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

  “The hell with you,” Idden said. “And the hell with Axacaya. Fike you both. And your stupid Birdie Virriena, too. You got one of my sisters already You cannot have this one.” She spurred her horse and tried to ride down Axila Aguila, who leaped, wings fluttering, out of the way at the last minute. Another Quetzal soared into the air and made a grab for Sieur Caballo’s head; he pulled back, half-rearing, and lashed out with his front hooves. Crack went the sound of metal on eagle skull and the Quetzal went down, but so, too, did Udo, sliding off Sieur Caballo’s back, to lie in a motionless heap.

  “Run, Flora, run!” Idden screamed, wheeling around for another charge, as a Quetzal jumped at her. She shot him point-blank in the head, but he fell forward and managed to pull her off her horse. Barely missing being trampled, they rolled and thrashed on the ground. Flynn had the other Quetzal; he was snarling and tearing and leaping at her throat. Flynnie is thin, but he’s wiry.

  Udo still lay sprawled. I couldn’t leave him behind, but before I could reach him, Axila Aguila landed before me with her arms outstretched, her wings unfurled, the obsidian knife gleaming—Pigface, I hadn’t known she could really fly. Blood still dripped from her beak, staining her tunic. Screeching, she lunged. Sieur Caballo, who had tolerated a lot, couldn’t quite manage this. He jumped sideways, and his twisting motion caught me unprepared—I dumped right off his back and landed heavily, winded. The horse and Axila kept fighting, wings flapping and hooves slashing, both of them shrieking.

  I heaved to my feet. Udo still lay on the ground, only now a Quetzal leaned over him, screeching.

  “Udo!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the din. I ran at the Quetzal, grabbed at its wings, yanking feathers. The Birdie turned on me, razor beak snapping at my nose. I recoiled and the Birdie lunged again.

  “Pig! Pig!” I screamed. A weight launched off my back and flew pinkly toward the Quetzal. The Quetzal screeched again—in pain this time—as it grappled with Pig’s pink fury.

  “Get up, Udo! Get up!” I pleaded, shaking him.

  He staggered up. I grabbed at his shoulders and jumped. It had been a while since Udo had given me a piggyback ride, but somewhere deep in that zombified outlaw-infested brain, he recognized my action and locked his arms around my legs, supporting me.

  Axila Aguila sprang up, abandoning Sieur Caballo, her wings ripping the air as she flew aloft, preparing to dive.

  “Jump, jump!” I screamed. Udo made a tiny little hop.

  “Higher!”

  This time we soared up as though we’d been shot from a cannon. My stomach lurched alarmingly, and I clutched Udo with all my might. We landed with a thump some feet from where we had started, out of Axila’s reach. She pulled up just before she hit the ground and wheeled around, coming at us another time. The boots lifted us out of her reach, one bounce ahead, but we couldn’t keep up jumping around like hot corn in a skillet while Axila tried to peck us to death.

  Don’t wait to be cornered, Nini Mo said. Turn and bite.

  I could hear the snapping of her wings as they cleaved the air, could almost feel the breeze of their strokes.

  “Around—turn around and then jump over her!” I whispered in Udo’s ear. Udo hit the ground, swiveled, and jumped again. As we did so, I leaned over and kicked at the Quetzal. My kick was weak but lucky, catching her in the wing. Feathers flew and she shrieked, wheeling down.

  I felt a brief pang as we soared by her again, and then reached out with the pistol that I had wiggled out of Udo’s holster, and buffaloed her on the side of the head with the pistol butt. She collapsed, and I saw by the angle of her head that she was not likely to get up again—ever.

  Idden staggered toward me; her face was a mask of blood, and a knife hilt protruded from her shoulder. “Go, Flora! I ain’t planning on dying for nothing! GO!”

  “Idden...” I leaned over Udo’s shoulder, reaching out my hand. For a moment, our fingers touched, and then she pulled back and pushed Udo hard. Those boots gave him lift—each stride was several feet long and several feet high, and the faster we went, the higher the bounce, until it seemed as though we were flying. I wrapped my arms around Udo’s neck and held on, hoping that his iron grip wouldn’t slacken.

  When we burst out of the Goat Track onto the Point Lobos Road, I screamed for him to go left, toward Bilskinir House. I couldn’t go back to Crackpot Hall, and Axacaya would only follow me to the Post; the Army might keep him out, but for how long and at what cost? Too much blood had been spilled already Bilskinir House was my only hope.

