The Water and the Wild Read online

  “Mermph!” she coughed, spitting out soil and gravel.

  “Did I promise safety?” asked Fife, looking guiltily over at Lottie and shaking gravel out of his hair. “My mistake.”

  “It was more exciting than tree climbing,” Lottie admitted, rubbing her nose.

  This seemed to satisfy Fife. “Don’t we do things better in our world?”

  Lottie nodded hesitantly. Then she paused. Then she shook her head. “Oliver told me this place is supposed to be my city.”

  Fife yanked an iris out of the ground and began brandishing it in the air like a conductor’s baton. “Hmm, yes,” he said dazedly. “Of course it is.”

  “But it’s not my city.”

  “No,” Fife said, tilting his head curiously at Lottie, “of course it isn’t. Your city is in Earth. Our city is in Limn. Haven’t you ever been taught geography? Our cities are piled on top of each other like layers of a cake. The apple trees are what connect them.”

  “You mean,” said Lottie, “that Earth is connected to your—what did you call it?”

  “Limn,” said Fife. “Yes. That’s where you are.”

  “Then, when Adelaide took me down that tree, she was really taking me—”

  “Between Earth and Limn!” said Fife, waving his iris baton under Lottie’s nose. “Simple. See?”

  Lottie nodded slowly.

  There was something about Fife that made Lottie want to believe. Maybe it was the floating.

  “So, is this the only city in, uh, Limn, or do you all have your own Kemble Isle?” Lottie asked.

  “Kemble Isle?” Fife stopped his conducting midwave and dropped the flower, looking confused.

  “The island,” said Lottie. “The island where you live. Where I come from, we call it Kemble Isle.”

  “Oh.” Fife laughed. “We call ours Albion Isle.”

  Lottie thought about this. “I like your version better.”

  “So do I,” said Fife.

  Lottie looked around the garden where they sat. Irises bloomed in thick clumps and sprawled out toward a spindled silver fence, and beyond that fence Lottie could see the rooftops of stone houses and the tips of trees. These houses weren’t like those from back home. Their stones looked older and their windows more weathered, but the roofs were high and the windows large. Lottie knew what that meant back where she came from: these houses were old, but they were also expensive.

  “This is a nice neighborhood, isn’t it?” said Lottie.

  “It’s the center of town,” Fife said. “Only the wealthiest sprites live here. Mr. Wilfer, he’s the Head Healer. That’s why he’s got such a nice place. The king gave it to him.”

  “So not everyone here is as rich as the Wilfers?”

  Fife shrugged. “Southerly sprites are rich no matter where you go. That’s why there’s that saying, you know: don’t arrive at a Southerly’s with a full stomach; don’t leave without one.”

  At this news, Lottie’s stomach grumbled. She clutched it, embarrassed, but Fife grinned.

  “I’ve got a cure for that,” he said, and before Lottie had time to blink, Fife had shoved something in her hands.

  “Chocolate?” Lottie asked, enraptured.

  Fife, who had taken a bite of the stuff before handing it to Lottie, coughed and swallowed.

  “Thank you,” said Lottie, biting off a piece of chocolate herself so that her reply sounded more like “Hank wu.”

  “Good, isn’t it?” said Fife, finishing off his piece. “That’s ’cause it’s from the North. Though don’t let on that I told you that, or you’d put me in a nasty way with the Southerly Guard.”

  Lottie blinked. She hadn’t understood half of what Fife had said, only that the Southerly Guard was, apparently, bad news.

  “C’mon,” Fife said. “Let’s get out of this dirt.”

  Lottie finished off her chocolate and, with Fife’s help, got up—more than up. Fife was floating again, and this time he floated the both of them right through an open window on the first floor of Iris Gate. He plunked Lottie down on a window seat and lighted his feet on a nearby stack of books.

  They were in a library. The room was enormous. Rows and rows of tall bookcases stretched before Lottie, each one chock full of shelf upon shelf of books. It was a sight glorious enough to make her forget for a moment that she was alone there with a strange, floating boy.

  Fife, however, appeared to be busy with something entirely unrelated to Lottie. He began to poke about shelves and race around the corners of the room so quickly that the sight of him became little more than a blur.

