The Calcatrix quirked a copper eyebrow. “So you’re a revolutionary.”
“No!”
“But you’ve already admitted to consorting with known mutinous rebels, and you’re keeping very dubious company at present. Whereas I number among my peers Magicians, Ballerinas, Cockatrices, and the King himself. What does that say about the pair of us, hm? You said the first time—what about the second? Perhaps there’s something there.”
“I went into Fairyland-Below on account of my shadow being Queen there and almost shot her with a Rivet Gun—but I didn’t do it! And she’s still Queen, I think…”
“So you’re only an attempted murderer,” the Calcatrix said. He seemed uncertain what to do with the crank, given this information.
The Blue Wind laughed so hard the puffin on her shoulder flew off in consternation.
“Don’t forget that you stole that wrench and did shoot a Minotaur and pummeled that Marid you love so much half to death just to get your way. You even lied just to get into Fairyland in the first place!” She was bent over with giggles now, trying to catch her breath. Snowflakes flew from her eyes like tears. “And look here!” she cried between gales, “Contraband! She’s a smuggler to cherry it!” The Blue Wind grabbed the wooden hilt of the hammer hanging from September’s belt loops and snatched the nails, remaining butterscotch, and book out of her pocket, as deft as a cutpurse thief. She rattled the nails in their little tin box.
“These here are iron, or else I’m an elephant. Weapons grade! Would an innocent girl just wander around with iron in her pocket? She’s a hoodlum, your Excellency, up to no good and down for nothing nice. I’ll vouch for it—I knew her for a brat the second I saw her. If you don’t believe me, call for a phrenologist! There’s one for sale next to the water pump. She’s got a delinquent skull, just look! There, in her left temple! That’s insurrection, plain as a stamp. Sedition written all over her face. She can’t help it, poor kidlet. However good she tries to be, which isn’t very if you ask me, if you let her open her mouth, chaos comes tumbling out and makes itself right at home on your doorstep.”
The Calcatrix shook his green tailfeathers huffily. The pennies along his spine ruffled like an attack dog’s scruff. But when he spoke his voice was merry. “I think the matter is clear. You’ll have to go down as a Criminal. At least it’s a growth industry. And you can work anywhere.”
September wriggled out from under the Blue Wind’s fingers, which prodded her forehead for further evidence of devilry. “But I’m
not a criminal! I know all that sounds bad, but there were such good reasons for it all! What else could I have done? The Marquess was terribly cruel and my shadow would have driven all the magic out of Fairyland. And as for lying, the Green Wind told me to do it!”
The Blue Wind patted her shoulder convivially. “Oh, we all have such good reasons. It’s the reasons that make it sweet.”
“I am not a criminal,” September repeated, pulling away from the Wind. “Just calling me one doesn’t make it so.”
“Well, of course you’re not a Criminal!” chuckled the Calcatrix. “Not yet. You’re not licensed to commit crimes! A fine place we’d be in if we let just anyone go about infringing and infracting.”
“Excuse me,” September interrupted, quite exasperated with being discussed as though she were on trial. “But all this seems awfully official! I thought things were different now, without the Marquess making the rules. I thought this was an underground market with back alleys and things! I’m quite sure someone told me that, in fact.” She glanced pointedly toward the Blue Wind, who looked smugly delighted.
