And though the Wonder Show might have taken pains to hide its ships, it was a lot harder to hide its people. The lights and sounds of merriment from the circus camp in the southern end of the field cut sharply through the industrial gloom surrounding it. Carmer and Bell gave the caravan a wide berth.
Nan Tucket met them at one of the outer storage sheds near the western hangar, as promised. Her freckled face was washed free of her heavy stage makeup, and she wore a clean-cut—if rather plain—navy dress and coat.
“We nearly didn’t recognize you there,” said Bell, gesturing to her layman’s clothes.
“What did you expect?” she asked, a bit of a challenge in her voice. “More silk and garters?”
“I wasn’t expecting anything, miss,” said Bell, “I’m just delighted by the pleasant surprise of your company.”
“And you brought your friend,” said Nan, scrunching up her nose. But she waved hello to Carmer all the same, and said, “You could learn a thing or two from him.”
She hiked up her dress a few scandalous inches to reveal a polka dot petticoat and grinned at them both. “What, did you think I left all the fun behind when we hit the ground?” She turned on her heel, evidently expecting them to follow.
“I think I like this tour already,” said Bell, taking off after her.
Carmer hurried to follow them.
“Keep quiet,” Nan warned, “and don’t get caught, or I’ll be stuck on dish duty for weeks, and you . . .”
She looked Bell up and down.
“You’ll be in very big trouble.”
As they scurried toward the hulking outline of the tethered Whale, Bell didn’t look like he minded being in trouble with Nan Tucket very much at all.
THE WORLD’S SMALLEST cowboy did not look very impressed at Grit’s declaration.
“That’s amazing, you know,” Grit tried again, nodding to the coils around his wrists. “What you can do with those ropes, and your vines. You’re an earth faerie, right?”
Yarlo nodded slowly.
“I was born without a wing,” said Grit. “And maybe I’m wrong, but . . . I don’t think you were.”
Yarlo merely leaned back against the crate behind him. “That seems like a statement, to me.”
“Sorry?”
“I thought we was askin’ questions,” he pointed out, his drawl thickening.
“The man who did that to you,” Grit went on, ignoring his attempt to be disarming. “I think I know who it was. His name was the Mechanist. Well, it was really Titus Archer, but his magician’s persona was named the Mechanist, and he had a whole cloak of faerie wings—”
Yarlo flinched.
“I’m sorry,” Grit said breathlessly. “I’m so sorry. But he did. And some pretty nasty mechanical cats to do his dirty work.”
Yarlo’s face darkened, and Grit knew she was on the right track.
“And eventually, he figured out how to use faerie magic in a machine to make electricity for humans. You know, to turn their lights on and things. But my friend Car—a Friend of the Fae and I stopped him. I destroyed his machine myself, and we freed all the faeries inside.”
Grit stood up a little taller.
Yarlo let out a low whistle, leaning more heavily against the orange crate. “I’ve got an actual question for ya, then.” His knees shook, ever so slightly. “What happened to him? What happened to the son of a harpy who took my wings?”
“The Unseelies . . .” Grit said. “Well, the Wild Hunt came, and their leader was representing the Unseelie king.”
Grit took a deep breath.
“They killed him. They killed him right in front of us.”
CARMER HAD EXPECTED Nan Tucket to take them straight to the Whale of Tales, but she veered off before they reached it, darting around all the giant aircraft in the dark with practiced skill. On the other side of the field was the hangar, an enormous barn-shaped building designed for holding airships.
“With any luck, they’ll have left the side door unlatched,” Nan whispered. “Come on, now. You said you wanted to see engines . . .”
She led them away from the main horizontal doors that would slide open to admit the aircraft to a much smaller side door. Carmer could barely hear the revelry from the Wonder Show’s camp from here.
Nan tossed her fiery hair over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight, and opened the door.
Inside the hangar were half a dozen airplanes.