  “What’re you doing?” she called.

  “Looking for Ollie, of course,” said Fife. “He and Ada are usually in here for their daily tutorial. I’ve come to thwart their scholastic pursuits!”

  “Scholastic pursuits” was what was going to get Lottie and Eliot out of Kemble School and into a good university, provided Eliot was well enough to go.

  “I don’t think you should sound so pleased with yourself about that,” said Lottie. “Schoolwork is important.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me about the merits of schoolwork,” said Fife. “I want to be a healer myself, just like Mr. Wilfer. He’s promised me that if I study hard and read diligently, he’ll give me an assessment when I’m sixteen. If he thinks I’m good enough, then I’ll get to be his apprentice.”

  Fife stopped his searching and hopped onto the window seat next to Lottie. “Sorry if I scared you up there, by the way. The guest room’s usually empty. I always sneak in through there because if Adelaide catches me coming in from the foyer . . .” Fife grabbed his neck with his hands and made a choking noise. “Now, there’s a sprite that’ll spook you out of your skin.”

  “Sprite,” repeated Lottie. The word still sounded strange and tinselly in her ears. “Can all sprites do what you do?”

  “Do what? This?”

  Fife floated up a few inches from where they were sitting, fluttering his hands with dramatic flourish.

  “Yes, that.”

  Fife smiled broadly.

  “No sprite can do that,” he said, returning to his seat. “Just folks like me.”

  “But if you’re not a sprite—”

  “Who said I wasn’t a sprite?” interrupted Fife, whom Lottie noticed was sticking his tongue out at her again.

  “But you just said—”

  Fife raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, never mind,” said Lottie. “I only ask because I’m not sure I even believe it.”

  “Believe what? In sprites?”

  “Well,” said Lottie, “I know that there’s something weird going on here, and Mr. Wilfer expects me to believe it’s magic.”

  “But you don’t believe that?”

  Lottie thought for a good minute. How could she explain flying out a window? Or the silver-boughed tree? Or how she no longer had a cut upon her forehead? Those were things too big to keep in a copper box.

  “Maybe I do,” she said.

  Fife looked at her strangely. The very tip of his tongue protruded from his lips. “Do you mean to say that no one ever told you anything about Limn?”

  Lottie shook her head. No one told her much of anything back home. She was lucky if Mrs. Yates informed her that a boarder was coming to stay in Thirsby Square.

  “Should someone have told me?” Lottie asked.

  “Well, only just about every Southerly sprite since the beginning of time has gotten the history of Limn pounded into their little Southerly brains.”

  “You’ve said that word before,” said Lottie. “Southerly. What’s that mean?”

  “Southerly,” repeated Fife, licking his lower lip. “As in, the opposite of Northerly.”

  He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and held his right hand up, close to Lottie’s nose. Inked just below the knobby bone jutting from his wrist was a tattoo of a black diamond. Lottie’s eyes widened. She’d never met a boy with a tattoo before.

  “See that?” Fife asked. “The black
diamond. That’s the mark of the Northerly Court. All the Northerlies have got one.”

  “Do Southerlies have one, too?”

  “It’s so lame,” Fife snorted. “They call it the white orb, but ‘orb’ is just a fancy name for ‘circle.’ Anyway, that’s the mark of the Southerly Court. It’s the mark that people like the Wilfers have got.”

  “Why the difference?” asked Lottie.

  “Because,” said Fife, leaning back against the windowpane, “the Northerlies live in the North and the Southerlies in the South. The two courts hate each other. It’s about something that happened a long time ago.”

  “But,” said Lottie, “you don’t hate Oliver. You said that Oliver was your best friend, and he’s a Southerly. And you said that you weren’t even a sprite!”

  “Really,” said Fife, smiling. “Did I say all that?”

  Lottie didn’t have the chance to get upset with Fife. Someone else already was, and that someone had just flung open the doors of the library.

  “FIFE DULCET!”

  Adelaide stormed toward both of them, looking quite ready to set Fife’s floppy black hair on fire with her glare alone. Oliver was hurrying up behind her.

