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Chapter One

“You’re not thinking of trying to get past Herself, are you?” I ask Jim Throat.

The big guy laughs. He’s strapping his sword on him like a knight, like you don’t see on the Outside anymore except in pictures and parades. “We’re late, Twitch, and out of options.”

“Late?” I ask. I’m up to my knees in floating wreckage. We all are. It’s hilarious, and it doesn’t feel like we’re late. It feels like we’re too late. The joke’s been told. Not only has it been told, but it beat the stuffing out of us all in the telling. My head hurts, I have blood in my hair, and, judging by the scrapes, bruises, and blood on the others, I might have got off easy from our encounter with the boar-headed Prince of Hell, Semyaz, and his thugs in the Silver Eel.

“The equinox,” Jim says. “The Liminal Year.” I’m not sure what he means. “If you have a better plan, now’s the time to tell me.”

Adrian Keys already has stuff in his pockets, but he’s cramming in more. There’s the Eye he has no idea how to use and candles and string and maybe a dead mouse. And that gum he’s always chewing. He’s got nice breath, Adrian.

“I don’t think I can think of a better one,” I admit, “but aren’t I allowed to feel sad that our choices are so few?”

“Just don’t cry,” Eddie Guitar grunts. Eddie has one bad eye, and it slides off in the wrong direction as he’s talking. He’s got stuff in his pockets too, but it isn’t wizard-stuff—no dead mice. It’s pocketknives and wire and bullets. In his hands he has his long boomer. “You mean Mab, I guess?”

“Close. Only much worse.” I have my fighting sticks; that’s all I need. We all wade through the ruined restaurant and bar, picking up our stuff after taking a serious beating from some of the major Fallen. There are dead bodies all around, and parts of dead bodies. Some of them look human. The Infernals are funny, all right, though I sort of feel like I’d like to hear a new joke now and then.

“Stop!” says Mike Bass. He’s the big one, and the way he’s shoving candy bars and booze into his pockets, he plans on getting bigger. “Just for once, can’t somebody tell me what’s going on ahead of time?”

Jim Throat nods at me. I guess he’s done speaking, and no wonder, if we’re going to have any stealth in our approach. I don’t know if it’s true that Jim’s father can hear him talking, but Jim seems convinced of it.

“Sure,” I say. “There’s a special road our Jim here wants to walk, a very old one. We’re going to have to go through the Mirror Queendom to get to it, and we’ll have to deal with the guardians. The biggest of the guardians is Herself.”

“What road?” Eddie asks.

“Guardians?” Mike adds.

“Creatures that will try to stop us. Herself, for instance, is a sort of reptile. The road is the Crossroads. It’s the oldest road, and one of the fixed points of the Queendom.”

Herself is Rahab the dragon,” Adrian Keys says. Adrian always knows just enough to get himself in trouble, and a good deal less than he thinks he knows.

“Dragon?” Mike Bass asks. “Like Sleeping Beauty?”

“Like Isaiah,” Eddie Guitar mutters. “Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”

Cagado,” Mike says. “That sounds bad.”

“Nah,” Adrian tells him, snapping the chewing gum in his mouth, “it’s cause to be optimistic. It’s a dragon who can be killed.”

“Wounded,” says Eddie. “And it doesn’t even say wounded how bad.”

“That’s right, big fella,” I say to Adrian. “It’s cheerful.”

Mike looks at me with that hurt look, so I show him udders. It’s funny to see him go all red in the face and confused.

“No, it ain’t,” says Eddie. He stuffs even more boomer shells into the pockets of his jacket, which has the sleeves ripped off it. “Rahab was wounded by the Arm of the Lord. Which we ain’t got.”

“Thanks,” Mike mumbles. “That spark of hope I was feeling disoriented me. I needed someone to kill it.”

“‘And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand,’” Eddie says. “‘And all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.’”

“‘Song of the Sea,’” Adrian says. “The song of Heaven’s triumph over Rahab the chaos dragon.”

“What’s a timbrel?” Mike asks.

“Go to hell,” Eddie tells him.

“Don’t feel bad,” I say to Mike. I swish my tail to be shiny for the big guy. “If we die, we’ll all die together.”

