Changeling (22 page)

“Ignore them, Changeling,” I begged. “They're just trying to get you to follow them. They can't hurt us as long as we know where we're going.”

Changeling swung her fist at one particularly persistent wisp. “I do know where I am going,” Changeling said angrily. “This is Worth. We turn right on Lafayette, cross the park, and then go left on Pearl.”

The will-o'-the-wisps fled, squeaking mournfully. Changeling looked after them, puzzled.

“I knew you weren't lost,” I said. “Now they know it, too. Let's go.”

We tramped down Worth Street, Changeling on the lookout for Lafayette, me on the lookout for possible dangers. Where were the giants and wyrms and goblins Astris had told me about? Were they watching us from the blank windows? Finding a heavy stone to drop on our heads? Why was everything so quiet?

When we turned onto Pearl Street, I thought it was empty, too. Then a shower of golden light dazzled my eyes and a voice soothed my ears like falling water.

“Children, children, whither wander you?”

The voice belonged to a huge golden bird perched on a lamppost. Its song was to ordinary birdsong as the sun is to a candle flame.

“Are you lost?” it caroled. “I can bring you safely home. Do you want gold? I can give you endless treasure. Friends? I can make you beautiful and charming. Fame? I can put your names in every mouth in New York. Only follow me.”

Changeling drifted nearer. As I hesitated, the bird promised me my heart's desire. It would lead me to Central Park, fix things with the Lady, get me an invitation to a changeling party and answers to all my questions. All I had to do was follow it.

I wanted to go wherever it led me. I really did. But a dry voice in my head that sounded a lot like the Curator kept telling me that quests don't have shortcuts.

“Don't listen, Changeling,” I gasped. “I think it's like the will-o'-the-wisps. Say the streets again, and maybe it will go away.”

I might as well have saved my breath. The bird took to the air in a scatter of light like the last rays of sunset, and Changeling took off after it—or she would have if I hadn't attached myself to her. She whipped around, trying to make me let go without tearing her beloved jacket. I hung on like a burr, and the bird fluttered around our heads, showering us with impossible promises.

Out of nowhere, a whistle blew, incredibly loud and incredibly harsh.

Three things happened at once. I let go of the jacket and covered my ears, the bird disappeared like a soap bubble bursting, and Changeling let out the saddest, loudest, most desperate wail I've ever heard.

I knew how she felt, but I couldn't help thinking that this was not a good time to call attention to ourselves. “We're on Pearl, Changeling,” I said as calmly as I could. “Do you remember what comes after Pearl?”

She stood in the middle of the street, repeating the directions to herself, and a giant walked into us.

It was only a little giant, as giants go—just big enough to see into a second-story window, not big enough to squash us flat. He knocked us over, then stood still, turning his head this way and that. Changeling, not surprisingly, went totally to pieces. She screamed and flailed and screamed some more. The giant tilted his face toward her, and I saw his eyes flash bright and golden, like polished coins.

A shiver went through me, more horror than fright. Clutching Changeling by the collar, I hauled her upright and pushed her flat against the wall. “Shut up,” I hissed. “I know you're freaked, but you have to be quiet. I think that giant's blind, but he's not deaf.”

She tried. She really tried. She managed to turn down her screaming to a strangled moaning, which the giant would have heard just fine if the street had stayed quiet and empty. But it didn't. All at once, kobolds, demons, wyrms, giants, and goblins started pouring out of the buildings and into the narrow street, filling it with the confused thunder of heavy feet.

Our giant shook his head and shambled away.

“We've got to get out of here, Changeling,” I muttered. “What's the next street?”

She shook her head, eyes squeezed shut.

“Let's see. It was north to Lafayette, left on Lafayette, left on Pearl. Or was it south to Lafayette?”

“You have it all wrong,” Changeling said irritably. “We turn
right
on Lafayette, cross the park, turn left on Pearl, follow Pearl down past Fulton, John, and Platt to Maiden Lane, then left.”

I grinned. “You're right. Let's get going.”

