Tin Horses and Paper Planes

Chapter 16 - Cryptych

1/10

Some good news, at last! Dr. O operated yesterday, and he thinks he has FOUND THE PROBLEM! God, I hope so. Going to visit G this morning - W has been with him all night, of course. And W - no, I can't even write it down.

...besides, you never know who might read this.


DG put her pen down, blotted the page, and closed the cover of her journal. As soon as she pushed it away, twisting vines, thick with thorns, swarmed over the cover. She was getting pretty good at any sort of magic that involved living things, especially if they were green. Inanimate objects still posed more of a challenge unless she was well and truly psyched up, but that was okay - it gave her an excuse to get her hands dirty.

She grinned. That was the rationale she'd tried on her mother and it had been met with exactly as much enthusiasm as she'd expected, but not an outright ban on her spending time at the stables, which was lucky because the stables were the home of her new and secret love. Although it's not that big a secret, when I can't walk three steps in any direction without falling over a maid.

As the workings of the royal household began to grind slowly back into action, DG had found herself with more maids than she knew what to do with. One maid would have been more than she knew what to do with. She had struggled to convince them that no, thank you, she'd been putting on her own clothes and brushing her own hair for quite a few years, now, and she'd pretty much got the hang of it. Still, they kept on materialising like over-solicitous ghosts, determined to tweak, brush or powder something. DG had found it was best just to never stay in the same place for too long, on the principle that a roving princess gathered no maids.

The strategy had been working pretty well so far, if you didn't count Enid. Enid was DG's nemesis. DG had a sneaking suspicion that the brisk, pin-mouthed woman had stitched tracking devices into all of her clothes, because no matter where she went, sooner or later, Enid would materialise like a low-budget vampire and ask her sweetly "Doesn't her Royal Highness think it might be better to change into something a little less...practical?" It was the jeans. Enid hated the jeans, and while DG didn't mind putting on a pretty dress to attend to what her mother called 'social duties', she was still herself, and slouching around in a pair of tired old jeans was much more comfortable than trying to look elegant wearing long skirts that tangled in your legs and got stepped on as you were trying to climb the stairs.

The OZ had their own equivalent of denim - a stiff serge traditionally dyed an unhealthy khaki shade, but DG had refused to give up the blue jeans that had come with her from the Otherside for anything, and Ahamo had sided with her, so Iskra had smilingly given way and ordered a dozen more pairs to be created on the condition that DG didn't make a habit of wearing them to occasions of state. Apparently no-one had told Enid this and DG's insistence seemed to fall on deaf ears because every morning, in DG's dressing room, there would be a selection of demure, long-skirted dresses in the most conservative of Ozian fashions. Unless there's something big happening, and then she digs up something that looks like a hooker's favourite lampshade.

Enid would definitely disapprove of today's outfit, which included the controversial jeans, but Enid was unlikely to visit the rooms at the end of the Long Gallery and it was there that DG headed now, her hands in her pockets and her heart in her mouth.

She was still absorbing Wyatt's revelation. She wasn't...shocked, exactly. She considered herself fairly open-minded, and even if she'd had reservations back home, once you'd been whisked away to another world by a tornado, discovered that you were a magic-performing princess, and met psychic animal-men and shapeshifters and people with zips where their partings should be, two men falling in love seemed mundane by comparison.

The only thing that made it seem strange now was that it was Wyatt, who wouldn't have seemed out of place in a Western, or maybe one of those Noir movies. If it had been Glitch...well, with Glitch, who knew? DG couldn't remember him ever mentioning a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Maybe he'd said more to Wyatt? He must have done something to give Wyatt hope that his feelings might be returned. The alternative seemed too sad to consider.

For once, she let the guard outside Glitch's rooms open the door for her, taking the extra moment to compose her thoughts. Inside, the cosy sitting room was lit by a single lamp and the air was laced with furniture polish and disinfectant. Someone had cleared away the last of Doctor Krantz's belongings and now all that remained was...DG stared for a moment - that was Wyatt's hat, and the saddle bag it sat on had to be his, too. He wouldn't leave now, would he? Not now.

There was movement in the room beyond the arch. "Is that you, doc?" Wyatt sounded subdued, and DG felt her heart squeezed by a clammy hand.

