The Crooked Castle

by Sarah Jean Horwitz

  Grit seethed. Purslain was right. Grit would have to be insane to attack the Unseelie princess here. Unfortunately, with bits of her best friend scattered all over the floor, she was feeling a little less than sane.

  “What have you done to him?” Grit demanded.

  “It’s clear where that boy is learning his manners from, that’s for sure.” Purslain sighed. “I assume you mean that rude Friend of yours, who had the gall to try and sneak around my castle without even wearing his real face. It’s impolite not to tell your hostess you’re bringing a plus one, you know.”

  Grit clenched her fists so hard that a few of the glowworms on the ceiling exploded in puffs of spark and smoke, snuffed out like candles. Their charred little bodies fell to the floor and disintegrated into piles of ash.

  Purslain swept her hair over them; they disappeared in wet smears.

  “I won’t hold that one against you,” Pru said diplomatically. “When I was as young as you, I had trouble controlling my powers, too. A few more decades of practice should do it.” She wiggled her blackened toes.

  “I’m not going to ask again,” said Grit. “Where. Is. Carmer.”

  Purslain twirled around in her grisly cloak. “Oh, everyone’s wrong about you, you know. You’re no fun at all, and neither is your silly Friend. He absolutely refused to tell me anything about why you were nosing around my kingdom—as if I didn’t already know!—or how he managed such an interesting trick with that puppet of his—”

  “It’s an automaton,” Grit corrected automatically.

  Purslain’s lips twitched. “You even said it right. Automaton. See, under different circumstances, I think we’d get along famously!”

  A few more glowworms were zapped out of existence.

  “Oh, all right, all right,” said Purslain. “Your boy remembered where his real body was . . . eventually. Which is a shame, because we’d just started having fun.”

  Grit didn’t want to know what Purslain’s idea of “fun” was.

  “I came here to talk to your father,” Grit said, forcing down her panic. If Carmer had remembered to leave the puppet, he was alive and safe back at the Moto-Manse . . . probably.

  But these were not the words Princess Purslain wanted to hear, apparently, because her teasing expression immediately soured.

  “It’s about a human he’s taken captive, and Rinka Tinka’s Roving Wonder Show,” Grit said, pressing on. “He needs to leave the Free Faeries alone. They haven’t done anything wrong. They—”

  “You know what?” Purslain interrupted. “I think I’ve had enough of the both of you for one night, our appreciation for machinery aside.” She wrinkled her nose at Grit’s mechanical wing.

  “Wait, Princess Purslain—”

  “I’ll give you and your street fae until the New Year to step aside and hand over Rinka Tinkerton,” Purslain said, hands on her hips. “That girl belongs to me. She can take the next week to say her good-byes. But keep her after midnight and you can say good-bye to your pilot and the entire Wonder Show. Consider it a courtesy, one princess to another.”

  That girl? Grit wondered, trying to keep the surprise from showing on her face. What girl? Rinka Tinka was just Julius Tinkerton’s stage name. Carmer had been certain of that. And if his name was Julius . . .

  And then it hit her. Rinka Tinka’s Roving Wonder Show.

  Rinka Tinka had never referred to just one person. It was two—Tinkerton and his “silent partner,” just as she and Carmer had suspected. And for some reason, Princess Purslain of the Unseelie Court wanted the other one.

  “I heard you’re a good swimmer,” said Purslain, pulling up the hood of the Mechanist’s cloak.

  Grit would have to find out how she’d gotten her hands on that, and how it seemed to change size for the wearer.

  “Let’s find out, shall we? Consider your invitation to the Unseelie realm revoked.” With a stomp of Purslain’s foot, Grit was thrust out of Faerie, and everything changed. Black water rushed in from all sides, and Grit had just enough time to take in one last gulp of air before she found herself outside the palace, submerged deep under the docks. Where there had once been a hallway, there was now only murky ocean and a maze of rotting wood.

  Grit turned her light on, taking her chances with the murderous mermaid guards, and kicked fiercely in what she hoped was an upward direction. She was a good swimmer, this was true, but she could barely see under the water, and the mechanical wing weighed her down, pulling her back toward the shipwrecks and drowned skeletons littering the ocean floor.