I soon realized that all the Wall Street Folk were as gold-blind as the giant, but it didn't make me feel any better. We sidled down the side of the street, hugging the wall and hoping nobody bumped into us. By the time we finally made it to Maiden Lane, I'd been frightened so long I was feeling sick. I don't know how Changeling was feeling.

Just as there were no pearls on Pearl Street, there were no maidens on Maiden Lane: only a couple of scurrying kobolds and two rows of grim stone towers that reminded me of the building where the witch had stuck the Hippie Chick. I wondered if we were going to have to climb up Fleet's hair to get to her apartment. I hoped not. I don't mind heights so much, but I hate climbing ropes.

I don't know how Changeling knew which building was the right one—maybe there were signs that only fairy eyes could see. In any case, she marched up to a wall that looked like every other wall and poked it firmly with her finger. After a moment, the wall asked who we were and what we wanted.

For some reason, this was too much for Changeling, who retreated into her jacket. “We're changelings,” I told the wall, speaking loudly and clearly. “We're looking for you, I think. Is your name Fleet? If it is, please let us in. Honey sent us.”

There was a pause and then the voice said, “How do I know you're not a broker?”

“A what?”

“Never mind. Honey sent you, straight up?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“That's easy for you to say. Brokers don't have hearts.”

I looked up and down Maiden Lane. The light was fading and the wind was picking up. A fat wyrm waddled past on stumpy legs. “You have to help us,” I said. “We're on a quest. And we're changelings, just like you. Please?” This last came out sounding a lot more panicked than I would have liked.

“Okay, okay.” The voice was resigned. “Hold on and I'll buzz you in.”

Later, Fleet and I got to be friends, but when I first met her, I didn't like her. If Changeling looked too much like me, Fleet looked too different. She was tall and slender, with polished cinnamon skin and black hair in a thousand little braids down her back like the statue of an Egyptian princess.

Usually I don't care that I'm kind of ordinary. Folk are supposed to be incredibly beautiful, unless they're incredibly ugly. But Fleet was only a mortal, like me. Plus, she kept shooting sideways glances at Changeling, like she couldn't believe she was real. And she totally refused to take us to the Dragon of Wall Street.

“Are you nuts? The Dragon's dangerous. When he chews you up, there's not enough left to spit out. My advice? Go home and forget about it.”

I could feel myself getting red and hot. “Go home? Forget about it? I wish. The whole reason I'm here at all is that I
can't
go home until I've completed my quest for the Dragon's Scales.”

“The Dragon's Scales?” Fleet shrieked so loud that Changeling flinched. “You're planning to steal the Dragon's Scales? You haven't got a chance!”

I got hotter. “Why not? I've already scored the Magical Magnifying Mirror of the Mermaid Queen and a pair of tickets to
Peter Pan
. And believe me, the Producer of Broadway is plenty dangerous to deal with.”

Fleet wasn't impressed. “Maybe you should quit while you're ahead. New York's a big city. There are plenty of other places to live.”

I wasn't so sure. What were my choices? The Financial Maze? No way. Broadway? No green things or sunshine. Battery Park? Where would I sleep? In Castle Clinton, with the ghosts? Chinatown was very cool, but not exactly homey. I could just imagine living in the Metropolitan Museum—if the Curator let me—and there were places in New York I hadn't even seen yet: the Upper West Side, Midtown, the Village, Chelsea. But I was willing to bet that none of them had nixies or corn spirits or Astris or the Water Rat. I didn't think I could bear it if I couldn't see Astris again. And what about the Pooka, stuck in the Museum being good until I got back? What about Changeling?

“No,” I said. “Central Park is home, and I'm not ready to leave it yet. Besides, I've got promises riding on this.”

“You shouldn't promise what you can't deliver,” Fleet said. “You don't see me promising to take you to the Dragon, do you?”

“Are you telling me you don't know how to find the Dragon?”

Fleet looked insulted. “Of course I know how to find him. Blindfolded. It's just that I know better.”

