The War of the Flowers

42 FAREWELL FEAST

In his dream he floated in thick, cool space, surrounded by streamers of green movement. In fact, almost everything was green — the light, the shadows, his own hands where they drifted slowly in front of his face, stained a sickly color like old lunch meat. Fish, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, floated amid the rising bubbles just as he himself was floating, watching him with more curiosity in their glassy eyes than seemed decent.

Sometimes the green went away completely, swallowed by darkness, and when it came back he was surrounded by women instead of fish, all of them lovely in a strange sort of way, hair furling and waving, moved by invisible currents. These women watched him as the fish had watched him, smiling (some of them seemed to have very sharp teeth) and whispering among themselves. Through it all, through the green light that came and went, he was aware of nothing about himself except weightlessness and a feeling of unconcern that seemed to make his thoughts as buoyant as his slowly kicking legs.

Only occasionally did it occur to him that he should be drowning, or might even already have done so.

He had been staring at her for a while before he realized her black hair was not drifting, but instead hung down beside her pale, pretty face in what once would have seemed a perfectly ordinary manner. He stared a while longer before he realized he recognized her, although something about her was different and her name was slow in coming.

"His eyes are open!" the dark-haired young woman said. "I think he's waking up!"

Another face, this one less familiar, leaned in. "It is sooner than we would have guessed, but he has a strong constitution. Good breeding."

"Don't say that!" the young woman said. "I hate that."

"Poppy… ?" He had the name now, although some of the details were still wrong; his vision remained cloudy, as though he had not entirely left the lake bottom. She seemed to have lost her eyebrows. No, he realized, they were there, but they were so pale as to be almost invisible. It gave her a strangely Japanese look, the face a white oval, like a geisha's. One thing was certain, though — just seeing her made him feel good. "Poppy, is that… ? Am I… ?"

"You're fine, Theo. You're alive!" She suddenly climbed up on whatever supported him — it had a certain give, and he momentarily feared tumbling back down into whatever green depths he had escaped — and kissed his face. She hugged him and he let out a little huff of pain. "Oh! Sorry!"

"I think… did I break a rib?" He was trying to make sense of his surroundings. A tent? Whatever it was, the only light came from one of the glowing witchlight spheres. The other fairy woman had gone somewhere — he could just make out the light of what might be a doorway, but he couldn't lift his head high enough to be certain. "What else did I do? I can hardly move. Everything hurts."

"No one's quite sure. You were bruised all over, but by the time we saw you they were all old bruises. The Duchess treated you well down there."

"Duchess?" His head was quite remarkably empty of any useful memories, although it felt very full of something else, swollen and aching.

"The one who had you. The nymph. Oh, Theo, I thought we'd never get you back!" She had a tight grip on him again, and he found that the pleasure of it was such that he could even ignore the pain in his side.

"What… what happened?" He was starting to remember a little of it now, and the dominant image was a column of billowing lavender light and the terrible shrieking of… of… "Hellebore, Lord Hellebore. He's dead. And that child-thing, too." He looked up, worried by her expression. "They are dead, aren't they? They have to be. But doesn't that mean… we won?" But the memory of Applecore's last brave moments had returned and winning suddenly didn't mean as much as it should have. "Did we win?"

She shrugged. "Yes, I suppose. Everything is a mess, but it's a lot better than it would have been." A noise distracted her and she looked up toward the doorway. "There are people here to see you. They've been waiting as long as I have, hoping that Primrose could make a bargain."

"Primrose? Bargain?"

"Wait. You'll find out everything. And I'll be right here with you."

"What happened to your eyebrows?"

"What do you mean?" But she knew. "Oh, the color? It's nothing — they were always white like this. I decided to stop dyeing them, that's all. To stop pretending I wasn't a Thornapple."

"Ah." He lifted a hand to touch the pale white stripes, although it seemed a long distance to reach. She took the hand before it reached her face and held it, as though it might hurt her to be touched there.

"You do still care about me, don't you, Theo? No, that's not fair, to ask you that right now."

"Just try to leave and you'll find out how I feel." He gave her hand the strongest, most reassuring squeeze he could muster — which in his present state, he guessed, was something like being humped by a very old starfish. But for all his growing joy at realizing that by some mysterious means he was back in the world again, and that Poppy was in it and waiting for him, there was a hole inside him that could not be so easily filled. "Oh, Applecore," he said quietly, speaking to a ghost, a memory. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" someone said. "Being a great, hulking eejit? That's not entirely your fault, now is it?"

Cumber Sedge was sitting on the foot of the bed, and unless he had become an amazing ventriloquist, the tiny shape sitting on his shoulder had to be… "Applecore!" Theo tried to sit up but couldn't manage it. "You're not dead!"

"And neither are you, you daft thing, but not for lack of trying." She stood and Cumber picked her up and set her carefully on Theo's chest. She was paler than usual, with pronounced dark rings under her eyes and some healing burns on her face and even on parts of her head, as displayed by her very closely cropped hair, but otherwise she seemed to have all her limbs and her old personality intact. "What are you staring at? Have you never seen a good-looking woman before?"

"Not one I'm as surprised to see. And Cumber, thank God! I mean, sorry, thank the Trees or whatever. Didn't mean to make you flinch. We all made it! We're alive!"

Cumber nodded slowly. His smile, too, took a while to come. "We are. Not everyone was so lucky. There were many deaths in the City before the end. Zirus Jonquil, among others, and hundreds upon hundreds more. In fact, Zirus died trying to save you."

"I'm sorry to hear that. He was nice to me — nicer than almost anybody else of his kind. But what do you mean, trying to save me?"

"He and a bunch of folk from the Flower houses fighting against Hellebore's lot were following all of you," Applecore said. "The goblins helped them track you, but it gets very hard in the center of Midnight. I found them in the woods, trying to get to the lake, but I knew they wouldn't make it in time. That's why I came back by myself. Then, when they did get there, the rest of the constables and Foxglove and… and Poppy's father… sorry, Poppy…"

"Nothing to apologize for," Poppy said, but her expression had gone stiff and cold.

"Well, they fought back, even though Lord Hellebore was dead. Lord Foxglove was killed, and some of the guards, and Poppy's father was wounded, but Zirus and several of his troops were killed, too." Applecore sighed. "Anton Hellebore threw himself into the Well instead of letting himself be captured, the pig. At least they say it took him a long time to die. And of course, thousands were killed in the City, and there were terrible fires even after the dragons died. So nobody's felt much like celebrating these last few weeks."

It took a moment. "Few weeks… ?" Theo tried to sit up but couldn't. "Where… ? Have I been unconscious all that time?"

"Perhaps." Cumber too had more than a few healing scars, but there was something else about him that was also different — a gravity he had not possessed before. He's a survivor, Theo suddenly realized. If he were a mortal, I'd say he's grown up now. "We don't really know what you went through. You were under the water, you see."

"Under the water… Yeah, I suppose I knew that — even remembered it a little. But how did I get back here again? Wherever 'here' is."

