‘Well.’ He thought about that. ‘I guess there was always going to be a catch. Least this way you’ll get to see what real motocross is.’ He was unfolding a sleeve of his shirt as he spoke, stretching it down over his hand. Now he leaned around Keira, turned on a tap and ran the cold water over his sleeve edge.
‘You got a little mud here,’ he said, pressing the damp, cold cloth onto her cheek.
‘One thing we should get clear,’ Keira said, ‘is that riding across fields is not real motocross. Real is what we do in stadiums. Jumps, backflips and acrobatics. Style, difficulty of trick, best use of a course, and crowd reaction. That’s real motocross.’
Gabe was still rubbing at her cheek with his shirt. He swiped it down around her chin and started up on the opposite cheek.
‘Sounds like you’re reading from a rule book,’ he said. ‘You know that motocross actually started right here in the Farms, right? The word motocross comes from a combination of moto, which is the Jarmian for motorbike, and cross which refers to cross country. I mean real country. Rugged terrain and so forth.’
‘Just because it started in the country doesn’t mean it has to stop there!’ Keira said. ‘You keep evolving and you end up in a Jagged Edge stadium. The short straights, the tight turns, the intensity. That’s the real test of skill.’
‘Busting a tyre on a broken bottle or a sharp rock or a nail. Hitting a tree stump. A dead cow in the grass. Creeks, log crossings, the smell of mud and dirt. Now that’s where you see talent. Wind on your face. Power of your bike.’
‘Power?’ she said, withering. ‘A scooter?’
‘That’s what’s real,’ Gabe continued. ‘The surprise. Not the control.’
Keira blinked suddenly. ‘Why are you still cleaning my face? There can’t be that much mud.’
Gabe sat back, letting his damp sleeve fall.
‘Wasn’t any mud at all,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to clean off that makeup of yours—the modification makeup. All of it. It was just—I liked seeing the real you when you were talking just now. That fragment of you that you gave me—and I wanted to see more—’
‘You took off my makeup? You can see what I look like? You can see my bad skin?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re beautiful. Cut it out.’
His shoulders moved and he was kissing her. That big hand of his was on the back of her neck. There was so much gentle and warmth in the kiss, and a lot of words, and that expression on his face when he looked at her broken fingers, and his expressions like cut it out, and how he thought she was better and brighter than she knew, and how he wanted her to be untangled and happy, and how he liked it when she joined the history club, all of that was there in his kiss.
He stopped.
‘You’re still taking me for a spin, right? Even though I did that?’ A frown ran across his face, all the way to his ears.
She laughed. She reached for his hand and squeezed it, to reassure him, and then she thought: I’m going to kiss him myself. So she did. She put in her own words and her thoughts about him, and how much she liked his height and his ears, and how much she liked the way he made her a chocolate pudding when she was sad, and how generous he was when people asked about farming and the seasons, and how overwhelmed he felt sometimes, here on his own, and how proud she was of him, for doing this on his own, she put all that into the kiss. She thought: I’ve never done that in my life. Kissed somebody in that way, with all of that behind it.
It made the kiss run right through her body and his body, and all the way out and up to the sky, across the Kingdom, and back into the place where their lips met.
They sat back, leaning up against the doorway again, facing forward, holding hands, sun on their faces.
Way across the field, the door of the farmhouse opened.
Jimmy stood in the doorway.
‘Guess he’s heading back to town,’ Gabe said. ‘We’ve got a couple more houseguests now, you think?’
‘Just what you need,’ Keira smiled.
‘Well, least they know how to laugh,’ he pointed out.
Keira watched Jimmy stride towards his car.
‘I wonder how he feels about having a girlfriend from another century,’ she said. ‘I mean, he seemed okay with her being from the World, but this is a lot to get your head around.’
Gabe was quiet, he was moving his thumb about on Keira’s palm. He stirred suddenly.
‘What, you think Isabella might be that old too?’ he said. ‘As old as that boy’s mother? I didn’t even think of that, but you’re right. If Isabella’s from the World, and Worldians live forever here, well, Isabella could be even older! She could be a thousand years old!’
