Changeling Page 18

  Fleet and I left her to it and went to Canal alone.

  Now that we had a plan, Fleet was totally bullish. It was the end of the morning Rush Hour, and the streets were clogged with gold-blind brokers and investors. Fleet taught me this game the younger Wall Street changelings liked, where you had to zigzag through a crowd of brokers as fast as you could. Of course, I kept bumping into Folk, which made them roar and take blind swipes at the ground. Mostly they hit another broker; sometimes they came pretty close to taking my head off. But they didn’t catch me, and by the time Fleet and I got to Chinatown, all sweaty and laughing, we were friends.

  Our first order of business, as Fleet said, was to find the largest and stinkiest onion in Chinatown. At the third food stand we went to, we found one that made my eyes water from about three feet away. The shinseën shopkeeper wrapped it in some newspaper, gave it to me, smiled, and held out his hand. I smiled back and shook the hand and thanked him for his generosity in my best Mandarin.

  This was not the right thing to do. The shinseën jerked his hand away and launched into a long and violent speech about round-eyed tricksters and onion thieves, while Fleet laughed helplessly.

  “How do you pay for things in the Park?” Fleet asked when she’d paid him for the onion. “Enchanted leaves and dog poop?”

  “Pay for things? You mean with money? We don’t. We trade.”

  Fleet shook her head. “Are you telling me you’ve never been shopping?”

  “What’s that?”

  For some reason, this made her give me a hug. “Neef girl, shopping is the most fun you can have without magic. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Shopping turned out to be a little like questing, only safer. Instead of trading for things with fresh meat or favors or songs or magic talismans, Fleet gave the shop-keepers silver coins out of a magic purse. It seemed to work kind of like Satchel, only Fleet said that it would give her only so many coins a day. She called it Budget, and grumbled a lot about how small it was.

  Budget seemed pretty generous to me. Besides the onion, it bought us a red silk handkerchief with mysterious-looking signs on it, some poison-green mesh slippers decorated with sparkly flowers, some buns with red bean paste in the middle, and, most wonderful of all, the jade frog with ruby eyes that had winked at me. The shopkeeper knocked down the price when I told him how I’d seen it the day before, and threaded it on a black silk cord so I could hang it around my neck. We also bought four silver hair clips, two for Changeling and two for me.

  While we shopped, Fleet talked. She told me about the mortal changelings she knew and how they all hung out at a café called the Wannabe in Midtown, when they were off duty, and traded gossip about the Folk.

  “I know mortal changelings from Midtown and the Village and the Upper West Side and even Park Avenue,” she said. “But none from Central Park. None of my friends has ever met a Park changeling. I didn’t know there were any.”

  “There’s only one at a time,” I said. “Usually they get eaten by the Wild Hunt. I managed to escape them, but the Lady got mad and threw me out. I can’t go back until I get all this stuff for her.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun,” Fleet said. “Why do you want to go back?”

  “It’s home.”

  “So’s my apartment in Maiden Lane,” Fleet said. “But I know if I get out of Wall Street—I mean really out, not just on a field trip—I’m not ever coming back.”

  “It’s not the same. You hate Wall Street. I love Central Park. It’s not all bright lights and bustle like Broadway or Chinatown, but there’s plenty going on. The Folk are fun to be around, mostly, and I’ve got some good friends.”

  “Friends!” Fleet rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe you, Park girl. Changelings don’t make friends with Folk. They love them, they hate them, they go on dates and get their hearts broken. But they don’t hang out.”

  This sounded very weird to me, but I didn’t feel like arguing. “If you say so.” I took another bite out of the red bean bun we’d been sharing. “Speaking of places to live, where are you going to go when I’ve rescued you from the Dragon?”

  Fleet snatched the last bit of bun out of my hand. “Someplace where nobody expects me to keep track of appointments and make coffee, that’s where. Somewhere I can learn to be an artist. I was thinking the Village—there are lots of artists there. But it’s awfully close to the Maze.” She sighed and popped the soft dough into her mouth.

  “What about the Metropolitan Museum?” I asked.

  “I’d do anything to live there,” she said passionately. “But they don’t take changelings either, or at least that’s what I heard.”