  When Grit finally heaved herself onto the shoreline, muscles shuddering with exhaustion and gasping for air, she lay back in the rocky sand and let a single, reluctant sob escape her throat.

  Carmer was okay. She was okay. Rinka—whoever she was—was okay. For now.

  But it was going to be a long flight back to the Moto-Manse.

  CARMER HAD JUST finished mopping up the contents of his scrying bowl and building up the fire in the stove downstairs when Grit flew in through the kitchen window, careening off the walls.

  Carmer grabbed her straight out of the air; she collapsed in his palms, icicles and bits of frozen seaweed clinging to her hair. She hadn’t even taken the time to dry herself—or she simply hadn’t had the energy.

  “It’s all right,” Carmer said. “You’re all right.” He opened the stove door and deposited her straight onto the burning coals. She sank all the way into them, soaking up their heat. He waited until she surfaced, her face soot-blackened but looking a little calmer, before he spoke.

  “I assume your visit to the Unseelie Court went about as well as mine did?” He held up a bandaged palm.

  Grit closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Probably,” she said, and relayed to him her encounter with Mister Moon.

  Carmer had to sit down at the mention of the conductor of the Wild Hunt on the Unseelie Throne, and hoped Grit didn’t notice.

  He ran a hand through his hair and explained his own capture by Pru.

  “Only I could forget I wasn’t in my own body,” he said, sighing.

  “Madame Euphemia did warn us,” allowed Grit, scooting to the edge of the stove and hanging her feet over the side. “But you must have remembered eventually. How else would you have gotten out?”

  Carmer looked down at his feet. “There’s something you should know,” he said. “I . . . I fixed the messenger glider and reached out to the real designer behind the Wonder Show, in a letter I pretended was from the Blythes. I knew it would probably get into the right hands.”

  The flames in the stove shot up to the roof. Carmer scooted back.

  “You what?” Grit exclaimed.

  Carmer held up his hands. “Just wait,” he said. “And fortunately for me, she sent help just in time.” He fished in his pockets for the note that had come with Nan. His burned hand throbbed with every movement of his fingers.

  “I cannot believe—” Grit stopped and took a deep breath; steam rushed out of her nostrils as she exhaled. “The faeries trusted you to protect our secrets. I trusted you. You took a vow, Carmer.”

  Mister Moon’s threats echoed in her head. Remember where your loyalties lie.

  “Well, so did you,” Carmer snapped, “and that didn’t stop you from dragging Bell into all of this.”

  Grit’s face went pale beneath the soot.

  Carmer took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that. If anyone’s to blame for Bell . . . I only meant that you weighed the risks of breaking your secrecy and revealing your magic when someone needed your help, and you made the decision you thought was best. Well . . . so did I.”

  Grit nodded; Carmer looked away as she wiped a stray tear from her face. She sniffed and pointed to the piece of paper in his hand.

  “What is that?”

  Carmer unfurled the note and held it up to the firelight. It read:

  I have captured a small cowboy. Please come at once.

  —
Rinka

  18.

  THE CROOKED CASTLE

  The other princess, they’d said. The Seelie queen’s daughter. The one with the iron wing.

  “The iron wing?” Bell had asked, his heart skipping a beat in his chest before his mind even made the connection.

  Human-made, the merman clarified, scrunching up the snakelike slits in his face where his nose should have been.

  “Ah,” said Bell, looking politely interested. “That’s certainly . . . unusual.” Bell hadn’t met many faeries, but the mermaids seemed to agree.

  It was only after the last of their tails had flicked completely out of sight that he let himself say her name.

  “Grit,” he whispered, staring out into the inky blackness beyond his jellyfish prison. Bell had never wanted to be right about something so badly in his life. “Come and get me, little lady.” Grit was the princess. She had to be. Grit knew he was here, and she was coming for him. Bell Daisimer would see the sky again. He was sure of it.

  He had to be.

  She is coming.

