“Ye can’t blame me for that.” A rueful laugh caused his form to waver. “Judgin’ by how it felt, ye pulled th’ soul from my body.”
“I wrote ‘enter Nate,’ not ‘rip him in two’!” The horror of what she had done settled into the back of Bertie’s throat, choking her.
“How …,” He had to swallow before he could finish. “How long has it been? It feels like years have passed, like I was adrift on th’ water in a shallow boat, lookin’ up at th’ stars.”
“Only a few days—”
He put a finger to his lips as Time released the others, and everything that had been drifting like foam on the ocean exploded with movement and noise. The fairies circled her, all screams of dismay and tiny, grasping fingers. Nate’s shade folded thickly muscled arms over his chest, expression inscrutable, as Ariel’s cold hands whirled Bertie around.
“Are you all right?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he shook her until her teeth clacked together. “Are you all right?!”
“Y-yes!” And it was true; she’d suffered no ill effects, other than a near heart attack caused by Nate’s sudden and incomplete manifestation.
“What were you thinking?” The air elemental looked her over as though cataloguing her limbs. He was as angry as she’d ever heard him, perhaps even more so than when she’d placed the collar around his neck; then he’d been livid and broken, now he was furious and free, floating nearly a foot aboveground with his hair whipping about his face and shoulders.
But he had neither noticed Nate nor acknowledged him, and surely Ariel would have done so …
If he could see him.
The fairies flew through the pirate with only wing spasms and random commentary about the sudden chill to mark their spectral passage. Discomfited, Bertie twitched away from Ariel.
“Kindly cease your attentions most solicitous, sir, I’m fine.”
The glint of Nate’s earring was the reflection of candlelight on a dagger drawn. He and Ariel had never been friendly; their more recent history had been a duel of sharp words and warning looks. “She means keep yer hands to yerself, ye poxy smellsmock.”
Bertie choked back a laugh at the insult, and when Nate grinned at her, the brilliant flash of his teeth caused Ariel’s breath to catch.
“Did you see that?” The words contained a cool breeze, the sort that held the promise of snow as the air elemental scanned the night-painted landscape.
Moth lifted his nose. “She must have managed something … there’s salt in the air.”
Ariel took a step forward and Nate’s expression shifted from amused to feral, swifter than any of the scene changes at the theater. As his lip raised in an unmistakable snarl, Bertie hastened to say, “But it didn’t work, did it? No pirate to be seen here.”
Turning back to her, Ariel’s features relaxed. “I’m sorry.”
“You are?” She couldn’t help but sound surprised.
“You should try something else.” When he trailed his fingers along her cheek, a gesture somehow more intimate than a kiss, Nate growled.
“Maybe something to right the caravan?” Peaseblossom suggested.
“No need for that.” Retracing his steps, Ariel moved to the opposite side of the sad conveyance. He squelched a bit, the ghostwater having settled into ruts and pooled in the grass. “All of you, keep clear of the wheels.” When he held out his arms, moonlight gathered in his silver hair. The winds collected in his palms, and he used them to lift both wagon and horses from the ground. Unperturbed, the horses’ glowing amber eyes blinked slowly, the light slanting down the length of their silver-metal muzzles.
“Show-off,” Nate said as everything settled in its usual upright position.
Indeed, Ariel rounded the caravan, checking the cart and horses for damage but flashing a triumphant smile at Bertie as he did so.
“Now that’s taken care of,” said Mustardseed, “can’t someone conjure a few éclairs?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Peaseblossom said. “If Bertie writes anything else, it should be something that’s actually useful, like kindling a fire.”
Something in the distance howled. As one, the boys ceased their snack-clamoring, with Moth making the loudest demand of, “Yes, a fire, and make it a really big one, please.”
Bertie tapped the tip of the fountain pen against the paper.
“Careful wi’ that thing,” Nate whispered in her right ear, the words trickling in like raindrops, “or ye might accidentally scribble somethin’ that looks like a dragon attackin’ us.”
“You shut up,” Bertie said with a flash of temper aimed at the pirate that missed and hit the air elemental.