"It's DG - can I come through?" She wasn't exactly sure why she needed to ask permission - it wasn't Wyatt's room - but she felt like an interloper. Don't be silly, she told herself sternly, and went in anyway.

The curtains were drawn and the lamplight infused the room with a soft, sleepy glow. It should have seemed comforting, but DG thought about the Realm of the Unwanted: sunless, cut off from the elements, and longed for the open air.

Glitch was a small island of pallor, untouched by the warmth of the lamps, adrift in a sea of counterpane and billows of pillows. His head was bandaged, a few limp curls escaping here and there, and his eyes were masked by fading bruises. DG put a hand over her mouth. Then she saw Wyatt beside the bed, looking tired but smiling, and her anxiety loosened its grip.

"It's gonna be okay." Wyatt got part-way through these four words and found himself clamped in the slightly damp embrace of a tearful, very relieved princess.

"What did the doctor say? What was it?" DG sank into the chair beside Wyatt, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, checking it for engine grease before drying her eyes.

"The fancy name he gave it was 'acute extra-dural occipital oedema'. Isn't that a mouthful?" He spread his hands and DG imagined the words strung between them like a chain of malevolent paper dolls. "To normal folks like you and me, it means there was brain juice building up back here," he tapped the back of his head, "with nowhere to go, and it was pr- hey, are you okay?"

DG prised both hands away from her mouth, the sudden urge to laugh subsiding in the face of Wyatt's earnest concern. "I'm okay. It's just...brain juice? It's a pity you became a Tin Man; you're such a loss to the medical profession." For a second, she thought she'd gone too far; Wyatt's face was a blank. Then he laughed softly and covered her hand with his.

"I don't think Doctor Oxley agrees with you. He managed pretty well with Doctor Spicer, and Vincent." He looked down at the bed, and DG tried hard not to study his expression - once again, she had the feeling of intruding on something very private. We never did have that talk...

"Wyatt?" How did you start this kind of conversation, anyway? Wyatt was a private sort of man at the best of times, and DG could see a hundred ways to plant her foot squarely in her mouth and make him clam up for good. Fortunately, Wyatt seemed to be one step ahead of her.

"I guess you've got some questions...now's probably as good a time as any. Once he wakes up, I won't be talking about this any more."

That pretty much answered her first question, but DG pressed on anyway. "Does Glitch know how you feel?"

"No. I didn't know how I felt till I came back here." He stopped, but DG forced herself to keep quiet, sensing that there was more to come. "Okay, that's not right. I did know. I just didn't want to accept it. Folk like me ain't exactly top of your mom's invite list, no disrespect intended."

"Hey, that's not fair!" Privately, DG thought he was probably right, but she felt she ought to say something in her mother's defence. "Mother got the law changed, didn't she? You said..." She trailed off. Wyatt was doing his patient look, which usually meant that she'd said something painfully naiive.

"There's a difference between saying something's not a crime and saying it's acceptable in polite society." He gave her a smile that was somehow worse than sharp words. "I know you want to stick up for her, kiddo, but if she knew that I was... well, you can bet I'd be handed my hat and shown the door."

"Don't call me kiddo," she said automatically, wondering if Wyatt could really be right about her mother. She can't be that close-minded, can she?

"Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that it's taken me a while to get my head around this. I don't even know if he's - if I'd be wasting my time."

DG watched him, a little saddened by the way that he hesitated. "You can say it, you know. You don't use 'gay' around here, do you? What do you say?"

She turned in her chair as Wyatt stood, and watched him circle the room distractedly. "Gay's what you call a bunch of flowers. Here, we say queer." He paused, picking up a red paper flower from the bookshelf, his gaze fixed on his hands as he turned it over and over. "Except we don't say it. It's a dirty word for a dirty secret, and we're meant to be ashamed of ourselves." All at once, his hands closed over the flower and he sighed, a defeated little sound that chipped a corner off DG's already aching heart. "It doesn't matter. The more I think about it, the crazier it seems to think Glitch could ever be...gay. He'd never be able to keep a thing like that secret, and a zipperhead roaming around the Zone is liable to meet with an accident at the best of times. If he made a move on another guy, he'd be in a shallow grave somewhere by now."

"Don't say that." DG shuddered. "No more talk of dying, Wyatt - I don't even want to think about it. Can we change the subject? We can figure this out later, when Glitch wakes up."