"We're in the camp at the Old Fayfort Bridge," Cumber said. "Button's tent city has become sort of a temporary headquarters for… for the reorganization, I guess you'd call it. You see, the Parliament of Blooms is scattered, a lot of them dead or retreated to their country estates, so there's no one in charge here, really. Also, the big power plants aren't working any more and New Mound House is just a mass of smoking rubble, so this seemed as good a place as any — we never had much generated power to work with out here, anyway. And pretty much everybody knows now that this is where it all started, so they're showing up here from all over Faerie, asking to help. That, or trying to get a piece of whatever's coming next…"

"But I still don't know why I'm not living with the water-nymphs or whatever they were. How did I get out again?"

"We should let Primrose tell that story," Cumber began. "I think he'll be coming to see you later…"

"I have come now," declared a new voice. This time Theo found he could lift himself enough to see the tall shape silhouetted by daylight in the doorway of the tent.

"This is like the end of Wizard of Oz," Theo said. "You know, 'I had a dream — and you were in it, and you, and you…' "

Primrose shook his head. "I do not understand your reference, but this is certainly no dream. I too have been waiting to speak to you, Theo Vilmos. Or would you prefer to be known as Septimus Violet, now?"

"I think it's too late for me to change names," he said. "At least the Theo part. Speaking of which, you must be Lord Primrose now."

Primrose came closer. "I do not know. We may find that in the new world coming there are no longer lords and ladies. The goblins will have much to say about that, and others, too."

"Goblins! How is Button? Did he survive? Jesus, was he smart about everything!"

Primrose hesitated for a moment. "Yes, he is alive. He is well. He has asked to see you later. In the meantime, I will tell you my part of the story, although it is largely uninteresting, even the bargain I made for your freedom. The nymphs, like everyone else, are interested in having a stake in the changes that are to come. I offered them my help and they agreed, more or less."

"More or less?"

"It is nothing for you to concern yourself with. You are free of your nymph-binding, that is what matters."

Theo could not help staring at the band of rivergrass that encircled the fairy's wrist.

"Yes, well." Caradenus Primrose shrugged. "I suspect that even with the world upside down, enough of my family fortune remains intact that I will be able to ransom myself before spring comes and I have the urge to swim in any ponds or lakes. I owed you a debt of honor, Theo. I nearly killed you, after all."

"You didn't owe me anything. Actually, I think it's me who owes you something, now. Some information." The memory had been nagging at him since Primrose had appeared. The thought of Eamonn Dowd's crimes made him feel a bit queasy but he had no right to keep them secret. He reached for Poppy's hand, found it, and squeezed again. She reached across and spread her fingers on his chest as Theo turned back to Caradenus Primrose. "I have to tell you about what happened to your sister."

"But how could you know?" Primrose asked, surprise creasing his forehead.

"Know? Know what?"

"That she is dead. Her heart failed." For a moment even the Flower lord could not hide what was inside him, but then he composed himself again. "It is for the best, I suppose. It was just before we struck back at Hellebore, before the dragons came down on the City. Her nurses say that for a moment she was herself again, but so frightened they could not comfort her. Then she died. I saw her. She looked as though she was at peace at the last."

Theo swallowed. "Let me tell you what I know. In fact, since Cumber was out cold for most of what I heard, there are probably things in all this that none of you know yet."

It was hard to tell when an already grim fairy had become more so, but that certainly seemed to be the case with Primrose. As Theo finished his explanation, the new master of Primrose House rose and bowed.

"I salute you again for your bravery and your honesty. These tidings do not ease my heart much, I must confess — my sister suffered long and terribly, and must have suffered even at the end, when Dowd's spell was broken by his death and her wounded mind returned to its body — but it is better to know, I think, than to be ignorant. Still, after I pass the most important pieces of news along to Button I would be alone for a time."

"I'm sorry for what he did to your family, even if he wasn't my real great-uncle." Theo shook his head. "I liked him, at least from his notebook. It's hard to believe it was the same person."

"We enter a perilous country when we decide that because we mean well, or because we are largely good, that we are thus allowed to do something we know is wrong." The fairy paused in the doorway. "Oh, and Theo, Button would very much like you to come to him in the bridgehouse this evening." Primrose lifted a hand, his face somber, and walked out of the tent.

"I should go, too," Cumber said. "For now, I am nearly the only ferisher here that any of the powerful parties actually know, and decisions are being made in small groups and at surprise meetings that will be laws one day — may even be the stuff of learned books. You would find it most interesting, Theo — you'll be in more than a few pages of those books yourself, by the way. We are building a new Faerie from the ground up."

"When I can actually sit up without puking, I'd love to hear about it. I don't know how big I am on meetings, though."

"It is your future being planned, too." Cumber suddenly flushed. "Oh, I forgot. You'll be going back to your world."

"If it's still there, I guess I will," Theo said. "Did we stop the Terrible Child in time?"

Cumber smiled. "We think so. What scientific tests we have been able to do suggest that your world continues much as it always has, no better and no worse."

Theo noticed that Poppy had suddenly let go of his hand and was staring steadily at the fabric of the tent wall. "Poppy?"

Cumber cleared his throat. "As I said, I should be going. Core, can I carry you someplace, or would you like to stay and talk to Theo and Poppy a bit longer?"

"Core?" Theo saw that Cumber was blushing again. "Hold on, are you two, like… an item?"

Applecore gave him her most baleful stare. "Maybe. And what business of yours is it, boyo? You seem to have been keeping yourself occupied." Her face softened. "Meaning no offense, Mistress Thornapple. You make a cute couple."

"None taken," Poppy said, but there was not much life in it.

"But…" Theo stared at Applecore, then at Cumber Sedge. "But I still don't get it. I mean… how would… ?"

"Once the hospitals aren't quite so busy, one of us will probably have the operation," Cumber said, and now the blush was lighting him up like a neon sign. "I mean, me, probably. It's a lot easier to go large-to-small."

"Large-to…" Theo couldn't quite wrap his head around it, but he could tell it wasn't going to get any less weird no matter how hard he tried. "Whatever. I wish you both well." He paused for a moment. "That doesn't sound right, but I mean it. You're two of my best friends in the whole world — in any world. That's all I can say. I hope you'll be so happy together you wake up every day singing."

"Thanks." Cumber could not quite meet Theo's eye, but he was grinning.

"Pick me up, Theo," said Applecore, waving her hand at him. "Come on, I want to tell you something private, like."

He had already put his hand down for her to step into before it hit him. "Why… why aren't you flying?"

She looked at him in surprise, then her face twisted into a sadness that he now realized had been beneath the surface all along. "Ah, of course, you don't know, poor thing. You've been down with that soggy lot at the bottom of the lake." She hesitated a moment, then turned her back toward him and carefully pulled the top of her dress down over her shoulders, edging it lower until he could see the blackened stumps where her wings had been.

"Oh, Applecore!" His eyes filled with tears. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry."

