Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room)

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  I stood up with a splash and grabbed my towel. The potty lid was firmly down—the quivering had been all due to my anxiety and the only ripples in the tub were those made by my hasty exit. Still, I toweled off hastily, and as I left the bathroom, I pulled the door firmly shut, just in case.

  “You’ve gotten rid of the smell of liver and smoke,” Valefor allowed, still lounging on my bed, “but the failure is still strong. I can’t stand that smell. Maybe you should sleep on the settee?”

  “It’s my bed. You can sleep somewhere else.”

  “Don’t be mean, Flora,” Val said, not moving.

  I hung my towel on the fire-fender and, after fishing The Eschata and the apple pies out of my bag, climbed into bed and slid the door shut, so that Valefor and I were snug and hidden away. Even if a tentacle did come out of the drains, and did find its way down the hallway and through my bedroom door, it wouldn’t find me, for my cupboard bed vanishes behind a paneled wall when the door is closed.

  “Do you know anything about tentacles, Valefor?” I asked. Valefor’s glow was thin and wavering but it was enough to read by. I opened The Eschata to the Entity Spotter Appendix, and began to page through to the Ts. The pies were delicious; Poppy really knows how to make a proper piecrust—flaky and crisp. My piecrusts always turn out soggy.

  “Tentacles?” Valefor said, yawning. He had taken all the pillows and piled them up behind him, and I noticed he was clutching the pink plushy pig that someone, apparently under the impression that I was turning four instead of fourteen, had given me for my Catorcena. “Wiggly things. Sometimes they have suckers. Sometimes they glow. Don’t bogart all the pies, Flora. I’m hungry”

  “After all that toffee?” I said, but I passed him a pie. The Eschata’s entry for tentacle said: A longflexible fleshy appendage used as a sensory organ or appendage. Can be tipped with suckers, barbs, hooks, or luminescent pads. Can be found singularly, or in multiples. In small doses, a delicious snack. Larger—very bad news.

  “What entities have tentacles, Val?”

  Valefor said, spraying crumbs, “Well, that last time I saw him, Virguex, Sucker of Souls, had tentacles.”

  I flipped to Virguex, who turned out to be a tenth-level apoplectic entity, who, as his name suggested, liked to suck people’s souls away via a long hollow tongue with a barb on the end. First he pierced your neck with this tongue, and then he slurped. Yuck. Virguex did not sound like the kind of entity you would want to meet in a dark alley at deepest midnight unless you were armed with the Semiote Verb To Smite.

  Fortunately, Virguex was not my guy, as the Entity Spotter soon made clear. When I finished reading Virguex’s entry, the black letters on the page began to jiggle and wiggle, unraveling to become one long black thread that reworked itself into an image: a mug shot of an ugly dude with jagged fangs, a domelike head covered with short wormy tentacles, and a lolling tongue that was so long he could have tied a knot in it and worn it as a cravat.

  “Not him,” I said.

  “Hmmm,” Valefor said. “If I were more myself—a little less hungry—my memory might be a little better, Flora Segunda. That pie was good, but it wasn’t filling.”

  “I’m not giving you any of my Anima, Valefor. How dumb do you think I am after last time?”

  “Not dumb as I would like.” Valefor sighed. “Why can’t you be more like your great-uncle August? He was dumb as a sack of hair. So dumb he set his own drawers on fire trying to light—”

  “The tentacle, Val.”

  “There are lots of different kinds of tentacles. Aren’t rangers supposed to be observant and specific? Can’t you be more descriptive?”

  “You know, like the little squiddies that Mamma likes to eat fried. That kind of tentacle. Only much, much bigger. As thick around as my arm, and with burning suckers at its tip.”

  “A squid tentacle?” Valefor yawned into the pink pig. The pig had no mouth, just a plushy pink snout and beady black knotted eyes, but it somehow managed to have a slightly smug expression. “Squids have squid tentacles.”

  “Squids aren’t that big.”

  “The Loliga is. If there aren’t any more pies, I think I shall go to bed, I’m so dreadful tired.”

  “Loliga? What’s the Loliga?”

  “You are so ignorant, Flora Segunda. Don’t they teach you anything at Sanctuary—oooof!”