  THE CROOKED CASTLE was now docked with the rest of the Wonder Show camp. It was lit up when they arrived, despite the late hour. Nan met Carmer at a rear hatchway and hurried him up and inside before anyone could see him.

  “You’re not coming?” Carmer asked her, leaning out of the ship.

  Nan shook her head. “More than one person at a time is a bit . . . much, for her.”

  Carmer had no idea what to make of that.

  “And I’m thinking the less I know about all this foolishness, the better,” she said. “Now go in and don’t speak too loudly . . . and don’t make any sudden movements, and don’t stare right into her eyes, she hates that—”

  “Is this a girl or a tiger?” Carmer asked.

  Nan shooed him on and scampered off into the darkness.

  “I’ve got a smoke bomb up here with me, just in case,” said Grit under Carmer’s hat.

  “Are you insane?” Carmer hissed. The smoke bombs from their magic act weren’t exactly the most dependable distractions or weapons, even enhanced with faerie magic, and bringing one onto an airship . . .

  “You’ll thank me if it’s a tiger,” said Grit, though Carmer felt her tuck the small cylinder away onto the balcony he’d just rebuilt inside his hat.

  He cleared the last few steps into Rinka’s airship.

  It was one long, narrow room, with loft space built into the ceiling. Paper-covered lanterns hung every few feet from a ceiling covered by a large, light-colored wooden sculpture; it was intertwining tree branches, Carmer realized, each piece intricately carved and sanded to a pine-colored sheen, as if they’d been chopped off the real thing and stripped of their bark that very morning.

  All sorts of objects hung from the branches along with the lanterns: colored strips of fabric, glass terrariums full of exotic plants, model airships, and most of all—drawings. The sheets of paper hung everywhere. There were sketches of fantastical beasts, and elements of the Wonder Show—Carmer spotted a diagram of the Whale of Tales hanging near a potted spider plant—as well as more practical designs. Most of them, Carmer saw, were of winged things—gliders and balloons and even the airplanes that Tinkerton had been so desperate to keep secret.

  Carmer took a tentative step forward, carefully brushing aside the drawing in front of him.

  “Hello?”

  There was no reply, but it seemed to him the fabric ribbons in the air shifted, just a little.

  “Rinka, my name is Carmer. I, um, I’m here with my friend Grit, to . . . well, as you may have read in my letter . . .” He trailed off. Carmer wasn’t used to dealing with someone even shier than he was.

  Grit snorted and scooted out from underneath his hat. “Oh, for fae’s sake,” she grumbled, and called to the other end of the ship. “Do you have the wingless cowboy faerie or not?”

  Carmer sighed.

  Another rustle, this time farther away.

  “You’ve really got to work on the soft sell, Grit,” Carmer muttered.

  “If I left the two of you weirdos to sort this out, we’d be here till next Tuesday.”

  Carmer shushed her and took another step into the hanging maze. Grit fluttered along next to his shoulder, using her hatpin to bat away ribbons and papers with a little too much enthusiasm.

  “Are these your designs?” Carmer asked the still-hidden Rinka, taking a closer look at a rough sketch of an ornithopter. It reminded him of Bell, so excited in his pilot’s suit. Carmer had to look away. “They’re amazing.”

  “Th-thank you,” said a soft voice, so quiet it was almost inaudible.

  Carmer looked at the drawing, pointedly avoiding the direction he thought the voice came from. “You’re the real architect of the Wonder Show, aren’t you, Rinka?”

  There was another stretch of silence, and Carmer was afraid he’d spoken too rashly too fast.

  “I . . . I help my father with his work,” corrected Rinka.

  “If by ‘help’ she means ‘lets him steal her ideas,’” Grit whispered into Carmer’s ear.

  “Could you tell us more about the Wonder Show?” Carmer asked Rinka. “We need to know more if we’re going to help you . . . and the faeries.”

  Grit glared at him, but there was nothing to be done. He’d already written about them in his letter.

  “They haven’t done anything wrong!” Rinka said, louder this time. “They’ve only been . . . helping me. They’ve always been with me. Ever since I was a little girl.”