"I'm not dead, Theo, and that's what counts. If Hellebore had pointed that finger another few inches to the side, I would have been, so I was bloody lucky." She made herself smile. "Besides, it gives me and Cumber something else in common besides what we already have — both being intellectual types, and both having a lot of practice at putting up with arsehole you."

He laughed even though he knew she meant him to, that she was only trying to get out from under his pity. "You didn't lose your charm, either — or your ladylike demeanor."

"Yeah, and you can shag yourself twice. You better watch your lip, Dolly the ogre's coming out soon for a visit and she still owes you a good thumping. Now lift me up — I told you I want to say something quiet-like." When he had raised her to his ear, she whispered, "Go easy on her, Theo — the Thornapple girl. For some reason no normal person could understand, she really cares about you. Also, she's going to have to help decide whether her father gets put to death or just imprisoned for the rest of his life — and remember, we fairy-folk have long lives. Whether or not she hates him, that can't be much fun. And one last thing. I was so afraid for you, and I'm just blindingly glad you're not dead. But tell anyone I said that and you will be."

When Cumber had carried her out — Applecore effected a ladylike farewell wave as they went through the tent door, like someone at the first-class rail of a departing luxury liner — Theo turned to Poppy. "Applecore told me about your father. That's bad. They shouldn't make you help decide."

She turned on him, surprisingly angry. "Yes, they should. Of course they should. Because I'm part of it — the old way. I'm the daughter of one of the men who destroyed Daffodil House, who murdered all those people and helped start a Flower War that destroyed half the City and plunged civilization back into the Forest Age. They need to see where I stand so they know whether I need to be imprisoned too. Well, I suppose it's more likely they'd just exile me, since I have people like Primrose and Cumber to speak for me. Anyway, it's perfectly reasonable." She softened a little, but still looked weary and unhappy.

"But if that's not what's bothering you…"

"What do you think is bothering me? You're going to go back to the mortal world, Theo. I heard you. The adventure is over and you're going to hop the first gateway back. That's fine. You have every right, you've suffered terrible things in a world that wasn't really yours for something that wasn't your fault, only the accident of your birth. But you can't expect me to be very happy about it." She stood, dry-eyed and angry. "I have to go now. I've been here all day and I have other things to do."

Just before she reached the door of the tent, Theo found his voice. "Poppy. Poppy, wait!"

"What?"

"Come back, please." He patted the bed. "Sit."

She did, like a cat with its fur up.

"First off, here. This is yours." It hurt to raise his arms, but he slipped the chain over his head and held it out to her. "Your mother's family moundstone, I think you said it was."

"I gave it to you."

"And it gave me strength when things were really dark. But it's yours, Poppy — something important from someone else who loved you. Take it." He closed her fingers around it.

"Fine. I'll be going, then."

He held her arm when she tried to stand, but was too weak to hold her. "Hey, maybe I do want to go back home — but did I ever say I wanted to go back without you?"

She looked at him suspiciously. "What does that mean?"

"What it sounds like. You're angry because you think I'm going back to the world where I grew up. Maybe I will. But why are you so certain I won't ask you to go with me?"

She frowned, but it was mainly to cover confusion and a hitch of sudden hope. "Why are you so certain I have my Clover Effect exemption — that I haven't already been there?"

"Have you?"

"No, as it happens, I haven't. But why would I want to go to your world, anyway? To get old and die, probably on my own after you leave me? Anyway, there are plenty of grown-up women in the mortal world who'll be better matches for you — women who know the things you know, the songs, the places, the names."

He laughed. "Grown-up women? Good God, don't you know you've been around long enough to be my great-grandmother?"

"Now you're just making fun."

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. Look, Poppy, you have to remember, I just woke up and the world — a world I hadn't really figured out in the first place — is suddenly completely different. I'm trying to sort it all out. I can't even guess at half the things that have happened since… since it all went down. Come on. Give me a chance." He extended his hand. At last she took it, then allowed herself to be drawn back onto the edge of the bed. "I do know I want to be with you, wherever we might wind up. You and me, Poppy. I want to… to try this thing out, this thing we've started. I don't pretend to know how love works, and I don't know much about these mortal-and-immortal relationships — well, immortal-who-thinks-he's-a-mortal-and-another-immortal -who-thinks-she's-too-young-for-him, to be more exact — but give us a chance to figure it out together, will you?"

"Truly, Theo? I hate pity. I'd kill you before I'd let you pity me." And with her Thornapple mask in place, she looked like she meant it.

"Truly."

She stared at him hard — not the Thornapple mask now, but not a lot warmer and fuzzier than that, either — and then seemed to make up her mind. She let go of his hand, but only long enough to climb into bed beside him and wrap her legs and arms around him. She put her warm mouth against his ear.

"Okay, so how weak are you?" she asked. "Really weak? Or just enough that you'll need a long nap afterward?"

He woke up at the sound of Cumber's discreet cough outside the tent. He got up, aching and wobbly-headed but more or less functional, and dressed by the light of the globe in the clean clothes that had been put out for him, a kind of white tunic and pants that to his eye looked something like the dress uniform from a karate academy. He pulled on the feather-light boots, then kissed Poppy on the cheek and left her to sleep.

"It took you long enough," said Applecore, sitting on Cumber's shoulder.

Theo fought an undeniable moment of jealousy at seeing her in her favorite position, but on someone else. "I'm not moving very fast." He looked around at the riverside camp, bright with campfires as a carnival midway. "So, we're going to see Button?"

"You are." Cumber seemed depressed, but with a ferisher it was a bit hard to tell. "It's an honor. Button isn't seeing very many people tonight."

Theo nodded. "Let's walk, then. I'm pretty hungry. And maybe you can tell me a bit more on the way about what happened while I was floating around at the bottom of the lake." He said it lightly, but it was in him still, the languor and green silence, like a dream from which he couldn't quite wake up. "The whole thing, the battle — I still don't quite get it. I know about how we helped Button bring those grims into the City, and I'm guessing they killed the dragons, but still…" He looked up, a little startled, as a gang of gnome-like creatures sitting around one of the fires called to him by name, wishing him a fine evening. Other passersby seemed to recognize him too, smiling shyly or even giving him a kind of salute. "What's with these people? What did you tell them, Cumber?"

"The truth, Theo. That without you it all would have failed. Zirus Jonquil and his troops would have been too late and definitely too little to stop Hellebore. He and his monster-child would have been in control of a power as great as that of the king and queen themselves — greater, perhaps."

"But even so, even with the grims… Hellebore and the others had all those soldiers, the parliamentary constables with their bee-guns or whatever, guards, armies. Even with the dragons dead, how is it that one of the other Parliament bigwigs didn't just take over?"

Cumber walked on for a way without speaking. "I heard Lord Hollyhock speak once, at a symposium at Daffodil House," he said at last. "Lady Aemilia brought me along as her secretary. You remember Hollyhock, don't you, Theo? He was a good man, very smart. Anyway, I heard him say that the Flower lords were sitting on top of the people of Faerie and thought they were riding the population as though it were a horse, but it was more like an unbroken dragon. There would come a point, Hollyhock said, that if the Flower lords didn't mend their ways, the beast beneath them would realize how strong it was and would simply shake them off and crush them. That's what happened. Button's revolution, if you want to call it that, made everyone aware that things could change. You see, not only the goblins were angry."