We were sitting in the living room of Fleet's apartment. Although it was smaller than my bedroom, it had a lot more furniture crammed into it: a round table with four chairs, a white sofa with a little table next to it, an easy chair, and a big bookcase stuffed with books. Drawings of giants and dragons and griffins and dwarves were thumbtacked all over the walls. Every flat surface was a jumble of papers and pencils and cups with mold growing in the bottom. Fleet was hunched up in the easy chair, fiddling nervously with her braids.

“Why are you so scared?” I asked. “It's not like he'll eat you or something. Aren't you under his protection?”

“I'm under his protection, all right.” Fleet's pretty mouth drooped. “Way under. You are looking at one of the Dragon's Executive Assistants-in-Training.”

“What's that?”

“The Dragon's very busy. He needs someone to keep Folk from interrupting him and to make coffee and appointments and things like that. He always has at least three maidens on hand, working in shifts. When one of them retires, one of us gets promoted.”

I wondered what happened to retired Executive Assistants, and decided I didn't really want to know. “And you're not looking forward to the promotion?”

Fleet laughed. “You could put it that way. It's all finance and systems and keeping everything neat and organized—in other words, totally not me. I'm an artist, really.”

“You are obviously not an organized person,” Changeling said from the corner. “Your books are out of order.”

I hadn't even known she was listening. As soon as we got upstairs, she had gone to sit cross-legged in front of the bookcase. Apparently, she'd counted enough books to calm herself.

“I like them that way,” Fleet wailed. “See? It's hopeless. Sooner or later, I'll do something really dumb and the Dragon will eat me and that will be that.” Her velvety brown eyes filled with tears. She blotted them with her sleeve before they could spill over. “I'm miserable, but I'm not miserable enough to want to be eaten.”

I knew exactly what she meant. Suddenly it didn't matter so much how beautiful she was.

“I understand,” I said, and when Fleet looked doubtful, “No, really, I do. The Folk don't care whether we're happy or not. They only care if we follow their stupid rules. And if we don't, whammo! We're Folk food, and we don't even know why. It's not fair.”

“You said it, sister.” Fleet smiled at me, beautiful as a fairy-tale princess.

Princess. Hero. I had an idea.

“Hey, Fleet,” I said slowly. “How about if in exchange for you leading us to the Dragon, we rescue you from him?”

“Say what?”

“We rescue you. You know, like the old stories about knights and damsels in distress? What do you say? Is it a deal?”

“And how are you going to do that?” Fleet asked sarcastically. “You got a dragon-killing sword in that satchel of yours?”

“No,” I said. “It's not that kind of quest. Besides, you can't just go around killing Geniuses.”

“What have you got in mind, then?”

“I'll come up with something. I've done it before. Besides, I have the Magical Magnifying Mirror of the Mermaid Queen and Changeling knows how to work it.”

Fleet gave an unhappy laugh. “Which leaves us with what? A kid with a trick makeup mirror and a fairy double against a Genius of unimaginable size and power guarded by one of the best security systems in New York Between. Even a country girl like you can do the math on that one.”

“We've got this far, haven't we? What are the odds against that?”

I hadn't meant it as a real question, but Changeling answered it anyway. “There is insufficient data to calculate the odds. But it is safe to say that they would be very, very high.”

Fleet shrugged. “Very funny. Okay, Folklorist from Central Park. What do you know about dragons?”

The real answer was, “Not enough.” But I was getting used to working with what I had. “They've all got a vulnerable spot,” I said. “If we could find out what the Dragon of Wall Street's is, it would give us something to bargain with.”

“Oh, I can tell you that,” Fleet said gloomily. “The Dragon of Wall Street is blind. Not that it slows him down any.”

Too easy. I shook my head. “That can't be it, then. There's got to be something else, something he's hiding. I'm sure Changeling and I can figure it out, if we can see him.” I put my hand on Fleet's arm. “Please, Fleet, take us to the Dragon. It'll turn out fine, you'll see.”

Fleet got up and paced between the window and the back wall a couple of times, dodging cast-off shoes and piles of papers. She looked at Changeling quietly rearranging her books in alphabetical order, and she looked at me.