However, few seemed interested in his concoctions. The First Stone pushed a brandy snifter at September. She peered inside. Water so cold it had begun to turn to ice at the edges, ancient gray moss, several small fern and snail fossils, and a half-burnt stick still smoking at the tip. The First Stone beamed at her with his rough half-hewn face, clearly feeling that he had given her a great gift worthy of a Queen. Perhaps these had been the most precious things in the world once upon a time, in the primeval age before even dinosaurs: water, the first baby plants and animals, fire. But Madame Tanaquill and Cutty Soames clearly preferred brandy in their brandy snifters. September sipped it politely.
“Mmmm!” she said, even though it tasted mostly like very wet dirt and unfathomable secrets from before the invention of dreams. The First Stone beamed even more broadly.
“So you’re her,” said the Headmistress, eyeing September appraisingly. “I am the Headmistress. I reigned eleven centuries ago, before I was deposed by the bint with the cigar over there. I was very good at it—I am sure I would have much to teach you.”
“Oh yes, terribly good,” cooed Madame Tanaquill, seeming to take notice of September for the first time. “Go right ahead. Teach little September all about the Caged Wood.” The Prime Minister of Fairyland glided across the drawing room to September’s side. Her lime-juice gown trailed invitingly behind her; her violet hair floated round her head in a delicate bob. She draped one long arm around September’s shoulders. “My friend here put each and every Fairy into an iron cage and hung us up on the boughs of a babbling baobab forest. She left us there for a hundred years with only the kindness of crows to feed us—and crows are vicious little cretins, you know.”
“Oy!” squawked Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord. “I’m right here!”
“Fairies were rather shy and curious creatures before she got ahold of us,” Madame Tanaquill continued, ignoring Hushnow entirely. “A hundred years of listening to babbling baobabs and begging crumbs from crows will drive even a doctor mad.”
“Now, that’s a lie,” snorted Pinecrack, the Moose-Khan. “How do you fit such a big lie in your mouth, Tansy? She put you in cages because you and yours couldn’t stop stealing the wings off a dragonfly’s back and the horns off a goat and the tusks off an elephant! Let me tell you, kid, tusks looked a thousand kinds of stupid glued to frogs.”
“How dare you,” Tanaquill hissed. “How dare you call me a frog? You’re nothing but a ruined horse.”
And the Prime Minister of Fairyland flicked her fingers at Pinecrack. A sizzle of ultraviolet bubbles snapped, popped—and the Moose-Khan’s antlers turned to ash, falling from his head and into his bathtub of wine in a fine gray spray. Thrum roared in reptile rage.
“Lovely. Lovely behavior. Ever been bitten by a moose? I know how you like new experiences.” Pinecrack turned on her, his eyes gone molten blue with hatred and rage.
“Put them back or you’ll have my cutlass for a spine,” snarled Cutty Soames, who had crept up on her, even in a pair of marvelous high-heeled boots covered in shells and jewels. September had seen him moving on Tanaquill, but had kept her mouth shut.
“Come now,” sighed Curdleblood, tamping a long black pipe. “This is unworthy. One does not behave this way in a gentlemen’s club. We agreed to refrain from magic and other weapons while the club is in session. I know some of us are very cranky, having only recently come back from the dead, but reanimation is no excuse. Tanaquill, put his antlers back. September, good evening. I’m pleased you accepted our invitation. Welcome to the Society of Tyrants.”
“I’m not a tyrant,” protested September.
Madame Tanaquill smirked. “Only because you don’t know how yet.” She flicked her fingers again and two bony nubs appeared at Pinecrack’s temples, growing quickly into new antlers. It did not look like a comfortable process.
“I’m not a tyrant because I don’t want to be a tyrant.”
“Who wants to be a tyrant?” asked the Headmistress, sipping a glass of champagne. “I certainly didn’t. Did you, Hushnow? You, Cutty? No? And yet—Hushnow stole the sun and held it hostage. Cutty Soames stole the three most precious things from every house in Fairyland. Yes, the Headmistress put all the Fairies in cages—but Pinecrack outlawed magic except for those in the Cervidae family—that’s anybody who’s part deer, love. Hushnow forced all of Fairyland to grow wings whether they liked it or not, Thrum ordered anyone herbivorous to present themselves at the palace every morning for convenient devouring. And I expect you know about Madame Tanaquill already. Even our quiet friend Mr. Q. Humdrum there cast a terrible spell so that everyone could only repeat the day he came to power over and over, so that nothing would ever change and he would never have to suffer surprise. And yes, me too. Fairyland was such a disorderly place when I deposed the Happiest Princess and ascended the throne. I had to make it better. I had to make it right. You see, sweetheart, nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks: Today I shall be a wicked murderous tyrant and crush something nice under my boot. It just happens to you. Like catching a cold. It starts the first time someone says no to you and goes on and on until everyone is saying no and saying it so loud you can’t sleep for the din.”
“What about him?” September asked, pointing at the First Stone, who had just finished adjusting a paper umbrella on a goblet of mud.