"But thousands of people must have died!"

"Not as many as you'd think. Hundreds in the first hours, when the constables still believed they were simply quelling a riot. But when the dragons fell and the people came out into the streets in real numbers… well, you have to understand that most of the constables aren't Flower nobility, they're just ordinary fairy-folk, not that different from Core or me. If you're a century-old shee fresh out of the Hawthorn suburbs, it's one thing to shoot at troublemakers who are trying to brain you with rocks or set you on fire with scattershot flame-charms, but another thing entirely to mow down ordinary men and women and even children — your own people — who are standing in front of you, refusing to do what they're told. Especially when you know, as many of the constables must have, that they are right and the people you serve are wrong."

"But if the Flower lords are out, who's going to take over? Who's in charge?"

"That's the question all right, boyo," said Applecore.

Cumber shrugged. "Nobody knows. That's why these are such important days. Come look at something, Theo." They had reached the edge of the bridge, and now Cumber led him up the spiral of stairs from the riverside. A pair of goblins with spears — Theo could not tell if they were grims or simply armed that way — stopped them at the top for a moment's quick examination, then waved them past onto the bridge. "Come over here." Cumber beckoned him to the edge of the bridge.

It took a moment of peering out into the night for Theo to realize that the great haphazard mass of dim lights before him was the City. "It looks so different. Like a dying campfire or something."

"Troops under control of the new council — it's fairies of all sorts now, goblins, even ferishers, working together, at least for the moment — have been sent to free all the slaves from the power plants, to close the places and lock them. There is no longer any power in this city that a person cannot make for himself or herself," Cumber explained. "Those are fires, candles, lanterns. A few radiance-charms, but most people are saving their strength for what is more important, making sure their families are fed and protected. The downtown area is dark, the buildings empty. It's a new world, and nobody knows what kind of world yet."

The last time Theo had seen the City it had glowed like the display in a jewelry store window, diamond and ruby and sapphire gleams, dazzlingly bright. Now it looked like all the gems had been replaced with amber and topaz — an ancient light, murky and mysterious, but somehow also satisfying. "You said the king and queen are gone."

"Vanished from the ruins of the Cathedral on the Old Mound. They might be dead — really dead, this time — but I doubt that could be true. Perhaps they've simply… moved on. Changed. Nobody knows. I suspect there will be whole university departments trying to answer these questions for centuries." He took Theo's arm and led him along the bridge. Cumber had changed. He had something now, a sort of reserve, an inner weight that made the rest of his traits seem to fit better. "Now go on," the ferisher said, pointing to the bridgehouse. "Button's waiting to see you."

"Pick me up for a minute, Theo," commanded Applecore.

When Theo had her safe, Cumber Sedge retreated a few steps to give them a little privacy. "Are you happy?" Theo asked her.

"With Cumber? He's a fine lad. Gentle and sweet as spring rain. A bit on the quiet side sometimes, but I've got enough to say for both of us." She looked at him, her little face owlish in the torchlight. "Don't worry about me, Theo. Yes, I'm happy. And whatever you do, I think you'll be happy, too. I just wanted to say… well, I'm proud of you. You're not anywhere near as much of an eejit as I suspected."

He laughed. "I'd like that in writing."

Applecore snorted. "Like any of your other friends can read." She stood on tiptoe, balancing herself with a hand on his jaw, and kissed him at the corner of his mouth, a touch as light and cool as a snowflake just before it melts. "If you don't come back to us, we won't forget you. And I'm not talking about Cumber's history-book nonsense, either. I'm talking about the ones who care about you."

"Like you?"

"Yeah, like me."

He lifted her up and kissed the top of her head as gently as he could. "I haven't had many real friends, you know."

"Could be your breath." She was scowling, but he knew better. "Now give me back to my boyfriend before he decides to come over and hit you with a grimoire or somethin'."

He had expected to be met at the top of the stairs by Button's ogre bodyguards but there was no sign of them. He was met instead by a trio of goblins he didn't recognize, all dressed in loose, colorful clothing, with knives stuck in their belts and various lines painted or tattooed on their faces. They did not seem delighted to see him, but there was no hostility, either: they bowed in a stiffly formal way, arms at their sides, and then led him into Button's apartment. A group of goblin musicians sat cross-legged in one corner, playing a soft but angular melody, and for a moment Theo was thrown back into that hour when the music was all that had saved him. Might it have saved more than that? Could goblin jazz have spared the entire mortal world from ruin?

What a concept! An overblown rock opera if ever there was one.

One of the instrumentalists nodded as Theo passed. It was Bottlecap, with whom he had shared a night of music and ghostweed, but the hush of the room and the air of ceremony kept him from stopping to converse. Still, Theo thought, it would be interesting to talk to him about what had happened on the little island, even to try to work out in actual music some of what he had experienced. Maybe someday…

Yeah, but I'll be going home, so that won't happen.

Theo had also anticipated that Primrose and some of Button's other closest confidants would be there, but other than himself, there were only goblins. He saw Doorlatch and a few others that he recognized from the camp, but there were far more unfamiliar faces, serious, wild-looking goblins in festival colors, many of them armed. At the center of the room, in front of a carpet laid with dishes and tea bowls, sat Mud Bug Button. He was dressed in white, as Theo was; he looked like an Indian holy man holding court in his ashram. He stood as Theo approached, reaching out to him with a taloned hand.

"Welcome, Theo Vilmos. It is good of you to come. I had feared you would not be well enough, and this would be a poor farewell feast without the most important guest."

"But… well, to be honest, I'm not a hundred percent certain I'm going back."

"Ah." Button sat down and directed one of the goblins next to him to pour tea for Theo. The person in question looked more like a warrior than a servant, but he did as he was asked.

When Theo had taken a few sips for courtesy's sake and allowed his dish to be piled with various savories — he had a quick if covert look to make sure none of them were field mouse-based — he leaned forward. "Where are Primrose and the others?"

"Caradenus is in mourning," Button explained. "He begged to be excused."

"He must have loved his sister very much."

Button looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "Yes. He did."

Theo said, "I'm amazed to be alive. I'm surprised so many of us are. Did you know it would work this way?"

For the first time, Button showed a little of his old, sly self. "If I told you I did, would you promise to tell that story to all who ask you? Then history will remember me as a genius of tactics — another Lord Rose. But to be truthful, hem, no. I hoped. Primrose and I made the best plan we could. We knew the goblins would fight after the stick was broken — that my people's anger was too hot to be contained once the treaty was ended. But did we know for certain that others would come out, that the streets would be full of discontent and rage? No. We could only do what was best and hope."

"But you did know that grims could kill dragons."