Ariel’s confusion manifested as a quirked eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything.”
“A nice bit of lightning would get a fire going,” Cobweb said, oblivious to the pirate’s warning.
“Yes,” Bertie said, desperately trying to suppress the urge to stick her finger in her ear, “and if I miss, we get fairies flambé. Still sound like a good idea?”
“Not so much, no,” he admitted.
“At least we agree on something.” She looked about them, trying to conjure the scene in her mind before she put pen to paper to write,
As the night creeps ever closer
to the group of weary travelers—
The moon’s brilliant illumination faded, and Nate’s voice came from her left side this time. “Lass?”
“Hmm?”
“Somethin’ is creepin’ this way.”
The assertion was confirmed almost simultaneously when Peaseblossom tugged at one of Bertie’s curls. “There’s something out there!”
“A Big, Dark something,” Moth added.
“I think it’s the Night,” Mustardseed said. “And it has teeth.”
Bertie looked in the direction the fairies’ fingers were pointing, and seven sets of gleaming feral eyes gazed back at her, their inquisitive interest directed largely at her jugular. The sizable pack of wolves paced along the edges of the caravan’s lamplight, momentarily held at bay by the thin golden curtain of illumination that barely encompassed Bertie and her friends. When the luminous hemline flickered, it revealed patchy fur and canines exposed in snarling mouths.
Nate reached for a cutlass that wasn’t there. “Get back!”
The fairies unwittingly obeyed him, darting to the driver’s seat where the light was brightest.
“Do something, Bertie!” Moth whimpered above her. “You conjured them!”
“I did not!” Taking tiny steps and trying not to draw their attention, Bertie backed up against the side of the caravan. “I made no mention of anything with teeth!”
“Well, they have them,” said Moth. “Big ones.”
“You weren’t called!” Mustardseed shook his tiny fist at the wolves. “Have the decency to wait for your cue!”
“This isn’t the theater,” Peaseblossom said. “They don’t have to wait for stage directions.”
“Makes me almost miss the Stage Manager. He’d have something to say about unauthorized entrances.” Bertie was at an absolute loss for what to do. Animals in the Théâtre were portrayed by puppets, actors dressed in fur, or steel-covered clockwork; they certainly didn’t exude the promise of a bone-crunching, painful death with every panted exhalation.
“I’m fearin’ I’ll be no help in a brawl.” Moonlight-washed linen bunched as Nate flexed, testing his strength. Crouching, he reached for a fistful of grass and just managed to stir the spectral-dampened stalks. “Even if I had a weapon, I doubt it would do much good.”
“It’s all right, I can fix this.” Biting her lip, Bertie drew a squiggly stripe through the line about the night, but the ink refused to stay put. It wiggled off the page like an inchworm having a seizure and fell onto the ground with a wet plop! “I don’t get rewrites? Who can write a play in one draft?”
“Shakespeare?” Ariel moved back a few paces, still standing between Bertie and the wolves, but now close enough that she could scen
t the perfume of his hair.
“This is an inopportune time for a scholarly debate, I think.” Casting about them for inspiration, Bertie’s gaze came to rest on the lanterns. “The light is the only thing holding them at bay, isn’t it?”
Nate nodded. “That’s how it works wi’ things long o’ fang an’ sharp o’ nail.”
“They are most certainly long of fang, and I really don’t want to know about the sharpness of their nails.” Bertie could all too easily imagine the damage such claws could do.
Ariel looked at her over his shoulder. Tendrils of his hair brushed her bare arm. “Given the results of your first attempts, you might want to be careful how you phrase the next bit.”
“I’m not an idiot.” Twitching away from his unintentional caress, Bertie put pen back to paper to scribble,
The fairies kindle a fire.
And the parties in question promptly burst into flames.
“AAAAAH! It burns! It burns!” Mustardseed hollered as he batted at his clothes.
“Stop, drop, and roll!” Cobweb flung himself against the driver’s seat.
The wolves scattered, retreating a few feet from the four screaming miniature balls of incandescent light bobbing about like demented fireflies.