  I had kicked Valefor hard, and now he shot upright, protesting. “Don’t be angry at me, Flora Segunda. It’s not my fault that your education is deficient.”

  “Your entire existence is going to be deficient if you don’t quit jacking me around, Valefor. What is the Loliga?”

  Valefor rolled his eyes, huffed and puffed, then said, “Long ago, before you were born, little girl, the great adept Georgiana Haðraaða coerced an egregore of the ninth power into the body of a giant squid. She hid the Loliga under the City and then used it to blackmail Califa’s citizens into making her Pontifexa. That’s how the Haðraaða dynasty came to power, before your puffy little Warlord overthrew it. Georgiana threatened to loose the Loliga upon the City if they didn’t bow to her. Which they did, of course, the cowards. Now, if it had been up to me, I should never have given in.”

  “Why didn’t you ever mention this before, Valefor?” I demanded. I couldn’t believe that there was a giant magickal squid hidden somewhere under the City and I had never known it until now. All my exhaustion and throbbing was suddenly subsumed in a wave of excitement.

  “Well, it never came up before. How was I supposed to know it was important? You never mentioned you were being attacked by a giant squid before.”

  “But I never was before tonight.”

  “Then, you didn’t need to know until tonight,” Val said smugly. “And anyway, how was I supposed to know that the Loliga was still there? I’m cut off from the Current—I have no idea what is going on out in the world, except what I read in the newspapers. Now that there are no Haðraaðas left alive, I would have figured that the Loliga had long since been freed.”

  “Well, obviously not, if it’s attacking people. But why me?”

  Valefor shrugged. “I’m sure she wasn’t after you personally, Flora Segunda. Don’t be so conceited. Probably, she was just looking for a snack and you happened to be there, fat, dumb, and happy. I hope the Loliga keeps out of my drains. That’s the last thing I need, on top of all those silly earth—” Valefor broke off and looked at me, horrified.

  I stared back, and I knew we had just been struck by the same horrible idea.

  “The earthquakes, Valefor! Could they be caused by the Loliga?”

  “That was Georgiana’s threat, Flora Segunda! Earthquakes. Oh, why didn’t I think of this before? It’s a pity to be so proscribed. If I were myself and powerful again, I would have considered this earlier.”

  “But Georgiana is dead, and so are the rest of the Haðraaðas. There is no blackmail anymore.”

  “But they must have died out without freeing the Loliga.”

  “And a sigil is only as strong as the magician who creates it.” No sigil will last forever, no matter how strong the magician’s Will may be. Georgiana Haðraaða was long dead, and the last Haðraaða—the Butcher Brakespeare—had died years ago. Whatever sigil Georgiana had used to proscribe the Loliga must be weakening and allowing the Loliga to struggle—and endanger the City.

  Valefor wailed, “This is terrible, Flora Segunda. The Loliga is an egregore of the ninth degree—one of the most powerful entities ever to manifest in the Waking World. After all this time a prisoner, she’s probably very angry If she got free, who knows what she could do! I don’t want to be destroyed! I’m already fragile.”

  “None of us wants to be destroyed, Valefor,” I answered. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “Like what? We can’t do anything against an egregore of the ninth degree. Oh, when I was not banished, I would have been more than her match, but not now, forlorn and almost empty—and you are just a girl.”

  “What would
Nini Mo do?”

  “You are not Nini Mo.” In his panic Valefor had grown even more wispy; now he was merely a face floating in vapor. I had never seen him this discombobulated before.

  A threat to the City should be Mamma’s affair, but what could she do against a magickal entity? Not only was she not a magician, she hated magick. She’d probably try to handle the problem with military force and that would only compound it. The Warlord—he’s a joke, and he’d only refer back to Mamma.

  What would Nini Mo do if she couldn’t handle the problem herself? Leave ditch digging to the ditchdiggers, she’d say Leave it to the experts. And as far as experts in magick, there was only one person in Califa who might know what to do about an egregore of the ninth degree.

  “I’ve got to tell Lord Axacaya about this,” I said. “Maybe he knows already. But if he doesn’t, he needs to. He’s a powerful adept. Surely he’ll know what to do.”

  Valefor was doubtful. “I don’t know, Flora. I mean, I know he helped you before, but you can’t trust him. He was born a Birdie. He might think it was fine for the City to be destroyed.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s lived in the City for years, and even when he could have betrayed her to the Birdies, he didn’t.”