Again, Button smiled. "I knew that they could, yes, but even that was what might be called a gamble, and everyone knows that although we goblins love gambling, we are not always good at it." He turned to the goblin on his left, whose costume bristled with feathers and beadwork jewelry. "Otter, when you lived in the hills you killed a dragon, yes?"

The goblin looked at Theo, then rubbed his long nose. "Yes. My people called me 'Wormslayer.' "

"How big was it?" Button asked.

The one called Otter thought for a moment, then spread his arms wide. "Wings like this," he said. "One of the big ones." He went back to his solemn chewing.

"That would mean Otter's famous trophy was… hem… about ten or twelve feet long." Button laughed. "So you see, even the grims had little experience with the great worms. Again, we could only hope that arrows steeped in poison in their eyes and soft throats would have the same effect that they did on the monsters' much smaller cousins."

"My God! They were trying that for the first time?"

"War is often that way," said Button. "Now, eat. I would ask you more questions about what you heard and saw, what happened to you. Particularly of the Remover. The little I have heard is very surprising."

"But you're not eating."

"I am fasting," the goblin explained. "But the food is very good. Eat. You have been a long time asleep and I think you need it."

Theo really was very hungry, and although many of the tastes were unfamiliar, the food was good. As he answered Button's questions, struggling to remember the order in which things had happened, having to backtrack several times when he realized he had left out an important detail, he realized that goblin food and goblin music, just to name two unquestionably foreign things, were beginning to seem almost ordinary to him.

"So you yourself were the key," Button said at last.

"Just a tool."

"No. That was Hellebore's great error. He thought of you that way, but it was your mind and your heart that broke him. Now I will ask you a question, just as you asked me. Did you know that the irrha would take the child if it could not take you?"

Theo shrugged. "Like you said yourself — I hoped. I didn't have much time to think about it, really. I just remembered Dowd saying something about how a changeling and the mortal child he gets switched with have some kind of bond. I didn't really understand it, but there weren't a lot of other options. Also, I suddenly realized that I'd rather have one of those water-women get me than that thing."

"It would have been a quick death by fire or a slow death beneath the water," Button said thoughtfully. "They say that those taken by water-spirits come to love their captors before they die." He went silent for a moment and then shook his head. "There has been too much talk about death. Tell me more about your world. This is a feast, after all! I have been too much in the company of my own people lately, however much I love them. Tell me tales of your world, which has so recently escaped a terrible fate that it likely did not even know existed."

"I hope so — I'd hate to go back and find myself in the middle of the new Dark Ages or something." Theo paused. "Just one more question for you, if you don't mind — something I still don't understand. You said the goblins were ready to fight back, and it seems like the only thing keeping them under the thumb of those Flower lords was the treaty stick. Why hadn't anyone broken it before? Why were you the first?"

Button gave him a quizzical look. "Do you really want another goblin tale? Very well — I cannot refuse you tonight. I will try to make it a swift one. The answer is deceptively simple, Theo. First of all, most goblins did not know where the stick was kept. We supposed it would be hidden in some deep and well-guarded vault. It did not occur to us that the Flower lords knew so little about us, or cared so little for the danger we posed to them, that they did not understand only our sacred word bound us to them — our ancestors' promise in the form of the treaty stick. Primrose himself told me where it was. It was, hem, merely a curiosity to him, something he had stumbled across in the dusty back rooms of the Parliamentary Museum as he pursued his studies in justice and history. When he mentioned it to me, years after he had seen it, I realized exactly what it was and began to plan."

"But somebody must have known — there must have been goblin janitors or somebody. Why didn't anyone ever take it before? Why were you the one who broke it?"

Button was silent for a moment. "I suppose it is a bit shameful, in a way, that no one before me dared to do this thing. Yes, there may have been some that knew, but it was also true that no one wanted to face the death that would result from breaking that treaty."

Theo didn't understand. The goblins seemed a bit more gung-ho than that: it was hard to imagine them enduring servitude merely out of fear that many of them would die in a rebellion. He would never forget the wild warriors he had seen in Strawflower Square, calmly stringing their bows as the flailing black shadows came down on them from the sky.

"Enough of this," Button said suddenly. "I invoke my privilege as guest of honor. Tell me the tales of your world, Theo. Tell me of your life. Make me laugh."

"I'll do my best." He shrugged off the thoughts of war and worms, tried to think of the things he missed about the world to which it seemed he would soon be returning. He wondered if Button would understand why Johnny Battistini trying to parallel park a stolen ice cream wagon while ripped out of his mind on mushrooms was funny.

He told him the story. Button understood, or seemed to.

It seemed to be nearly midnight when he finally got up to say goodbye. Button also rose, and hugged him, a strange, wiry embrace that was not quite like anything Theo had experienced.

"I will miss you, Theo. It has been good to know you."

"Well, don't change my address in your Rolodex quite yet. I'm still thinking it over."

"Ah." Button took his hand for a moment, fixed him with those slotted yellow eyes. "I feel sure that whatever you do, you will, hem, take a little goblin music with you always." He let go of Theo's hand. "Go safely, Theo Vilmos."

"I like that better than what you said to me the last time we were together. What was that? Something like, 'We aren't promised anything but the last breath we took.' "

"Something like, yes. Goodnight."

No one was waiting for him outside the bridgehouse, Cumber and Applecore long since gone off to bed — and that was a personal arrangement Theo still hadn't completely wrapped his head around — but there were enough fires and torches burning in the riverside camp, not to mention the flaring stars, to make finding his way back easy. Something nagged at him as he walked, something about the way Button had spoken, the things he had said. On any other such night Theo would have let it go, but he was stone sober, having drunk nothing but goblin tea, and it was either that or think about his own still very muddled plans.

I'm not a mortal, but I think like one — so where do I belong? And if I don't go home to the mortal world, will they take back the farewell feast? He was full of questions, and found himself almost nostalgic for the old days, for the happy ignorance of going home blasted and blank. Here's another one — why did Button throw a farewell get-together for me and invite a bunch of wild goblins I don't know? Perhaps it was only the goblin's odd, semi-formal way of speaking, but the theme had come up several times, including Button ending the conversation about the breaking of the treaty stick by invoking his privilege as guest of honor.

But if it's a farewell feast for me, wouldn't I be the guest of honor?

And then it suddenly clicked, the whole strange way that things had gone, everyone's reticence and odd remarks. It was a goblin story, about the stick — he told me so. And they always have a hole in the middle. Button had said it himself, but Theo hadn't recognized it. "No one wanted to face the death that would result from breaking that treaty," those had been his exact words. Theo had assumed he meant the death of Button's fellow goblins in a rebellion, but he had been talking about himself. Those white robes — he hadn't been a holy man surrounded by acolytes, but a condemned prisoner, however respected, surrounded by his jailers. By his executioners.

Theo ran back across the camp as fast as he could but the bridgehouse was locked, the upper windows dark. He hammered his fists on the door but no one answered. At last old Doorlatch came out of one of the other buildings on the ramshackle bridge, wiping his eyes — whether because he had been asleep or crying, Theo couldn't tell. When he at last understood Theo's heartbroken ramblings, he tried to lead him back to his tent.