Wyatt had moved to the window, and now he laid the paper flower on the small table there, straightening out the edge of a petal that had crumpled in his hands. "No. When he wakes up, that's it. I appreciate you trying to help, and I'm grateful you've taken all of this so well, but...it's never gonna happen. So I'm done talking about it. There's no sense wishing for a miracle."

Not for the first time, DG wished that her magic - which so often seemed to respond to desire rather than will - could be trusted to interpret a vague, all-encompassing request to 'make everything better'. "Is that why you're leaving?" She hadn't meant to blurt it out so abruptly, and the question certainly seemed to surprise Wyatt. He turned away from the window and stared at her.

"Leaving?"

"Your bag...and your hat. You're all packed up..." Wyatt shook his head and DG told herself firmly that while flinging her arms around him and hugging him once during a visit was probably okay, doing it a second time might count as un-princessly conduct. Then she decided decorum could go and take a running jump and did it anyway.

Wyatt disentangled himself, steering her back to her chair before sitting down himself. "I'm not going anywhere. The doc wanted to be close by, but we figured Glitch might panic if he thought we'd moved another doctor into his room. So he's staying next door..."

"...and you're sleeping in here." She nodded. It made sense. More sense than thinking Wyatt would just disappear when Glitch has only just made it through his operation. This is one of those times Az would be pulling me up for opening my mouth before I've thought things through.

"Sleeping?" From Wyatt's expression, DG figured she might as well have been speaking Munchkin. "No, I'm keeping watch."

Well, that explained why he looked as if he'd keel over in a strong breeze. "You can't stay awake all the time," she insisted. "You don't need to. You know Krantz isn't coming back, don't you? Mother's sent him back to the City hospital, along with his greasy sidekick."

"That's it?" It wasn't a shout - even in his anger Wyatt was careful to keep his voice low, but it was edged with outrage. "After all they've done, they're getting away with it?" She put a soothing hand on his arm.

"No - trust me, Mother wants to make an example of them. They've both been thrown out of the School of Science, and she gave them a choice between jail and working three years penance in the hospital laundry." It had been an interesting experience, watching the queen deliberate on the fate of the two scheming medics. Mild though she seemed, DG had a feeling that it was a mistake to get into her bad graces. "They chose the laundry - they seemed to think they were getting off lightly, but Mother asked Doctor Oxley what he thought was the hardest, dirtiest job in the hospital, and he said that the laundry was a back-breaking, thankless job, and they'd be up to their elbows in every unpleasant substance imaginable."

"I guess that'll have to do," Wyatt conceded. Then he smiled, darkly. "Far be it from me to put your mother to the test, but now I'm kinda hoping they do try and run."

"Oh, I think she was...very convincing. I don't remember her exact words, but 'you can't run from magic, and you don't want to try my patience' was pretty much the gist of it." And I have a feeling Ahamo might have had a word, in case they were thinking of making a break for the Realm of the Unwanted. She looked hopefully at Wyatt, waiting to see if this was enough to satisfy him.

"They might risk trying her patience. But what really ought to worry them is the Treachery Bounty that'll be put on them if they try and flee from a Royal Judgement. Then they're fair game for anyone." And there was something in the way that Wyatt said 'anyone' that suggested that he'd be leading the chase.

DG squeezed his arm. "Let the law worry about them, now. The only thing that matters is that Glitch got through his operation, and now he needs us to help him recover. He needs you." And it was the right thing to say, clearly, because Wyatt's expression softened instantly, and his eyes, which were fixed on Glitch, grew bright in the lamplight. She smiled.

"Everything will t-" And then she forgot what she was going to say, because she saw what had changed Wyatt's mood so abruptly.

"Good morning, Sweetheart."

***

13/10

Stable block still safe from Enid so far. Just needs a secret tunnel from the palace, but Az says it would flood, and I should just stand up to E. Which is big-sister speak for 'sucks to be you'.


DG looked at the Gump. The Gump looked at DG. The coach house was filled with a palpable tension, and a faint smell of burning.

"O-kay," said DG, carefully. "I take it back. You're not a heap of useless junk, I wouldn't be better off with a lawnmower, and your wheels aren't stupid. Now will you please turn over?" She flicked the ignition switch, then pressed the starter button with her thumb so that she didn't have to uncross her fingers.

Spectacular things failed to happen.