  “Flora?”

  At the knock on my bed door, Valefor blinked out. I hastily shoved The Eschata under my pillow before sliding the door open.

  I yawned and stretched as though I had been asleep. “Ayah, Poppy?”

  Poppy had a lamp in his hand, held low so that I couldn’t see his face. Flynn wiggled through the opening and squirmed in between me and the wall. “I was just checking to make sure you were here.”

  “I was asleep, Poppy.”

  “Is Udo here?”

  “He decided to go home.”

  “Who were you talking to?”

  A quiver of quicksilver fear ran through me. “No one, Poppy. I was asleep.”

  “You must have been talking in your sleep, then.”

  I snuggled down and closed my eyes, as though I couldn’t keep them open another minute. After a few seconds, the reddish light waving on my eyelids went away and the door slid shut. I was exhausted, yet I could not sleep. A giant squid under the City—earthquakes—Udo—Lord Axacaya—tentacles—the Zu-Zu—falling buildings—Udo—Crackpot Hall in ruins—Mamma and Poppy squashed—Udo.

  Forget Udo. I had to focus. Maybe Lord Axacaya already knew all about the Loliga, but I had to tell him just in case. Tomorrow was the Warlord’s Birthday Ball. Mamma had said I couldn’t go with her, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go at all. There had to be a way to sneak in. I could use a Glamour as a disguise and get to Lord Axacaya that way And surely bringing this situation to Lord Axacaya’s attention would speak well of my initiative and experience. Surely it would impress him. Surely it would show him that I was mature and levelheaded and had learned from my previous impetuous behavior. Surely it would show him that I was worthy of his teaching. Worthy of being taught Gramatica.

  The ranger who saves the world, said Nini Mo, also saves herself.

  Ten

  Waffles. Headlines. Seating Charts.

  I GOT UP AT DAWN to research Georgiana Haðraaða in the history book we use at Sanctuary, The Grand History of the Republic of Califa and Its Glories and Golden Ages. Unfortunately, it has a lot to say about the wonders of the Warlord and how fabulous it was when he conquered the City and liberated it from the tyranny of the Haðraaða Pon-tifexas, but very little about the Haðraaðas themselves. There had been three Georgianas; the one I was interested in was the second. She was described as a cunning adept and a ruthless leader, but there was no mention of a Loliga. If I had been able to get to Valefor’s Bibliotheca, I might have found more useful books, but I didn’t dare use the Elevator with Poppy around, and there’s no way to get to the Bibliotheca without the Elevator. Even then you take a chance of ending up not in the Bibliotheca but lost somewhere in the banished depths of Crackpot Hall—perhaps never to find your way home.

  But then, a stroke of luck. I was flipping through The Eschata again, hoping to find something useful that I had missed, when I noticed a small piece of folded paper stuck between two pages.

  The paper was a map entitled “The City of Califa’s Fundaments, including Underground Tunnels, Rivers, Sewers, Galvanic Currents, Reservoirs, Streams, Cachebasins, Back Doors, Beaver Lodges, and Other Subterranean Landmarks.” Nowhere was there a giant X marking the Loliga, but as I studied the map, I noticed that all the lines of Current eventually crossed at the exact same point: a Vertex of great power. If I were a great adept hiding a giant magickal squid under the City, I would lure her to this Vertex and use these lines of Current to trap her. In the Waking World, this Vertex corresponded to the location of the ruined Bilskinir Baths.

  The Bilskinir Baths were a natatorium complex built by Albany Bilskinir, the husband of Georgiana Haðraaða Primera. Like Bilskinir House, the Baths were located on a cliff overlooking the Pacifica Ocean, though the House and Baths were some distance apart. During their heyday the Baths were one of the wonders of the City, particularly the great Salt Pool, which was refilled with fresh ocean water every day. During the reign of Georgiana Segunda, the Baths had been almost totally destroyed when a ship full of dynamite had run aground against the Salt Pool’s retaining wall and exploded. Now I wondered: Had the Baths really been destroyed by dynamite, or had the Loliga put up quite a fight?

