September reeled. She had thought she was done with crying, but she could not bear the Marquess’s tale. Tears flowed hot and frightened and bitter. Iago howled, mourning for Mallow or the Marquess or Fairyland, September could not be sure.
“I’m sorry, Mallow…”
“Don’t call me that,” the Marquess snapped.
“Maud, then. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you going to tell me how wicked I am?”
“No.”
“Good. Now do as I say, little girl, or I shall throttle your friends in front of you and let Iago have the meat of them.”
Iago grimaced a little.
September still clutched the pearly clock to her breast. She could not imagine it-living a whole life here and then, suddenly, horribly, being a lost child again, all of everything gone. It was too awful to think of. Gently, September turned the clock over in her hands. But the Marquess, poor Maud, was broken now, and she wanted to break Fairyland, too, to make it like her, sad and bitter and coiled up like a snake, ready to strike at anyone, friend or foe. September slid her fingernail under the latch. The door of the clock’s workings sprang free. What if it had been September, and she had lived here so long that she forgot home?
September’s hands found the stopped gears. She knew she could do it. Clocks were easy. Her mother had taught her about clocks ages ago. Even if it were me, she thought, I could not chain Ell’s wings like that.
September drew the Wrench from her side. It was huge and long, its copper hand shining brightly.
“It will be as big as I need it to be,” she murmured.
And the Wrench sighed. It melted in her hand like a popsicle in the summertime, until it was delicate and tiny, a jeweler’s tool. Before the Marquess could tell her not to, September gripped the offending wheel within the heart of Maud Elizabeth Smythe’s clock with her Wrench and pulled at it.
“Don’t you dare!” cried the Marquess. She ran her hand along Iago’s black spine. He just looked up at her, his emerald eyes sad.
“Mallow…,” he whispered. “I’m tired.”
“Please! I can’t go back!” The Marquess snatched September’s hand, squeezing it horribly tight.
“Don’t you touch me!” cried September. “I’m not like you!”
The Marquess laughed her knifelike laugh again. “Do you think Fairyland loves you? That it will keep you close and dear, because you are a good girl and I am not? Fairyland loves no one. It has no heart. It doesn’t care. It will spit you back out just like it did me.”
September nodded miserably. They were both crying, struggling with the Wrench. September plunged her fingers into the clock, desperately trying to turn the wheel on her own. The gears cut her chilled hands and soaked the clock’s innards with blood.
“No, no, I won’t let you! I won’t go home!” The Marquess sobbed. And then she did an extraordinary thing.
She let September go. The Marquess took a step back, as big a step as she could manage in that tiny place. The storm flashed lightning and rain behind her. “I won’t let you. Either of you. Not you, not Fairyland. I won’t let you win.” She put her hand on her chest. “I have magic yet. If you will set the clock working again, then I must be still. I have read quite as many stories as you, September. More, no doubt. And I know a secret you do not: I am not the villain. I am no dark lord. I am the princess in this tale. I am the maiden with her kingdom stolen away. And how may a princess remain safe and protected through centuries, no matter who may assail her? She sleeps. For a hundred years, for a thousand. Until her enemies have all perished and the sun rises over her perfect, innocent face once more.”
The Marquess fell down. It was so fast-one moment, she stood; the next, she had dropped like a flower snapped in half. She lay perfectly still on the floor, her eyes shut, serene.
September turned the wheel with her tiny wrench. The hands moved, slowly at first, and then whirred faster and faster.
In the room, suddenly, a soft alarm bell began to ring.
CHAPTER XX
SATURDAY’S WISH
In Which Escapes Are Made, a Great Wrestling Match Occurs, and a Stranger Appears
“Is she dead?” whispered Iago.
The Marquess breathed deep and even. The Panther of Rough Storms bent his ponderous black head and bit her experimentally, the way one pinches oneself to test whether one is dreaming. She did not move.
“I don’t think so…,” said September fearfully.
“I ought to take her away somewhere. Somewhere quiet. I think a bier of some kind is traditional in these cases.”
“Shouldn’t she… go back now? That the clock is working?”
“I’m not an expert. Maybe she is back. Maybe she is dreaming of tomatoes and her father. I hope not.” The Panther meowed horribly. “I did love her. In her sleep, she looked so like Mallow. I kept thinking, One day, she’ll wake up, and it’ll be like it once was, and we shall all have a nice cake and laugh about how silly things got.”
A distant shatter and crash echoed through the Lonely Gaol.
Iago looked up, unconcerned. “She held half this world together with her will. It will all come apart now. I wonder what we shall all look like without her?”
“I have to get my friends out! Help me, Iago, please, I can’t get to them by myself!”
“Oh… well, I suppose someone ought to have a good ending, out of all of us.” The Panther’s eyes were glassy and faraway. “She fed me fish,” he whispered. “And blackberry jam.”
“Not together, I hope,” said September, trying to make him laugh as she climbed into his saddle. A great tear splashed onto the Marquess’s sleeping cheek as Iago rose up and away from his still, cold mistress.
“Oh, Saturday…”
The Marid lay on the floor of a cell, his hands bound behind his back, his mouth gagged. Terrible bruises bloomed purple and black where the lion had bitten him. His eyes were sunken and sallow.
“Wake up, Saturday…”
He groaned in his sleep. A savage crack appeared in the tower wall behind him, squeaking and shrieking as if about to burst.
“Saturday!” September cried. She took her Wrench by the hilt-it grew huge again in her hand. She swung it with all her might against the moss-slimed glass door of Saturday’s cell. The door shattered, shards tinkling to the floor. September pried the manacles open with the hooked hand of her Wrench and pulled Saturday’s gag away. She held him for a moment, stroking his hair. Slowly, his eyes opened.
“September!” he croaked.
“Can you walk? We have to go: The Gaol is breaking!”
“It will be all right-the dragon will build it up again…”
“What? We’re up so high, we’ll be killed!”
“Well, she’s not really a dragon, but…”
“Saturday! Pay attention! Where is Ell?”
The Marid gestured weakly toward the next cell. Iago glanced inside.
“He’s really rather poorly, that one. I don’t think you’ll get him out.”
September lay Saturday gently down and went to Ell’s cell. The Wyverary lay curled up on the floor, huge, crimson, and fast asleep. Ugly green gashes ripped through his scales, still oozing blood. Dried turquoise tears stained his dear face.
“Oh, Ell! No, no, don’t be dead, please!”
“Why not?” said Iago. “That’s what happens to friends, eventually. They leave you. It’s practically what they’re for.”
September brought the Wrench crashing down on Ell’s door, but the beast did not move. Outside the glass walls, September saw the towers’ tips begin to break off and tumble toward the raging sea.