Jim holds up the mirror in his hand. I hiss, already feeling the Push against my body, but I don’t show it. I’m not really sure I’ll be able to get to the Crossroads, but it sounds like a good plan, so I’ll try.

I still don’t know quite what Jim’s hurry is.

“I guess you know the way?” Eddie Guitar asks me.

Ah, Eddie. Always wanting to be sure everything is under control. And the great big fat joke on you, Eddie, is that nothing is ever under control. “Of course.”

Adrian says a short incantation and touches the mirror. It opens. I feel the Push immediately, like hands all over my body scratching and punching me and trying to throw me away. The Push makes me feel sad. And lonely.

I try not to let my face show anything. The others won’t be able to feel the Push because they’re humans, or whatever they are, and not Outcasts. There aren’t many Outcasts. You have to really make Mab angry to get thrown out. And if you make her too angry, she just kills you. It’s a fine line.

Jim doesn’t wait. He grabs the hilt of his sword and steps through. At least he doesn’t actually draw it; the Rangers will look on us with enough hostility without our actually having bared weapons in our hands.

“Once more unto the breach,” Adrian mumbles. “Et cetera.”

Mike Bass is breathing hard. “Keep your eye on the ball, Mike,” Eddie tells him, patting him on the shoulder. “We’re just passing through, and the destination ain’t far.”

“That reminds me,” I tell them both, and also Adrian. “Don’t eat anything.” I show them a boy, because I don’t want to distract Mike so much that he misses my words. Though that might be very funny.

“Why not?” Mike asks. “Is it poison?”

It is definitely funny to leave him hanging. I fight against the Push and step through the mirror into the Outer Bounds.

In the moment of transition, I spare a tiny thought for Pulse. Is he where I left him? I wonder. He must be. He’s probably been laughing his head off without stop since we parted ways.

The light changes immediately. From the weaving, unnatural blue light of the long, skinny bulbs in the bar, it switches to the patchy gloom and dull glow of the Outer Bounds, shafts worming through the darkness from every direction and intersecting in a beautiful yellow-white lattice like a spider’s web stretching forever in all directions. It’s not home, but it’s closer to home than I’ve been in a long time, and I’m going to get closer still.

I feel … sort of excited.

Two of the Queen’s Rangers are already there, leather on their bodies and their legs, tree-and-lightning-bolt symbol on their chests, and weapons in their hands. I know them, and if I didn’t, they’d know me.

“Outcast!” hisses the larger one. He’s showing a bear, but the tail hanging off his rump might belong to an iguana the size of a horse. Well, getting called names tends to dampen my enthusiasm just a bit. Even if they’re technically correct.

“Buzz,” I nod to him, and then to his companion. “Flit.”

Adrian enters the Outer Bounds behind me, and we both step cautiously aside. We have to make room for Mike and Eddie to join us.

Flit’s showing girl to everyone, but she has her fox’s tail. Anyway, I’d know her by her face. “You came back once, Twitch Pony,” she says. “Mab let you off that time. You shouldn’t have come back again.”

I shrug, because what else can I do? “Fine.”

The Rangers both raise their spears and point them at me. The spears are sharpened wood, so I keep a careful eye on them.

“Fine?” asks Buzz Bear. “We have to kill you.”

They both hop from one foot to the other where they stand. They’re nervous about Jim. He glares at them, then leans back to rap hard against the mirror out of which we’ve just stepped.

“You, though,” Flit says, pointing her spear at Jim. “You come with us.”

Eddie Guitar slides through the gate. He pumps his boomer as he steps into the Outer Bounds and puts on an I-mean-business face. He looks around at the staircases arching overhead and the shafts falling through the floor and the passages that seem to bend away and come back to the same point before Outside geometry would permit them.

“No one’s actually shooting at us,” he says. “That’s nice for a change.”

Yet,” says Adrian. “Give them a minute.”

Mike touches the ground immediately at his shoulder. Mike has his shooter out, too. “I’ve seen you eat … human food,” Mike says to me. “Why can’t I eat … uh, fairy food?”

The gate closes behind Mike.

“I had to get used to it,” I tell him. “The first thing I ate was a Chocodile, and I thought I was going to die.”

