“Castigo, Castigas, Castigat!” screamed the Headmistress.
This time there was no quivering of the air. Her army of verbs seemed to fly directly from her fingers—three soldiers all in black. Their shields showed an awful crest: a child standing in a corner with his hands over his eyes, for the words the Headmistress had parried with were I punish, you punish, he or she punishes. One brandished a ruler for the rapping of knuckles, one held a wooden paddle for cruel spankings, and one hoisted a quiverful of forks for the suppers wicked children had to go without. They each had their names pinned to their chests: CASTIGO, CASTIGAS, CASTIGAT.
Ell paused for a moment, thinking furiously. Then, suddenly, he laughed, and the laugh of a Wyverary, terribly pleased at his own cleverness, bouncing off the walls of a library is a wonder to hear. He whispered his magic words quickly into September’s ear. This time, he only needed two.
“Vincam! Vincemus!”
Twin warriors burst into thin air. They wore crowns, one of gold and emeralds, one of laurel leaves. They had forged their armor from shining trophies and medals. Garlands and sashes hung from their necks and their shields bore the sigil of a prize ribbon with dozens of ruffles, for Ell’s fighting words were I will win. We will win. Yet their weapons were nothing like swords and maces. One took aim with a tiny glass dart, dancing with blue light. The other took off her gauntlet to reveal a silvery mechanical hand. They each had their names stitched onto glorious long cloaks: VINCAM and VINCEMUS.
The crowned pair looked pityingly at the Headmistress’s punishments. Vincemus did no more than waggle her finger at Castigo and Castigas. Green fire flowed out from her metal knuckles in a thin, sharp jet. I punish and You punish fell instantly to the ground. Vincam tossed his dart casually, as though he had only dropped it, silly him! But it caught Castigat between the eyes and he vaporized before he could throw a single fork.
A-Through-L had used the future tense. His duelists brought weapons no one would get bored enough to invent for a hundred years. Vincam and Vincemus bowed, first to each other, then to September, shaking her hand, then Saturday’s hand, then patting Blunderbuss on the head and punching Ell playfully on the knee. They saluted, clapped each other on the back in a brotherly fashion, and disappeared in a golden fire burst.
The Headmistress had gone both red and black in the face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re a nasty little cheat,” she snarled between the hitching of her tears. “You copied off your classmate there. Everyone saw you. You fail. You will be held back for eternity! See me after class!”
“Don’t be a bad sport, Olivia,” crooned Hushnow, the Ancient and Demented Raven Lord. “It’s not her fault you don’t have a second. Nobody makes friends with the strictest sourpuss in school.”
“But I just got here,” the Headmistress whispered, whose name was indeed Olivia. Once, long, long ago, before she ever heard the word Fairyland, she taught in a very famous school. If I were to tell you what it was called, you would be shocked out of your shoes, and I should get a very stern talking-to from the administration. “I don’t want to go back. It’s lonely when you’re dead and you’ve only got Latin to talk to.”
And we might feel sorry for her—September certainly did. She had gone to the underworld herself, after all. But if only Miss Olivia had decided on a sensible retirement in the Autumn Provinces instead of trying to become a terrible tyrant once more, then we would instead be telling the story of the kind lady who does her crosswords every morning by the window and likes mugwort cakes for tea, instead of the woman in the gray bustle crumbling before them like the pieces of a shattered eggshell. Tiny dark shapes ran toward her, hurling tiny growls and roars before them. The book bears dove into the Headmistress, trying to get a bite of her narrative before the Dodo’s Egg took her back completely, snatching at her syntax and her orderly punctuation until nothing remained but her quill pen lying on the floor of the Library.
September looked away. She could not help it. Even if the Headmistress had only gone back where she’d come from, the sight of it made her want to cry, and she did not want Hushnow or Greenwich to see her do it.
“You’ve got to take it,” cawed the Raven Lord. “The pen. It’s your proof of victory. They’ll want to count up at the end.”