  I didn’t know what the Curator’s policy on changelings was. As far as I knew, I was the only mortal regular at the Museum, but that didn’t mean anything. “Maybe he just forgot to ask for one. The Old Market Woman told me he’s horribly absentminded.”

  Fleet turned to me, her deep brown eyes aglow. “You know the Old Market Woman? Personally?”

  “Sure. She teaches me classical languages.”

  “Wow. She was the docent I got for my field trip to the Museum. I thought she was awesome. Scary, but cool, you know what I mean?”

  I didn’t. The Old Market Woman was my teacher and my friend, and I’d never thought of her as either scary or particularly cool. But I nodded anyway.

  “Do you know Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait?” she asked shyly.

  I did, and she asked me excited questions about it all the way through the Financial Maze. It felt good to be talking about the Museum. The fact that Fleet was jealous of the time I spent there didn’t hurt either.

  “I wasn’t kidding,” she said as we approached the tower’s invisible door. “I’d do anything to be able to live there.”

  “Help me get through this thing with the Bull and the Bear, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Up in the apartment, Changeling was still where we’d left her, muttering over the Mirror. Fleet put on her green sparkly slippers and got a cup of tea from Microwave. “I’m pooped,” she said. “Wake me if she turns up something useful.”

  She disappeared into an inner room and closed the door.

  I sat down, I got up. I unpacked Satchel. I found a knife and chopped the onion and wrapped it in the handkerchief, I scrubbed my stinky hands with soap, I paced around Fleet’s piles of papers, I stroked my jade frog. I thought about how I could make the Bear laugh.

  The fact that it was his nature to be gloomy wasn’t such a big deal: Kelpies are gloomy, and they laugh—mostly when they’re trying to drown somebody. Almost any supernatural will laugh when a mortal falls down, and if the mortal rips their pants or breaks an arm, that’s even funnier. I considered tripping Changeling or Fleet, but not for long. I was the hero of this quest—making a fool of myself was my job.

  I was wondering if Satchel would give me a banana with the peel still on it when Changeling snapped out of her Mirror trance. “I have data,” she announced.

  “Great. Hang on a minute, so I can call Fleet. She needs to hear this, too.”

  Waking Fleet almost counted as an extra impossible task, and when she was finally awake, she wasn’t exactly happy about it. She was even unhappier when Changeling made her report.

  “According to WallStreetLore.nyb, the Bull and the Bear are mutually exclusive,” Changeling told us from her nest by the bookcase. “They cannot exist in the same reality. The Bull’s reality is all hope, and the Bear’s reality is all despair. The Bull cannot cry without becoming the Bear. The Bear cannot laugh without becoming the Bull.”

  “Impossible,” Fleet said bearishly. “I knew it. Can I go back to bed now?”

  Changeling and I both glared at her. “Do not interrupt me,” Changeling said. “On Magicanimals.nyb, I read that the Brahmin Bulls of East Sixth Street are known to weep whenever a cockroach is exterminated, indicating that some mythical Bulls do indeed have tear ducts. If the Wall Street Bull is similarly equipped, and if the trigger
for its transformation into the Bear is genuine grief rather than simple lachrymation, your onion may very well make the Bull weep without calling up the Bear.”

  “See?” I asked Fleet. “I told you. Changeling, you rock. Now, what’s up with the Bear?”

  “I thought you might apply nitrous oxide, on the same principle.”

  Fleet clutched at her braids. “What is she talking about?”

  Changeling scowled at her. “It is very rude of you to speak about me as if I were not here. Nitrous oxide is a gas used for anesthetic purposes, most commonly by dentists. It causes euphoria and disinhibition. In other words, laughter. Or at least, the appearance of laughter.”

  “Perfect!” I said. “Where can we get some?”

  “I have failed to find a reference to it anywhere online,” Changeling said. “I have therefore concluded that nitrous oxide is unknown in New York Between.”

  I was disappointed, but Fleet pitched something very close to a fairy fit. We had to listen to a lot of ranting before she calmed down enough to listen to my idea about taking a fall and maybe splitting my jeans.