“No!” squeals Flit Fox. “You don’t have a minute, and you can’t eat! Abandon the Outcast and the half-devil and get out of the Mirror Queendom.”

They know who Jim is. They’re scared of him, but they want him.

And they’re hesitating. I guess it’s because they worry about the Outsiders I have with me. As they should. My Outsider friends aren’t just any ordinary companions; they’re a rock-and-roll band.

I show the falcon, and I spring high into the air. I find a stone lintel that juts out far enough, and I perch on its edge. The Outer Bounds around me wheeze and scuttle, making the slow groaning sound that comes from so much stone shifting on its thousand, thousand axes.

Flit shows a swallow, and with two flaps of her wings, she joins me on the lintel. It’s wide, too wide to be comfortable because Flit shows girl again and points her spear at me. It’s lethal, that wood is, not blunted by Outsider hands and smelting. I ease out my fighting sticks and show Flit my teeth. She shows hers back. It might be romantic, except that we’re armed and we both mean business.

“We’re too many,” I say to Flit. “Don’t even try it. Do you want to be hurt?” I mean it. I don’t want to injure Flit Fox or any of Mab’s Rangers. I’m in enough trouble as it is. I just want to get through as quickly as I can.

Flit fidgets. She waits, keeping her spear between us.

Below us, Buzz roars. He lunges forward on all fours, teeth snapping.

Jim is ready for him. The tall singer steps to one side, and he avoids the easy mistake. He leaves his sword at his belt and just kicks Buzz in the muzzle. When Buzz yelps and falls forward onto his face, Jim Throat grabs him and drags him across the chamber. It doesn’t pay to underestimate Jim.

Flit stabs at me, and I catch the spear. “Wrong move,” I tell Flit, and then I show her the pony. I kick with my rear legs, knocking her wings-over-tail off the lintel. The spear falls clattering to the floor and I fall with it. I slow my fall by showing the falcon and glide to a landing showing girl. Easy. I’m very good at this.

Caray,” says Mike. He’s right. This is not a promising start.

Jim throws Buzz Bear down a hole in the floor and waits. When Buzz reappears two seconds later at the edge of the well, showing lizard and frantically scrabbling for a grip, Jim pounds the Ranger in the snout with a clenched fist. He knocks Buzz spinning back down into the well.

“And stay down!” Eddie snorts. He’s still standing with his boomer, looking tough.

“You won’t escape the Rangers, devil’s son!” Flit Fox yells, and zips out of sight under a low arch. Her warning is unnecessary. Buzz’s roar has already alerted all the Rangers in earshot, and that’s likely to be very many of them. Flit will be back, and she won’t be alone.

“Which way?” Adrian asks me. He could probably figure it out if he had to, he’s clever enough with languages and magic spells and secret stuff, but as it happens, I know where to go.

“In,” I tell them, and I cut past two false hallways and into a doorway that they don’t see. It’s showing wall, but I know it’s a door, and I step right into it.

“Damn,” Eddie mutters, but he’s smart enough to follow me.

Mike Bass’s teeth chatter as he steps in through the door. “This Rahab,” he asks. “Is it in the Moses half of the Bible?”

“Why do you care?” I ask. Silly book. All books are silly, vain attempts to put pins through reality to make it hold still, when it won’t, might as well pin water to a board. But any book written by someone who’s that desperate for you to see him as the hero, well, you know it won’t be trustworthy.

Mike puts his hand in the pocket of his leather jacket. He’s holding on to one of the bottles he picked out of the wreckage of the restaurant, I guess. “Dunno,” he says. “Everything from the Moses half just seems meaner.”

“If you’re hoping someone’s going to tell you that Rahab’s a big softy,” Eddie says, chewing his words because he thinks they’re so good, “it ain’t gonna happen.” Even here, his bad eye slides to the side every few minutes. He sees visions, Eddie does, and they aren’t happy ones.

“I’m just hoping that one thing, for once, will turn out to be easy.”

Adrian laughs. “You’re in the wrong band.”

I lead them past three archways, each taller than the last. They look tempting, with light spilling down from windows high above into broad courtyards, and I can smell cinnamon, but I know they’re traps. I know this place. Besides, I can hear the breathing, and the echoing thumps of feet and paws.

