The wine-colored coat wriggled with pleasure. “You may keep it,” said the Red Wind expansively. “I gave it up, after all, when I had to go Below a century ago to battle with a young upstart ogre-maid who wanted to take my place. I thrashed her soundly, of course. Don’t get to be a Wind if you’re faint of anything.”
September took the wine-colored coat off anyhow, and gave it back to its mistress, who it clearly sorely missed. She could stand now, in her Watchful Dress, and not feel ashamed of her finery or herself. Nor did September take the pistols.
“She has her own, Red,” the Silver Wind said admonishingly. She dismounted from her Tiger, whose eyes fairly glowed in the night. The crystal moon showed a bold II on its smooth face. The Black Wind left his Lynx as well, and both held out their hands to September.
In one was a silver rivet, in the other a black one. The Red Wind sighed and reholstered her guns, joining her sibling Winds. She held a crimson rivet out on her palm.
“Take one,” said the Silver Wind. “Take one and bolt yourself to your shadow once more. The Alleyman is blooded. We can hold him—or kill him as you like. We don’t mind. Winds are cold in that way—after all, storms have no hearts.”
“I wish my Green Wind were here!”
“The Green Wind and the Blue Wind are Topside breezes,” said the Black Wind. “They deal in fresh, growing things. Only we venture Below.”
“What if I choose wrong? Are they very different?”
“We can only offer you ourselves. The Red Wind is a War Wind. The Silver Wind is a Following Wind, to fill up your heart and blow it along. The Black Wind, and Banquo, the Lynx of Gentle Showers, is a Fierce Wind, to blow one off course. We do not know which you need.”
September considered that she had been following the Silver Wind for so long, and it had brought her so far. She took the silver rivet and tucked it into the Rivet Gun’s tube, where the gun chortled and took it up. But she did not go down into the Trefoil—she could not yet.
September marched over to the Alleyman, and the Rivet Gun rejoiced, for it felt sure it was going to be Used most delightfully. September stood over the red cap as it lay on the roof with nobody beneath it. What a wretched, horrid creature! How hideous he must be, to hide himself with whatever magic made him invisible! She hated him, with all her galloping young heart. Her face flushed with anger, and September reached down and snatched the two vicious, horn-like feathers from his hat, throwing them to the ground.
The Alleyman shimmered and between two blinks, September could see him as clear as anything, bleeding from his shoulder, his dark face gone ashen.
It was her father’s shadow.
CHAPTER XX
LET ME LIVE
In Which All Is Revealed
September bore the weight of her father’s shadow as they descended the steps into the Trefoil, leaving the Prince and his mother and the Winds above. Besides the wound in his shoulder, his leg seemed twisted and weak.
“Papa, why? How can you be here? Why would you hurt all those people? I don’t understand, I just can’t understand!”
But he could not speak. Shadow-blood seeped from the Black Wind’s arrow. When she pushed open a great dark door and let her father collapse against a column, a sharp, sudden cry cut off her questions.
“Papa!” Halloween cried, and leapt up from her throne, a bright thing made all of pumpkin rinds and green gems. It rested beneath a chandelier hanging down into the chamber like a false sun, its curling bone arms holding bowls hollowed out of gourds and squashes and pumpkins and great huge eggs, all filled with liquid fire. Saturday’s and Ell’s shadows lounged nearby on their own plush cushions (rather a lot of cushions in Ell’s case). Aubergine stood a ways away, looking miserable, holding silent. “Who’s done this to you?”
The Hollow Queen put her hands on his wound and shut her eyes. The arrow snapped and the blood vanished. The Alleyman smiled weakly and brushed back Halloween’s shadowy hair. Then he s
aw September and groaned.
“Did I do it?” he whispered. “Am I home?”
“What are you talking about?” said September, horrified.
“Don’t you talk to him,” snapped Halloween. “He’s my father, I brought him here, you haven’t got any right!”
“What do you mean you brought him here?”
Halloween grinned. Her dark face glowed with triumph. “Government has its privileges. I’m sure that silly cow showed you her precious wall—well, a hole opened up in Tain long before it got all the way down there. Right in the current of the Gingerfog River. You could see all the way through. I figured it out—much faster than you! I started pushing—here, there—to see where I could get through, to see if I could…” September’s shadow broke off, throwing her arms around her father. “I just wanted everyone to be together and happy and to see how marvelous my kingdom is. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to see Saturday and my Wyverary and how grown-up and good I could be. You want it, too. You just tell yourself to be patient and everything will be all right. Well, I knew it wouldn’t be all right! I saw him through the water. He was fighting, and his leg had broken—just like ours did, do you remember? I took a deep breath and I grabbed him. I just reached through the hole in the river and I grabbed his shadow and pulled him through. At first he was so confused, he kept shouting, ‘Les Allemands viennent! Les Allemands viennent!’ Half the city heard it. They started calling him the Alleyman, because he said it so often. For weeks, he didn’t even know where he was.”
“Les Allemands viennent,” whispered September’s father weakly. “The Germans are coming.”
“Hush, Papa, it’s all right now. You’re safe. He didn’t even know where he was at first, September. I nursed him back to health. All by myself.”
“I know where I am,” said September’s father, his voice a little stronger, a little more like his old self. “I’d been reading the books we found in an old woman’s house near Strasbourg. All fairy stories and old tales. One was about a Lutin—an invisible spirit who wore a red hat with two feathers. A house-spirit, who protected a home and made it safe. When she pulled me through, I was still thinking about how nice it would be to be invisible, to be able to pass through the lines without being seen. Then all of a sudden, I was invisible, and I had a red hat. Everything had changed. And my daughter was here, as if by magic—at least, something like my daughter. A shadow, like I am a shadow. Like we are all shadows down here. But at least I could hold her, and talk to her. She said it happened because I wanted it so much my wanting turned into magic, only when she said want the word seemed so much bigger than I imagined it could be. And she told me to take everyone’s shadows. I thought she was mad, and so cruel—how could I have raised such a cruel girl as that? But she said if I took all the shadows, everything would come rushing together, this world and Nebraska. And I thought, Maybe then I could go home. I could go home to my real daughter and my wife. And no one would be hurt, they’d only live in a different place, and it’s beautiful back home. It really is.” He swooned against the pillar; his shadowy eyes slid shut.