and his image puffed out like a film ending.
Saturday sighed in relief. His breath ruffled, ever so slightly, the pages of The History of Fairyland: A How-To Guide.
“Ow!” he yelped, and snatched his thumb to his mouth.