"There is nothing you can do," the goblin said. "Nothing. It is the law. Button knew that. He did what was best. He shall remain in us always — a great hero."

Theo would not be comforted by this and would not go away quietly. It seemed like he had been tricked, although if anyone had fooled him, he had fooled himself. He felt cheated of a final chance to say good-bye. Doorlatch had to summon half a dozen helpers, goblins and fairy-folk and one ogre bodyguard that Theo didn't recognize, to carry him back forcibly to his tent and Poppy.

The only thing he could think about, the only thing that made the pain the tiniest bit less agonizing, was that perhaps it had been easier for Button this way — one less weeping farewell, one less time having to listen to someone demanding the impossible.

Poppy, the child of a cold culture and a cruel family, did not try to make things better; poison was poison, she seemed to know, and had to be sweated out. She held Theo while he wept and groaned and shouted, and kept on holding him until, exhausted, he was taken by sleep at last.

43 THE LIMITS OF MAGIC

At the first light of morning he went to Caradenus Primrose, who invited him into his tent, which seemed to be both more sumptuous and more sparse than Theo's own, or any of the other riverside dwellings he had seen. The simple life seemed to agree with Flower-folk: like Button, Primrose could make a carpet seem like a throne.

He listened to Theo's impassioned plea for long minutes, but at last put up a long-fingered hand to stop him.

"You must listen, Theo Vilmos, please. We owe you much, but nobody owes you this. And even were it possible I could not grant it. I have not the power. I have no power anymore, at least not the sort that comes with privilege and birth. That may return — we Flower families still have many resources, and I do not think the world will be so completely topsy-turvy as some believe — but even if I did, I would not have stepped in and tried to change things. Button chose this path, knowing all along what would happen to him, whether after victory or defeat. It was his will and his wish." Primrose lowered his eyes for a moment. "But most of all, Theo… it is already too late. He is dead. The council of his tribesmen put him to death him last night."

For long moments, Theo could only sit, wiping tears from eyes that were already sore with weeping, trying to keep from losing his wits entirely. "H-he said… you were in mourning," Theo managed at last. "I th-thought he meant… for your sister."

"For her, too, but she has been lost to me a long time. Button was my brother, although we were from different worlds and peoples. He was my friend."

Theo looked up at Primrose's stiff, expressionless face. The mask of the Flower nobility, he had learned, was not always effective. "He said once that the two of you weren't friends, that you couldn't be. That you were… too different."

Primrose actually laughed, but it was a sound with a great deal of pain in it. "Then it only proves the goblin was not as wise as he usually appeared."

Theo dried his eyes with his sleeve. He felt empty except for the ache in his chest. "I… I don't think I like this world anymore. Can I really go home? Does the magic… the science… still work?"

Primrose thought for a moment. "I know of no reason why you cannot go back to your world, now that you need no longer fear the undead spirit that pursued you. Any reasonably practiced person can open a gateway for you to use. It is not the power of the generating plants that is needed for that, since no one will be trying to hide the gateway as they did when you were brought here, but the power that each of us in Faerie contain in ourselves. With a little study, I do not doubt you could do it yourself." He brought his hands together in his lap. "We will miss you, Theo. If you go, you will not be able to return — not until such a time as we can undo the Clover Effect, which was a work of great craft performed in an era when power was more freely available."

"To be honest, right now I don't care about returning." But he did care about Poppy, he suddenly realized. He needed her to go with him or it would all be meaningless. What use the memories of heroism, of life-and-death decisions, of beauty and horror, if he left behind the only truly good thing that had happened to him? He would turn into Eamonn Dowd, sour and bitter and maybe even driven mad by what he had lost. "I'll leave you alone now. I have to go talk to someone."

"Then go in peace, Theo Vilmos."

"You, too." He reached the door of the tent and looked out for a moment at the morning of a day that showed something of the stunning loveliness Faerie could produce. Even the distant City skyline seemed to him again, as it once had, a wondrous, supernatural thing, the tips of the towers not skyscrapers but minarets, elfin castles. He turned back to Primrose. "Will you make things better this time? Here, I mean. In this new age you're starting."

Caradenus Primrose did not quite manage a smile. "I hope so. We can only try."

"Yeah." He lifted a hand, suddenly feeling awkward. "Take it easy."

He had only gone a hundred paces or so when a fairy man he did not recognize emerged from the crowd of passersby and fell into step beside him. The newcomer was dark-haired, and of the same human-type as the Flower lords, but otherwise undistinguished. He kept his eyes down as he walked.

"I wanted to say good-bye," the stranger said. "And that I am sorry. I have done terrible things. I have much to think about."

Theo shook his head. Why did everyone know so much about his business? "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

The stranger smiled, still without looking Theo in the face. He had his shoulders hunched, as though he didn't want anyone to notice him, which was odd because he was already almost completely unremarkable. "You turned out to be quite clever, really — I admired what you did with the water-nymph. I don't think that was all just your true heritage coming out, either. There's something to be said for a mortal upbringing, after all — I'm beginning to think we're tougher than the fairies, in some ways. Are you called Theo Violet now, by the way?"

"Wait a second — who are you?" He grabbed the man by the shoulder, spun him around.

The man looked back at him, but even face-to-face he was still unfamiliar. The stranger's posture was that of someone ready to run away, but a sly little smile flickered around the edges of his mouth. "You haven't figured it out yet? Maybe I've given you too much credit."

"Dowd?" It seemed impossible, but suddenly he could hear the suggestion of that soft, strained voice coming from this far more ordinary throat. "But you're dead! I saw you die!"

"Come, Theo, that could have been a speech out of a Flash Gordon comic. You saw that body die. It's happened to me once before, as you know, and I survived it. Since then I've spent years trying to strengthen myself so I could eventually get into another, less… unpleasant… body than the Remover's. As it turned out, I needed every moment of that practice." He held out his arms like someone who had just performed an impressive conjuring trick — which, obviously, he had. "As my body died, I took refuge in one of Hellebore's guards. He wasn't a particularly nice man but I'm still not proud of forcing him out of his own flesh. The body and I were captured on the hilltop after Hellebore and the Terrible Child died — we were running away, of course — but we were let go after a few days. This fellow's been officially rehabilitated, you see, so I'm in the clear. There's no real guilt attached to being a foot soldier in the losing army, or even one of Nidrus Hellebore's private guard. So here I am. I think I'll head out to Ash or Birch, start over. Erephine is dead now, really dead. I have much to think about."

"I should turn you over to Caradenus Primrose — he's just back there. Or kill you myself!" Theo fought the overwhelming sense of unreality: this was the second time he had spoken with Eamonn Dowd, and both times it was after discovering the man was alive beyond all logic. "You helped to kill our baby. Me and Cat."