‘No,’ Keira said. ‘Isabella is Jack’s mother.’
Gabe laughed. ‘How do you figure that?’
‘I saw that as well,’ Keira said. ‘With the Crimson. Isabella had a scar on her ankle that was shaped like a letter P—that was in a missing persons report about her. In the letter, it says that they branded everyone who went to that orphanage with the letter P. And Isabella told Jimmy she’d been studying the cracks, trying to get back to the World. That’s why she did Physics, and why she came to Bonfire.’
‘Well,’ began Gabe. ‘I’m not sure that’s enough.’
‘The woman who wrote the letter said she had to change her name,’ Keira continued. ‘The letter was signed Teresa Lina Ballomabi. Switch those letters around.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Well, if you did, you’d get Isabella Tamborlaine.’
‘Not a chance,’ Gabe said.
He picked up a stick and wrote the names in the mud, one after the other. Ran the stick between both a few moments, then whistled through his teeth like a Farms boy.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And she’s right here in town, hiding at Jimmy’s. That boy is ten minutes from his mother.’
‘That Crimson was something else,’ Keira said, speaking like a Farms girl herself.
‘Well,’ Gabe said. ‘It was. But I’ve got to admit, I noticed your crooked fingers a while back. They always break my heart a little, every time I see them.’
They leaned together and kissed again.
1
Someone was spilling drops of hot wax onto her hands and arms.
Madeleine woke.
She was lying beneath a pile of blankets. Her face felt chilled. She was in a tent. Pale light fell through the canvas.
Her hands and arms were covered in blisters. Her body ached with exhaustion. From outside came the hush of wind and low voices.
Elliot’s voice, she recognised.
Now a second voice cried, ‘Call yourself my humble suggestion that we build a fire! Or that we did so, had we the means of building a fire.’
That was Samuel.
She pushed the blankets aside and crawled out of the tent into deep snow.
The frozen lake shone under dusk light. Elliot and Samuel turned towards her, dark shadows.
‘You have awoken!’ Samuel said. ‘I myself felt so refreshed upon awaking late this morning, that I set off to find you here, and lo! I found you! Still here! Elliot procured this tent from the kiosk over yonder, and placed your sleeping form within.’
Elliot was still. His face was shadowed but she could see his eyes staring hard at her. ‘You saved me,’ he said, his voice distant. ‘The Greys were attacking and you saved us both.’
Madeleine looked beyond him, across the lake. It was silvery pink now.
‘I don’t know how I did it,’ she said. ‘I saw this mist and I started braiding it together, like a barrier.’
‘Your Highness!’ Samuel cried. ‘It is as I said! You are a talented magic-weaver! It is intuitive for you, and that is rare!’
Madeleine looked at her palms. They swarmed with blisters. ‘I guess I need practise,’ she said. ‘And stop calling me Your Highness.’
Elliot remained where he was. Why did he not move closer?
‘You’re Princess Jupiter,�
�� he said, still remote. ‘But you’re also Madeleine.’
‘I’m just Madeleine.’ The lake and its shores were empty. ‘So where’s the Loyalist army?’
The tent fluttered in the breeze.
‘I didn’t know you were Princess Jupiter.’
‘Well, me neither.’ Madeleine tried to read his expression through the fading light. ‘Are they far from here?’
‘I have no idea. I don’t even know if there is a Loyalist army. I was working with the Hostiles. I didn’t know the plan was to kill you. I thought we were sending you back to the World.’
The words sailed through Madeleine, taking her with them. Now she was a vast distance from herself. ‘You were going to let the Hostiles send me back to the World?’ she said, from this distance. ‘Alone?’
‘I told the whole Royal Family to come,’ Elliot pointed out.
Madeleine’s voice dropped away, out of her reach. She stared at the outline of Elliot’s face.
‘I didn’t know you were Princess Jupiter,’ he said again. ‘She’s trouble.’
Samuel spoke softly: ‘Oh.’
‘But I told you I was trouble,’ Madeleine said. ‘I told you all about me, at the parking meter. I’m the exact same person.’ Her voice was growing. ‘And you were going to let them send me back to the World?’
