Moth tapped the toes of his little boots together. “If we still had the journal, Bertie could write us a hail of graham crackers.”
“Shut yer gobs,” Nate muttered.
“What’s the matter with you?” Mustardseed wanted to know.
Instead of elaborating, Nate expressed his disapproval of Bertie’s forest tryst by forcibly handing her a scrap of linen containing her share of the food. “Eat that.”
Although a welcome diversion from having to discuss her kiss with Ariel, the berries were sour enough to curl her toes. Tempted to spit them overboard, a glance at Nate told her the punishment for such an action might start with keelhauling and end with plank walking.
If yesterday’s journey had been a sun-softened chocolate bar, the ensuing hours were a miserable piece of jagged-edged rock candy, liberally coated with purse lint and bits of used tissue. The fairies contributed only complaints and ever-louder stomach rumbles as time advanced alongside the caravan’s wheels. Observing the sun’s relentless arc overhead, Bertie despaired over their lack of suitable script and costumes.
When he finally spoke, the pirate’s tone erred on the side of consolatory, if not contrite.
“Did ye think t’ ask th’ newcomer why she was ensorcelled int’ a bit o’ jewelry?”
“I’ve been too busy panicking about our upcoming performance to ponder what sort of new magic we’re dealing with,” Bertie retorted.
“I know th’ sorts o’ trouble yer capable o’.” Sharp words that could have cut, had Nate placed more anger behind them; the blade was turned aside by a gentle elbow nudge. “An’ now there’s trouble I don’t know.”
“I promise to be on my best behavior,” came a lilting voice behind them.
Bertie twisted around in her seat. “Apologies. We should have just asked you instead of conjecturing.”
“Not to be rude,” Mustardseed said, assurance that whatever he was about to say would certainly be less than polite, “but how did you get trapped in that ring?”
“A magician grew frightened of his own word-spells and trapped me there.” Varvara pressed her mouth together so hard that sparks leapt from her lips.
“That ring belonged to the Theater Manager, and he certainly is no magician—” Except Bertie remembered a small snippet of a conversation she’d once had with Mr. Hastings.
The Theater Manager had aspired to write a grand opera.
Could Varvara be one of his characters?
Before Bertie could inquire as to such a thing, the fire-dancer tilted her head to one side and said, “I’d prefer not to speak of the past, but rather the future. How much further is the Distant Castle?”
Bertie leaned forward to check the map, and her stomach dropped at the sight of their progress. Though Nate had managed to cover a surprising amount of terrain, the Queen’s stronghold still lay a goodly distance ahead of them. Counted by finger widths, hundreds of miles yet separated them from the Distant Castle. One hard look down the ragged dirt path they traveled confirmed it: A sentinel row of trees grew on the right, craggy mountains flanked them on the left, and between the two rose a silver spire, so distant as to seem impossible to reach in less than a week or two.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bertie said, tasting fresh despair. “We’ll never make it on time.”
“I hear th’ challenge, an’ accept.”
She wasn’t having any of the optimism Nate was serving. “Even if we do arrive before the gates are locked, we’ve no act to perform, no props or costumes. Everything was stolen by the brigands.” Clutching the sneak-thief’s bag to her chest, Bertie wished it held more than silk-rags and sand.
“Ye’ll think o’ somethin’,” Nate said with a weary yet bemused smile. “Ye always do.”
“That’s hardly reassuring,” Bertie shot back, “but far be it from me to dismiss a vote of confidence when we so heartily need one.”
“Th’ Queen invited ye specially. If she wants t’ see ye, it’s a matter o’ great importance, never mind yer clothes an’ yer bits.”
“Easy for you to say!” Dressed as he was in leather trousers that wouldn’t wrinkle and a linen shirt that looked good even when it was covered in pleats and creases, Nate was still presentable. If Bertie looked as unkempt as she felt, she must resemble a walking rag-bag. “Boys never worry about these things!”
“Men,” he corrected her on two counts as he guided the caravan back onto the main road, now devoid of traffic, “know when clothes are important an’ when they are not.”
