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Mabry Muscat rubbed his long fingers, and Mallow felt certain he was a Jack-in-the-Green His cravat glowed the crione as deep a blue as the sky outside She could hardly see him “I am older still, dear Mallow And old as I am, I can just barely remember, when I was a child with my mother’s milk on my chin and my father’s holly upon my bed, the last Tithe Fairyland could stomach It’s a blood price, paid once every seven years, or ten, or a hundred, or seven hundred, depending on who you ask and how sick folk feel about it at the tirow up to be, I suppose I hope there will be fireworks, at least Perhaps a commemorative spoon These are days of old barbary and new revivals” He fell quiet for a while Finally, when she could see the night hills showing on his inky skin, Muscat said: “Have you a love you wish to sing? Tell me who you are, pretty Malloeet Mallow, my practical rose in a sea of silly daisies”
Mallow looked him levelly in the eye, and hardly a soul in the world has yet to be half-sirl She told him the truth “I have never lost a love and I do not intend to One can only lose love if one is careless, and I a I a what I’ve got The King says I o And I hope to find a Wet Magician or thile I am there, and learn, and buy several new books if I can”
“Ah! She does want soh Find the Nephelo tents, where the great cats of that city laze and lie They practice the Wet Arts as well as any soul in Fairyland, and will let you have a saucer of o with you I once lived in Nephelo after all, and one is always horief”
Outside, the night road to Pandeh the northern counties of Fairyland Valleys bloo coalflowers, falling away into ht-heeled river-ny their blue currents around distant hills The notion of a blood price, the very words Mabry Muscat has spoken, hung between them inside the Horse, too hot and terrible and heavy to be touched They did not touch it, but after a day and a lunch and an apple for the Horse, Mallow consented to play Bezique—as long as they played for no bets Later they tried Fool’s Hand as well, but that’s no fun at all without a wager All the cards had Mabry’s face on one side, and Mallow’s on the other She did not find this unsettling or char, which clearly saddened Muscat deeply
Occasionally, when they were very bored, they would open up Carolingus to a randoe and listen to hiestion and you’ll never get a career girl to care about the tarts you spent all day slaving over a hot stove to e hostel, Mabry let Mallow open up the Carriageless Horse’s neck and peer at the workings inside, which popped and hissed and burbled ahite and pink and green I recognize soht that went into the beast, Mallow said It’s quite high-end Questing Physicks See the vials of Purposeful Syrop, and the Hero’s Alembic? Mabry did see, and the Horse felt terribly pleased to be so regarded by such wise people
Only once did Muscat ask if he ht kiss her Mallow declined, very reluctantly, more out of favor to that mysterious vanished love of his than because she did not wish to be kis
sed He simply dealt the cards once more, and Mallow called the next trick
Once or twice along the way, she heard ducks hooting, and held her books tight to her chest
Pandemonium, after reed to settle down in one place for the duration of the Foul The capital of Fairyland has always been accustolaciers or beaches or long, wheat-filleda Fairy city and thus always sharply aware of where it stood in relation to every story unfolding in Fairyland at every ’s pets, as he called his soldiers, had persuaded the city to put down roots, if only for a little while Already, the streets seethed with restlessness and the signposts quivered with barely contained energy The King’s pets were, of course, large, lithe, rain-dark and snow-light clouds, lassoed and captured by several lightning-wights before being pressed into royal service Even the thin, jagged-hearted Hobwolves of the Sniggering Mountains quailed in the face of those canine, long-toothed clouds
But the sky shone glassy and glea on the day Mabry Muscat and Mallow rode into the capital, quite late, having started so far away Only two days reeless Horse clopped over a char Barleybroorinning wide-eyed at the great nu, and leaping across to Pandee, motley-colored, silk-ballooned zeppelin driftedbasket beneath it, an Ifrit girl with burning hair played a fiery and furiousaccordions, satyrs blowing pipes, and dru out across the plain where Pande bronze links
Mallow had never seen anything so wildly, savagely, noisily beautiful in all her days
But when they finally crossed into the city proper with the throng, her bones ached and her heart could hardly bear the sight of it The buildings of Pandemonium must have been lovely once, olden storefronts and winding wrought-vine balconies, open flowers and briars andtrees, violet peony-s and blue lobelia-doorsteps It must once have blooeh the fertile, greening riot of the living capital But no longer Leaves had gone brown, vines had shriveled, flowers shrunk and wrinkled up, thorns gone dull and rey Where stone and jewel and h, the flank of a bakery or terrace of a bank or clerestory of a grand theatre, huge, gaping holes showed through, as though soiant had taken bites out of the city itself, in its highest and deepest and h sus of autuone and left only brown sticks waiting for snow
But for all that, Fairyland would not let her city go ungarlanded The World’s Foul had swung through, leaving red and violet and green ribbons strea from streetlamps, bundles of wildflowers and clovers on every cornice, the streets lined with booths and stalls hoisting gaily painted signs: The Fa Silkworms of Mararhadorium! Guess Your Death for a Nickel, Very Accurate! See the Crocodile-Beauty of Bitterblue Ridge! Test Your Morals, Everyone Gets a Prize! Feats of Queer Physicks Perfor Booth, No Refunds!
And in the center of the city, on a long, wide lawn, a clutch of kobolds had erected a lorious and whole The Green City, they called it, for no longer could the capital bear the name herself
Malloondered if Fairyland had always been like this—this loud and fast and frightening and wonderful—and she had only forgotten, letting the pleasantness of Winesap seep into her bones She wanted to do everything—to watch the worirl preen and oh, especially to see the Queer Physicks which she had been curious about for so long, and to test her morals, and to kiss a lamia All of it, and eat a slab of honeycomb from the bee-nymphs of Pennyroyal Pond to top it all