They shook their heads no.
“The Heart of Fairyland, then? Do you know what it is? Where it is?”
Again, the three women shook their heads.
“Then what is this all about?” September demanded. “What is the point of all this?”
Halloween glared at her. “We’ve gone to a lot of trouble, you know. You might act grateful! The point is survival. You might end up Queen, but have you seen the competition? You’ll probably end up dead. I would prefer that you not die, September, as it would have the inconvenient side effect of me dying, and I like not being dead.”
“I would also prefer to keep drinking tea and gossiping and looking after ducks and weeding my garden,” said the Marquess’s shadow. “But the trouble with villains is that they do tend to die at the end of the story. And if she dies…”
“Can’t keep them around to make trouble,” Halloween agreed. Lye whimpered softly. The Hollow Queen pushed the box wrapped in black paper toward September. She watched the sunlight glitter on the black bow.
“Did you grow up? When I did. When I was the Spinster. When the Yeti took my youth away. When I got lost in the rum cellar.”
Halloween said nothing for a long time. Then she reached out and touched September’s hair, her cheek, her long neck. “Yes,” her shadow whispered. “It was frightening. But didn’t we feel strong?”
September untied the black bow and tore open the black paper. She opened the box. Inside lay a green velvet cushion.
On the cushion rested the Rivet Gun.
Halloween, the Hollow Queen, grinned at September. “Okay, Nebraska. I want you to shoot me.”
CHAPTER XVIII
CITY OF FOOLS
In Which a City Decides to Crash the Party, Resulting in Many Reunions and the Fateful Firing of a Gun
Long, long ago, I told you how to find Pandemonium—the city moves according to the needs of narrative. When it smells a good story, the capital of Fairyland nips up and runs after it.
Mummery is not the capital of Fairyland, though it once was. For Mummery came first of all the Fairy cities, before Kvass or Blancmange or Myrtlewine or Almanack or Winesap Station or Flegethon City or Pandemonium. In Mummery, Fairies learned city tricks, to go along with their ancient country tricks of turning milk sour and beer flat and stealing away Changelings and turning shepherdesses into dragons. Alley Magic and Trapdoor Magic and Electric Magic and Loud Magic and Rubbish Magic and Takeaway Magic. But, like many oldest children, Mummery has always loved to tease and prod and play pranks upon everyone younger than it. (I shall leave you to guess whether your narrator got herself born first, last, or in the middle.) Pandemonium always struck it as an easy mark, too sunny and eager to please.
Mummery moves against the needs of narrative.
When the first Fairy city smells a good story, it cackles to itself and bolts off to break it. Should a young pixie need to rescue the gnome of her heart before the clock strikes midnight, Mummery will plant itself right in her path with a heavy mist on its streets so that she will be sure to lose her way. Should a unicorn seek vengeance against a gang of spoiled huntsmen who have a gentlemen’s club in the chic neighborhood of Foolscap, Mummery will make sure to rush its most fashionable streets under those silver hooves long before the beast finishes her training, or hide away in the hills until long after she has given up.
And should a girl need to find her way to Mummery once she has seized the Heart of Fairyland for her own, the city will seize her first. It will lurk behind a toll road until it can spring out and catch her when she’s got nothing but her wits to show for a long journey through the world. And it will pounce with great delight at having trod all over her third act and left muddy footprints everywhere.
Mummery lives to ruin the ending. And it has been very busy.