The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [52]
Airboy sighed. “Focus on the ground a little in front of your feet. Step wherever you see a space. Don’t look up, don’t run. And don’t stop.”
He stepped to the curb, stared for a moment like a cat at a mousehole, and walked into the traffic.
A moment passed. No extra screeching or screaming. No Airboy flying through the air. I stared down at the pavement. I saw wheels and gray kobold feet. I saw the rainbow flash of clothes. More wheels. More feet.
Open space.
It was gone before I could react, but now I knew what to look for. Another space appeared. I stepped into it, saw a second open space and beyond it, a third. I walked forward. The rumbling and shouting, the bright clothing and the kobolds’ gray faces blurred around the quiet path unfolding at my feet.
The last step delivered me to the other side of Seventh Avenue, where Airboy was waiting.
“That was wizard!” I said. “Is it magic?”
Airboy shrugged. “We learned it last year in Questing. Come on.” He turned uptown.
It was a long walk. Above 42nd Street, the racks disappeared, as did the leprechauns and sewing elves. I still saw plenty of models, though, complete with tiny dogs. But mostly I saw Midtown Executives, Folk dressed in dark suits and striped ties and snap-brimmed hats, their hands and wrists heavy with gold. Some had models on their arms. Some carried briefcases. All had flint-gray eyes that looked through Airboy and me as though we didn’t exist.
Airboy guided us down a side street that came to a dead end, consulted the map, turned and retraced our steps, walked another block uptown, and stopped in front of a smallish town house built of cream-colored stone. Every window sported a window box planted with geraniums and deep purple petunias. The curly gold letters over the front door (red, to match the geraniums) read ELIZABETH FACTOR.
While we were taking this in, the door opened and two fairies came out.
I’m pretty good at identifying fairies. The sidhe from Ireland are redheads with green eyes; the fate of Italy are brunettes with dark eyes; the elle-folk of Denmark are blue-eyed blondes. Peris are cinnamon-skinned; afrits are midnight blue, with scarlet eyes. These fairies could have been just about anything. Their hair was glamoured in streaks of lime and shiny black, and their faces were painted in headache-making swirls of pink and turquoise. One was wearing a wide stiff coat that made her look like a giant bell. The other, in unbendable black pleats, with a wide, pleated hat on her streaky hair, looked exactly like a streetlamp.
I wondered if they were Artistes or Debs.
The bell saw us, clutched her chest, and squeaked. “Gargoyle!”
“It’s only a mortal, dear,” the streetlamp drawled. “An ugly one in a fatally costumey coat. What it’s doing here, I cannot imagine.”
“As it happens,” I said coldly, “the Ambassador here has an appointment with Madame Factor. On a matter of state.” I opened the door and bowed. “After you, Mr. Ambassador.”
Airboy gave me a dirty look, then swept past me, holding his head high and looking—I had to admit—pretty impressive for a skinny kid in jeans and a T-shirt and high-top sneakers.
“The Ambassador of the Court of the Mermaid Queen,” I announced to the startled model sitting in the front hall. “Here to see Madame Factor. Please announce us.”
For a moment, I thought it wasn’t going to work. The model was giving me the kind of look beautiful princesses give trolls who want to marry them.
Then Airboy smiled at her and she giggled. “Oh, Mr. Ambassador! Go right up. Top of the stairs, the red door.”
At this point, I spotted the flaw in my otherwise flawless plan. If Airboy was an Ambassador, then I was just an aide. A nobody. A sidekick. Somebody Elizabeth Factor wouldn’t listen to. Which was really a shame, since Airboy couldn’t talk his way out of a wet paper bag.
Clearly, Airboy was having the same thoughts. He eyed the red door with loathing. “I don’t like this,” he announced.
I tried to look sympathetic. “You want me to take over as Ambassador? I know you don