Caring less about clothing than candies, the fairies were once again scouring the wagon for crumbs. Bertie reached under the seat and pulled out the binoculars’ case. “Here, you little monsters, occupy yourselves.”
They promptly abandoned the empty marshmallow bag, each accepting a pair and then trying to determine the best vantage point. Within seconds, they’d decided to sit upon Bertie. Mustardseed assured his place on her left shoulder by clambering over Cobweb’s back, though that good fairy retaliated by handily tripping his friend.
“Let me see!” Moth crowded in next to Peaseblossom, who’d wisely moved to Bertie’s other shoulder.
“I’ve left you plenty of room.” The fairy’s offense was evident in her tone as she indicated a miniscule space near her feet.
“NO ROOM!” he bellowed, though he managed to scrunch up and peer through his glasses. “Oh, look! A castle!”
“Already?” Shifting the horses’ reins to his left hand, Nate retrieved another pair of binoculars from the case. When he lifted them to his eyes, a startled noise tumbled out of his mouth. “Ye might want t’ see this.”
After handing Varvara an extra set of spy glasses, Bertie obeyed. The castle gates snapped into focus, bricks like square pearls forming a massive wall, the archway composed of impossibly twisted glass tendrils. Secondary and tertiary tiers rose above that, like the layers on a wedding cake.
Bertie lowered her glasses, and her exclamation of delighted surprise was transformed into a strangled noise of disbelief. The glasses had done more than magnify the Distant Castle; they’d transported troupe and caravan to the very gates of the Queen’s stronghold. Nate drew the mechanical horses up just short of the glass archway. On either side of the closed doors hung a gold-and-white bellpull, one marked VISITORS and the other SERVANTS.
Vaulting down from the driver’s seat, Bertie rang each of them in turn, politely at first and then with greater desperation. “It’s no use … they’ve locked the doors, as promised.”
The fire-dancer appeared at Bertie’s elbow without so much as a stirring of her crimson skirts to mark her graceful movements. “What is glass was once sand and fire.” Varvara slanted a playful look at Bertie. “Everything about you suggests you are a daughter of the earth.”
“I am, but—”
“Then let us open the doors by means of a method more creative than lock picking.” Varvara placed her palms against the wall. “Unless the sands will not obey you?”
The fire-dancer’s eyebrow, quirked in challenge, so reminded Bertie of Ariel that she could hardly breathe.
“What are ye doin’?” Nate called from the caravan.
“Breaking and entering,” Bertie muttered as she placed her hands alongside Varvara’s. “Which means I’m certain to have my head liberated from my shoulders within the hour!”
The fairies shouted a variety of warnings, but their voices faded to a dim murmur when the fire-dancer’s ruby fingernails stroked the gates, wrapping the memories of flames about her fingers and drawing them toward her like so many ribbons. Before them, the glass shuddered, and Bertie had to scramble to move the sands aside before they were buried up to their necks. Under her command, the tiny particles of stone swirled through the air like glitter tossed, slowly gathering in drifts on either side of the road. Pressing forward step by careful step, Bertie and Varvara cleared a path wide enough for the caravan to pass.
“Drive through!” Bertie shouted to Nate, hoping he could hear h
er above the hiss of sand and Varvara’s peal of triumphant laughter. The moment he cleared the inner wall, Bertie began the struggle to return every grain of sand to its rightful place. “Put the flames back, Varvara!”
Red-hot salamanders slithered over her skin, hissing with reluctance to be parted from their mistress, and for a moment, it looked as though the fire-dancer would refuse. Finally, Varvara shrugged and flicked the flames at the portal.
Their powers met and merged and fell apart, two dancers in a waltz, and though Bertie did her best to render the gates as they had been, there was no denying the theater’s art nouveau influence upon the result. Glowering, she was attempting a second rendering when two guards rounded the corner of a nearby tavern.
“Halt!” They approached at a run, leveling silver-tipped bayonets at her. “Stop what you’re doing and put your hands in the air!”
