“In the fullness of her strength.”
“Did you come all the way here with only one shoe?” came a sweet, wondering voice.
September whirled away from the painting. In the center of the heart-shaped staircase sat a little girl, holding her chin in her hands. She had thick cherry-purple hair that hung in old-fashioned sausage curls to her shoulders and that magnificent, terrible hat poised on her head like a cake tipping to one side. The hat was black, September could see now, as she had guessed when this child had shaken hands with the bear on-screen. The feathers shone blue and green and red and cream-colored. The jewels glittered dark and violet. Next to her, a huge Panther purred languidly and watched September out of one green eye.
“That must have been just awfully painful,” the child simpered. “How brave of you!”
The Marquess ran one hand luxuriously along the Panther’s spine, winding her fingers in his fur-and drew up a pair of exquisite black shoes, like September’s, if September’s shoe had grown up, gone to a great many balls and theatrical to-dos, and found a dashing mate. They had little heels and black crystal lilies on the toes, with bits of ribbon looping and whorling all around, speckled with garnets and tiny black pearls. She held them out to September, whose bare foot, truthfully, ached and throbbed with cold and blisters. She wanted to take them, she did, but taking gifts from wicked Queens, even if they are called Marquesses, even if they are very pretty children not big enough to hurt anyone, is a dangerous business, and September knew it.
She shook her head with much sadness. The shoes were so beautiful.
“I am only trying to help you, child,” said the little girl. She set the shoes gently on the gleaming floor and ran her hand along the cat’s spine again. This time, the Marquess drew up a silver plate piled high with wet red cherries, a wedge of black cake crusted with sugar, swollen raspberries and strawberries, several lumps of dark, dusty chocolate, and a tall goblet of steaming hot cider.
“You must be so hungry. You’ve come so far!”
September swallowed. Her throat was dry, her stomach empty. But this was certainly Fairy food. The worst kind, the kind that never let you go if you even taste it once. “Is that Queen Mallow?” she said instead, nodding toward the portrait and forcing her voice to be friendly.
The Marquess looked up at the great painting and scowled. Her curls shivered and went deep blue, the color of the sea. She sighed and snapped her fingers. The rich plate disappeared.
“You would think that new management would have the right to redecorate. But some magic never bends, not even if you tear at it with your own teeth. No matter how I tear, the portrait stays. She was never that beautiful, though. The painter must have been a loyalist.” The Marquess turned away from Queen Mallow’s sweet gaze and focused on September again. She smiled. “But she is dead, my child. I promise you that. Dead as autumn and last year’s apple jam. But we haven’t come all this way to dish gossip about ancient history. How have you been enjoying Fairyland, September?”
“How do you know my name?”
“You filed papers, of course. You have a visa. What in the world do you think all that is for, if not to make certain that I know everything?”
September didn’t say anything.
“Well, I do hope everyone has been nice to you and hospitable in every way they can think of. It’s important to me, September, that you’re treated well.”
“Oh, yes! Everyone has been terribly helpful and kind-except the Glashtyn, I suppose. I had heard that Fairies were nasty and tricky and cruel, but they’re not, not really.”
“Oh?” said the Marquess with arch amusement. She stroked the Panther with her small hands. Her fingers were covered in jeweled rings. “But they are, truly, September. Just the worst sort of folk. You’d never believe how wicked! They’re nice because I make them nice. Because I punish them if they are not nice. Because I put them on the Greenlist if they are not nice. Before I came, Fairyland was a dangerous place, full of brownies spoiling milk and giants stomping on whomever they pleased and trolls telling awful punning riddles. I fixed all that, September. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to invent bureaucracy in a world that didn’t even know what a ledger was? To earn their submission, even to the point of having their wings locked down? But I did it. I fixed it for children like you, so that you could be safe here and have lovely adventures with no one troubling you and trying to steal your soul away. I do hope you didn’t think you had charmed them all with your sparkling personality, child.”
“Why do you keep calling me a child? You’re no older than I am.”
“Really, September. You’re going to have to be a bit more discerning than that if you expect to get along here. I suppose I shouldn’t expect any better from a Midwesterner. They teach you such frightful things about the world.” The Marquess paused. The tips of her hair grew silver and shining. “Do you like my Panther? He is called Iago. I love him very much and he loves me. I used to have a Leopard, but she ran off some time ago. Could not change with the times, I suppose.” The Marquess nodded toward the portrait of Queen Mallow, whose hand still rested on a Leopard’s head. “That sort of thing is so tragic, don’t you think? I do so prize adaptability.” The Panther Iago growled at the mention of his predecessor.
Could she mean my Leopard? thought September. The Leopard of Little Breezes? She did not like to think of the Marquess riding her Leopard, even for a little while.
“Cats are temperamental,” offered September softly. “I have heard you have lions, too.”
“Too true!” cried the Marquess, her hair wholly silver now, gleaming like true metal. “On both counts! Lions sleep a great deal, for it is from their dreams that their strength chiefly comes. They are closeted in their chambers, snoozing away on lacy coverlets. Now, I believe you wanted to steal a Spoon from me?”
September bit the inside of her lip. This was not precisely how she had thought her adventure would go. How could she be brave for the sake of the witch Goodbye if she were found out before she could even try?
“Don’t be ashamed, my love. I would not be a very good Marquess if I could not tell when troublesome little Ravished children are incoming with poor intentions toward me and my belongings. After all, the Ravished are always trouble. Any ruler of Fairyland must learn to watch out for them particularly, as they have a nasty habit of dethroning one and undoing decades of hard work.”
“But… Miss Marquess. The Spoon is not one of your belongings. You took it from the witch Goodbye. That’s stealing. So it’s not really very wicked of me at all to want to steal it back-stealing things back is hardly stealing at all.”
The Marquess cocked her head to one side and smiled. Somehow her smile was worse than her frown. The Panther licked his black paws nonchalantly. “Is that what she told you? That I stole it? What a dreadful misunderstanding! I shall have her to tea immediately to apologize. You must appreciate my position, September: I was under the impression that all things in my realm belong to me, and Goodbye was under the impression that Good Queen Mallow would arrive at any moment to save her. You can see how things got terribly confused!”
“Where…” September cleared her throat. Her hands shook. “Where I come from, if a person has a Spoon, no one can come and take it just because they’re the governor or something.”
“I think that’s very naive of you, September.” The Marquess put her finger on her delicate chin as if an extraordinary idea had just occurred to her. “Tell me, what does your father do?”