"Fine." She flipped the switch back to 'off' and dismounted. "But it won't do you any good to sulk. I've got an adjustable wrench and I'm not afraid to use it." So saying, she flopped down on the blanket she'd spread out in the straw and set to work removing the ageing trike's engine housing. DG had a sneaking suspicion that her mother had only allowed her near the machine because there seemed little chance of ever getting it going. When she'd found it, penned in between rusting exhausts and mysteriously-shaped lengths of iron, it had been little more than a battered frame, with a set of handlebars projecting antler-like above the jumble and a pair of bulbous headlamps in tarnished brass brackets. DG, missing her old bike, had hauled it into the open, and was instantly smitten. A moulded metal plate on the frame bore the stylised letters 'GMP' - DG didn't know what it stood for, but in her mind the trike became 'The Gump', with a character all of its own.

She worked on it whenever she had the chance, even bringing it to the Winter palace when the household had moved for the Queen's Ball, and now it was all but complete, if complete was a word that could be applied to something that looked like an unplanned mating between a mechanical plough and an elderly armchair. Green leather adorned the seat, which was wide enough for DG to sit on cross-legged should she so choose. Rivets sprouted like warts from the patched frame. The tyres, which had been salvaged from a defunct Longcoat truck, were fat and shabby, and the twin headlights peered over the front mudguard with goggle-eyed aplomb.

A shadow fell across her, and she squinted up to see Azkadelia standing in the doorway, a small leather-bound book clasped to her chest. "I thought I'd find you here," she said, with mock-severity. "Mother will be delighted that you skipped another lesson to come and wrestle the Lump."

"It's a Gump, Az." DG knew that she was being baited, but she couldn't quite help herself. "Anyway, we're not meant to be meeting Tutor until two, and it's only -"

"Five minutes after three. Which you'd know if you listened for the bell."

Oh, that was what the bell had been. DG had heard it, distantly, but she'd been fiddling with an awkwardly-placed stretch of wiring, and had done no more than glance up, her mind still submerged in her task. She stood, picking up the grease-spotted blanket and shaking it out over the recalcitrant Gump. "Mother doesn't have to know I was late, does she?" She grinned at Azkadelia's sceptical expression.

"Mm. When has not telling Mother something worked out well for us in the past?"

DG didn't reply until they had left the stable block behind them and were safely on the path back to the palace. Then she nudged Azkadelia. "Aw, lighten up. I missed my own funeral, once. One lesson with Tutor won't make a lot of difference, will it?"

This sort of conversation was not uncommon between the sisters, though they were careful not to let their mother hear. It had started with Azkadelia - on one of their long rides (guards discreetly in tow, of course) on the heathland overlooking the Sunseeder. She had made some reference to her now-defunct title of 'Sorceress', and DG had gazed at her, lost for words, until she saw the look of desperation in Azkadelia's eyes. She's never talked about it. And we've never pushed, because there are some old wounds you don't re-open in case you bleed to death. Instead of ignoring the comment, some instinct had made DG reply, lightly, that if she had to put up with steel underwear to qualify for the position, she'd give it a miss, and Azkadelia, who never cried, had groped for her hand and wept. Some things were so awful, so corrosive, that they couldn't be talked about directly. But perhaps you could take a small piece of the horror between you, share it out in the daylight and - once it had faded - take a little more until the burden grew bearable.

She looked at the book Azkadelia was carrying. The spine was hidden, but she recognised the binding.

"...can't sleep. Please, Ambrose? Just one story?"

"One story, Highness, and then you must promise to go back to bed."

"I promise."

"Well then. What shall it be?"

Azkadelia caught her look and there was a hint of conspiracy in her smile as she offered the book.

"We almost made it to the end of the story, but Tutor came to see if you were there, and I could see Ambrose was getting sleepy, so I said we'd finish tomorrow instead."

DG took the book from her sister, finding the braided ribbon Az had been using as a bookmark. "Which one are you reading to him? I think he liked The Clockwork Man - it's hard to be sure..."

"...when he doesn't speak. We have to be patient, DG - the doctor said things will come back slowly. You always liked The Clockwork Man when you were little, you know."

"...read that to you last time, didn't I, Highness? In any case, isn't it your sister's turn to choose tonight?"

"I don't mind, Ambrose. DG can have the same story again, if she likes."

"Mm, no, I changed my mind. Can we have The Little Grey Girl? Az likes that one best."

