Free So Silver Bright by Lisa Mantchev Page B

leavin’ wi’out Ariel?”
    “If I want to win that wish-come-true from the Queen, we need to go now,” Bertie answered. It wasn’t until Nate turned that she permitted herself to consider the question fully, and the thought of Ariel’s absence brought bright-hot tears to her eyes. Hastening to wipe them away, she almost scratched the skin down her cheeks and alongside her nose. At first she thought her fingernails were to blame, but when she studied her hands, Bertie saw that her tears had hardened into sharp-edged crystals that looked suspiciously like diamonds.
    “Are ye comin’?” Nate was halfway down the stairs.
    She closed her fingers over the jewels and turned back to the open trunk. “I need to find a pair of shoes. Then we can get this demented act on the road.”
    With an extra pair of Mary Janes located and the diamond-tears tucked into the deepest pocket of her jeans, Bertie followed Nate out into the night. Waschbär was the first to greet her with a chipper salute and then a squint.
    “What have you done to yourself?”
    I should have known the man who wears a raccoon’s mask would notice something amiss!
    She tried to sidestep him, but the sneak-thief was dexterous beyond her imagining, and he blocked her at every turn.
    “You smell of herbs and intrigue.” He sniffed at her again, nose quivering with such enthusiasm that he finally sneezed. Disturbed by the blast, Pip Pip and Cheerio tumbled out of his pockets and clambered onto his shoulders, their tiny black eyes glittering in the half-light from the torches. They sassed Bertie with chitters and squeaks, unintelligibly remonstrating her as Waschbär listened with great intensity, until she was quite certain he knew all about her visit to Serefina, seeking protection from Sedna, and trading her mask.
    Bertie glowered at the tattling vermin. “That’s hardly polite. And I’d like to know who told you!”
    “I won’t say anything,” Waschbär assured her in an undertone. “Go and make your farewells so we can be on our way.”
    All the Innamorati performers had turned out for the troupe’s sudden departure: the giraffe-girl standing alongside Salt and Sauce, the Pachyderm Professors; aerial acrobats with icicles still a-dangle from their clothes and hair; dozens of specialty performers, their faces thick with white paint and skin encrusted with sequins. Eye-blinding in her frilly gold Columbine skirts, the woman portraying the Sun sniffed into a handkerchief the size of a pillowcase. Her partner, the Harlequin Moon, turned lethargic cartwheels that somehow managed to convey his desolation over their exodus.
    Valentijn towered over the assembled crowd. The Keeper of the Costumes looked the sternest Bertie had ever seen him. He carried a battered leather portmanteau, and for one terrifying moment, Bertie thought he might be running away— who runs away from the circus? —and wanted to come with them.
    But he only pushed the bit of luggage at her. “Several changes of clothes for you, all recently washed and tailored to your measurements. Thankfully, I believe most of them will match your new coloring.”
    “Thank you, Valentijn.” Bertie accepted the proffered suitcase and nearly staggered under its weight. She wouldn’t find it the least bit surprising if he had untold powers of packing, with the inside of the portmanteau larger than the outside and containing enough poet-sleeved shirts to costume a dozen wayward playwrights.
    “Let me take that, lass.” Nate disappeared around the side of the caravan without straining any of his muscles, though he discharged his burden with a grunt and an “oomph.”
    All the while, the Keeper of the Costumes peered at Bertie, his narrow gaze as piercing as one of his mending needles. “I see more change written upon you than just your hair, young Beatrice. Have you need of more costuming than what I’ve provided?”
    “Considering the weight of that suitcase,” she said, “I doubt