“One second longer,” Varvara said, either not recognizing the danger or not caring that she and Bertie were about to be arrested. “My friend improvised a bit with the architecture. We wouldn’t want to be accused of artistic license along with breaking and entering, would we?”
“Never mind that!” With a muttered curse, Bertie grabbed the fire-dancer by the arm, severing the connection between the fire magic and the glass gate. “We have to get out of here!”
Nate set the reins to the horses’ backs as the girls scrambled onto the caravan. They left the guards in the dust, though Bertie knew it was only a matter of minutes before the troupe was apprehended. There was, after all, only one road: the one leading directly up to the castle.
“I have sand in my ears!” Moth wailed, shaking like a dog.
“And mouth,” Cobweb said, spitting far more than necessary.
“I have it somewhere worse,” Mustardseed hinted darkly.
“Drive faster, Nate!” Bertie commanded as the caravan rattled through the first tier of Her Gracious Majesty’s kingdom, the domain of the Lioness.
“Easier said than done wi’ all th’ yammering!” he flashed. “The road’s as narrow an’ bent as a cat’s tail.”
To prove his point, the mechanical horses raced breakneck around a building of tawny wood. Supported at intervals with rugged cornice pieces carved to resemble paws, the structure loomed over them as though about to pounce. Twisted in her seat to keep an eye on their pursuers, Bertie only caught glimpses of the feline statuary guarding various houses and their smaller cat cousins. Disapproving topaz eyes glinted, and tails twitched in condemnation, as though word of the troupe’s transgression had already reached them.
In contrast, Varvara’s face was still alight with the salamanders’ glow. “That was fun! We ought to do it again sometime soon.”
“We are not going to repeat that performance,” Bertie said, trying to sound firm.
“An’ just what will ye say t’ get us out o’ this mess?” Nate wanted to know as they approached the second gate. Two rearing unicorns marked this archway, each facing the other, manes forever wind tossed, their golden horns glinting in the last of the day’s sunshine.
“I haven’t the slightest clue.” Bertie gripped Nate’s arm as they flashed through the open gate, ignoring the shouts of a new set of guards. The buildings in the second township were painted brilliant white, interspersed with the verdant leaves and brilliant pink flowers of private gardens. Tethered to the dark-fruited mystery of pomegranate trees were small, one-horned white goats, universally tended by young girls who stared goggle-eyed at the caravan as it rattled past.
“Th’ road’s growin’ fair steep,” Nate muttered. “If I don’t keep th’ horses movin’ fast enough, we’re goin’ t’ slide back down th’ hill an’ perish in a pile o’ splintered wood. Get ahold o’ somethin’.” When he whistled to the team, their metallic ears pricked back at the shrill command that no doubt ricocheted inside their silver skulls.
Obliging him, they picked up their pace, approaching the innermost wall of the Queen’s stronghold within minutes. At first glance, the vast silvered surface offered no easy entry, and Bertie braced herself for the crash, yet the caravan slid into a sliver of darkness: an almost invisible corridor formed by mirrors set at infinitesimal angles. For a moment, they were trapped in a prism, multiple painted wagons and metallic horses skimming around them. When the troupe finally emerged from the curious tunnel, the road leveled off, but everything continued to suggest a world mirrored. Leaves and blooms of blown glass defied gravity and the limits of real-world landscaping to snake over the very sides of the mountain. The surface of the castle glittered, plated with fish-scale brilliance, each of the tiles a variation on the color scheme: pewter, sterling, and the flat dull gray of the sky before a storm.
The caravan should have made a tremendous rattling noise, crossing a bridge over water so flat that Bertie could see her reflection in it, but the horses’ hooves fell silently out of respect for Her Gracious Majesty’s abode. Inside the courtyard, performers and wagons and live horses were crammed wheel to wagon next to one another, each jockeying for space near doors guarded by two massive men in white. Nate wrestled with the reins, pinned though they were between a cart of lute players and six itinerant singers balanced atop a single donkey.
“I am Fenek, personal courier to Her Gracious Majesty.” A servitor in a feathered cap appeared beside them like something conjured out of a hat. “Might I have your name, please?”