"Now, Highness, you know that one gives you nightmares..."

DG turned the page, keeping the bookmark in place with her thumb.

...and they came to the place of which the Wise Man had foretold, where a great, wide sea lapped at the Southern shore, with the Witch howling at their heels like the Western Wind.

"Now, my pretty," she said to the Little Grey Girl, "you can go no further and must surrender. Tell me the secret that lets you slip between the worlds, and I may be merciful. Otherwise I'll order my pets to tear your friends apart, and I shall have your skin and wear it as a pair of silver shoes."

DG shuddered. "I never used to think Ambrose was telling the truth when he said these were all old Munchkin stories. Then I ran into a real Munchkin tribe - now I'm wondering if he toned these translations down." She flicked forward a few pages, leafing hurriedly past an illustration of something dark and ragged entitled 'Levaba Manifests'.

...they took what remained of her down to the catacombs, and sealed her away in the dark until she was nothing but a memory, drifting and wailing in the place where the goblins go...

She shivered again. Then Azkadelia's arm was about her shoulders, and everything was all right again. No, not everything.

"Az...does - did Ambrose ever have anyone? A girlfriend, I mean," she added, trying to sound casual. Azkadelia frowned, twitching her skirt out of the way of a sprawling flower arrangement at the foot of the main staircase. DG, be-jeaned in calculated defiance of Enid's gown selection for the day, had no such problem.

"Not that I remember. He was always so tied up with his work, I don't think he had time. He sometimes went to the City for Mother, so I suppose he might have." They continued up the stairs and DG waited expectantly until Azkadelia looked round at her. "DG, it was a long time ago. And Ambrose was...well, he was staff. We didn't ask him about his private life. Why do you want to know?"

Well, Az, it's like this. Wyatt's in love with him, and if it turns out there's a Mrs Goldstraw, or even a lovely lass named Leona, it's likely to cramp his style. "I just wondered if there was someone...we should tell about him being ill," she murmured through a polite little smile, as they passed a pair of grandly-dressed councilmen who were clearly trying not to stare at her less-than-regal clothing.

Azkadelia echoed the smile, inclining her head graciously at the men and sweeping onwards. Once they'd reached the sanctuary of the quiet side-corridor where the shapeshifter lived, she gave DG a worried look.

"I know you're fond of him, DG. We all are. But...that's all it is, isn't it?"

"Ye-es?" DG told herself not to panic. "What do you mean?" Had she given something away? No - it wasn't possible. She and Wyatt had spent time together since Glitch's awakening, mostly at his bedside, but the subject of Wyatt's feelings was now taboo. Wyatt had made that very clear.

She was all geared up to defend her friends, so when Azkadelia took hold of her, turning her gently so that they were face to face and asked solemnly "You haven't fallen for Ambrose, have you?" she had to clamp her lips together to stop a flood of justifications and pleas for secrecy. Then the question sank in, and she let out a peal of laughter.

"Oh - oh, sorry. I'm sorry. It's not funny. It's just...me and Ambrose? Where did you get that?" They both looked relieved. Not, DG guessed, for the same reason.

"It's not such a strange thing to think, is it? You always adored him when you were little, and he was very brave, in the war." There was a slight catch in Azkadelia's voice, just the tiniest quaver, but DG didn't miss it. Okay, no more nostalgia today.

"Ambrose and I are just good friends. I promise. I'm in a monogamous relationship with the Gump, anyway. Or I would be, if I could just find out what turns him on." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Azkadelia gave an unladylike snort.

"Don't you let Enid hear you talking like that or she'll wash your mouth out with soap."

Satisfied that danger had been averted, DG grinned. "Have you tasted her tea?"

***

27/10

Tutor says magic has three parts: natural talent, the skill that comes from practice, and the good judgement to know when magic is needed. He left out the fourth part, which is: cleaning up the mess.


All that you needed was a spark. One tiny point of heat. You had to look at - no, feel the world in a certain way. Heat was everywhere. The air was full of it. It rose from your skin, tinged your breath like heady wine. The trick was moving it to where you wanted it. And once you'd learned that trick, the next was learning how to move just enough.

This time, only three of the candles melted.

"Better. Much better. See what you can do when you turn up for class?"