  “That’s not funny,” she said. “Now DowJones falling off her high heels and splitting her skirt—that would be funny.”

  Changeling agreed, or at least she laughed for the first time since I’d met her. Fleet and I agreed that Changeling laughing was a good sign and settled down with the rest of the buns to plan.

  The best idea—it was Fleet’s—was to push DowJones over backwards into the Dragon’s coffee bowl, but we couldn’t figure out how we could get her to take one of us up on the tower with her. For maximum effect, we should time it for when DowJones was carrying the coffeepot. Just talking about it made Fleet and Changeling laugh so hard they cried. I hoped the Bear shared their sense of humor.

  Still chuckling, Fleet went back to bed. Changeling curled up by her beloved bookcase with some cushions. I lay on the sofa and tried not to think of all the things that could go wrong. Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed of giants and the Wild Hunt and the Dragon piling gold over Central Park. I was almost glad when Fleet woke me and said I just had time for a shower and breakfast before our appointment with the Dragon.

  I’d never had a shower before. It was like being out in a heavy rain, only hot. I liked Honey’s bath better. For breakfast, Satchel produced some eggs, and Microwave gave us a warm, sweet, gooey thing called a cheese Danish. Changeling liked it. I was too nervous to eat it, or the eggs either.

  After breakfast, Fleet fussed over our clothes. We needed to look professional. Changeling absolutely refused to give up her embroidered jacket or her shabby sandals. She did let Fleet smear her hair with some sticky stuff and pin it back with two of the silver clips we’d bought in Chinatown, but only after Fleet had done mine first.

  When we were ready, we stood side by side in front of the bedroom mirror. I thought the black jacket Fleet had lent me made me look taller than Changeling, more DowJones-like. I tried arching my eyebrows and looking down my nose.

  “Don’t do that, Neef,” Fleet said. “And let Changeling carry Satchel. People think you’re important if someone else is carrying your stuff. I can’t believe I forgot to buy you shoes yesterday, but I guess it’s too late. Okay, let’s go. We don’t want to keep the Dragon waiting.”

  Park Folk aren’t exactly into time. There’s daytime and nighttime, Solstice and Equinox, summer and winter. Wall Street Folk, on the other hand, are all about clocks and appointments, and they expect everybody to pay strict attention to them.

  Everybody except the Dragon.

  After we’d practically killed ourselves getting to the Treasury in time for our appointment, the Dragon made us stand around waiting for just about forever. We weren’t the only ones, either. A bunch of security giants and some worried-looking dwarves and a couple of kobolds were gathered at the base of the coffee tower, along with a handful of mortal changelings in Dragon-gray suits who were probably the other Executive Assistants. They were all beautiful and grim and icy, and their mouths twisted into little sneers when they saw us.

  Changeling passed the time by watching the Dragon’s eyes. Fleet bit her nails. I thought about how hard it was going to be to trip anyone as on the ball as DowJones. Maybe I should just go back to Plan A and do the falling part myself. Taking a dive into the coffee bowl should be good for a laugh. If I could get up to it.

  The dwarves went into the dome of the Dragon’s claws and came out again, looking more worried than before. The kobolds went next and didn’t return. I was ready to jump out of my skin. Finally DowJones clicked over to us, looking even snottier than she had the day before. “The Dragon will speak to you now.”

  She escorted us to the other side of the coffee tower, near the Dragon’s claws, but not in them, which was just fine with me.

  “Glad you could make it,” the Dragon boomed, sounding horribly cheerful. “I hope you don’t mind if we skip the chitchat. I want to put this matter to rest so everybody can get back to work.”

  This was it. I swallowed. “That’s cool with me,” I said. “When do we start?”

  Sudden as a lightning strike, a huge white Bull materialized on the surface of the Dragon’s hoard.

  The Bull of Wall Street was medium huge, say about the size of the Central Park Dairy, and blindingly bright. His hooves and horns were paved with diamonds and his eyes were twin diamonds as big as dinner plates. A bull’s mouth isn’t really made to smile, but he was doing his level best. The result was both goofy and terrifying.

