“Keep talking,” Moth said before she could manifest any sort of preserves. Laying on his back, his arms and legs carved the suggestion of wings into the snow left inside the train car. “And don’t forget the hot buttered toast.”
Peaseblossom was already wrestling one of the railroad blankets off the luggage rack. “We need to cover her up.” The boys helped her tug the length of scratchy wool into place, then the fairy marched up Bertie’s chest and wagged a finger under her nose. “You’re to rest, do you hear? Waschbär, fetch a hot lemonade from the pie car and tell them to go easy on the whiskey.”
For a second, Peaseblossom looked like a tiny pink frosted cupcake, and Bertie shook her head, feeling her brain jiggle inside her skull. “I don’t want a hot lemonade. I need coffee, and lots of it.”
“No more coffee!” The pink cupcake shivered sprinkles all over Bertie’s collarbones.
“I can’t fall asleep.” The dreamlands beckoned with the promise of the ancient trees. Desperately wanting to step beyond the moss-curtain to check on Nate, Bertie feared that if she traveled again to that place of solace and safety, she might never come back, might never wake up. “We have to get to the Scrimshander. He knows where the portal is.”
“We’re on our way.” Moth solicitously tucked the blanket under Bertie’s chin. “You can’t speed up a speeding train.”
The others hastened to shout, “Don’t even think about it, Bertie!”
“I don’t want to die in a horrible, fiery train wreck!”
Bertie located the journal on the floor but the fountain pen was still nowhere to be found. The medallion’s absence weighed upon her more heavily than a suit of armor—something she knew for certain, because she’d once tried one on in the Properties Department—and her movements grew more sluggish with each passing moment.
Concentrate. There will be no one to save Nate if you slip into a dream coma.
“I’m not going to speed up the train,” she said, trying to reassure the fairies. “I’m just going to skip us ahead.”
“Like skipping a rock on a pond?” Moth had his forehead all wrinkled up, but he’d latched onto the perfect imagery.
“Just like that.” Bertie held up the feather. “I’ll use this to get us to the Scrimshander.”
“Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills,” Moth muttered.
“Her dad’s not a goose!”
The sort of topsy-turvy delicious nonsense that appeared in Gilbert & Sullivan’s musicals fuddled Bertie’s thoughts. She hummed a few bars under her breath, then sang,
“The feather of my father is
The weapon with which I must write;
Though swords may poke through all the blokes
They cannot do the job just right. …”
The fairies looked at her, appalled.
Peaseblossom shoved Aleksandr’s plumed pen at her. “This will work better than a feather without ink, I believe. And no more rhyming for you.”
“Someone gag her with the blanket,” Cobweb added, “before she composes an entire operetta, and a troupe of rosy-cheeked maidens appears to sing a rousing chorus about their dashing lads in knee breeches!”
“I refuse to warble lines in a falsetto!”
“That will be the straw that not only breaks the camel’s back, but jumps up and down on its corpse and then hacks its head off!”
“With me in the starring role as the camel, I should think. Camels are nice, aren’t they?” Struggling to focus, Bertie commenced skipping the rock across the landscape. “Have you ever seen the Caravanserai, Waschbär?”
“Tens upon hundreds of times.” The sneak-thief crouched next to her, expression wary. “It’s the grandest of the Thirteen Outposts of Beyond, with an amphitheater large enough for entertaining an empress. You will never forget the first moment you set eyes upon it, rising out of the desert like a sand castle.”
Bertie tucked the Scrimshander’s feather behind her ear, opened the journal, and wrote,
They arrive, rather sooner than expected, at the Caravanserai.
Then, fearing they would miss it, she pushed the blanket off and struggled to her feet.
“What are you doing?” Peaseblossom looked alarmed. “You need to rest!”
“We’ve reached our stop, whether the good conductor knows it or not.” Bertie reached for the red-painted metal handle marked EMERGENCY BRAKE, and pulled upon it with her remaining strength.