DG glowed a little at the praise, even though Tutor seemed determined not to let her forget - One time - one time I miss a lesson and he's still bugging me about it. She blew out the candles arranged along the edge of the desk, then eyed the shapeshifter through the bars of rising smoke.

"It's been two weeks. Gotta let it go some time, Toto, or people will start to talk." She smiled winningly, enjoying the way his brow furrowed, as it always did when he was exasperated. Good to know I'm still a pain in the butt, even if I've grown out of the world's most tragic bangs.

"I'll make a deal with you, DG. If you don't call me 'Toto', I'll stop -"

"Hounding me?" Tutor gave her a longsuffering look, and DG fought to keep the phrase 'puppy-dog eyes' from capering merrily towards her lips. "Okay, I'll be good. Do you want me to try again?"

"No, I think you've got it, now. But practise, practise, and maybe next week I won't be cleaning wax off my desk. No, don't help," he added, as DG began digging blobs of melted candle out of the pitted wood. "You'll only go and get a splinter or break a nail, and Mister Rawlins will come down on me like a ton of angry butler."

It was hard to imagine the supremely self-possessed valet ever losing his temper, but DG sat back obediently, her mind already turning to her plans for the afternoon. First a visit to Glitch, perhaps to read to him, perhaps to regale him with her latest engineering exploits. He would hang on her every word, and once in a while her heart would leap as he interrupted with a question. Soft, hesitating, his speech a little stilted, but a question rooted in the here and now. Three weeks into his recovery, he had yet to recognise anyone other than Wyatt, but he was almost-Glitch, and every day he was gradually coming into focus.

Once Wyatt appeared to displace her (and he could seldom bear to stay away for more than an hour or two), she'd make her way down to the stables and carry on hunting for the elusive spark of life the Gump still lacked.

Content with the idea, she was about to ask Tutor if she could go, when she saw the rock.

Unlike Glitch, who had remained at the Sunseeder since the eclipse, and who'd come to the Winter Palace with nothing more than a small trunk of clothes and a crate of books, Tutor had settled in months before, and the state of his quarters reflected that. It was clean; there were few places in the royal residence that the flicking of maidly dusters did not reach. But there was a certain...lived-in look to everything. The sofa cushions, encased in green silk, were sunken, and a touch frayed. The books crammed onto the cluttered shelves were - if such a phrase could be used - slightly dog-eared. There was, not to put too fine a point on it, a half-chewed slipper under the desk.

DG quite liked the mess. It was, for want of a better word, homely, and a break from the formality and grandeur of the rest of the palace. She hadn't noticed the rock before, though, and put that down to usually sitting on the sofa (and she'd done really well, so far, at not checking herself for dog hair whenever she got up from it, although she was bound to forget, one of these days) rather than on the upright chair close to Tutor's desk.

In all ways but one, it was an unremarkable thing. It was long, and grey, and streamlined, a little like a whale, but mostly like a rock. The one thing that caught DG's eye was the thick vein of blue bisecting the greyness. Robin's egg blue, running through smooth grey stone.

"Where did you get that from?" she asked, going over to the shelf. Tutor followed her gaze, then motioned her to take it down.

"Pretty, isn't it?" He ran a thick finger along the length of the vivid layer. "Comes from Finaqua, though you'll find it in a few places in the OZ. Always near water, or where water used to be." He looked up at DG. "You really want to know? I didn't have you down as someone with an itch for geology."

DG gave him her most innocent, wide-eyed look. "You know me - always ready to learn something new."

If ever there was a face made to express lugubrious scepticism, it was Tutor's. Nevertheless, he took the stone out of her hands and sank down onto the sofa. After a moment, DG sat down beside him. "It's nothing mysterious, really. You see...magic has a-a sort of a colour. Not that you'd be able to see it, ordinarily. Human eyes just aren't fixed to see it. Not even the eyes of a fine witch as you're shaping up to be."

DG winced. "I'd rather we didn't use the 'w' word, if it's all the same to you."

"Whatever you say, DG. Now your Munchkin folk, they can see it - see it so well they think the colour itself is magical. Got a whole language of colours, the Munchkins, and you can bet Doctor Spicer could tell you all about it."

And if I'm lucky, I might even understand half of it. DG took the rock onto her lap and tentatively traced the blue layer. "So magic's blue? Should I be able to feel something when I touch this stuff?" The blue-banded stone in Raw's totem had given off no special aura when she held it - only a sense of serenity, of rightness, and DG, without knowing why, knew that if she removed even one element, that feeling would vanish like a dream.