  A red streak ran alongside us: Flynnie, tongue lolling, legs moving so fast that it looked as though he was suspended in midair. I don’t know how he could keep up with Jack, but somehow he did. Plushy pink clung to Flynn’s back—Pig, riding him hard. I risked a glance over my shoulder, but the road behind us was clear. I doubted it would remain that way for long. So far Axacaya had relied on his servants to do his dirty work—now his servants were done. Surely he’d come after me himself. He was not going to give up until he had me. But I was determined that he would not have me.

  Udo bounded down the Point Lobos Road, bouncing over refugees and carts, and hit the Playa at full tilt, scattering people, dogs, children, chickens. Ahead, Bilskinir was invisible behind a soggy billow of fog. The wind blew my hair in my face, blinding me, and when I managed to brush it away, I realized that Udo was following Flynn and Pig, who had burst out ahead of us. Flynnie was arrowing not toward the causeway, but to the base of Bilskinir cliff.

  “Udo! The road! The road!” I shouted. We were going at full speed; if we hit that rock, we’d smash into pieces. Flynn was practically a blur—snapperdog!

  “Udo! Stop, Udo! Flynn—stop! No, Flynn, no! Pig!” I screamed, and the words were torn from my mouth, shredded by the wind. We rode into the shadow of the cliff, as dark as night. But ahead was a flicker of lamplight. A carved arch sprang into focus, its mouth blazing with light, as though someone had just unrolled a canvas scenery cloth. Through this arch we bounced and then whizzed through a tunnel, into daylight. Ahead of us was Bilskinir’s long driveway lined with yellowing trees.

  Udo made one last little bounce and stopped. I slid off, and collapsed onto the soft grass. Flynn threw himself down beside me, panting. Pig flew toward me, and I caught him before he could hit me in the face. Udo continued to bounce gently nearby. He didn’t look winded, but Pigface, his hair was a mess. Anyway, he was safe. Flynn was safe. I was safe.

  “Well, Pig,” I said, trying to sound ranger cool. “I guess we’re home.”

  He did not answer.

  Forty-Four

  Safe. Clean Towels. A Letter.

  THE SKY ABOVE Bilskinir was faded, the shade of denim, and strange gray clouds, spidery and torn, blew across its wide expanse. Drops of rain spit on me as I trudged across the Great Lawn, whose grass needed cutting. The sheep huddled under an oak tree at the far end of the Lawn, bleating miserably, and a cutting wind was blowing. The flowers alongside the approach to the massive front door drooped listlessly, their colors washed out. A slight air of abandonment hung over everything.

  But I knew Paimon was still around. If he’d been gone, I would know that, too. And I knew why his attention was elsewhere. Lord Axacaya was trying to get in, and Paimon was keeping him out.

  After I had fallen off Udo, I had lain in the grass for a long time, staring up at the slate-gray sky, thinking of many things, none of them happy or good. It would say more of me if I admitted that I was finally rousted by concern for Udo, or Flynn, or Idden and Poppy, but alas, it was my squeezy bladder that forced me to get up. That, and the rough tongue that was slurping over my face, and returned each time I pushed it away: Flynnie.

  Now Flynn trotted ahead, looking pleased, his tail waving like a fringy red flag. Udo had vanished; I’d go find him, but the bathroom had to come first.

  As I mounted the wide stairs leading to Bilskinir’s front door, a small twinge of excitement sparked through my larger feeling of despair. Could t
his gorgeous House really be all mine? The bronze doorknob was the size of my head and shaped like a crab. I opened the Madama Twanky Tooth Polish tin and shook the key to Bilskinir out. When I slid the ring on my finger it fit perfectly.

  “The Ostium,” I said, touching the doorknob.

  The door opened and Flynn darted inside. Outside, the sky was now the shade of a damson plum, and an eddy of chill air blew inside, ruffling the tapestries. The door slammed, and Flynn jumped in surprise. From the Ostium I could get to any room in Bilskinir, but I only needed one room: a bathroom.

  “A potty please,” I said, again putting the Key to the lock.

  The potty continued the oceanic theme; the bathtub was shaped like a giant seashell, the sink was a smaller shell, and the deep blue walls were covered in gleaming gold designs: fish, seals, otters, whales—and a giant Loliga. The potty seat was warm and the towels on the towel rack were fluffy and smelled of lemon. Flynn jumped into the tub and nuzzled the dolphin-shaped faucet, so I turned the tap until water trickled out and he began to drink noisily.