Mindful of the guards from the previous gates closing in at a run, Bertie answered in a rush, “Beatrice Shakespeare Smith and Company.”
Fenek snapped to utter attention, his demeanor changing from one of welcome to urgency with the blurred motion of a white-gloved hand to his forehead. “Good Mistress of Revels, you are expected! Her Gracious Majesty feared you hadn’t arrived before the gates were locked.” Bertie made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat that ended abruptly when the servitor added, “Please follow me at once! She has said your performance shall take precedence over all others.”
“At once?” She glanced over her shoulder, catching sight of their pursuers. “Of course. Lead the way!”
If he was puzzled by her vehemence and swift dismount, the servitor concealed it well. “Do bring your binoculars.”
Hurrying behind him, Bertie passed through massive Venetian-mirrored doors. Delicately etched and beveled from floor to ceiling, they fragmented her face into flower petals. The Queen’s garden entered the castle with them, bedecking the satin-clad walls of the corridor with ivory butterflies, dragonflies, and rocking horse flies. On the carpet underfoot, tiger lilies nodded to roses, daisies whispered to violets.
Probably muttering their disapproval of my disheveled appearance.
Bertie knew her only option was to explain the circumstances of their arrival and beg the Queen’s forgiveness, not only for the gate, but for their lack of preparation. “I have something very important to explain to Her Gracious Majesty—”
“Shhhh,” Fenek admonished, his footsteps the scuttling of a nervous rabbit’s late for an appointment. “Someone is currently performing. Take care to enter quietly.”
But there was no need for the warning. When the Company entered the Grand Hall, Bertie hardly drew a breath, and for once, the fairies weren’t making a sound. It was the largest room Bertie had ever seen, larger by far than anything she could have ever imagined. Countless glittering chandeliers descended from a ceiling that seemed to extend to the very heavens, while the floor spread out underfoot in a dozen impossible directions at once. Tiered seating ringed the outer perimeter of the performance space, occupied by countless spectators: courtiers in grand dress the color of black pearls and antique silver coins, performers in gayer costumes that were bright splotches of color against the rest. All eyes were trained upon the countless enormous mirrors that reflected the image of their Queen and the performing singer:
Ariel.
Without the mirrors, it would have been impossible to make him out. Distance reduced the Queen’s magnificent dais, encrust
ed though it was with gold and silver and canopied with white velvet, to something belonging in a doll’s house. Her Gracious Majesty was a near-featureless poppet whose presence was the only doorstop preventing the space from expanding forever. Amplified by enormous horn speakers set at intervals, Ariel was mid performance, and more than just the song prickled the hairs along Bertie’s arms.
“This way, if you please.” With hippity-hopping steps, Fenek led the troupe past chairs toward the performance space, ignoring the curious looks of those around him, the spreading whispers that began as no more than a few words then built in strength and number to rush toward the Queen. Unseen musicians ceased their ministrations to flute and violin.
In the resultant silence, a voice from the dais that could only belong to Her Gracious Majesty bellowed, “What is it, Fenek?”
CHAPTER TEN
Tell O’er Thy Tale Again
Before the servitor could answer, Ariel spoke up. “It is the one for whom you’ve been waiting, Your Gracious Majesty.”
When Bertie raised her binoculars to her eyes, the air elemental’s features came sharply into view. Lowering the magical magnifiers with haste, she discovered that she stood only inches from the first step leading up to the dais, transported there much as the caravan had been whisked to the glass outer gates.
Close enough now to take her by the hand, Ariel presented her to the Queen with one of his graceful flourishes. “Permit me the honor, Your Gracious Majesty, of introducing Beatrice Shakespeare Smith and Company.”
She immediately dropped into a curtsy. The rest of the troupe must have employed their binoculars as well, for they appeared like rabbits from a magician’s hat behind Bertie with the noiseless pops that accompany surfacing alligators. Varvara executed a most graceful obeisance, and Nate fell to one knee.
“Get down,” he muttered to the fairies, neck bowed.
They complied, flinging themselves at the floor and hitting the marble in four noisy belly flops.