“I told you to be careful!” Ariel tried to catch hold of Mustardseed, but missed by several inches.
“That’s not what ye meant t’ do, is it?” Nate queried.
“No!” Bertie snagged Peaseblossom, bracing herself for searing pain that didn’t come. “Are you on fire or not?”
Blue phosphorescent flames curled up the fairy’s neck and shoulders as she considered the question. “I think ‘not,’ but it does tickle.”
The boys, once they stopped screaming, cut gleaming swaths of light against the sky that were noted with interest by the wolves. They crept back, pressing moist-looking noses to the wavering curtain of lantern light.
“You scared me to death!” Snappish in her relief that they were not burning up like pixie-kebabs, Bertie remained tense, watching the predators lick their chops every time the boys swooped past them.
“Sorry,” Mustardseed said. “Panic is sort of a reflex response when you’re on-fire-but-not.”
“Not to be troublesome, but I do believe we’re on the dinner menu.” Ariel held up his hand. Gathering a wind in his palm, he used it to push the pack leader back to the edge of the lantern light.
Bertie’s heartbeat thudded in counterpoint to the pad-pad-pad of paws in the grass as the wolves circled, looking for a weak side. “Get ahold of something.” The fairies obeyed with uncharacteristic haste, grabbing handfuls of her gown and hair. Nate stood beside her, but he wasn’t the one who could help them right now. “More wind, Ariel.”
“As milady commands.” Every muscle strained under the silk of Ariel’s shirt as the wolves snarled and snapped, fighting to breach the veritable tornado that encircled the group. “A bit of help, if you please?”
“I’ll turn them into a pile of fur coats.” Bertie braced the page against her knee, trying to pin it down long enough to write something, anything.
“Bertie—” Ariel’s desperation generated a hurricane blast.
The wind slammed into her like a shock wave, snatching The Book’s page from her grasp. Fluttering like a ballerina portraying a dying swan for a half second, the paper then dropped into a puddle of ghostwater. With a dismayed cry, she snatched it up and stared at the running ink in disbelief. “There’s barely room left to write my name, much less summon a horde of brigands armed to the teeth, or a legion of soldiers, or a cannon—”
Uncharacteristic droplets of sweat had gathered upon Ariel’s forehead, and he spoke through his teeth. “Summon something small, then!”
Inspiration struck, swift as blow. “More paper.” Bertie’s pen skidded, and the ink blotched as she scrawled,
The winds carry with them a
thick stack of enchanted pages.
A blur landed in front of her with a fur-muffled thump, and the fairies disappeared under the caravan with coordinated yelps. Nate’s ghostly arms wrapped around Bertie’s waist, pulling her back a full two inches before his strength gave out. She thought the largest of the wolves had made it past Ariel’s barrier before realizing the wild creature before her walked on two legs, not four, and the glint in the lamplight was not the creamy yellow of jagged teeth but the obsidian-black of a stone-bladed knife.
“Get away from her!” Ariel shouted, taking no risks with regards to the stranger’s allegiance. Concentration broken, his protective winds died, and the wolves were immediately upon them.
“Off with you, curs!” The newcomer turned from Bertie and greeted their attackers, growling and slashing the knife. His movements were a blur of motion, the fight a dance by moonlight. He wore a ragged assortment of leather and fur stitched together in stripes, and his hair stuck out in spiky, black tufts, making him more disreputable looking than most of the pirates she knew. Burlier than even Nate, and that was saying quite a lot. The stranger’s weapon—the obsidian knife—was bound with a crimson ribbon that whipped through the air like a streamer of blood.
Recognizing they were in the presence of a greater predator, the wolves fled into the night, thwarted and howling.
From under the caravan, Mustardseed made shooing motions at their newly arrived champion. “Go on, now! You’re supposed to exit, pursuing them!”
The stranger whirled about, piercing black eyes searching for the source of the tiny voice and passing over Nate without marking his presence with so much as a blink. Evidently spotting the fairies, the newcomer addressed his answer to the wheel of the wagon. “Oh, I am, am I? Explanations first, I think!” Turning, he advanced upon Bertie and Ariel. “Let us begin with how you summoned me here. What sort of witchcraft is this?”