  I couldn’t help but contrast this glorious bathroom with Crackpot’s poor little dank loo. Without Valefor at full power, our loo is shabby The porcelain in the tub is scratched; the water pipes gurgle alarmingly, spewing icy water one minute and boiling water the next. The mirror above the sink is streaked with green, the silver flaking away, and no amount of scrubbing can get the mold off the ceiling. All my life Idden has regaled me with tales of the cleanliness of Crackpot Hall’s towels, back before Valefor had been banished. The luscious softness of them, the fluffy absorbency. Without Valefor, the threadbare towels were dingy, not much better than paint rags.

  Now I had a seemingly endless supply of wonderfully clean, soft towels, each as large as a garrison flag. Not just soft and clean, but warm, too. And hot water that gushed from the gold dolphin’s mouth into a tub shaped like an open oyster shell, water that frothed up into lavender-scented bubbles. And potty paper as soft as cotton, and a potty seat that warmed my hinder, and a flush chain that didn’t tangle, and plumbing that didn’t roar like the pipe was about to explode. Yet I would have traded it all for Crackpot’s raggy bath towels, Crackpot’s broken potty seat, and Crackpot’s tepid water.

  A ranger plays the hand she is dealt, not the hand she wishes she were dealt, said Nini Mo. The fish mirror showed a girl with messy red hair, and Bilskinir blue eyes. She didn’t look like the Head of the House Haðraaða. She didn’t look like much at all. But she was going to have to do, because she was all there was.

  The room outside the potty glowed in the lamplight like a giant red gumdrop. I recognized it immediately: the Bedchamber of Downward Dreaming, a crimson chamber that continued the oceanic motif. On the walls silver fish, eels, and squid swam through a crimson red ocean, and the bed was shaped like a giant open clamshell. The bedroom of the Head of the House Haðraaða. The room Paimon had locked Udo and me into on our first visit to Bilskinir. Now I realized he had been trying to tell me something—but, darn it, why hadn’t he been more clear? It could have saved us all a ton of hassle.

  The delicious smell of coffee filled the room. The polychrome mermaid draped over the chimneypiece seemed to watch me with amused eyes as I reached for the pot sitting on the small stove next to the fireplace. But when I tried to pour, instead of liquid, a ruffly shape rolled out, flipped, and became the merman Alfonzo. He yanked on the bottom of his double-breasted tunic, straightening it, and made a deep Courtesy: Welcome Home.

  “Ave, madama!”

  “Where is Paimon?”

  “Keeping Axacaya out—we are under siege, you know. Axacaya trying to get in, but he got no chance, ladrón! We are the strongest house in the City, even now. He’ll have to try harder! Paimon says he’ll see you soon, but in the meantime, I am to say that there is a letter for you in the Closet by the fireplace. I must go help in the defense! Hasta la vista!”

  With a flap of his frondlike tail, Alfonzo vanished. I saw the thin outline of a door on the red wallpaper next to the fireplace. The door was papered over and had no doorknob, so it was almost invisible. But as I approached, it swung open to reveal a room filled with drawers and cupboards, from the distant ceiling to the floor. I pulled on a drawer; inside were several dozen pairs of neatly rolled socks. Another drawer held neatly folded undershirts. The first cupboard I opened contained an array of uniform jackets: regular Army black sackcoat, Skinner sangyn frock, a dark green old-timey Army peacoat.

  In the middle of the room sat a large trunk with an elaborate red-leather cover, torn in some places and held down with brass rivets. I crouched in front of it; the brass plaque over the lock-plate had CSRB carved on it.

  Tiny Doom’s Catorcena trunk. The hasp lock was open. Inside, on top of a layer of buckskin, was a folded and sealed paper upon which was written spiky faded blue letters.

  To Nyana Haðraaða ov Fyrdraaca

  I rocked back on my heels and sat on the cold marble floor, holding the letter in my hand—which, I noted from a calm point somewhere away from my body, was shaking like a leaf. This calm point outside of myself saw clearly the muzzy, messy girl, staring at a piece of paper as though it were a snake about to bite her. Mesmerized, waiting for the strike, unable to pull away.

  Nyana Haðraaða ov Fyrdraaca.