"There is nothing I can say except that I am sorry. Yes, I assisted Hellebore in delivering the spell. It was a madness that affected all I did, my desperate love and my anger at having been cheated. I think it has passed now. I certainly feel I see things more clearly. But perhaps that is just the effect of having a new body."

"I still can't let you walk away."

"Yes, you can, and in fact you will. Because if you don't, I'll be forced to take someone else's body to escape — not yours, but some innocent's. You won't stop me, no matter what you do. I will leap from body to body if I need to and many will die needlessly."

Theo stared at the stranger's face. He felt weary and sick. "So I have to let you go?"

"Yes, you do. In fact, I'm going now." The dark-haired fairy turned and walked away down a narrow street between rows of ramshackle dwellings, tents and lean-tos, a small thoroughfare crowded with fairy-folk of all shapes and sorts, talking, trading, living their lives. Within moments Eamonn Dowd was lost from sight among all the other refugees.

Poppy wasn't at the tent when Theo got back. He had been full of useful arguments, scads of convincing reasons why she should come with him back to the mortal world, but he suddenly found himself with nothing much to say and no one to say it to. In fact, he was stunned. Things had become altogether too strange. Dowd was dead but had come back. Mud Bug Button was dead and wasn't going to be making any reappearances. There lay the unfairness of life in a single nutshell, and it went pretty much the same way in Faerie as it did in the mortal world.

There's not much difference between the two when it comes to the important stuff — not really.

He sat for a long while in the doorway, staring out at the clouds and the play of light in the sky, listening to the racket of the camp's daily life. There seemed to be more children around than before, or at least they were being allowed to make more noise. Children always sound the same, he thought. No matter where they come from, what language they speak, whether they have fox-ears or yellow goat-eyes or whatever, they always sound the same.

It was a nice sound, he realized.

Good-bye, Button, he thought. I guess this is your epitaph — the sound of children playing. Goblin children, fairy children. There are worse things to leave behind.

Someone made a small sound and he looked up to find three faces looking down at him, one from a very great height. It was the nearest face that startled him, the goblin face, since he had been thinking of Button, but he hadn't seen any of them since he had returned from the lake-bottom and it took him a fraction of a moment to put names back on the familiar expressions.

"Streedy Nettle! And Mistress Twinge and Coathook, too. How are you all?"

The tall, shock-haired fairy did not look any better connected to reality than he had been before the downfall of the old order, but at least he looked calm and happy. He extended a long-fingered hand to help Theo up. "Hello, Theo," he said, and his cheeks colored. "Poppy's here. Not just in my head, but she's here. Every day."

"I know. It's good to see you, Streedy."

"She's nice."

"Yes, she is." He turned to the others. "So we all survived, huh?"

"More or less," said the pooka, then leaned toward him and lowered her voice. "Although eedy-Stray here doesn't know about utton-Bay just yet, if you get what I mean, so watch what you say. It's going to upset him and we want to have a wire around his ankle when he finds out so he's grounded and he doesn't set the whole camp on fire or turn us all into butterflies or something." She straightened up again. "Anyway, Coathook had something he needed to talk to you about and me and Streedy thought we'd tag along and say hello. So how's it hangin', roommate? I hear you've been pretty busy."

Theo shrugged. "Not by choice. Actually, almost none of it was by choice."

"Even so, the grapevine says you met the Big Guy himself."

"Big Guy… ?" For a moment he thought of Button, small slender Button handing him that card at the bus stop, and had to swallow hard. "Sorry, who would that be?"

Mistress Twinge took a moment to reply, applying a flame from her fingertip to an ugly turd-colored cigar. "The Big Guy!" she said through a cloud of foul smoke. "Robin Goodfellow, of course. He's pretty much the hero of my folk. The king's right-hand man, he used to be. Most famous pooka that ever lived. What was he like?"

Theo tried to remember, but much had happened since those moments on the black boat. "Sad. Wise, I guess, as far as I could tell. Kind of funny, too. He didn't like Hellebore much."

Mistress Twinge nodded happily. "A man of the people. I wonder where he is."

"Nobody knows?"

The pooka didn't seem much worried. "Now that Hellebore and the rest are gone, the binding-spells are gone too. He's probably sailing around with the king or queen somewhere. Getting a little well-earned rest."

"You think they're all still alive?"

The pooka leaned forward again, bringing a fog of tobacco fumes with her that would make a hyena squint. "Of course they are. You don't kill off any of those folks. They're like the stars, the moon. Like taxes." She stood up and gave Theo a hearty slap on the back that nearly dislocated his scapula. "We gotta get going now. Come on, Streedy, let's go make some of the new arrivals nervous. Theo, sorry to hear you're leaving, fella — I was going to teach you how to play Beetlebout for money, which would be a comfort to your declining years."

Coathook sat silently until Mistress Twinge had vanished whistling down the muddy street between the rows of tents, Streedy Nettle tagging along after her like a stork following a bulldog pup it had misidentified as its mother. The goblin blinked, then looked at Theo almost shyly. "You saw him last night. What was he like?"

It took a few seconds for Theo to understand, and understanding brought back pain. "I'm not sure I want to talk about it right now."

Coathook's clawed fingers closed on his arm — gently, but with enough force to tell Theo he didn't want the goblin ever to grab him for real. "Please."

He thought of this small fellow writhing on the floor of Elysium House, having taken real poison to facilitate Button's desperate plan. A desperate plan that actually worked, Theo reminded himself, marveling. "He was… well. Very well, considering… considering what was coming. We talked about what happened. He asked me to tell him stories about my world."

Coathook was looking down again. "I would like to hear those stories someday."

But I won't be here to tell them, Theo thought. Out loud, he said, "I hope I get the chance to do it. Did you know him?"

"Not well. Only from a distance. But he was important to me, in a way. He was my father."

Theo could not reply immediately. "You… you don't mean he was, like, your spiritual father, do you?" he said at last.

Coathook slowly shook his head. The swing of his long nose as he did so should have been grotesque, even comical, but it only reminded Theo of the strange world in which he found himself, where there was so much he still did not understand. "He fathered me. On my mother. In the usual way."

"My God, and you only knew him from a distance? Didn't you talk to him? Did he know?"

"I do not think he knew, although once or twice he looked at me as though something about me troubled him. But I was only a child of one of his early matings and so he did not recognize my name — he had never known it. My mother met him at the goblin academy. She was driven from her nest in shame when I was born fatherless, and took refuge in the countryside." He gave an uncomfortable shrug. "It does not matter now. He is dead. He is a hero. I am Coathook. I am not more or less because of him."

Theo thought of his own parents, of his lifelong struggle to make sense of himself by making sense of them, to justify himself by making them responsible for all they had done wrong to him, or failed to do for him at all. "That's all? Don't you care?"

"Of course I care. That is why I wished to hear from you of his last hours. I am on my way to the funeral ceremony, as are all the others of my people who are here, and I wish to think of him in wholeness, but that is all. I am one of them, one of the living, and he is not. Of course I care, but I have always lived my life without him."

"May outsiders go to the funeral?"