Not airships, but airplanes—the buzzing, smoking contraptions that Bell was determined to fly one day. Carmer had only seen them in the scientific journals the Amazifier subscribed to, but he recognized them right away—the smooth wings jutting out on either side, the slender fuselage. These planes were small; they would hold only a man or two. Some of them were incomplete, innards exposed or wings not fully attached.
“Spirits and zits,” breathed Carmer.
“Whatever he said,” said Bell.
Nan shut the door behind them. “I knew you’d like it.”
“Like it?!” Bell walked into the hangar as uncertainly as a new father might walk into a nursery, afraid of waking the sleeping infants all around him. “I’ve never seen planes like these!”
Moonlight spilled in from ten-foot windows on both sides, bathing the hangar in an eerie glow.
“That’s because they don’t exist yet,” said Nan. “But Mr. Tinka’s on the verge of a breakthrough, we all know it. Something about using ‘internal combustion engines,’ I heard him say.”
“Internal combustion engines?” asked Carmer, hurrying to one of the planes to take a closer look.
“See, I knew you’d be glad you came,” said Bell fondly.
“That’s what I heard,” said Nan, shrugging. “Don’t know what it means, but I don’t really have to, do I? I’ll worry about these buzzards the day I have to jump from them.”
She gave the plane a friendly pat on the wing; it echoed too loudly in the space, and she cringed.
“Who’s there?” demanded a man’s voice from somewhere in the dark.
They froze.
“Oh, dishes,” whispered Nan ruefully.
“GOOD,” SAID YARLO, his voice harsh. “He got what was comin’ to him, then.”
“It’s faerie justice,” Grit allowed. She wasn’t quite prepared to dance on the Mechanist’s grave, whether or not she felt he deserved it.
“And what about this . . . cloak of his?” Yarlo asked.
Grit sighed. “I’m not sure.” Her best guess was that it was moldering down in the abandoned subway tunnels of Skemantis with the rest of the Mechanist. “It all happened so fast. And Yarlo, I’m sorry, but . . . even if we could get the cloak back, I don’t think . . .”
“You don’t think I could reattach my wings, do ya?”
Grit shook her head.
Yarlo sat down across from her, a faraway look in his eyes. “I wonder if I’d even recognize them,” he mused. “Could I pick them out, out of a whole cloak of—”
“Yarlo,” said Grit. “Don’t. I’m sorry if I only made this harder for you. But I thought you had a right to know.”
Yarlo shook his head, like a dog shaking off water, and managed a wink in Grit’s direction. “And,” he said, “you thought it might get you off my ship.”
“I thought it couldn’t hurt,” Grit said.
Yarlo barked out a laugh and stood up, brushing his knees. “You’re a young one yet, Grit,” he said. “I’ll allow that you don’t seem the likeliest candidate for sending a ship full of Free Folk up in flames.” He looked again at her wing; she kept expecting him to ask her about it. She had to admit he was probably more polite about it than she would’ve been.
“But you’ll learn soon enough. A faerie can’t be too careful in this world. In these times.” He moved forward, and Grit tensed. But all he did was cut her bindings with a small knife she’d never even seen him draw. Grit fell to her knees—she couldn’t help it—and rubbed the feeling back into her shoulders where the r
opes had squeezed her wings together.
“I know that,” she muttered. Did this cowboy think she was some little sprout with only a handful of summers under her belt? (Granted, twelve summers was not that much longer than five on the scale of the typical faerie life span, but still.)
Yarlo helped her to her feet. “Do you?”
Grit looked into his honey-colored eyes. The street fae she’d met before were a little rough, that was true, but this bunch had outnumbered her four (and probably more) to one, and still they’d practically demanded her head. But underneath the tough cowboy act, Yarlo—and the rest of them—seemed almost . . . scared.
“Yarlo,” Grit said slowly, “is something wrong with the Wonder Show?”
He took half a step back. “Now what makes you ask that, darlin’?”
“My excellent people skills,” said Grit. “My Friend’s kind of a lost cause on that front, so I’m developing enough for two.”
Yarlo chuckled. “Why don’t I see you out, Grit?”