Half a second for the bell to ring the engine, another half second for the conductor to react, followed by the terrible squeal of metal meeting metal. Ever nimble, Waschbär rocked back on his feet, hooking one arm around Bertie when she stumbled past him. The fairies, unprepared for the sudden cessation of forward momentum, smacked into the wall like particularly juicy mosquitoes hitting a windscreen.
“Ow, my spleen.” Moth, face pressed to the wood paneling, left a dribble of drool in his wake as he slid to the floor.
“I think my innards are now my outtards.”
“Why in the blue blazes would you do that, Bertie?”
“Because we’re here.” Dangling like a limp dishrag from the sneak-thief’s arm, Bertie caught a flicker of torchlight through the caboose’s window. One step closer to the Scrimshander, one step closer to Nate; she could feel it in her bones. “See?”
Waschbär half carried her to the door. “We should have had at least a night’s journey before us.”
Nevertheless, they’d arrived at a station and beyond that, the Caravanserai rose from the landscape, a massive golden sand castle against the night’s dark curtains. Pennants flapped atop the ramparts, caught in a wind that carried with it the suggestion of starfish and seaweed. All that had been snow before was now softly glittering stone. Burning at intervals, hundreds of torches illuminated the curving path to the gateway, where other travelers and pilgrims entered and exited despite the late hour. Indeed, distant cries from the marketplace, faint strains of music, the trumpet of a perturbed elephant all indicated that the Caravanserai was the sort of place that never slept.
The Innamorati disgorged from the train, marveling at the speed of the journey. The scene on the platform was organized chaos, with performers and roustabouts moving in a dozen directions at once and yet somehow managing to assemble themselves in preparation for a grand parade. Either they’d traded their muted costumes for ones of teal and turquoise, the deepest plum and brightest yellow, or Bertie’s fevered brain saw their true colors, no longer snow-filtered. Right in the thick of it, Valentijn’s vivid purple cape flashed with amethyst light, and when Aleksandr arrived on the scene, his ringmaster’s crimson and black livery were elaborately trimmed out with massive quantities of gilt cording and rope. An enormous emerald was affixed to the top of his walking stick, and he rubbed jeweled hands together with flashes of ruby, topaz, and star sapphire.
“We’ve reached the outpost sooner than expected,” he said.
Bertie, held upright only by the grace of Waschbär’s arm, was saved answering by the blare of the Innamorati’s trumpets. The elephant-men led a massive procession up a winding road of warm beige brick. The bird-girls rode upon their swings atop golden, flowering floats, while jewel-adorned acrobats walked miniature tightropes from one rolling platform to another. A massive tipsy calliope blasted music and steam from teetering brass pipes, with the Keeper of the Costumes sitting on its bench and pressing the keys as deftly as he operated the treadle sewing machine.
Waschbär settled Bertie atop the Mistress of Revels’s caravan, then took the reins to guide the mechanical horses into place. They rattled up the road at the end of the parade, an afterthought, an uninvited guest sneaking into a masquerade ball. Inscriptions spread along the walls in every imaginable language, though Bertie wondered if the missing scrimshaw was responsible for her inability to read them. Her throat felt naked without the medallion’s reassuring weight, exposing her to other sorts of pain.
Curse you thrice, Ariel: once for not giving me the chance to exp
lain; another for taking what was mine; and the third for leaving.
“What do the words say?” Bertie asked.
“Welcome,” the sneak-thief replied with a brilliant smile. “May all who enter here find that which they seek.”
“What is it you seek, Waschbär?”
The sneak-thief stiffened next to her. “What do you mean?”
“You left the Brigands, you left the Innamorati. Are you chasing a wandering star? A dream? A woman? An idea?”
“Careful, now. Those words have more meaning than you know.” He threaded the reins through uneasy hands.
“How long before you leave the troupe?” Bertie persisted. “That’s inevitable, isn’t it? Valentijn told me you never see anything through to the end.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Waschbär’s mouth tightened as they passed under the archway and entered the courtyard.
Even an Opening Night at the Théâtre was no match for this marketplace. Light came from torches, paper lanterns, and brass braziers, and the Caravanserai was a kaleidoscope that fragmented every color Bertie had ever seen into a myriad of new shades. Within arm’s length, there were trousers of midnight, a shirt the color of the sky at dawn, and a flowing dress that matched the spiked, yellow-throated irises for sale on a nearby table.