"It is not for you, only goblins. That is why he said his good-bye to you on the bridge, last night."

An honor, Cumber had called it, when Theo did not understand what he meant. Now he did. "Did you love him?"

Coathook threw up his hand, touched his forehead in a gesture Theo did not recognize, but which had the look of ritual. "As a son or as another goblin, proud of what he did?"

"Either, I guess."

"Then, yes." Coathook stood. "But today the sun came up again, as it always does. Thank you for your time, Theo. I must leave now. I have to go and eat my father."

Theo sat and watched him walk away, the small, dark-furred figure growing smaller and smaller. Even after Coathook had disappeared Theo still sat in the doorway, watching clouds and listening to the noises all around.

The three of them looked back at him, Poppy with a look of poorly concealed worry, Cumber curious but reserved, Applecore hiding whatever she was feeling behind one of the world's smallest but most concentrated looks of disdain.

"I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here," Theo said. "Sorry, that's a joke, and it's not a very good one because I actually did call you all here. I'm kind of nervous." He looked down at his hands, clutched together as if both sets of fingers were afraid the other set might sneak off. "I have a question I need to ask you, Cumber. About gateways and going back and forth."

Cumber Sedge nodded. "I had a feeling you might be wondering, Theo. The answer is, no, there's still no way to come back after you've been here and gone. Undoing the Clover Effect has been set back years. There was your uncle's way of returning, but nobody else will ever try anything that horrible and dangerous and the conditions probably won't arise anyway. So, again, no. If you leave, you are almost certainly leaving for good."

Theo smiled despite himself. "That wasn't the question I was going to ask, but thanks. What I was wondering is, can people from the other side — from my old world, the mortal world — still come over here? And can they leave again afterward?"

Cumber looked surprised. It took him a moment to respond. "You mean, are things still the same that way, too? Yes, I suppose so. We haven't had any visitors from there since… since everything happened, and you'd still have to get someone with an available trip to go fetch them. But yes, I think so."

"How about you, Cumber? You've always wanted to visit the mortal world. Applecore's used up her exemption but you haven't. Maybe you could take a trip. A short one, since I'm sure you wouldn't want to be away from Core very long,"— he gave the sprite a mocking look as he emphasized the nickname, then turned back to Cumber — "but enough to see a few things first hand that you've only ever read about. It wouldn't have to be right away."

Cumber looked at Applecore, then at Theo. "But why?"

"Because I have a friend back there named Johnny, just about the only real friend I had, who deserves to see this place — he would get a kick out of it like you wouldn't believe. He'd love goblin drumming, too. And if I can have that one friend come for an extended visit — he might even want to stay, who knows? Maybe we could fix him up with Dolly the ogre — then I think I won't really miss my old world all that much."

It was Poppy who understood first, but that was because it meant more to her. "You mean… you're going to stay?"

"Unless you're really, really hot to see the Golden Gate Bridge and visit Chinatown, yeah. Maybe someday Cumber and his science-buddies will find out a way to solve the back-and-forth thing, then we can go live there for a while. It actually would be fun to show you around. But I've been thinking about it all day and I realized that I don't have that much left to do back there. My unfinished business is here, learning about my fairy family, learning about the world itself, keeping an eye on… on old friends and acquaintances. Not to mention learning more about who and what I really am. And there's a ton of music I still need to hear. I bet there's even ferisher music, right?"

Cumber laughed. "Sort of. If you like that sort of thing. A lot of it is about farming. And sweeping."

"I'll probably love it. And there's probably even wilder stuff I need to hear — giant music, ocean-bottom-living, weird-ass nymph music, all of it waiting for me. What does my old world have to offer that's better? No, I realized I'd be going back just as a sort of, I don't know, way of living up to what my parents wanted. 'You can make it, Theo. You can make something of yourself.' But I have made something of myself — I've just done it here. And I have to admit, I'm interested to see what's going to happen next in this new world everyone wants to build."

Poppy had moved over next to him and had his hand tightly in hers. "We'll help, Theo. You and I. We'll help build it."

"Yeah, maybe we will. If I've learned anything, though, it's that I'm a much better musician than I am anything else. I sure as hell ain't a politician."

Applecore chortled. "No, you sure as hell are not, boyo."

"But by far the most important thing is that I have friends here — real friends. I'll miss some things about my old world — the way the sun looks on the trees in October in California, that's almost as good as anything here. And the fog creeping down the hills and stuff like that. But there aren't a lot of people left that I need who aren't here."

He turned and kissed Poppy. She kissed him back, and in the smell of her breath and the scent of her warm skin he knew that wherever he lived could, with a little luck, become the best of all possible places. With an effort of will he pulled back at last and looked over, a bit embarrassed, to where Cumber still sat with Applecore on his shoulder. They were both grinning at him.

"You don't inherit anything, you know," said Cumber, teasing. "Just because you stay here you won't automatically be a hero and you certainly won't be rich. No Violet family fortune left. It's all gone into Hellebore's assets years ago, and any property of his will probably be confiscated by the new council and sold to help pay for rebuilding."

"Didn't want it," Theo said happily. "All I want as an inheritance from my fairy family is some information. Maybe you could help me with libraries or whatever. As far as money and property, well, I've been living in tents practically since I got here. Why change?" He had a sudden thought. "There is one thing I just realized I miss. Cumber, if you do go back to my world to fetch Johnny for a visit, do you think you could get me another leather jacket? Oh, and you might as well bring back my motorcyle, too."

Cumber Sedge rolled his eyes. "It won't work here, Theo. Machinery from the mortal world won't run."

"No. But it sure will look cool."

Applecore had the last word, as usual. "You mean like when you walked into the freezer, fella?"

The four went out under the fierce stars in search of something to eat and drink. None of them had finished mourning and they all had scars of one kind or another, but even without a word spoken about it they shared an understanding now. As they walked, Theo suddenly fell quiet.

"Oh," he said at last. "Wow. I just realized something."

"What?" Poppy leaned into him.

"I couldn't go back to the mortal world anyway — not until they fix the Clover Effect thingie. We've all been talking like that's where I came from in the first place, but I didn't. I came from here. When I was a baby. So I've used up my exemption." He turned to Applecore. "You weren't leading me away from somewhere when you got me out of that cabin. You were bringing me home."

"He's right," said Cumber. "We didn't think of that."

"Ah." Applecore smiled. "See? Even when I don't know what I'm doing, I know what I'm doing."

"I'm glad you made your decision before you figured that out," Poppy told him.

"Home." Theo weighed the word for a moment, then took her arm and began walking again. After a while, he started to sing. Poppy joined him and their voices blended sweetly until the ferisher and the sprite chimed in and made it raucous and lovely and silly.

I think I get it, Theo decided, watching his friends make each other laugh until they couldn't speak. Applecore almost tumbled out of Cumber's pocket and Poppy was clinging to Theo so she didn't fall over either. You really can find Happily Ever After.

You just needed luck, then it was up to you to make it happen.

One day at a time.