‘The Royal Family,’ he said. ‘I was going to send the Royal Family back. I thought you were Madeleine.’
There was a long pause.
The ice of the lake raced up Madeleine’s spine and into her voice. ‘I thought you were Elliot,’ she said.
Elliot did not move. Samuel’s head bowed. The three stood in the falling light.
‘Well,’ Madeleine said eventually, still ice. ‘I guess we just sleep here tonight, and figure out what to do in the morning.’ She ran her eyes around the lake again—the closed kiosk, the snow-laden trees—and stopped. She stared. It must be her imagination. She squinted. ‘Those are vampire bats!’
Samuel gave a cry.
‘Oh,’ said Elliot, sounding confused. ‘I forgot.’
‘You forgot?’ It felt good, this surge. ‘You knew there were vampire bats there, and you forgot!’
‘Well, they’re on the other side of the lake,’ he said defensively.
‘Who are you?’ Madeleine stamped her foot so it disappeared deep into the snow. She dragged it back out so she could stamp again. ‘You think vampires stay on their own side of a lake?’ She was wrenching the tent poles out of the snow. ‘We have to get out of here. The sun’s about to set.’ She scrambled under the falling canvas, dragging out blankets and tossing them at Elliot and Samuel.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elliot said. ‘I have no experience with vampires.’
‘But don’t you learn about them in school?’
‘It was dumb. I’m kinda distracted.’
‘If we go fast,’ Madeleine began, but there was a rush of air above them.
They looked up. Dark shapes soared steadily towards them through the sky, growing larger.
‘Call yourselves my fear we are too late,’ Samuel whispered.
2
The shapes landed before them in a ripple of thuds. Madeleine screamed.
‘Cut that out at once,’ said a voice, sharp and alarmed, and it was Madeleine’s sister, Princess Ko.
She embraced Madeleine. ‘You’re alive,’ she said, ‘which is a flash of sunlit dew, but you won’t be for much longer if you wake up those vampires. Don’t you see them across the lake there? Why would you camp so close to vampires?’ The Princess turned her disapproval to the boys standing by Madeleine. ‘Elliot. Samuel. It is fine to see you both—surprising to see Samuel, of course, but also fine—yet again I must ask why would—’
‘Where did you come from?’ Madeleine breathed.
The other shapes moved closer, resolving themselves into Sergio and Keira.
‘From the sky. Sergio flew us here,’ Ko explained. ‘Occasional Pilots are useful on occasion, ha ha. We have come to the Magical North on a mission, and also to ensure that you are safe, Madeleine. We knew this was the date and location of your meeting with Elliot.’ She turned to him now. ‘I doubted you, Elliot, but I see that I was wrong. I apologise.’
‘No need,’ Elliot said, his voice layered with meaning.
Sergio was exclaiming. ‘It is Samuel! How can it be? I thought I should never see you once again, for you were gone in the night, pfft, but now? Back once again! And here is Elliot and also Madeleine, and there is so much to say, we will be talking and talking all the night!’
Keira had been facing away from the others. Now she spoke up mildly. ‘Yeah, we should probably hold the talking and talking. One of those vampires just woke up.’
*
For the next hour, they stumbled through darkening woods, not speaking except to argue in low voices about the best way to reach a road, or to swear when they slipped or ran into a tree branch. Now and then, Samuel gasped loudly, and the others hissed, ‘What?’ and Samuel whispered, ‘Call yourselves my apologies. I thought I heard a vampire in pursuit,’ until Princess Ko commanded him to cease and desist with the gasping.
‘Perhaps,’ Samuel murmured, ‘Sergio could fly us all to safety?’
Keira looked up. ‘Vampires like the sky,’ she said. ‘We’re safer on the ground.’
‘Not to mention, Sergio just flew all the way from the Farms,’ Princess Ko scolded. ‘He will be too fatigued for flight.’
‘This has some truth,’ Sergio admitted.
Elliot said, ‘I think I hear a river.’