"Well, this isn't exactly magic. Leastways," Tutor made a noncommittal gesture, "not raw magic, like the stuff that made those candles light up. That sort of magic is just about everywhere, just floating around in the air, and in the ground, and in you and me. 'Specially you and me. We live and breathe it, and it soaks into us like..."

"Water in a sponge?"

Tutor nodded approvingly. "Like water in a sponge, that's good. And water is the key to what you're seeing here." He nodded at the rock. "Magic likes water - dissolves right into it as easy as sugar in a hot cup of coffee. Most water's got some magic in it."

"But Finaqua - that means magical water. What's so special about Finaqua?"

Once again, DG could tell her question had pleased her teacher. He clasped his hands together on his knees, eyes closed in contemplation. Finally, he sat back with a sigh. "All right. When something powerful and magical, whether that's a thing or a person, is destroyed suddenly and violently, all that power is released into the world." He pressed his fingertips together and drove his hands apart, miming an explosion. "A cloud of raw energy. And if there's water close by, that's where it'll go."

In her mind's eye, DG watched the Sorceress, dwindling and melting before her eyes, something like oil that oozed away into the stone of the tower. She's gone where the goblins go... "And something like that happened at Finaqua?

"A very long time ago, I think. There's nothing left nowadays but folk tales and songs, but once upon a time something of great power was ended in Finaqua."

"And...that makes the rock go blue?"

Tutor made a rocking motion with the flat of his hand. "We-ell, broadly speaking. Sometimes the earth doesn't sit easy and when that happens, a crack can open up deep down in the stones. If there's water above, it'll flow right in there and dry up. And with time, and pressure, veins of blue crystal form in those cracks, just like this."

And maybe it found other places to go, DG thought. Dripping down through layers of rock, creeping through faults and fissures and into the hidden places, below, below, below...

"DG?"

She dragged herself back out of the darkness. Up into the light of the suns, where the old summerhouse stood, to where Raw had come, unannounced and unnoticed. How far had he walked, just to leave his message, bound up in cords of woven grass? And why?

Just to say he was thinking of us? No. Raw was always a man...a Viewer...of few words. He'd make them count.

A feather for Glitch, and the warm, scarred wood for Wyatt. That made sense. And a blue-banded stone for herself, because blue was the colour of magic...

"DG?" Tutor touched her wrist and DG looked up, excitement running through her like a soft breeze through tall grass.

"What about Viewers?" She held up the stone to him, turning the line of milky blue towards him. "What does this mean to them? Do they see magic the way Munchkins do?"

The shapeshifter blinked, slightly taken aback at her sudden intensity. "Munchkins tend to take things literally. Viewers are a little more philosophical. To them, the blue rock means a time of great change. Or the start of something new."

DG looked down at the stone for a moment, then pushed it gently into Tutor's hands.

"You've been very helpful. Same time next week, okay?" She didn't wait for Tutor to answer, but jumped to her feet and hurried out into the corridor. I'll get the totem. I've been reading it wrong all this time. Maybe if I show it to Wyatt again, he'll see that he shouldn't give up. Raw must have known - he must have sensed something when we were all together.

She was almost at the door of her suite before her initial excitement began to fade. Wyatt had taken the totem from her willingly enough last time, but he'd dozed off in his chair before he'd been able to tell her if he'd sensed anything odd about it. What would be different this time? Maybe you have to be into magic, somehow, to feel it. In any case, what was she doing? Say you're right. Say Raw did his mystic thing and he could tell that Wyatt was gay, or bi, or whatever he is, and he and Glitch could have a future together. Say all of that's true. D'you think Wyatt would risk saying a word to Glitch about it unless Glitch made some kind of move? This is not a good world to be gay in.

"Is that what you want, Raw? You want me to change the world?"

Beyond the main entrance DG's rooms were light and colourful, with walls of that particular shade of rose gold that came with winter sunrises. Engraved glass doors divided the bright rooms, and DG stared through them to the wooden form currently modelling today's studiously-ignored outfit, then at her own reflection.

Well, if you can't change the world, princess, who can?

"Your Highness!"