“But—”
“As you said, nothing but a misunderstandin’.”
Yarlo turned without waiting for her to answer, and she followed him out into another one of the Whale’s internal passageways. Yarlo turned on his light, his body illuminating from the inside with a soft golden glow.
They passed under a gasbag. Grit blushed in the dark, embarrassed by her earlier behavior.
A white blur fluttered to a standstill in front of them, stopping Grit in her tracks. Beamsprout looked displeased to see Grit walking without restraints. Or maybe just walking at all.
“A pair of silly human boys have snuck into the hangar,” she said to Yarlo. “Tinka’s about to flay them alive.” Beamsprout didn’t seem too upset about it. She looked at Grit. “Friends of yours?”
“Probably yes, actually,” said Grit, relief flooding through her. “And one of them’s a Friend of the Fae, period.”
Beamsprout’s smug smile quickly turned into a frown.
“So,” said Grit brightly, “is it too early to ask for a quick favor?”
CARMER LOOKED AROUND the hangar for the source of the voice, but the planes blocked much of his view, and it was impossible to see every dark corner of the huge space. He, Bell, and Nan crouched behind one of the aircraft.
“Sorry, Charlies,” whispered Nan. “But you’re on your own.” She dashed away from them and off into the shadows.
Carmer heard the side door slam. Great.
“Hey, wait!” hissed Bell, running after her.
Carmer tried to grab him—he was sure Nan Tucket would never be caught unless she wanted to be—but Bell was too fast.
Bell did, however, lack the silence and grace of a trained acrobat, and his loud footfalls across the hangar floor might as well have been a target on his back. Somewhere, a switch flipped, and rows of huge arc lights buzzed and snapped to life overhead, blindingly bright. Bell was caught out in the open. He skidded to a halt at the door.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” asked the voice. It was smooth and deep and sounded slightly familiar.
Bell slowly turned around. Carmer, still crouched near the plane, started to stand up, but Bell subtly shook his head, and Carmer got the message. Stay where you are.
From underneath the plane, he watched a set of legs walk by—legs, he was somewhat amused to note, wearing decidedly adventurous pinstripe pants.
“The name’s Bell, sir,” said Bell, but his usual charming smile wavered. “Bell Daisimer.”
The footsteps stopped a safe distance from Bell; Carmer still couldn’t see the pinstripe pants’ owner.
Bell held up his hands. “And would you believe it if I said I was looking for a job?”
“It’s my experience that most people,” said the other man, “approach their prospective employers at an interview. In the light of day.”
“Even us loons who want to join a flying circus?”
A small laugh escaped the man. “Even you loons, Mr. Daisimer.”
“Mr. Tinka,” said Bell, and Carmer stifled a sharp intake of breath—of course it would be none other than the most important person in the Wonder Show who caught them. “I’m really sorry to meet you like this. I’m a huge admirer of your work, and an aspiring pilot as well, and I heard about your planes—”
“Which is quite astonishing,” Tinka interrupted, “because these planes have nothing to do with the Roving Wonder Show.”
“They . . . they don’t?” asked Bell, his voice cracking.
“I’m afraid not,” said Tinka. “Elysian Field includes three landing strips and several hangars. My ships are docked all over Driftside City. So we’re hardly the only ‘tenants,’ if you will, at any one base here.”
“But I heard—”
“You seem to hear an awful lot, Mr. Daisimer,” said Tinka. “But I would be careful where you get your information. There are many rival airship manufacturers here in Driff City. I’ve heard they sometimes plant misinformation on purpose, to throw off their competitors.”
“Do they?” asked Bell, tugging at the collar of his shirt.
“Sometimes they even spy.”
Carmer could feel the man’s pointed look, even if he couldn’t see it.
“Oh, sir, I’m not a spy!” insisted Bell. “Honestly, I just wanted a closer look. Because, um . . .” Bell trailed off.
The pinstripe pants took a step closer.
“Because . . . ?” asked Tinka impatiently. Another step.
Carmer racked his brains for a more plausible excuse—any excuse.