Instead I turn sideways to edge through a crack in the wall. Three arm-lengths in, it opens up, and I find myself standing on a wide mezzanine. A stone balustrade keeps me from a long drop, and stairs roll down, double-wide, to the floor below. Beyond the stairs are a chasm in the floor and a bridge across it.

Massed on the stairs are a dozen Rangers. They crouch fiercely, protected by layers of leather and a bristling wall of wooden spikes.

Flit Fox is one of them. She stands slightly behind the others, raising her spear and pointing it at me.

“Twitch Pony!” she cries. “Outcast! Surrender now!”

Here we go. I ignore her because of the silly things she says. Instead, I show them the falcon and leap into the air.

A rattling storm of wings shakes the Outer Bounds, and many of the Rangers follow. Rooks, starlings, thrushes, mockingbirds, and even an owl fight among themselves for airspace, snapping after me. The room behind me sounds like an enormous cloak having the dust shaken out of it by its giant owner.

I swoop close to the wall, where ornamental columns are staggered in climbing rows. Their pedestals and capitals are leering skulls, stone flames in their eyes and tongues lolling over their crumbling teeth. I’d laugh if I weren’t so occupied. Instead, I show girl, kick my heels into the forehead of one of those skulls, and take my fighting clubs into my hands as I spring back at my foes.

This surprises them. I laugh and lay about me, thump-a-ta-thump-thump!, a basic, bouncy little rhythm, and Hop Badger tumbles out of his badger-tailed crow showing, hitting the ground with a heavy thud as I land beside him on my toes. I roll forward with the fall, ignoring Hop’s groans, and swing around me again. Another of the Queen’s Rangers falls, clutching her head, and then I show the falcon once more. I flap my wings and push through a descending hail of feathers to head in the opposite direction, ceilingward, past and beyond them.

Mab’s Rangers mostly train to fight Outsiders who get lost and lucky, or terribly unlucky, depending on your point of view, and accidentally come into the Outer Bounds. Outcasts are rare, and Outcasts who try to return are rarer still. The Rangers are well armed, but they’re not really ready for me.

They’re not really ready for Jim Throat, either. As I swoop above the staircase, owl pecking at my long tail, I see that Jim’s taken Flit Fox’s spear away from her. He’s beating the Rangers around him with it, the wood bruising them where steel would be unable. He could easily be stabbing them with the poky end, so the fact that he isn’t means he’s deliberately holding back. He doesn’t want to anger Mab and Oberon, maybe. The Rangers reassemble showing birds and swarm back at him, but then Eddie Guitar is at Jim’s side, raising his weapon.

BOOM!

It’s a loud gun anywhere. Inside this stone chamber, it’s enough to wreck one’s hearing. The slug tears through the cloud of flying Rangers. If they were normal birds, they’d be on the stone and dying, but because they’re really Mab’s children, instead they’re knocked back in the air, leaving Jim free to keep wreaking havoc with his borrowed stick.

Adrian and Mike come up at the rear. The big guy keeps poking Adrian in the ribs, which probably means he’s trying to stop the wizard from falling asleep. Adrian doesn’t sleep more than other men. He just sleeps at all the wrong times, poor boy. He’s looking through the Eye, muttering as he does, and clutching his bit of candle wax. I’ll have to stay out of his way if I don’t want to get my tail singed. When he comes through, Adrian comes through in a big way.

Jim crashes down through the Rangers. He looks all wrong, wearing his jeans and his loose, long-sleeved shirt almost like a tunic or a blouse. He looks out of place, but he rolls through the Rangers like the Juggernaut. He hits the bottom of the stairs as I circle around the mezzanine again, landing and showing the pony.

Buzz Bear is at the top of the stairs. He’s decided to leave the Outsiders alone and face me. He’s bruised about the face and his tail is kinked, which is probably why he looks so unhappy.

“You don’t belong here anymore, Pony,” Buzz growls. “Can’t you see that?”

He stabs at me and I rear up, lashing out with my front hooves. I knock him back a pace or two and then for good measure I kick out backward, too. I don’t know what I hit, but it yelps.