‘In what way is that helpful?’ Madeleine demanded so scornfully that the others were surprised into silence again.
Eventually, the sounds of a rushing river filled the air. There was no room for any other thoughts. Lights flashed in the distance.
‘Headlights passing,’ Keira called over the river-rush. ‘There’s a road ahead.’
‘Must be the Sir Laurence Highway,’ Princess Ko shouted. ‘It runs parallel to the River Elegant. There’ll be sled stops along it! We’re safe!’
They began to run.
*
Almost immediately they came to a highway sled stop. They crowded into the empty wooden shelter, its walls dimming the roar of the river.
‘Now,’ said Princess Ko. ‘Before I explain our mission, I want to know what’s going on here. Something is up. You and Elliot are both behaving strangely, Madeleine. So is Samuel, but he’s always strange so I’ll allow that. Madeleine?’
But Elliot spoke. ‘I joined the Hostiles.’
A whistle of silence shot through the group.
‘You were forced to pretend,’ Ko said, after a moment. ‘That is disappointing, but understandable. Do not blame yourself.’
‘No. I believed in their cause. I wanted to help take down the Royals. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, and I didn’t know that Madeleine was a Princess. But I did believe in them.’
There was another, shriller silence.
‘You’re a Hostile now?’ Keira asked.
Elliot blinked. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘Today was terrible. I made a terrible mistake.’ He outlined what had happened, Samuel interrupting now and then to enthuse about Madeleine’s magic-weaving. ‘She saved our lives,’ Elliot concluded. ‘She was great. And I’m furious with Mischka and the Hostiles for tricking me. But I don’t know if I’m still a Hostile now, or not.’ He glanced at their faces and away again, his gaze on a steady distant point, hands in his pockets.
Princess Ko stepped close to her sister, her mouth forming various shapes. When she did speak, her voice was twisted to a higher pitch.
‘A part of me is not surprised that my sister is a magic-weaver. I have always known she was special. As for you, Elliot, let us talk later. For now, I shall explain our mission. We wish to find the author of the Cellian guidebook. We believe he may know something about an organisation called the Circle.’
She told of the arrival of Belle and
Jack—‘Belle and Jack are in Cello?’ Madeleine interrupted. ‘My Belle and Jack?’
‘Yes,’ Ko replied. ‘They’re in Bonfire right now. They are profoundly curious individuals, Madeleine, but it is clear that they care deeply about you. At any rate, Jack had a letter—’
But Madeleine had covered her face with her gloved hands and she was crying silently. Elliot watched her. His expression faltered and fell.
‘Jack had a letter,’ Ko repeated, and she outlined the letter from Jack’s mother and its references to the Circle.
‘The agents, Tovey and Kim, suspect the existence of a supergroup called the Circle,’ Keira put in.
‘Exactly,’ Ko continued. ‘So the letter interested me. But then it seemed Keira had also found some kind of code in the pages of the guidebook, with Circle references! This, of course, could be nothing but a coincidental printing error that has led us on a wild goose chase.’
Keira shrugged. ‘Ah, well.’
‘Ah well, indeed,’ said the Princess. ‘At any rate, nobody else seems to be saving the Kingdom, so I thought I would give it a shot. As a first step, I wish to speak with the guidebook author, one T.I. Candle—I recall him attending Royal functions in my childhood. I have verified that he lives in Lanternville, which I believe’—Ko paused to consult the map and timetable printed on the wall of the shelter—‘I believe to be approximately one hour due east of here.’
Samuel, who had been swaying while Ko talked, as if dancing to some distant, gentle music, spoke up. ‘We go on the morrow!’ he pronounced. ‘A good night’s sleep for one and all now, and I believe I see the lights of an inn just a stone’s throw away!’
‘We go now,’ Princess Ko declared. ‘Not tomorrow. Rumours abound that something important is happening tomorrow, so we need to follow up on this tonight. A sled will be along shortly.’
‘Well, then! As you wish, My Good Highness!’ Samuel staggered slightly. ‘Perhaps if I myself might remain at the inn. My health, after fleeing through the woods, is somewhat failing . . .’
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