  “How dare you!” Adelaide shrieked, close enough now to draw her hand back as though to smack Fife’s shoulder.

  Fife shot up and over Adelaide and landed on his feet next to Oliver.

  “School over so soon?” Fife asked conversationally.

  “I had Tutor dismissed the minute I heard you,” said Adelaide, whipping back around. “What do you mean by—”

  “By breaking out your prisoner?” interrupted Fife. He lolled his head toward Lottie. “It’s not very nice to lock up your guests, Ada.”

  “Lottie is not my prisoner!” snapped Adelaide, scowling in Lottie’s direction. “She’s just not trustworthy.”

  “Adelaide,” said Oliver, his eyes turning a startled lime color, “is that true? You locked Lottie up?”

  “I had a good reason to lock her up, and she knows perfectly well why,” huffed Adelaide, glaring at Lottie. “And I have just as good a reason for telling him”—she pointed at Fife as though he were a bug that she’d just found under her shoe—“to leave Iris Gate immediately.”

  “No you haven’t,” said Fife. “Lottie and I have become good friends while you’ve been away, haven’t we, Lottie Fiske?”

  Adelaide gasped. “You know who she is?” She turned to Oliver. “He knows who she is? Father told us it was a secret. How could you tell him?”

  “Fife’s my best friend,” said Oliver, and this seemed to be as much of an introduction to Lottie as it was an answer to Adelaide.

  “Where’s Mr. Wilfer?” asked Lottie.

  Adelaide, Oliver, and Fife suddenly seemed to forget their bickering. Three gazes turned to Lottie.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Lottie, who wasn’t really at all sorry, “but I’ve got to see him. He said he’d explain more to me in the morning, so . . .”

  “Father,” said Adelaide coolly, “is out of town for the day. He told Oliver and me that he had urgent business to attend to, and he left us with strict instructions to watch out for you when you’d woken up. And for your information, it’s not morning.”

  “It’s nearly suppertime,” said Fife, patting his stomach.

  Lottie blanched. The pale light outside those library windows was not dawn, but dusk. She had slept a whole day. She’d slept away precious time to save Eliot.

  “Did Mr. Wilfer say what the urgent business was?” Lottie asked. Maybe he had already gone out without her to find the one missing ingredient: a poem or a laugh or whatever that special scrapbook required.

  Adelaide and Oliver exchanged glances.

  “Father was pretty shaken up about something late last night,” Oliver said quietly. “He just left us a note.”

  “Did he say when he’d be back?”

  “Why?” sniffed Adelaide. “It’s not like you care about Father’s urgent business. This is just about getting your hands on that medicine.”

  Lottie narrowed her eyes at Adelaide. “So?”

  “Hey,” Fife laughed nervously, glancing from Lottie to Adelaide. “Air’s getting a bit thin in here, eh? Maybe we should open another window, get some ventilation . . .”

  But neither Lottie nor Adelaide paid attention to the offer.

  “I wasn’t trying to steal anything,” said Lottie.

  “You were snooping. Refined sprites don’t snoop,” Adelaide said, tilting up her chin in a haughty glare. “And what strange things did Father tell you, exactly? That you’re nothing but a halfling? That you and all Fiskes are nothing but a disappointment? That you and your stupid birthday wish could cost Father his life?”

  “Adelaide!” Oliver’s eyes had turned a wild amber. “Don’t talk to Lottie like that. Can’t you see she’s still adjusting?”

  “Yeah,” Fife said, nodding in agreement. “For someone as refined as you, Ada, you really know how to—”

  “SHHH!” Adelaide held her finger to her mouth and waved for the boys to be quiet; and quite unlike Lottie had expected, both of them obeyed.

  “What is it?” whispered Oliver. “What do you hear?”

  Adelaide shook her head and kept her finger pressed to her lips. Her face paled. She looked at Lottie, then at her brother.

  “Father’s back,” she whispered.

  “Well, thank Titania!” laughed Fife. “That solves all of our problems.”

  Fife floated over to the library doors. Adelaide leapt in front of him.

  “No, you idiot!” she hissed, shaking her head fiercely. “Listen to me. Father’s back, and he’s not alone.”

