Brother Tinpan brought September what was left of Cutty Soames, Captain of the Coblynows: a weathered, ancient coin with a star on one side and a ship at full sail on the other. A sevenpence coin from Cutty’s own reign. September took it, but she didn’t like it. Just because he was a tyrant didn’t mean she felt happy about sending him back to Fiddler’s Green or Davy Jones’ Locker or wherever Fairyland pirates stashed their last treasure. Saturday leaned his head on her shoulder. September finished the dregs of her regicider, for it was surely nearing dinnertime on land. She nodded to the Monkfish, who regarded her with soft black eyes.
“I feel foolish, just asking after all this ruckus like I’m wanting directions to the general store. But I’ve got to, so I’m asking. Brother Tinpan, is there a piece of Fairyland’s Heart in Mumkeep Reef? It was broken a long time ago, and I’ve got to gather it all up again, but I haven’t even found one measly shard of the thing, and it’s getting rather late in the day.”
Brother Tinpan touched September’s hand with his candy-cane-striped fin.
“A rainbow,” he said, and swam back to Sepia Siphuncle and the hidden wonders of Mumkeep Reef, still hidden.
“I’m rubbish at riddles,” September said, sighing, flipping the coin over her fingers a few times, a trick she’d learned from her father.
Saturday looked up through the miles of water, toward the sun and the shore and the rest of everything. “I like them. The one he meant goes It’s red and purple, orange and green, and no one can touch it, not even the Queen.” He said nothing for a long time. “I was wrong. And now we’re so far behind.”
CHAPTER XIII
INSPECTOR ELL AND THE CASE OF THE HIJACKED HEART
In Which September and Saturday Are Reunited with Their Friends, A-Through-L and Blunderbuss Become Detectives, and Everyone Gets Eaten by a Vole
Fizzwilliam let them off just where he’d found them and bid a fond farewell. He bent his front clawfeet forward in the surf, bowing at the knee like a dapper parade horse. His farewell sounded like a hot bath filling up to the brim, though, of course, only September heard it. She left her diving mask—now an unassuming shaving cup once more, on the captain’s seat. The Bathysphere disappeared beneath a cresting wave. The girl and the Marid looked up the beach strand, searching for a big red shape and a big orange shape somewhere in the shade of the green palms.
They didn’t have to look long. It’s not so hard to find a Wyverary and a giant wombat. Even if they were no bigger than a boy and a girl, you need only make a beeline for whoever is making the most wholehearted hullabaloo about some thing or other they have just set their love on.
“Halloo!” A-Through-L called down the sand. He lay on his back under a canopy of palm and papaya and breadfruit trees, his wings stretched out lazily, one powerful leg crossed over the other, surrounded by a small mountain range of coconut shells and papaya skins and breadfruit crusts with jam still freshly oozing out of them.
“What time do you call this?” Blunderbuss growled. She meant it to sound endearingly mum-like, but wombat mums are very growly, so it came out rather ferociously. She didn’t notice anything the matter. To a wombat, a growl sounds like love. “We’ve got to keep moving, you two!”
September and Saturday clambered up the black sand beachhead. Neither Ell nor Blunderbuss got up to greet them, being very full of fruit and very caged in by the remains of their lunch. The scrap-yarn wombat stretched out, hoisting up one of Ell’s scarlet wings with her left forepaw to make a beach umbrella for herself. September kicked her way past the mounds of coconuts and fruit peels. She followed that long Wyvern tail until it became a Wyvern—a Wyvern wearing the most astonishing contraption on his familiar, friendly face.
“What … what are you wearing, Ell?” asked September, not wanting to offend if her friend had decided to try a new look.
The Wyverary had found two large pieces of sea glass and wrapped them all round with floatberry briars so that they would sit more or less straight on his muzzle. Leftover lengths of vine drooped down among his whiskers while the berries bobbed in the air at the ends of their curly stems like butterscotch-colored balloons. He’d also tied a length of brandybean vine round his waist like a bathrobe belt and hung a plump purple turnip from the thing. Ell peered over the rims of his new spectacles, looking entirely pleased with himself.
“It’s my pince-nez! All great detectives wear them, you know.” Ell grinned toothily. “Essential for Seeing Through Subterfuge and the Art of Observation!”
“It’s my turn, Ell,” yipped Blunderbuss. “Hand over the nosepincher and let me have a go! I’ve got a theory about that Oddson fellow. Top to bottom suspicious, wouldn’t you say, monsieur?”
“Indubitably, madame,” Ell replied gravely. He waggled his whiskers, curling them up like a waxed mustache. “But I think you’ll find I’ve got another ten minutes!”
“We can’t spare ten minutes,” Saturday said miserably. “We didn’t find anything at Mumkeep Reef. We’re no better off than when we started. I bet Charlie Crunchcrab’s got farther along than us by now.”
“You found a tattoo,” Blunderbuss chirped approvingly. She shook off the peels and shells and started stomping up the beach. “Nice!”
September squeezed a last bit of water out of her hair, running after the wombat. Ell thundered behind.