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Miss Van Loon’s Big Book of Rules

Not knowing when, or even if, I was going to get my quest pass made me crazy. I wanted to do something—find the ballet-loving dwarf, maybe, or even go track down the goblin’s nymph and make her tell me where she had found the mirror. Espresso said I should go for it; Stonewall pointed out that champions who go off on side quests usually don’t come back.

Mukuti suggested I go to the library and work on the Bloody Mary problem.

This almost counted as a quest. The Librarian had a very Folkish attitude to all the Van Loon’s rules on library use. Open your magic bag in the library, turn down the corner of a page, leave a book open on its face, and she’d be on you like a pigeon on a crumb.

I left lunch early and went up to the library. The Librarian was sitting at the checkout desk, reading a book and petting the library cat, which was asleep on her lap.

“Good morning, Librarian,” I said in a library-friendly murmur. “Can you please tell me where I can find the books on urban Folk lore? Oh, and exorcism, too.”

She fished a pair of glasses on a chain out of the pocket of her scarlet Inside Sweater and peered at my starless sweater. “That’s advanced material,” she said. “I’ll need to see a letter of permission or a quest pass before I can—”

I couldn’t have this conversation again. I just couldn’t. “Never mind,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

Back in the hall, I saw a slender shape darting toward the stairs.

Airboy had been listening at the library door.

Ever since the Equinox, I’d been tripping over Airboy everywhere. In Diplomacy and Mortal History, I could feel his black eyes drilling holes in me from the back of the room. In the lunchroom, he’d moved to sit nearer our table. And every time I’d tried to talk to him, he pretended I wasn’t there.

This time, I’d make him pay attention.

I bounded up the stairs three at a time, reaching the third floor just in time to see him disappear through a door at the end of the hall. I followed him into a room sporting a row of sinks, marble stalls, and some unfamiliar plumbing against the wall.

I was in the boys’ bathroom.

Airboy spun toward me, his cheeks blazing. “Get out!”

Thinking fast, I locked the door. Somebody rattled the knob. I shouted for them to get lost. They yelled. I made retching noises. They went away.

I turned to Airboy. “Why are you following me?”

Airboy turned to the sink, turned on the water, and splashed his face. “I don’t talk to liars, cheats, and thieves.”

“Who are you calling a thief?”

“You stole the Mermaid Queen’s Mirror, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t. I won it in the Riddle Game. If anyone’s a cheat, it’s the Mermaid Queen. Did you know she tried to drown me?”

“That’s her right.” Airboy turned off the tap and faced me. “She’s a Genius. You’re just a mortal land-dweller. And you took her mirror.”

“What’s the big deal? Champions win talismans from Folk all the time—it’s the whole point of questing.”

“The big deal,” Airboy snarled, “is that the Queen can’t run New York Harbor without the mirror. Ships run into each other. The Kraken sank a ferry Outside and ate some of the passengers. The Queen’s in a horrible mood. Nobody’s safe. When Flotsam reported you hadn’t drowned, the Queen turned her into shark bait.”

I hadn’t known Airboy could even say that many words in a row. “Gosh,” I said weakly. “I didn’t know.”

“I liked Flotsam.” Airboy’s voice wobbled. He took a breath and went on. “Then the Queen drowned Canoe, so Oxygen’s the Voice of the Mermaid Queen now, and he’s not really ready. She made him threaten to destroy the Park even though he told her it would just make the Green Lady mad.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“Like you care,” he sneered. “Barbarian.”

Coming from a subject of a queen who fed her subjects to sharks, this was totally unfair. “I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Everyone knows how the Park Folk enchant Outside mortals to steal pets and leave them for the Wild Hunt, and how the Hunt kills