  There was a flash of movement from the other end of the ship; the swaying of a skirt, perhaps, but it was hard to tell.

  “All of them?” Grit piped up.

  “. . . No,” Rinka said. “Not all of them. A-and especially not him.”

  There was a sound like a fishing line being reeled in, and an object was lowered from the ceiling, coming to a stop to hang right in front of Carmer and Grit.

  It was a glass jar. And Yarlo was in it.

  “This here is cruel and unusual punishment, this is!” Yarlo’s voice was hard to make out through the glass, but his fury was not. The vines sprouting from his wrists pushed fruitlessly at the top of the jar, trying to find any small opening to widen, but except for a few tiny airholes, Rinka had reinforced the lid. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I suspected something was wrong with my little friends . . . with the faeries, you called them, months ago.” Rinka spoke more confidently now, though she still hadn’t shown her face. “And then, when I caught him running away . . .”

  Carmer wondered what to make of a girl who couldn’t stand the thought of looking someone in the eye but had also somehow managed to lure and capture a powerful earth faerie with her bare hands.

  “What has he told you?” Carmer asked warily.

  “Oh, just that the Unseelies’ll be comin’ to break up your merry band of misfits any day now,” said Yarlo with a poorly aimed kick at his glass prison.

  “So jack squat, basically,” said Grit. She glared at Yarlo. “I should’ve told the others the second I sensed something off about you, Unseelie.”

  “And why didn’t ya, then?” Yarlo asked.

  “Maybe because I felt sorry for you,” Grit shot back. “Maybe I thought you had your reasons. I don’t know. But whatever reason you have, I hope it’s a good one, because I assume you know that your own princess is wearing your wings as a coat.”

  Yarlo stopped struggling against the jar.

  “Oh, you didn’t know?” asked Grit acidly. “She has the Mechanist’s cloak of faerie wings now. The king enchanted it to grant its wearer invisibility—among other tricks we haven’t had the pleasure of seeing yet, I’m sure. It’s how she’s been sneaking onto all the airships.”

  “A faerie’s been behind the attacks?” asked Rinka, her already soft voice cracking a little.

  The hanging diagrams ahead swayed, as if someone was pushing through them. Carmer caught another glimpse of a bare brown foot, the edge of a skirt, and
a hand pushing a lantern to the side.

  Yarlo was still staring at Grit, his eyes hard, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

  “And she’s not going to stop until she’s broken up the Wonder Show,” insisted Grit. “And until she has—”

  “Then the faeries here need to run,” interrupted Rinka, voice panicked. “They need to leave, before—”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” said a determined little voice, and Beamsprout appeared from out of one of the lantern shades.

  Rinka gasped, and Carmer was willing to bet this was the first time she was actually seeing some of the faeries on her ship, even if they’d been lending her their magic for a while.

  “We’re gonna stand up to those Unseelies and FIGHT,” said Thundrumble, scooting over the edge of her lantern with a little difficulty. A few of the nearest hanging objects shook at her booming voice, and everyone cringed. “Well, if we absolutely have to,” she added, looking glum at the prospect.

  At that, a few of the other Free Folk came out of their lanterns as well—though it was just as likely they’d been scared out by Thundrumble as it was a show of solidarity.

  “No one’s fighting anyone,” said Grit. “At least not yet. They’ve given us until the New Year. Which should be plenty of time for one of you to tell us why what they really want is you.” Grit crossed her arms and glared in Rinka’s general direction.

  “Grit,” Carmer warned.

  “Next Tuesday . . .” Grit reminded him.

  “Me?” asked Rinka.

  Somewhere on the ship, a door opened.

  “Rinka!” called Tinkerton. “What’s going on in there?”

  The faeries scattered at once, some hiding up in the sculpted tree branches while others made straight for the few windows cracked open to the chilly night air. The absence of their light left the ship in almost total darkness.

  “Oh, for fae’s sake!” said Grit, alighting on Carmer’s shoulder. He scooped her up under his hat in what was becoming a smooth and practiced movement.

  “Rinka?” Footsteps sounded at the front of the ship.

  “H-hello, Father.”