"Then you must come home with me!" She leaned forward. "We have a huge place. Daddy never minds if I bring anyone home. Daddy never even notices — he's always working."
Great, thought Theo, I didn't think of that. Sure, we'll just drop over to the Fuhrerbunker for the weekend. He looked helplessly at Applecore.
"Yes, well, that's very kind, your ladyship," said the little fairy. You could hardly tell her teeth were clenched. "But when we get to the City, we have important business. The safety of the realm, like. And… and…" her inspiration dried up for a moment, but then came flooding back, "And we wouldn't want to put you in that sort of danger."
"No," said Theo gratefully. "Don't want to put you in danger. But we do need your help. Is there some way you can help us get into the City without taking the train all the way in?"
Poppy Thornapple was looking at him now with an interest that went beyond the merely carnal and had instead become something like real fascination. "Oh, yes," she said. "Of course. We can hire a coach. I don't carry much cash but I have oodles of tallies." She hadn't touched her most recent Wingbender at all. Now she pushed it to the side so she could set her small black purse on the table and begin sorting through it. "I even have a schedule — here!" She lifted out a small translucent oblong very much like the ticket she had earlier produced on Theo's behalf. "Oh, we're in luck — Starlightshire's in Hazel now. Otherwise we would have had to stay on until Trumpet Windhome."
"You'd do that for us?"
"Of course." She smiled hugely. "Oh, but look at me! Here I am, acting like a silly schoolgirl, when your friend's been killed." She tried, not entirely successfully, to look sad. "What was his name?"
Theo hesitated and Applecore jumped in. "Rufinus weft-Daisy, ma'am. I expect it will be in the news. He was Theo's… cousin."
"Such a strange name — Theo, I mean! Is it short for Theodorus or Theolian, or something else?"
"Theodorus, ma'am," said Applecore solemnly. "Theodorus weft-Daisy." She leaned toward her after casting a brief look of pity toward Theo. "Poor as ditchwater, ma'am," she whispered confidentially, "his whole branch of the family."
"Oh," said Poppy. Her violet eyes didn't leave Theo. "Brave, resourceful, and poor. How wonderful."
As the train passed through what was obviously the outskirts of a fair-sized town, they went back to Poppy's compartment and made sure to draw the curtains. When the train stopped, they waited for a couple of minutes that seemed much longer to Theo. Just as the conductor was calling the last boarding, they sent Applecore ahead to scout, then hurried down the corridor to the end of the compartment — or at least hurried as fast as they could with all Poppy Thornapple's luggage in tow.
"I can't believe you didn't call a porter," she said to Theo.
"No sign of Mister Tall-Dark-and-Damp anywhere," Applecore announced.
They joined the milling throng on the platform just as the doors closed and the train pulled out again. Theo looked up and saw a flash of white, masklike face pressed against the window in a darkened compartment like a greasy thumb on the glass, watching them with helpless rage.
"That's him," Applecore said. "We've done it, for a bit, anyway."
"Look, there are those charming little constables," said Poppy cheerfully. The commuters heading down the platform toward the station were eddying around the armored bulk of the Specials as though they were two large stones in a stream.
"I don't think we want them to see us," Theo said. "Since your tickets must have said you were going all the way back to the City."
"I suppose you're right…"
Theo took her hand — it was as cool as marble — and led her back up the platform. He didn't hold on very long, although she clearly didn't mind. They stopped by what he took for a phone booth (it was unlabeled and could have been some altogether stranger contraption for all he knew) and waited. When the constables had finally vanished into the station concourse, Theo picked up Poppy's two largest bags and began trudging down the platform.
"What have you got in here?" he asked breathlessly. "Homework from sculpture class or something?"
She laughed. "Shoes, in that one." She pointed at the smaller bag, which was still large enough that Theo felt like he was dragging a St. Bernard dog with a handle on its back. "A girl can't go home for two weeks and not have any shoes. The other one's mostly clothes."
Theo heard Applecore snort just behind his shoulder. He couldn't really argue with her assessment. "Haven't you people invented wheels on luggage here?"
"But all the porters have lovely little wheeled carts. Why would you want wheels on the cases, too? Is that some kind of fad out in Rowan this season?"
Theo shook his head.
Starlightshire Station was about the same size as Penumbra but without a dome, a long, low, barnlike structure with an open scaffolding roof trussed by metal bars. The space between the bars was not apparently empty as with Penumbra; instead there was a shimmer in the open spaces, a moving swirl of faint color like a soap bubble film waiting for breath. Theo didn't bother to ask about it. He had experienced enough inexplicable strangeness for one day.
As he watched the swirl of fairy nobles and rougher, stranger creatures moving across the concourse, Poppy pulled something that looked like a smooth silver wand out of her purse and spoke quietly into it. "They'll be here very shortly," she told Theo when she'd finished.
"Who?"
"The coach-hire people, silly. In fact, we should probably go wait out front."
"Then I'll have to hit the jacks again," Applecore announced. "Sorry to be crude, but facts are facts and my bladder feels like a frightened blowfish." She rose into the air and flew above the crowds toward the nearest wall. To Theo's surprise, instead of dropping down to door level she skimmed along about ten feet off the ground, then ducked into hole in the front of a small cubicle about the size of a shipping box, mounted high on the wall like a birdhouse. After spending a great deal of time in the restroom on the train, Theo had been wondering what kind of facilities there were for people Applecore's size; now he had a better idea.
"Is the sprite a… special friend of yours?" Poppy asked suddenly. "A sweetheart?"
"Applecore?" He was startled. Didn't the fact that he was about a hundred times bigger make the answer pretty obvious? "No. She's just a friend." He felt disloyal. "A very good friend. She's done a lot for me."
"Ah." She nodded and seemed satisfied. "Of course. Anyone else?"
"What?"
"Is there anyone else, back home or wherever? For you?"
He thought of Cat, so far away and undoubtedly so very happy not to be with him. "No. Not any more."
She brightened, then suddenly grew morose. "You must think I'm a little fool."
"No, of course I don't. You've been wonderful to us."
"I have…" She wouldn't meet his eye. "Well, I have a confession to make. Because I like you, Theo, and I wouldn't want you to go on thinking that… that…" She trailed off.
Oh, my God, he thought. She's called her family and they're on their way right now to arrest me and torture me in some weird fairy-dungeon. "Confession?" His voice was not as steady as he would have wished.
"I'm one hundred and five."
"What… ?"
"I'm one hundred and five years old." She still couldn't look at him. "I just wanted you to know. Because I do like you. Now you probably hate me."
He could only stare.
"I know I seem older. Well, sometimes. My parents think I'm a child, but I'm not — I've had lots of lovers already. But I didn't want you to find out and think I was trying to trick you. I'm not at university like you probably thought — I'm in my last year of Swansdown Academy. But I'm old enough to marry, you know, so I'm not that young!" Now she finally looked up, but seemed puzzled by the stunned expression on his face. "I don't mean you have to marry me!" She narrowed her extraordinary eyes a little. "So how old are you?"