September had to laugh, even in the midst of the chaos on the roof. I hope you did enjoy it, she thought. Because I do not enjoy at all not knowing what happened to me between the bottom of
the world and the top. And to miss riding a tiger!
Prince Myrrh looked startled at the sound of her laugh. He stared at her with big, dark, wounded eyes.
“Hullo, Myrrh,” September said.
“H…Hullo,” he said softly.
But though he might have said more, the Red Wind swirled up behind him, her scarves flying. The Black Wind drew a crossbow covered in burls and blackberries and shot just beneath the red hat, which seemed now to be in the Red Wind’s grip, now to be gripping her. The arrow winged too far to the left and missed. He fired once more, and this one connected, driving home beneath the hat, but too far beneath and off center to be a fatal shot. Still, the cap crumpled to the roof, and the Red Wind stood over it, her face blazing.
Where the Alleyman fell, a stone knocked loose. Beneath it, a little plaque gleamed. September and the Winds crowded close around to read it.
RULES OF FAIRYLAND-BELOW
BEWARE OF DOG
ANYTHING IMPORTANT COMES IN THREES AND SIXES
DO NOT STEAL QUEENS
A GIRL IN THE WILD IS WORTH TWO IN CHAINS
NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF TEMPTATION
EVERYTHING MUST BE PAID FOR SOONER OR LATER
WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP
“But I know those words!” September cried. “I’ve been seeing them everywhere!”
The Black Wind nodded. “The Rules are older and deeper than groundwater. They are always in motion, always making themselves understood and obeyed. They are always following, always a part of the very land. They are Physicks—not Queer nor Quiet nor Questing, but pure Law. Halloween destroyed all the postings, but she couldn’t destroy the Rules. And here in Tain, the center of everything, she couldn’t even smash all the words themselves. This one, loyal public service board stayed whole. And haven’t you been following them, even if you didn’t know it? Haven’t you paid and paid, haven’t you found things in threes, haven’t you been tempted in your need?”
September had—and she was about to say so when the Red Wind yawned, bored stiff.
“Oh, bother that, brother Black! Let’s talk about something interesting! I haven’t had a brawl like that since the Cloud War!” The Red Wind exulted. She shook her dark red hair and pulled a pair of carved crimson pistols from her belt, tossing them into the air, catching them by the barrels, and offering them handle-first to Prince Myrrh. “If you mean to be King,” she said, “you might as well start by ridding your kingdom of a villain.”
Prince Myrrh stood up and gazed steadily at the Red Wind. He did look regal, for all his wolf ears twitched and his lip trembled. “I don’t mean to be King at all,” he said. “I have had a great long while to think about it, and I don’t want to. You can’t make me. I just got here. Anyway, being King is a fool’s game. You’ll only get toppled eventually, and in the meantime, all Kings seem to do is hatch schemes and plot. I’m a practical boy—I don’t see a need to scheme when I could just live my life and read books and learn magic and sit out in the evenings, perhaps make a friend who is not too interested in history. I just want to be a boy. I want to experience things like eating and jumping and running and dancing.”
“A King may dance,” said the Black Wind, whose voice was deep and beautiful as a full well.
“But not whenever he likes,” countered Prince Myrrh. “He may only dance when it benefits others, or when someone important wants to dance with him, or when dancing might accomplish some royal goal. I want to dance because I feel like it, because the water tasted sweet or the sun was shining—oh, how I would like to see the sun shine!”
“You should go up to the other world,” said the Marquess. “We can go up together if it would make you happy. We can find her, if you wanted to. I just want to lie down on the earth again—let the other me worry over her child and Fairyland and be stared at by everyone. She was always stronger.”
“Well, someone has to end this! End the Alleyman and Halloween and keep the worlds separate, or else we shall all have to get jobs in advertising, and I for one would rather blow out completely!” snapped the Silver Wind. “You are the Rightful King!”
“What does that mean?” cried Myrrh. “Rightful how? Anyone can be King if they’re bloody-minded enough, or unfortunate enough, or want it enough. Or even if they’re just born with the right parents, in the right order. That doesn’t mean anything at all. Why should I be King and a poor changeling child should not? I don’t know a thing about Kinging, and I daresay I’d be just as good at juggling if you forced me to. But no one calls me the Rightful Juggler! They used to fish for Kings in a lake, did you know that? Nod told me all about it. Doesn’t sound like anyone cares about Rightful until they want to kick someone else out of the chair. So thank you very much, but I want my mother. I want to be alive for half a second before I’m meant to shoot somebody!”
“Then who?” said the Black Wind, throwing up his hands. “If the magical object won’t do his work, what are we to do?”
“It’s been me all along,” said September slowly. “Me who gave up my shadow, me who went down into Fairyland-Below and Fairyland-Lower-Than-That to wake up the Prince. Me who shot the poor Minotaur. You oughtn’t just hand the whole business over the moment a Prince comes on the scene. I’ve got to see it through, don’t you see? The Hollow Queen is hollow because she’s missing the part of her that’s me. We’ve got to come together again. And he can’t do a thing about that.”
“Very well.” The Red Wind shrugged, turning the pistol handles toward her. It didn’t matter a whit to the Wind who did the deed, as long as it was done. She seemed to look at September fully for the first time. “You know, I do believe that’s my coat,” she mused. “And that is most certainly my cat.”
Iago roared—a roar of love and remembering and recognition and regret. He did not leave the Marquess’s side, but the roar said that he was sorry about it.
“I’ve never been able to bring myself to find another, since you left me.” The Red Wind sighed.