The Innamorati parade garnered quite a lot of attention as, calliope blaring, they progressed by inches. One girl walked forward, body encased in a hundred thin silver hoops that she kept in perpetual motion with gentle undulations of the hips and arms. The acrobats they’d seen rehearsing in the pie car performed a human juggling act. Dressed in peacock blue trimmed in silver fringe, they flung one another over stalls and carriages with raucous bird cries of “hup!” and “allez-oop!”
The color and chaos surrounding them reminded Bertie of an “All Players to the Stage” call at the theater, and she couldn’t help but search the crowd for a wayward air elemental.
Will Ariel’s winds tell him we’ve arrived at this strange place?
She thought, for a moment, that she could smell cool silk under the hot grease, exotic incense, and tropical flowers, but the suggestion of him was fleeting, and Bertie told herself that she had no time to spare for his games. “Which way to the White Cliffs?”
Waschbär, enjoying himself hugely and waving to the crowd, took a moment to answer. “The only way to the shore is through the marketplace.”
That’s all she needed to hear. With little thought to her limbs or recent jelly legs, Bertie slid down the side of the still-moving caravan, missing the cart’s wheels by mere inches. The fairies careened after her as the sneak-thief shouted to her and the horses both.
“Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?!”
Peering down the various stone-walled corridors, Bertie thought she spotted an exit portal. “Through the eye of a needle!”
He tossed the reins to the nearest roustabout. “Take that with you to the performers’ courtyard!” When Bertie quirked an eyebrow at him, Waschbär added, “They will take the parade all the way down the easternmost passageway, which leads to the amphitheater.”
Bertie tried to get her bearings as bells jangled and voices called and livestock protested over breezes that carried suggestions of yeast, simmering meat, dried spices, and hay. The fairies flew about her, practically sparkling with excitement, and Waschbär moved alongside her, his bulk an effective shield against the jostling crowd.
Looking up at him, Bertie spared a moment to smile before setting off down the nearest aisle. “Why do you feel the need to act the guardian?”
“I haven’t the foggiest notion. It’s most perturbing.” Disconcerted or not, Waschbär kept pace with her.
“Someday, I’ll be able to take three steps without having a shadow. Or four tiny ones.” Bertie cut through a corner stall, only to have a horse—real, not clockwork—snap at her with clacking teeth. Hurriedly, she backed into a different horse, this one thankfully happier to make her acquaintance. It nudged her pockets with a velvet nose and whickered at the fairies, who scattered with tiny screams and the sudden brandishing of swords.
“Get back here,” Bertie hissed at them. “And put those things away. Do you want to start a riot?”
The fairies sheathed their weapons, toothpicks purloined from the pie car, just as they passed a mountain of a man swallowing two feet of tempered steel.
“Golly,” said Mustardseed.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Bertie said. “You’d split yourself open from the inside out, and I’m not giving you mouth-to-mouth.”
“What about snakes?” Of course Moth was staring at a snake charmer, coaxing a length of gleaming-scaled serpent from a woven basket.
“No snakes!” Bertie said. “Remember the asp problem?”
“Asps?” Waschbär asked.
“Malfunction during a Hamlet rehearsal. Suffice it to say I’m not a huge fan of snakes.” Bertie tried to duck through the crowd, but everyone around her seemed determined to thwart her progress, especially the jester capering in front of them, holding a tambourine in one hand and a dripping dill pickle in the other.
“Hail and well met!” He bowed to Bertie with much jingling of his bells. “Would the lady care for a taste of my gherkin?”
“She would not,” Mustardseed said, no doubt thoroughly offended by the stranger beating him to a vulgar suggestion. “Apologize at once, or feel the wrath of my toothpick.”
“Ooh, he is a rude one, isn’t he?” Delighted, the jester stuffed his pickle into the depths of an unseen pocket. “You are searching for a new gown, perhaps?” He reached out to hook a finger under a wooden hanger over which flowed a garment of scarlet loveliness.