Everything about DG, except for her voice, said uh-oh. Enid, who had either been hiding behind a potted palm or - and DG thought this was far more likely - hanging from the ceiling on a wire, appeared beside her with a dusky pink robe draped over her arm.

"Enid...hi. I was just on my way to-"

"Your fitting, Highness! Did you forget?" She brushed at the fabric; there was nothing to be brushed away - it was more of a warning shot against any dust that might be unwise enough to consider settling there in the future. "In only a few weeks the Winter Court will begin, and you must look your best! Everyone will be here for the ball."

Another ball. DG sighed. There was something in the way that Enid said 'everyone' that hinted that people not invited to the ceremony were of no consequence and could therefore be discounted. When I was little, I was so jealous of Az for getting to stay up late and dance. Now that there were, for want of a better phrase, balls everywhere she turned, they didn't seem nearly as important.

Memory flashed a fin: the distant whirl of music and laughter, drifting up the stone stairs of the Vantage. Ambrose, informal in rolled-up shirt-sleeves, wire-rimmed spectacles all but consumed by untamed curls, putting aside his work to dance her around the room until she was giggling and helpless, her discontent forgotten.

"It'll have to wait. I need to go and see Ambrose." Usually, this was enough to escape from Enid's busy, fussy clutches. Today she wasn't so lucky. Enid gathered up the robe, pursing her lips.

"I'll just come along with you, Your Highness. Have you thought about how you'd like your hair..?"

I could probably outrun her, DG thought, as they descended the stairs. Maybe slide down the bannisters and then double back. No, that was no good - she had already told Enid where she was going. As they made their way long the Long Gallery, she indulged in a brief but satisfying fantasy in which the guard on Glitch's door mistook Enid for an intruder and marched her away, still clucking about petticoats, to some quiet part of the castle where she couldn't disturb anyone, especially DG. Reality, however, was not so obliging, and the guard simply saluted and swept the door open grandly, allowing both DG and her interfering shadow inside.

Sunslight filled the little sitting room, and the warm air was rich with the scent of beeswax and fresh coffee. In the centre of the room, bathed in a shaft of golden light, Glitch and Wyatt sat facing one another over a small ornamental table. A stack of playing cards lay, face-down, between them. Wyatt, looking relaxed and more contented than DG had seen him since he'd arrived, was leaning back in his chair, a hand of cards propped nonchalantly against the table. Glitch, skinny wrists emerging from the sleeves of a voluminous fuzzy bathrobe, had his cards fanned out in both hands and was peering over them as if they were a barricade. Wyatt looked up and winked.

"Hey, princess. Want to join us for a game?" He ran a fingertip along the top of the neatly arrayed cards. "Mm. On second thoughts, I remember what you said about bluffing. Okay, Glitch, got any...emeralds?"

The zipperhead leaned slowly back from his cards and his eyes flicked minutely downwards, then back up to Wyatt. "Go dig." He nodded approvingly, as Wyatt grinned and picked a card off the pile. "Have you got...have you got...have you..."

DG looked on, worried, but Wyatt didn't seem alarmed. He simply leaned across the table and squeezed Glitch's arm. Glitch blinked, then narrowed his eyes.

"No peeking! Have..." He paused, then looked up from the table, seeming to notice DG and Enid for the first time. "Oh. Have we met before? You look kinda familiar."

"It's me, Glitch. DG?" She shoved her hands in her pockets so that he couldn't see her cross her fingers. Remember the cage? The Munchkins? Please, Glitch? Behind her, she heard Enid take a breath, ready to remind her that ladies of status never put their hands in their pockets like resting farm labourers.

"Not you, DG, her." Glitch gave Enid a look of candid interest, and the maid took a small step backwards. "I know! You're the one who used to cut DG's hair when she was just a little proto-princess." He beamed at DG. "It looked terrible. Like someone dropped a basin on your head."

She burst out laughing. For one thing, it was true; she'd seen the pictures of her younger self, and someone had taken great pains to make sure that her eyebrows were never in danger of being upstaged by her hair. For another, it was Glitch - pure, untarnished Glitch, cheerful, tactless, innocent and he remembered her name.

What's more, his recognition of Enid had been enough to make the lady's maid turn tail and flee. And for that, thought DG, she could have forgiven him anything.

Chapter 15 ~~~~~~~~ Back to Tin Man ~~~~~~~~ Chapter 17

Review This Story