“Miss Cabbage said I was born under the sign of the Bull,” ventured September, hoping to make a beginning of friendship.
“Well, perhaps you have a little Minotaur in you, child. Of course, the town didn’t end well. Some years later, a ruffian broke into the place and bashed Grandfather’s head in, just to impress his daddy with how big and strong he was. Still, we all remember, somewhere deep and untouchable, that town, those dark corridors. Something in our monstrous blood still seeks the underground, still wants to be wrapped up cozy in a maze, wants to draw youths and maidens to us and judge them, wants to guard, wants to hide. You cannot escape where you come from, September. Some part of it remains inside you always, like the slender white heart in the center of the thickest onion.”
“I’m a monster,” said the shadow of the Marquess suddenly. “Everyone says so.”
The Minotaur glanced up at her. “So are we all, dear,” said the Minotaur kindly. “The thing to decide is what kind of monster to be. The kind who builds towns or the kind who breaks them.”
Iago yawned, showing his generous shadowy pink tongue. “There’s something to be said for breaking things. They make a satisfying sound when they crunch.”
“I break everything,” whispered Maud. Her hair hung deep blue around her shadowy face.
“Hush,” purred Iago. “All that’s done now.”
“I need to get to the Prince,” said September, resting her hand on the great desk.
The Minotaur did not look up from her knitting. “I am aware.”
“Well…are you going to show me the way or not?” September asked.
The Minotaur laughed. “You’re terribly impatient! And a bit ill-tempered, I must say. Is there some reason you’re in such a damnable hurry?”
“The Alleyman takes more shadows every day, and the magic in Fairyland-Above is leaking out. Soon there will be nothing left.”
“Oh? Is that all? Well, perhaps they could do with a bit less magic up there. You saw what this one did with it.” The shadow of the Marquess narrowed her eyes in disdain, the old fire sparking in them. “Well, certainly, let’s get on with things!” The Minotaur put her knitting aside and stood up. She slipped her long fingers over the mantel of her fireplace, feeling for some hidden thing. “Of course,” she mused, “if that’s all the danger you’ve discovered on your journeys, perhaps you aren’t the right beast for this sort of thing at all. A more curious child would have arrived at the end with all the knowledge she needed.”
“I am curious!” said September indignantly. “If there’s some other awful thing afoot, you should just tell me, instead of teasing me. It’s not very nice.”
“We’ve already discussed the fact that I am a monster, and that I play rough. I’ll tell you what. Give me that fine gun of yours, and I’ll let you pass.”
September put her hand on the grip of the Rivet Gun. She’d only just gotten it, and she’d promised to take copious notes for Belinda Cabbage, which probably did not mean handing it over to the first person who asked and taking notes on what she got for it. But more than that, she wanted it with her. It had chosen her. She felt safer with it, even though she knew it was probably quite dangerous.
“No,” she said finally. “I can’t. What if I need it?”
“Good girl,” said the Minotaur. “A warrior never gives up her weapon.”
“I’m not a warrior.”
“No?”
Something boiled up in September’s heart, hot and furious. The moment she started to raise her voice, Maud put a charcoal hand on her shoulder. This only made the boiling thing spill over. “Stop it! I am tired and hurt and all my friends have abandoned me except the one girl I never wanted to see again. I don’t even know where I am, and I don’t know how to get out. Either help me or fight me or say I’m not what’s wanted and a disappointment to the Minotaur Nation, but speak plain and let me keep moving. I want to keep moving! Now.”
A wisp of green smoke puffed up from the pocket of the wine-colored coat, smelling sharply of sunn
y grasses and warm winds. “Oh, no!” September cried, fishing out the smoking, charred magic ration book. It had no more cards, and, in a moment, had crumbled entirely to green ash. “But I didn’t ask it to do any magic! I was saving it!”
But the Minotaur had already found the latch on her mantel and turned it. The fire in the hearth went out, and a pearly, waxen light appeared deep in the fireplace, which yawned up and in, becoming a long tunnel.
“You have your shadow with you,” said the Minotaur. “Right at your back, holding on tight. I admit, I feel a little silly—I had meant to hold out on you. But you do Want things so terribly hard. Magic gets what it wants. I’m only one monster.”
“She’s not my shadow!”
Maud took September’s slightly scorched hand. “We are alike, I said. I said that before. I did say it, I’m sure of it. I am her shadow, but I can stand behind you, too.” She paused for a moment, as if digging something up from the bottom of her heart. “It would break your heart, September, how alike we are.”
“You Wanted it—that was like kindling. That shadow was a spark, and the ration card caught flame. Now, if you’re going to snap at me, you might follow me when I am so good as to hold the door open for you.” The Minotaur wrinkled her velvety nose.
September yanked her hand away from the Marquess. She did not for a moment want to hear how alike they were. Once had been enough. She stepped over the charred logs and into the tunnel, which seemed to be made of a very nice mud brick, like the basement of some ancient pyramid.
September fell out of a patch in the sky. Iago floated down, and the Minotaur, even larger in this place than her study, simply lifted her skirts and stepped out into a wild, tumbling expanse of moorland, gray and purple and black with mist. Heather and gorse and long curlicued vines of rampion and icy hard peas grew everywhere.