“I apologize for interrupting whatever it was you were doing.” Bertie folded the still-damp page from The Book into four and shoved it in the pocket of her borrowed coat. “I didn’t require a courier. And it wasn’t witchcraft.” She paused to think over that assertion, then added, “Not really.”
The newcomer stalked nearer, vibrating with barely restrained energy. “Only a minute ago, I was about to lay claim to a priceless jewel. Then, without a by-your-leave, I was grasped by Fate’s Hand and cast down here like a pebble on the shore. And you claim that was not witchcraft?”
“She said that it wasn’t—” Ariel started to say, but a blur of motion knocked him aside.
Before Nate could shout to her, before Bertie could turn and run, the newcomer had her by the arms, black fingernails like claws curving into her skin through the silk of Ariel’s jacket. With his face only a few inches away from her own, she could see the bristles on his cheeks and chin pointing every direction, the depth of the purple-black circles about his eyes. Feral of teeth and foul of breath, he smelled like he’d imbibed the contents of a condemned distillery and looked entirely capable of committing ten sorts of mayhem.
But all he did was sniff at her curiously. “No, you’re not a witch.”
Nate made a guttural noise of frustration, addressing Ariel’s prone form. “Get up an’ get in there!”
“Let her go.” Unwittingly obeying the command, the air elemental regained an upright position and gathered his winds behind him. His clothes and face were dusty and disheveled, but undiluted fury radiated from every angle of Ariel’s body. Bertie shook her head at him, afraid that a sudden, ill-timed blast could startle her captor, who’d brought his nose a bit closer still to sniff at her again.
“No, not a witch,” the stranger mused. “Why do I sense something familiar about you?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea.” Bertie gave him Mrs. Edith’s most Imperious Look, though her voice squeaked a bit when she said, “Unhand me this instant.”
Instead, he glanced from the caravan to Bertie, recognition sparking in the depths of his dark eyes. “There was another Mistress of Revels when first we met, and you were smaller, I th
ink. That day, you made it rain jelly beans and peppermint sticks and chocolate humbugs from the sky.”
CHAPTER THREE
To Be Acquainted with This Stranger
You’re one of the Brigands!” Moth screeched before Bertie could make the connection.
“I was,” he corrected. “No longer am I a member of that particular brotherhood, sadly.”
Peaseblossom sniffed her contempt. “If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man.”
“No true man ever got his heart’s desire, my diminutive Lady Disdain.” Returning his attention to Bertie, he caught sight of the scrimshaw hanging around her neck and squinted at it. “Wherever did you get that?” Before she could answer, he broke into a wide and somewhat alarming grin. “Have you been to the Théâtre?”
“We’re from the Théâtre.” Ariel’s winds swirled and danced behind him, though his shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. “But how did you guess that?”
“The lovely medallion the lady is wearing? I took it there myself. Left it as gift for Mr. Hastings.” The newcomer’s grin broadened, and what had been disconcerting mere seconds ago was now jovial and warm.
Bertie thought of the Properties Manager at the theater. “You left an object for him without filling out paperwork in triplicate? Did you want his head to explode?”
“More like a little joke between associates.” The newcomer clapped Bertie on the arms. “Mr. Hastings is a tricky one, he is. Nothing unwanted in that room. Each thing to its proper place.”
“It’s carved from Sedna’s bone,” Nate said, hardly able to voice the Sea Goddess’s name without choking. “Ask him how a sneak-thief came by such a bit o’ magic?”
The title was an apt one, Bertie thought. “Where did you get it from? The scrimshaw, I mean.”
The sneak-thief hooked one of his curved, black fingernails under the medallion’s leather string, lifting it to the light with an appreciative look. “Perhaps it was a token from a knight I served for a time. Or I chanced upon it in a crowded marketplace.” He let it drop, the weight solid and reassuring against her skin. “Or I found it, high in the nest of a bird.”