The Calcatrix scrunched up his long copper snout. “There’s got to be some official claptrap, or else how would you know the unofficial when it came along? How would you recognize dastardly clandestines when you meet them in that dark alley you mention? It’s no fun at all to break the rules if there aren’t any. And for really convoluted rules and breaking, I tell you, child, there’s nothing like a Fairy running things again. It’s been ages since one of those buzzers had the chair! We’d all quite forgotten the games they do so love to play. King Crunchcrab wants to get things straightened up, get the works going right and proper again, the way it was in the Old Days when he was a boy. And that means doing the old Imp-erial foxtrot, if you catch me. Can’t have much of an Empire without Standards, and that’s why I’m stationed out here between Fairyland and Everywhere Else, to bear the standard. Certainly not for the latest cuisine or the local theater. King Charlie came to me personally, right up to the greenback door of the Numismatarium. I rolled out the frogskin carpet for him, nothing but the best: mug of mint, doubloon sandwiches with just a scrape of butter, and the key to my Executive Swamp. The King and I took a marshbottom constitutional together, and lucky for me I had fresh peat on hand! Once we were nestled down in the boggy mud, he laid it all out for me. Thruppence, he said, which is my personal name and I’ll thank you not to use it until we know each other better, Thruppence, he said, if I’m to go about Empiring, I won’t make a half-job of it. I was taught if a fellow takes up a sport he has to begin with fundamentals, with classical technique. A proper Empire wants a border and a currency and some who are high and some who are low, says the Crab. And a really proper Empire, the best and most enviable kind of Empire, has Criminals. You’re not doing Empire right if there aren’t loads of people who don’t like it one bit! It’s all well and good to establish a market economy and purely decorative Parliament, but you’re just lying down on the job if no one’s trying to bring the whole thing down and pass things under the table and cheat the whole business! The trick is, you don’t want freelancers doing the job. A person, on their own, raking up trouble because they enjoy it, well, that’s nothing but dangerous. What’s wanted are Official Criminals, Professional Revolutionaries, Accredited Scoundrels! That way, we always know where we’ve left our toys, if you catch my meaning, and I caught the King’s meaning right in the teeth. So he started handing out licenses, lovely big writs and papers with curlicues and seals on them that said people had to go be wicked in the name of the Crown. I’ve got a stack, I could fill in your name. Oh! And you could bribe me! That’d be a marvelous way to break in, don’t you think?”
“But I don’t want to be a criminal,” September insisted. She could hardly believe that the Charlie Crunchcrab she knew, the cantankerous ferryman who had taken her across the Barleybroom River into the capital city so long ago, could have thought of all of this nonsense. And even if she had done all those things the Blue Wind had said, that didn’t mean it wasn’t nonsense. Finally, she said, more softly: “I certainly don’t want to do it professionally.”
The Calcatrix was beginning to tap his hind claw in irritation. “Well, then what are your intentions toward Fairyland? I’m supposed to ask that anyway, but it’s out of order—see, you’re already breaking the rules!”
September thought for a moment. She didn’t have any intentions. Her intentions had only been to get there, to be there. It had filled up all her heart and her head and her waking hours.
“I suppose I mean to find my old friends there, that’s all. I miss them, and it’s been ever so long.”
The Blue Wind snapped her head back around. “Now you told me you aimed to make trouble! You can’t take it back! I testified on your behalf! I told him you were 100 percent delinquent!”
“She fully admits to seeking out her ne’er-do-well comrades, so I hardly think she can avoid doing what comes naturally.” The copper crocodile smirked—and jumped down onto the Till faster than a penny dropping. He landed on a key that read AGITATOR. The crank turned and the chunk-chime of the register sounded. He leapt, emerald tail flying, onto another that said CONSORTING WITH ROGUES. Chunk-chime. Finally he heaved onto LIAR.
“Step onto the scale, please!” the Calcatrix ordered.
September bit her tongue against the monstrous unfairness of all those words and stepped up onto the brass plates. The black tiles in the register’s display began to whir. The keys moved up and down like carousel horses. She started to say that she was a good girl and if they had to call her something, couldn’t it be Knight or Bishop or any of the things she’d been called before? But the Calcatrix had already rung up the sale.
“You have been accepted into the Treasury as a Contracted Villain with all the rights, privileges, and dashing uniforms due. Please take your receipt.”
The tray of the register opened with a loud chime. September had to stand on her tiptoes to see over the edge. Inside was a long scroll with her name written in little calligraphy and Charles Crunchcrab written in large calligraphy. Underneath, several words glowed with scarlet finality:
Royal scofflaw,
professional revolutionary,
and criminal of the realm
A goodly number of illuminated ravens and rats and wolves and raccoons danced in gold and silver ink in the margins. Beneath her writ lay a suit of black silks, trousers and shirt and scarf and shoes that had never dreamed of squeaking, the very best any Criminal could ask for.