And then he remembered where they were, and the news marquee he’d seen when he entered the city: Jasconius Crash Mystifies Authorities—$500 REWARD for Information!
“Pardon me, sir,” said Carmer loudly, standing up. “But it’s because we were looking for clues.” Carmer slowly walked around the plane he was hiding behind, hands in the air.
“Clues?” asked Tinka. He was a tan-skinned, angular-faced man, somewhere in his late forties, with a thick handlebar mustache, wire-rimmed glasses, and a bald head that glinted faintly under the lights. He looked surprised at Carmer’s declaration—but not, Carmer thought, as surprised as he should.
“About the Jasconius, sir,” clarified Carmer. “We saw there was a reward. For anyone with information about the crash. This seemed like a good place to start.”
Bell looked at Carmer with wide eyes.
“We were just . . . poking around, sir,” finished Carmer. “We didn’t mean any harm by it.”
But Tinka looked far from mollified by Carmer’s answer. In fact, he’d gone pale. “How did you know of my connection to the Jasconius?”
Carmer had not, in fact, known of any such connection. He took half a step back. “I . . . well, that is . . .”
Tinka looked like he was about to realize he’d spoken too soon.
“We made it our business to know, Mr. Tinka,” said Bell. “My friend Carmer here just happens to be top-notch at solving local mysteries.”
Between Carmer being one of the greatest minds of Skemantis and now, apparently, a detective, Bell hadn’t left him much room for being a traveling magician.
“Is he,” said Tinka. He was of average height, but the stripes in his suit made him look almost as tall as one of his looming lantern giants. He looked from Bell to Carmer, obviously sizing up their knowledge.
“I’m mostly just a magician,” Carmer admitted. Bell gave him a pointed look. “We saw the advertisement, and I needed the money, and so I did some digging. We’re sorry to have trespassed, sir. We won’t trouble you again.”
Carmer was backing away, hoping that Tinka would even let them leave, when Tinka spoke.
“Actually,” he said, holding up a hand, “Carmer the magician-slash-detective, you might be just what I need.”
“He is?” asked Bell.
“I need someone to investigate the Jasconius,” Tinka admitted. “Quietly. And since you seem to have gotten farther than anyone else, yo
u just might be the gentlemen for the job.”
Carmer’s mind raced. Grit was still missing. Tinka’s show used faerie magic in some way. For all Carmer knew, he could be walking straight into a trap.
“I’ll pay the reward myself,” continued Tinka. “In fact, if you figure out what happened to my ship, I’ll double it.”
The implication was clear: I’ll pay double for you not to tell the police. If there was faerie magic powering Tinka’s show, he certainly wouldn’t want the authorities to look too closely at his affairs.
Yet it seemed unlikely that an evildoing Tinka would allow someone he barely knew to investigate what was apparently his own ship. And the truth was, Carmer’s share of the Symposium of Magickal Arts’ winnings wouldn’t last forever.
“All right,” Carmer finally said. “I’ll do it.”
He didn’t want to speak for Bell, who seemed keen to leave the city.
“Very well,” said Tinka, bouncing on his heels. “Come back in the morning, then, and report to my tent. Nan can show you the way.” Tinka rolled his eyes.
“We’re thankful for the gig, sir,” said Bell, his gaze turning to the window at the other end of the hangar. “And since we’re all friends now, I feel obligated to ask . . . isn’t that giant snail-shaped balloon yours?”
“It’s a nautilus, actually,” said Tinka rather testily, as if he’d corrected this misnomer many times. “But . . . oh, crickets!”
Carmer glanced out the window himself. Sure enough, a giant snail—nautilus—was slowly meandering off into Driff City, apparently unsupervised.
“I can help you with that, if you like, sir,” offered Bell. “I’m an excellent balloonist.”
Tinka turned on his heel, muttering, “Better you were a pilot, too, if you were serious about that job. All he had to do was watch a few balloons . . . Come back tomorrow, boys!”
The Crooked Castle Page 6