The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [74]
“Does it still work?” he asked anxiously.
I felt for the grooves in the rim and pressed. After a tense moment, I heard a clear, low chime. The mirror clouded, then cleared to show a familiar gold trident pulsing gently against a pale-blue field.
We puffed out twin sighs of relief. “It works,” I said.
“So ask it what we should do next.”
I turned the mirror off. “I only know how to make it show me the weather forecast and the answers to one thousand and one common riddles. Besides, I already know what to do next. Take it back to the Mermaid Queen.”
“I could do that for you,” Airboy said.
I held the mirror to my chest. “It’s my job, Airboy,” I said, a little more forcefully than I had to.
“It’s my job, too.”
Suddenly, we were glaring at each other, enemies again. I imagined Airboy plotting to take the mirror and all the credit for finding it. I imagined the Mermaid Queen salting the waters of Central Park because he’d brought it back instead of me. I imagined yelling at him. I imagined hitting him, hard.
Airboy looked away and sighed. He sounded almost as sad as Bloody Mary.
I laid the mirror in my lap. “It’s our job,” I said finally.
There was a little silence. Then Airboy said, “You’re right, I guess.”
For some reason, I wanted to laugh. “As usual,” I said.
Airboy gave me a look of pure shock. I waggled my eyebrows. His expression morphed from annoyed to puzzled, then, slowly and reluctantly, settled into a smile.
“Allies?” he asked, holding out his hand.
“Friends,” I said, shaking it.
He didn’t argue with me.
Chapter 20
RULE 306: STUDENTS MUST NOT CARRY OR USE MAGIC TALISMANS WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD GENIUS.
Miss Van Loon’s Big Book of Rules
In Battery Park, the ghosts were waiting patiently in front of Castle Clinton, surrounded by bundles and baskets and ghostly children.
I’d seen them last summer, with Changeling. I hadn’t known, then, who they were or anything about them. Now I knew they were the ghosts of immigrants, waiting to be allowed into New York City so that they could get a job or catch a train out west. Some had brought Folk with them, invisible stowaways who eventually found their way Between and founded the New York I live in.
Airboy and I were sitting on the pier with our backs to the ghosts, dangling our feet in the water, listening to the oily waves lapping at the pilings, watching the lights of the Harbor islands glimmering like sequins on the water, and smelling the tart, salty perfume of the Harbor. We were arguing.
“For the millionth time,” I said, “I’m the official Voice of the Genius of Central Park. I get to talk first. ”
“You’ll be official shark food before you can open your mouth.”
“I know she’s really mad at me, but even the Mermaid Queen wouldn’t kill the Lady’s Voice.”
Airboy kicked at the water viciously.
“You know I’m right,” I said.
“I know you like being important. Well, guess what? You are important. You’re the official Park changeling, Voice of the Genius of Central Park. Nobody there would dare hurt you. I’m the one who has to earn the right to keep my merrow cap.”
I stared at him. “You’re kidding. Without your merrow cap, you’d—”
“Drown?” Airboy shrugged. “Life is hard in the Harbor.”
I was going to say that life was hard in the Park, too, but stopped myself. Sure, I’d faced the Wild Hunt, but I’d escaped. And I’d had help. A lot of help.
“Fine,” I said. “We found the mirror as a team, right? Park and Harbor working together toward a common goal? Why not take the next step and give it to the Queen together, too?”
There was a long silence. “Okay,” Airboy said.
“Wizard!” I got up. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Just like that?”
“Sure. Why not?”
He tugged at my skirt. I looked down at the delicate embroidered apron. “Oh. Yeah. Pepperkaka would kill me, wouldn’t she?”
“So take it off. The skirt, too. In fact, take off everything.” He opened one of his Harness