September and Saturday ran to their old friend, patting its engine, asking after its gas tank, exclaiming over its new body. Both tried to hug Aroostook, but it did not come out quite right, for you cannot get your arms around a windshield or a fender, and besides, all Fords are somewhat embarrassed by public displays of affection.
The Plaited Plaza filled and filled and then overflowed. The Club shuddered at the crowds. It seemed many people meant to race who had never met a snifter in their lives, and the Club did not approve. September hadn’t seen half of them in the grand hall. Not Kings and Queens of days gone by, but fauns and bugbears and gnomes and spriggans who came with knapsacks full of ambition strapped on tight. But September didn’t see the racer she worried about. Perhaps she won’t come, September thought. Perhaps she’ll just lose interest and go learn to knit with the hamadryads.
Oh, September. They always come. No one in the history of the world has ever been so lucky as to escape confrontations forever. Though, I must admit: The Marquess actually overslept on the morning of the Cantankerous Derby. When you have slept for five years, one stacked on top of the other like mattresses, it’s very hard to convince your body that you’re allowed to wake up again. But I woke her. I crept into her room in the Briary and brushed a lock of her hair from her lips. The lock flushed blue and she sat straight up, gasping. You might think it wicked of me—why not let that awful lady sleep through to the end of time? But, darlings, I have many more stories than September’s to look after, and I cannot neglect even one of them.
The Marquess stepped out of nothing—she just opened a piece of air like it was a door with a nice sensible handle and stepped into the Plaza with her son Prince Myrrh close behind her. The Marquess smiled at September. Her hair faded from black to deep rose-pink. She gazed up at the statue of herself battling the clurichaun. Goldmouth, his golden teeth as sharp as vengeance, glared at her from across the square. Prince Myrrh waved shyly at September. He had come to see his mother off—and then dash away to his own schemes and trials, for the Marquess had told him when she woke that children should dream greater than their parents’ industries. Perhaps September and Myrrh might have found something to say to one another had the Green Wind not pounced upon another perfect moment and come sailing down out of the dazzling sky on the Leopard of Little Breezes—followed by Iago, carrying the Red Wind, her red coat flapping rakishly, her red pistols glittering. The Blue Wind came after, on her great giant puffin, and the Silver Wind on the Tiger of Wild Flurries, and the Black Wind, on the Lynx of Gentle Showers! And yet another Wind, the only one September had not yet met, the Golden Wind, riding the Jaguar of Soft Showers. A-Through-L roared in delight and flew red circles round them all.
“Green!” September cried, nearly beside herself. She jumped up and down as though no time at all had passed and she was still washing pink and yellow teacups in her parents’ sink and had only just now seen a man riding a flying Leopard for the first time. “Blue! Red! You came!”
“Well, of course we came, my sour little blueberry,” cried the Blue Wind, halfway between a sneer and a giggle. “How else am I going to steal a crown?”
“You’re racing?”
“Oh yes,” the Red Wind said. “Fairyland is far too important to leave it to the Unwindy. We’ve been lax. It’s not your fault—you’re stuck in one place. You can’t see anything but what you’ve already stepped in.”
“I can’t let one of them win,” said the Silver Wind, her fine gray hair wafting up round her head in a crown. She jutted her chin toward the other Winds. “Thieves and brawlers!”
“I’m not one of those,” the Black Wind snapped, wounded. “I’ll have you know I’m a perfectly respectable and responsible creature of the night.”
The Golden Wind said nothing. September and his Jaguar stared at one another.
“And you, too, Green?” September said at last. She did feel a little hurt. Didn’t he think she could manage a throne?
“Oh, I don’t want to lord it over anything much more than my breakfast, but I thought: Why not? Winds always race—it’s our nature!” The Green Wind landed softly. The Leopard of Little Breezes padded over to drink from the fountain.