  “So that’s the Bull,” I said. “Cheerful, isn’t he? I suppose I have the usual three chances?”

  “The number of chances was not addressed in our negotiations,” the Dragon said smoothly. “Time is gold, and I’ve already wasted enough on this nonsense. You get one chance. Take it or leave it.”

  I wanted to argue with him, but I didn’t dare. There’s moxie and there’s suicide. I turned to Changeling. “The Talisman of Perfect Sorrow, please,” I said grandly.

  Changeling pulled a red silk package from Satchel and gave it to me. The stink of chopped onion attacked my eyes and nose. Blinking and sniffling, I stepped out onto the hoard. Coins and jewels slid under my bare feet as I walked toward the Bull, the Talisman of Perfect Sorrow balanced on the flat of my hand. When I was close enough, I lifted it toward the Bull’s huge, glittering nostrils.

  The onion’s effect was immediate and dramatic. First the Bull snorted so hard that I flew backwards and landed sprawling at Fleet’s feet. The security giants laughed and pointed. I levered myself up and watched the Bull stamping and tossing his head and bellowing. His horns and eyes flashed. Coins and cast-off scales fountained from his hooves. No tears, though, not even a scattering of tearlike diamonds.

  “Well,” said the Dragon. “It’s been nice doing business with you. DowJones will draw up the papers for the Central Park air rights. You can take them to the Lady when you go. On second thought, perhaps DowJones should accompany you and supervise the transaction herself, in case the Lady has any . . . questions.”

  My heart settled somewhere around the bottom of my stomach. My throat closed up, my chin trembled, my eyes got hot and prickly, and something started jumping up and down in my middle.

  I hadn’t cried—full-out, openmouthed, nose-running sobbing—in so long it took me a while to realize what was going on. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even stay on my feet.

  The thing about a total meltdown is that you don’t think about much while you’re having it. The world could be coming to an end around you, and you wouldn’t even notice. Eventually, however, you stop crying.

  When I’d calmed down, I realized that the Treasury had gotten very noisy. The loudest noises I’d heard there before (except for the Dragon’s voice) were the clink of gold and the tap of high heels against the scaly walkway. Now my ears rang with howls and screams and deep, breathy hoots. Plus, the air stank, even to my tear-clogged nose, of rotten eggs.

  I lifte
d my head and opened my swollen eyes straight into the depths of a huge scarlet cavern ringed with long, wicked teeth. A hot wind fanned my hair and caught sulfurously in the back of my throat.

  The Dragon was laughing.

  I sat up and looked around. Down at the foot of the coffee tower, all the Wall Street Folk were holding their sides and leaning against one another or rolling on the ground, helpless with laughter. The Executive Assistants were nowhere in sight. Out on the hoard, where the Bull had been standing, I saw a complicated blur of dark and bright that made my head spin.

  I got to my feet and stumbled over to Fleet, who was kneeling with both hands over her face, trembling like a fairy’s wings.

  “Fleet? It’s me, Fleet. Are you okay?”

  Fleet lifted her face, ashy with fear. She stared at me wildly, then over my shoulder at the complicated blur. “Will you look at that!” she exclaimed. “You did it, Neef! The Bull and the Bear are laughing and crying at the same time!”

  I nearly collapsed again, this time with relief. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” she said. “They’re turning into each other so fast I can’t actually tell who’s doing what.”

  I stared hard at the blur that was them both. “What you mean is, they’re both laughing so hard they’re crying. Does that count?”

  She looked thoughtful. “Maybe so. But the Bear is laughing, and water is coming out of the Bull’s eyes. It’s a technicality, but I still think you win.”

  “Great,” I said. “Let’s just get the Scales and get out of here.”

  Fleet shook her head until her ponytail flew. “Bad idea. What if we can’t carry them? What if Himself sends giants after us to get them back? Can’t we just make a run for it and hope he decides it would be a waste of resources to have us followed?”

  With victory in sight, I felt like Super Changeling again. Part of me knew I should reassure Fleet and find Changeling and plan how we were going to get the Scales home. The rest of me didn’t care. “No way. I won those Scales fair and square, and I’m taking them. Are you going to help me or not?”