  The Warlord’s Birthday Ball was to start around seven in the evening. After breakfast, I would need to spend the rest of the day planning. I had to make sure that I had a good strong Glamour; the last thing I wanted was to be recognized. And I had to find something to wear—not so splendid that I was memorable, but something that made me look as though I belonged. Clothes make the ranger’s disguise, said Nini Mo. My wardrobe is pretty deficient. I did have my red Catorcena dress, but it was awfully fluffy and I did not want to look fluffy. I wanted to look sleek and cool. Maybe Udo could help.

  Udo. In my excitement about the Loliga and the map, I had forgotten about Udo. Now I remembered and went downstairs to breakfast in a very grumpy mood.

  “How are you this morning, Flora?” Poppy bustled about the kitchen, buttering waffles, pouring coffee and orange juice, frying bacon. The bacon smelled so delicious—porky and fat—that I took three slices.

  “Fine.” Maybe I could sneak something from Mamma’s closet. Though she hardly ever wears civilian dress, she has a lot of clothes.

  Poppy glanced at me, but didn’t say anything else, just refilled my coffee cup and sat down across from me while I ate my waffles, ignoring the dogs hovering vulturelike around his chair.

  "You all right? You seem rather stiff this morning,” Poppy said.

  "I’m fine,” I lied, though I felt about a hundred years old. "Where’s Mamma?”

  "She’s not up yet,” Poppy answered. "She was at HQ_ late. Did you see today’s Alta Califa?”

  He pushed the paper over to me, and when I flipped it over, all the blood rushed out of my head and plummeted to my feet.

  POODLE DOG GOES POOF!

  FIREMONKEY SINGS SEDITION!

  Drummer Implodes. See back page for details.

  "It’s a good thing your show wasn’t at the Poodle Dog; the place burned to the ground last night,” Poppy said. "There was a riot and the militia had to get out the gas gun to clear the streets. I believe in freedom of speech, but this Firemonkey goes too far.”

  "Ayah. I’m thankful we missed it.” I peeked over the top of the paper to try to gauge Poppy’s mood. He was sipping his coffee almost meditatively. But guilt made me paranoid, and his very calmness was worrisome. Did he realize I had come in late? The Army is all about honor; if you know you’ve done something wrong, even if no one else does, you are supposed to turn yourself in. I had no intention of turning myself in.

  Poppy continued, “Califa is in a precarious position. The Birdies will stomp us if we step even an inch out of line. We must do noth
ing to antagonize them.”

  I swallowed my last bite of waffle and said, “These waffles are fabulous, Poppy. The batter is so light and fluffy Can I have another?”

  Poppy got up and reloaded the waffle iron with batter, but he wasn’t deterred from his topic. “Treason and sedition can’t be tolerated. Firemonkey says he speaks for Califa’s own good, but if he had his way, he’d pull her to her ruin. I hope the militia catches up with Firemonkey and his moronic cohorts—the sooner the better. Bloodeagle the lot of them.”

  His words surprised me. Surely Poppy had no love for the Birdies, not after what they had done to our family to the First Flora. Like the rest of us, he had to suck it up—outwardly, at least. But I would have thought that privately he’d approve of anyone causing the Birdies woe. And also, that he would support any movement designed to rehabilitate the Butcher Brakespeare, his long-dead love.

  “I’m sure the militia will catch up with Firemonkey, Poppy” I hoped, of course, that they would not.

  “I hope so. Thank heavens no Fyrdraaca has any concern with Firemonkey or his idiotic propaganda. It would be devastating for this family if any of us were found to harbor such sympathies. We, above all other Califians, must be seen to be true to our oath of fealty to the Virreina of Huitzil. The slightest hint of treachery could mean our destruction.”

  My breakfast began to bubble in my stomach. I had not thought so particularly about what it might mean if a Fyrdraaca were involved with the EI and its stupid plotting. Would Idden reflect upon us all? Surely the Birdies would understand she had acted on her own ... wouldn’t they? I remembered the Butcher Brakespeare—a Flayed Priest had cut her heart out and eaten it. I didn’t want anyone to eat my heart. Or Mamma’s. Or Poppy’s, for that matter. Or even stupid Idden’s.

  Poppy dropped another waffle on my plate, and I stared at it.

  “What’s wrong? You look ill.”

  “Too much bacon, I think, Poppy,” I said, trying to twist my stiff face into a smile.