I quickly switch to showing girl and flash my teeth at him, waving my fighting sticks in invitation. “Why not, Buzz?” I ask him. I spin around and poke Amble Owl in the throat with one of my sticks. He goes down with gargle. Others are with him, and I pound one or two and then spin aside, getting under Buzz’s next attack. I throw him into his friends and retreat to the top of the stairs.

“Look at what you’re doing!” Buzz’s face is purple, he’s mad. “You’re invading the Queendom!”

“No, I’m not,” I say, and I mean it. I borrow Eddie’s words. “I’m just passing through. Stay out of my way, and no one will get hurt.”

But they aren’t getting in my way, not most of them. Most of them are trying to pile on to Jim Throat. I see from the top of the stairs that I’ve only distracted a few of them, and the rest are after him.

Maybe it’s because he’s in front, I tell myself, and I take a few quick swipes at Buzz. He shows bear and snaps at me with really big teeth, but I’m too quick for that. I show falcon in a split second, and a flap of my wings takes me over his head. I show boy against the wall and kick off against it, pounding Buzz in the face with my fighting sticks. Girl is more acrobatic, but boy has stronger arms. Buzz is not going to feel good tomorrow.

But maybe it isn’t that, after all. Maybe all they really want is Jim.

I shove a stick down Buzz’s craw, forcing him back, and I point down at Jim with the other. “You’ll never get it, you know,” I say to him. “It’s his by right, really. Best give up now and get out of our way.”

The light in his eyes tells me Buzz knows what I’m talking about. It also tells me he isn’t happy, so I show girl and jump back to the balustrade. He lunges, still showing bear. That’s a fierce form, all right, with lots of teeth, but I leap high into the air and he misses.

I flip backward. It feels good, so I flip right back over the balustrade and show falcon so I can glide to the ground. Buzz Bear and Amble Owl poke spears at me, but they miss. While they’ve been drilling in the Queendom’s gardens and throwing out wandering apprentice wizards like so many bouncers, I’ve been dodging Zvuvim and the Fallen. They’re no match for me.

They might be a match for Jim, though. Only because there’s an awful lot of them.

He charges into a knot of Rangers on the narrow stone bridge. More Rangers rush him from behind, and I see Mike and Eddie ducking out of the way as Adrian raises a handful of his pocket trash.

I show falcon and veer to the side.

Per Volcanum ignem mitto!” Adrian shouts. That one’s his favorite. It’s big and showy, and it packs a real kick.

A gout of flame explodes out of his candle and the Eye. It knocks down several of the Rangers, and they don’t get up. Most of the others run, scattering with singed tails in all directions. My own tail feels warm, and as I land on the far side of the chasm, I check it; its tips are black and crisp.

“Mab’s pointy teeth!” I snap.

Adrian has done well, and so now he crumples over. Mike has him by his shiny silver jacket and is trying to keep the wizard from falling into the chasm. That’s good, this is a deep one, and Adrian Keys doesn’t have a flying form to show. He’s more of a stand-in-place-and-draw-circles sort of wizard, who can once in a while let fly a good bang.

I show falcon and cross to the bridge to help. I land showing pony and whinny to get Mike’s attention. Mike slings Adrian across my back and steadies him.

Behind me, the Rangers regroup. I hear Eddie pay them some close attention.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The boomer won’t kill them, not unless Eddie’s loaded in some strange ammunition, but it’ll sting, so they’ll duck and try to stay out of the way, and if they get hit they’ll be knocked back. I move forward. Adrian’s snoring body on my back makes me more aware of the Push that continues to operate against me, shoving at me with every step. It’ll get worse once we’re out of the Outer Bounds, and again I wonder about my ability to actually get to the Crossroads like Jim plans.

I snort to show I don’t care, and I follow Jim.

He slams one Ranger’s head against the floor and then flings her into the air. The Ranger shows dazed whooping crane and sags in a descending circle over the crevasse before she manages to crumple onto the stone floor behind me. Jim kicks another Ranger who isn’t so lucky and shows basset hound as he goes yipping down into the darkness.

For just a moment, the way ahead is clear.

But then I hear a terrible buzzing sound.



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