  Nyana. My real name was Nyana? Not a second Flora after all, but named for the greatest ranger ever. Nyana. A tiny shaft of consolation rang through me. Not a replacement for, but in honor of.

  I broke the seal and unfolded the paper:

  Dear Nyana,

  That is what I’m calling you, after Nini Mo, though obviously Buck is going to change your name to keep you hidden.

  Does this not burn? I’ve been through a lot of horrible things recently—prison, trial, etc.—but I have to say that of all the burning horrible things, this is by far the burning horriblest. Once, I got hit in the side with a fifty-caliber bullet, which Taylor, my lieutenant at the time, had to fish out with a chopstick he sterilized with his own piss. That hurt. It really, really hurt, and when it was all over, all I got as a prize was a mushy piece of metal and an infection that almost killed me. But that didn’t hurt half as much as getting you from inside to outside; toward the end, I would have been glad if someone had shot me with a fifty-caliber bullet just to take my mind off the pain. But no one did, and eventually you decided to join the rest of the world, feet first, and I got my prize, the best prize in the whole wide world. That’s not what burns. What burns is that I can’t keep you, my darling baby.

  Also burning: that the only time we ever had together, neither of us knew, and so spent frivolously trying to steal crap and put Hardhands’s nose out of joint when we could have been having quality mother-daughter time. Oh, and thanks for leaving me in the lurch like that, with ghoulish Grandmamma nipping at my heels. She got a toe or two, but obviously I got all of her in the end. I was pretty pissed at you, but now I know that while I was skylarking, you were on urgent business, and so I forgive you. But don’t do it again.

  (Also, thank you for the lie about Hardhands’s expiration via rat bite. For many years it was a great consolation to me.)

  I can’t keep you, darling baby girl. They will catch me, and they’ll kill me, but they won’t catch you, not if I let you go. And so I’m letting you go, to Buck, who will love you like her own child, who will protect you and care for you and someday tell you about me. And hopefully you won’t hate me for abandoning you or hate Buck for lying to you. And don’t blame your father at all. He knows nothing of this; it seemed best to keep him blissfully ignorant and thus blameless should anything go wrong. I write this now as though Hotspur survives prison, as though he makes it home to Crackpot. I have to believe that he will. Losing him would be as bad as losing you. I can go to my death content if I can go believing that both of you still live.

  So that’s my problem. Now on to yours. Yes, I know all about your problem, and if you are reading this, I’m figuring that you must still be loo
king for a solution. How did I figure it out? Well, it took a lot of doing and scrying, and reading entrails, but one thing Nini taught me is that if you really want to find something out and keep looking and asking, eventually you’ll look in the right place and ask the right question. And end up with an answer. So now I shall pass the answer on to you.

  But, baby doll, don’t be mad—I’m going to have to be elliptical and obtuse with my advice. You are cursing me now, I can tell, but “better to be cautious than caught,” Nini says. On the small chance that Axacaya, that bastard, overpowers Paimon, or overpowers you (believe me, once you get to know him, Axacaya’s charm is rather thin), and he is reading this instead of you, well, I’m not going to make it any easier for him. (And if you are reading this, Axacaya, I’ve got a special surprise planned for you, don’t you worry.) Anyway, remember the Key to Bilskinir? And remember where I said I got it? Well, if you look there, I think you shall find the solution to your problem. I hope you have a good memory. Mine has never been too sharp, but Hotspur never forgets anything, so with luck, you take after him, not me.

  I sure hope you do remember, as the safety of the City relies upon it. That’s all I can do. The rest is up to you, Nyana. Fyrdraacas are known for their courage, Haðraaðas for their cunning, and Brakespeares for their stubbornness. All three together is a potent combination. During our little escapade together, I remember thinking you were bratty and arrogant, but also that you had sand and spirit and were extremely good in a pinch. And being good in a pinch is the best kind of person to be. Being bratty and arrogant isn’t so bad, either. Sometimes that is what it takes.

  By now I expect you’ve heard some pretty awful things about me. I have a feeling that my reputation, which has never been that good, won’t improve after I’m dead. Well, I’ve done a lot of things that are neither glamorous nor generous and I’m not going to apologize for them. But I will say that I thought long and hard before I did them, and I truly believed there was no other way. If that is evil, then I’m guilty as the Birdies charged, and deserve whatever I’m going to get. But I hope that you’ll understand and not think too badly of me.