  Lottie could finally hear the voices that Adelaide was talking about. They were coming from just outside the library doors.

  “They’re headed this way,” said Fife, shoving Adelaide and Lottie into a nearby aisle of bookshelves. Oliver slinked in after them, just in time. The library doors swung open, and Lottie heard the heavy tread of marching boots.

  “Bring him in,” boomed a man’s voice. “We won’t be seen through the street windows in here. Now drop him.”

  There was a thud, and from where Lottie was uncomfortably squished against a row of uneven book spines, she saw a man drop to the floor.

  “You will tell us where it is,” the booming voice continued. “Then you will tell us where the girl is. If you do not comply, you know as a Southerly citizen what your due punishment will be.”

  The stooped man raised his goggles-clad face, and Lottie gulped down a gasp. It was Mr. Wilfer.

  “I told you, it is not ready,” Mr. Wilfer said in a hoarse voice. “Starkling knows this. I need more time. No one in my practice can rush such a process.”

  “Perhaps that is why so few in your practice are still alive,” said the voice, and at last the man to whom it belonged stepped into view.

  Lottie stifled another gasp. She knew this man, too, the one speaking the cruel words. He was so easy to recognize because he was looking at Mr. Wilfer just the same way he had looked at Lottie in Thirsby Square. It was a bored and unforgiving look, and it belonged to Mr. Grissom, Mrs. Yates’ prospective boarder.

  “You have been given deadline after deadline with no results,” he barked, circling the kneeling Mr. Wilfer. “And now you’ve betrayed the king.”

  “You don’t have any proof of that,” said Mr. Wilfer.

  “You underestimate me, Moritasgus. You always have. You were suspicious that I was tracking your movements, I’ll give you credit for that. But you were a fool to send out your own children, thinking that I wouldn’t track them.”

  Mr. Wilfer looked up. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Lottie could hear a smile in Grissom’s voice. “You know as well as I do that your son and his little halfling friend shouldn’t have been root shooting from an unauthorized tree in Albion Park. Whose fault would it be if they were inside when the Guard chopped it down? Who sent them?”<
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  “You could have killed them.” Mr. Wilfer’s voice was low, and it pricked gooseflesh up Lottie’s arms.

  “They managed. But, my dear sprite, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I saw the Fiske girl in person. One moment she was in Earth, and the next she wasn’t. We both know why that is, Moritasgus. You and I were the only ones privy to the king’s plan, so that means that one of us has turned traitor. And it wasn’t me.”

  “No,” said Mr. Wilfer. “It wasn’t you. You wouldn’t have had the courage.”

  Grissom grew very still. Then he struck Mr. Wilfer across the face. Adelaide let out a cry before hiding her face in her hands. Fortunately, it seemed that the echoing whack! of Grissom’s slap had drowned out the cry, because Grissom did not look their way. Mr. Wilfer, however, did. Lottie was almost positive that he smiled at them—a short, sad smile. Then he dropped his eyes back to the ground.

  “You have the girl,” hissed Grissom. “She is either here or somewhere close by, being harbored by Northerly sympathizers. The Southerly Guard will be here soon to find her. It will be easier on her and on you, however, if you simply tell us where she’s hidden.”

  Mr. Wilfer bowed his head. The shadows of dusk slanted over his stooped form. He did not speak.

  “Very well,” Grissom said after a long silence. “We will smoke her out. As to the other matter. Starkling is losing his patience, not to mention his faith in you as Head Healer. He’s deemed it best that you work under careful supervision from now on, to hurry things along, as it were.”

  “I have told him, and I have told you, the process cannot be rushed.”

  “It can, and it will. Just as you can and will fetch what you’ve made so far of the Otherwise Incurable, and you can and will accompany us back to the Southerly Court, where you will finish the king’s medicine in three days’ time.”

  More silence followed, during which Lottie could hear the impatient tap of Grissom’s boot and the raspy hitch of Mr. Wilfer’s breathing.

  “Very well,” Mr. Wilfer said at last. “My children have already lost their mother. I do not wish for them to lose their father, too. The medicine is upstairs. I keep it in my bedchamber.”