“Hello, Maud,” she said softly. “I hope you’re well.” And she did mean it, for the Marquess’s shadow was gentle and kind in all the places the Marquess was sharp and unyielding.
Maud held the pot to her chest. “Oh, I’m sorry! I should have thought! But it’s not for you. It’s a pot de crème. Chocolat. For Mrs. Frittershank. She always wanted to cook something French, you see…”
Maud took the whistling kettle off the burner and replaced it with her pot.
“How did you know about Mrs. Frittershank?” asked September wonderingly. Saturday couldn’t hear the Bathysphere. Lye couldn’t hear the stove.
The shadow ran her finger along the oven door affectionately. She reached up to stroke the bottoms of the copper pots hanging from their rack. She lifted a tea towel with a black cat embroidered on it and held it lovingly to her cheek.
“Why, this is my house. I know everything about it. How could anyone not know their stove’s name? Oh! And my ducks!” The cast-iron ducks hopped madly about her feet. She crouched down to let them up into her lap, whereupon they began the earnest work of nuzzling every part of her face with their bills. Lye stroked her hair with one cinnamon-soap hand. “I lived here when I was Mallow. Just Mallow. Not Queen Anything yet. I was happy here. I was a practical girl. I learned the magic of Keeping to Yourself. I ate coal-eggs and swam in the whiskey lake and became an expert in heaps of things. I had a friend who came round every Thursday. I think you met him. He has wolf ears.”
“Shall we have our tea?” Halloween said, clearing her throat. “September hasn’t got so much time as we do. Her appointment book is rather a monster. And gossip without tea has no bite.”
“Is this … is this part of the Derby?” September asked warily. “Is this a trick, to keep me here until someone else has won?”
The soap golem shook her head so hard flakes of soap flew free. “It’s not a trick. You played a trick. You cheated. You had wombat help. If anyone has tricked anyone, it’s you. Oh, but we know it isn’t. This isn’t the Race. This is us.”
And so September sat down to tea with her shadow and the shadow of her enemy. As well as a tall woman made of soap, who poured from a funny fussy little teapot with mauve roses all over it. It made September laugh—though not too loudly, as she didn’t want to hurt Lye’s feelings. But she had grown accustomed to everything in Fairyland looking outlandish. Whether she came across a bicycle or a train or a smoking jacket, they had always gotten tarted up in wild costumes and dashing souls. But this was the sort of teapot any old grandmother would have. Just squat and porcelain and slightly tacky, for no one in the world needs that many roses.
The soap golem looked toward the door. “But our fifth…”
Maud put her shadowy hand over her friend’s pink Castile fingers. “Lye, she’s on her way. You know her schedule … she never shows up on time. Too early or too late, you know. That’s her.”
The teapot poured a deep green tea into September’s cup, a smoky red one into Halloween’s, and a golden one into Maud’s. Silken strings spiraled up and laid themselves softly over the brim of their cups, growing lovely parchment tea-tags as they came. September lifted hers to read on one side:
ILL-TEMPERED AND IRASCIBLE ENOUGH
She sipped it, and the tea tasted of a warm, sunny wind on her face, full of the smells of green things: mint and grass and rosemary and fresh water, frogs and leaves and hay.
“The Duke of Teatime made it specially for you. He calls it the ‘Bishop’s Best Gambit.’” Halloween sipped from her own cup but did not tell anyone the name of the tea inside, for she was a shadow, and shadows keep secrets out of habit, even when they needn’t.
“I don’t care for gossip…,” began September hesitantly.
“Oh, come now,” Maud said, laughing. “You know it’s only called gossip when girls do it. We mean to parley. We mean to share information. For example, you needn’t worry about your friends. Oddson dropped them off in Mummery. He thinks you’ve had far too much help. They think the local pastries are dreadful. They’ll be waiting when you get there.”
“What about Saturday?”
Halloween fiddled with her tea-tag. “He’s very sick, you know. My Saturday, Saturday’s shadow, is sick, too. He doesn’t remember me at all anymore. Calls me Dryheart. Or just Miss. When he calls me Miss he says it so cheerfully that I feel as though I shall choke to death on his smile. He remembers his own name, of course. It’s only the story of us he’s lost. And he’s started pickpocketing in Tain. He’s very rude to anybody who catches him out. But dear enough that no one asks for their wallets back.”
September smiled sadly. “He was like that before … well, before you, Maud. Before the Marquess locked him up in a cage. I suppose if he lost that story, he’d have no reason left to feel shy. I’m sure if I can fix my Saturday I can fix yours, but I’ve no idea what to do. Do you? Is that what you’ve come to tell me?”