The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (Fairyland 5)

Madame Tanaquill had not come all this way to be threatened with a spoon and a disgusting display of romance. She would not have it. She would not. She had been bor

n to stand astride this world—and though she had done it for a time as a signpost, she knew who she was and she knew her destiny, which none of the clowns around her constantly throwing pies about and calling them great deeds ever had. Not the way she knew. And Tanaquill knew very well that the final act can only end with a wedding or a mass slaughter—and the way those two mewling simpletons looked, she didn’t like her odds. But the Fairy Prime Minister had no worries to spend on it. You could always change the ending. Spoil it, rip it to pieces. Fairies loved to do it. They’d built their first city just to do it bigger and grander. It was easy. All you needed was the want—and a dart gun strapped to your thigh.

It all happened very, very fast.

Madame Tanaquill hurled her sword up and cut Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord, out of the sky before he could squawk any cryptic final word. She ducked beneath Mallow’s Spoon and drew one of the Knapper’s daggers from some poor sap’s back and sent it flying into the chest of the Emperor of Everything, who toppled forward onto his face. He managed to squawk out a final word, but I shall not repeat it, or your parents would scold me. The Winds sped toward her in a rain of color. The Green Wind lead the squadron, the Leopard of Little Breezes roaring her own spotted war songs.

“September, are you all right?” Green called down. “Get down! Find cover!”

Tanaquill laughed. Her iron dress blistered her skin. Mallow swung her Spoon at her—and the Fairy Prime Minister shoved her away with a wave of diamonds that streamed from her hand like lace. Mallow landed on the far side of the square, half buried in jewels. Tanaquill bent down and yanked a lily-tangled crossbow out of Whipstitch, the Elegant Emperor’s hand. It was going better than she had imagined it could. He tried to fight her, but Whipstitch had If something is good, it is off-limits written on the underside of his name tag, so for the moment, he could not touch anything he wanted to have at all. Madame Tanaquill spun round and fired the crossbow—and shot Ajax Oddson clean through. He crumpled to the ground in a heap of silks.

September gasped and leapt up. She could hear the gulping sound Ell made before his flame came bursting out. Blunderbuss lowered her head and got ready to charge the tart in the scrapheap dress, as she thought of Tanaquill. Saturday tried to get up, but coughed out smoke and staggered. The Green Wind landed and drew a green sword.

Tanaquill laughed roughly at him. “Oh, please. You’re nothing but a bag of hot air.” She unstrapped her favorite bronze dart gun from her thigh, its vicious dart snug inside. She held it up to her perfect lips.

September ran toward the Green Wind. She didn’t say a thing. She didn’t say No! Or I won’t let you! Or Don’t you dare! Or even Stop. She didn’t think about it. She didn’t think about home or Saturday or Ell or how much it would hurt. She didn’t think about never seeing her mother or father again, or never finishing school, or never being Queen or anything else. She simply stepped between her friend and his death.

Tanaquill’s dart took September in the throat. The poison spread through her like a quick green shiver and she fell. The crown of Fairyland rolled off her head with a terrible clang, spinning across the stones, coming to rest against Blunderbuss’s paw.

* * *

Only a moment later, sleigh drawn by a team of strangely colored hippopotami tore into Runnymede Square.

Susan Jane, Owen, and Aunt Margaret came just in time to see a crimson Wyvern throw back his head and sob fire into the empty sky.

CHAPTER XXI

DEATH COMES ROUND FOR TEA

In Which Not All Is Lost

September woke to the smell of mushrooms all around. It was a warm, comforting smell—and leaves, too, Autumn leaves, and deep, dark dirt. She opened her eyes: All round her rose tall black distaffs wound around with fuzzy silk and wool and fleeces, all colored as Autumn woods are colored, red and gold and brown and pale white. They crowded close together, fat and full, like pines and firs.

The moon peeked shyly out of the clouds above. Only one moon. September lay in a little clearing. Many parchment-colored distaffs had left their fibers all over the forest floor like pine needles. In the corner of the clearing sat a lady. September brought her hand to her throat, searching for her wound, but found only smooth skin. She sat up in the crisp night and looked into the eyes of a lady sitting on a throne of mushrooms. Chanterelles and portobellos and oysters and wild crimson forest mushrooms piled up high around her, fanning out around her head. September knew that lady. But this time she was not herself made out of mushrooms, but simply a vast, impossibly tall woman dressed in simple black—the last member of Lye’s tea party, who only comes too early or too late. Death.

“Good evening, my lady,” said September, as she had done long ago, when her death was small.

“Good evening, September,” said her death. “I am sorry I could not make it in time for tea. But you seem to have done well enough without me.”

“Not well enough. You know, I really thought I would win. I thought … I thought I would have been a good Queen.”

“You would have been a good many things. I should know. The Country of Would Have Been is my home.”

“You’re so big,” September breathed softly in the dark.

“I told you once: When I am distant and far off, I seem small to you. But when I am near, I look ever so tall. Would you like to come and lie in my lap? I will sing you to sleep, if you are tired.”

“I’m not.” But September walked over to her death anyway. “I’m not sleepy at all.”

“I’m glad. It would be very awkward for me if you died just now,” said Death, and folded September up in her arms warmly.

“What? I thought I was dead.”

“And I thought I said I was near. Near, not here. Not certain. You know, I always think somehow people will listen when I talk, but they never do.”

“But I felt the poison. I felt the barb in my throat.”

“Do you feel it now?” Death’s dark dress rustled in the Worsted Wood.