Bertie scowled at her assailant. “Kindly get out of my way.”
Instead, he turned the hanger around, and the red dress faded to a creamy confection of ribbons-through-lace. Spiders dangled from the delicate cobwebbing, still knitting the sleeves and collar. “Something more appropriate for a summer wedding?”
Recoiling, Bertie shook her head. “Absolutely not!”
“What sort of lady cannot be tempted with finery?” The jester capered in place.
“The sort that is going to have your arms removed if you don’t get out of her way.” Bertie signaled to the sneak-thief, and Waschbär snarled, displaying all his teeth.
Under his gaudy makeup, the street performer paled. “My humblest of apologies!” He tripped over his own feet as well as a nearby tent pole, trying to back away and bow and beg her pardon until he disappeared from view with a last muttered, “I hope I didn’t offend thee!”
“An offense to mine eyes as well as mine ears,” Bertie said, leaning against the nearest stall to gather her strength. Silk streamers decorated a hundred wooden dowels, and the occasional breeze tugged at the miniature maypoles. She stared at the ribbons until they bled into a watercolor river that cascaded to the ground in paint spatters, speckling her shoes. The stall owner cried out her dismay, trying to catch her wares in copper pots.
The sneak-thief skirted the puddle of color to put a hand on her arm. “Bertie?”
“Hmm?” She blinked, which did nothing to dispel either the ribbon-river or the nimbuses of light surrounding the fairies hovering nearby.
Peaseblossom waved a hand before Bertie’s face. “You look awful.”
Waschbär, too, looked concerned. “We need someone to look at your wound. Your fever is escalating, and you’re changing things without meaning to.”
“It’s not just the cut on my palm.” Bertie rubbed a hand across her eyes, trying to get them to focus on the here and now. “The scrimshaw used to show me what was real, even if what was real wasn’t the part that was real.” Though the sneak-thief steered her true, she stumbled, banging her knee against the corner of the stall. A miniature burst of fireworks accompanied the pain with a sudden flare of light and color. “Did you see that?”
“I did.” Waschbär slid an arm around her waist as the fairies danced among the falling spark
s. “That medallion of yours was acting as a stopper between your imagination and reality, I think. You used it to focus, yes?”
“I used it to see to the heart of things.”
“Now that it is gone, you are seeing multiple truths. Possibilities are manifesting as realities.” Waschbär glanced sidelong at the milling crowd, who couldn’t help but notice the changes taking place around them.
“Good lady!”
“Perhaps you’d care for these—”
A dozen hands plucked at Bertie’s sleeves, tempting her with wares ranging from twisted gold earrings to honeyed desserts. The first offering transformed into tiny gilded eggs, the latter into a miniature dragon whose copper talons scrabbled at the striped awnings before he disappeared into the sky with a roar.
“Bertie, you must stop.” Waschbär indicated the nearest stall. Its sun-bleached curtains shifted to reveal rows of green bottles and crystal flasks. “We’ll find what we need in here.” He added a potent glare at the fairies. “Don’t touch anything.”
Coiled up on an enormous floor cushion, legs impossibly tucked underneath her, a woman looked up as they entered. Her skin was covered in mother-of-pearl scales, luminous with rainbows held captive. “Greetings to you, sneak-thief. Fair warning: There are no unwanted things here.”
“I would never dare pilfer from your stall, Serefina.” Waschbär unfurled his fingers to reveal they were empty. “I might wake up a toad on the morrow.”
“What is needed today? Unguents for rashes, or liniments for aches? Powders, pills, the old herbal cures?”
“This young lady has a wound—” Waschbär started to say.
“Ah, yes, the walls have already whispered of this one to me.” When the woman licked her sun-parched lips, she did so with a forked tongue. “Show me, child.”
Without entertaining the notion that she could disobey, Bertie held out her injured hand. She tried to not look at the ugly, ragged edges of her skin, the streaks of red radiating from the cut, the ooze of thick white fluid, for the sight of it made her stomach lurch.
“Ooh, Bertie,” Peaseblossom breathed, “that looks terrible.”