“Oh shush, you flying mop,” said the Crow Girl. “I have them in hand. I’ll get them to the City, you watch and see.”
“Are you sure that’s where you’re taking them?” asked Broom, his head swiveling back to face the Crow Girl.
She bristled—literally bristled, the feathers of her dress lifting and puffing out, until she looked as though she were wearing a long shirt three sizes too big for her. “We’re on the improbable road!” she protested. “If I were planning to delay, betray, take them the wrong way, we wouldn’t be on the road. The road wouldn’t let us be.”
“You might not know,” said Broom, and again, his voice was gentle. He turned back to Avery and Zib. “Do you have Crow Girls where you come from?”
Silent, they shook their heads.
“Crow Girls serve two masters. They’re made by the Queen of Swords, because she can’t stand things that don’t belong to her, but she’s fickle, and she doesn’t like the mischief they get up to when she’s not keeping an active eye on them. So she gives them away, to someone whose name I won’t say, because that person listens to the owls, that person hates and remembers us, and if she hears her name on my beak, she’ll come for you for no reason other than to spite me. Even a Crow Girl who thinks she’s doing the right thing can betray you because her other master tells her to.”
Avery blinked slowly. Then he turned to the Crow Girl. “Is it true?” he asked.
Her feathers lost their puff and drooped, sleeking back down as she slumped. “It is,” she admitted. “I didn’t know. When the Queen of Swords said she could set me free, she didn’t tell me there was a cage on the other end. She didn’t say she’d wrap me in tangles and hand all their ends to a bad person. The Queen likes to own things. She’ll make monsters of you all if we don’t get you away from here. But she doesn’t like to take care of them.”
“Who do you belong to?” asked Zib.
The Crow Girl drooped further. “I can’t say it,” she said. “If I say it, she’ll remember who I am, she’ll know where I am, she’ll come to collect me and carry me away, and she’ll know you’re here, she’ll see you and she’ll take you too, because her keeper loves new things. I hate cages. Don’t make me say it.”
“We won’t,” said Zib, and patted the Crow Girl hesitantly on the arm, the way her mother sometimes patted her. “I promise.”
The Crow Girl smiled bright as anything, her distress instantly forgotten as she turned to Broom. “The road splits, and I don’t know which way to go. We’re looking for a lock to fit our skeleton key. Do you know the way?”
“Locks are tricky things,” said Broom. “Either way could be the right one, and either way could be wrong.”
“We don’t have time for this,” blurted Avery. “If the Queen of Swords is so dangerous, we need to not be here anymore. We can’t stand around arguing about which way we’re going!” He turned resolutely to the left branch of the path and began stomping away, his shineless shoes thudding on the bricks.
The Crow Girl stared after him, mouth hanging slightly open. Then she whirled around, grabbing Zib by the shoulders, and said, “I’ll go after him. He’s too delicate to go alone. Take the flying mop and go the other way. If we find the lock, I’ll come find you. If you find the lock, bring it back here and wait for us. We’ll have you to the Impossible City in no time!” She burst into crows before Zib could say anything, all of them flying wildly after the rapidly dwindling Avery.
Zib blinked, her hair wilting slightly as she realized what had happened. Then she turned to Broom, and said, in a meek voice, “Will you go with me?”
“No, child.” Broom tucked his vast white wings against his chest, looking as sympathetic as an owl could look. “I do not belong to the Queen of Swords, but I am her subject as long as I live in her lands, and I will not go against her by helping you. The road will keep you safe. Stay on the road, and you will be protected. I hope I see you again.”
Then he was gone, in a great buffeting of silent feathers, and Zib was alone.
SEVEN
THE QUEEN OF SWORDS
Zib stared at the place where the owl had been, willing herself not to cry even as hot tears prickled at her eyes, burning them. She was alone. Avery and the Crow Girl were off having an adventure without her, and even the owl wouldn’t stay with her. No one ever stayed.
No one ever had. So why should this place be any different? Angrily, she swept her arm across her face, chasing the swelling tears away, and turned to stomp down the right branch of the road, into the orchard heavy with unfamiliar fruit.
Her stomach was full, and so she didn’t pick any of the strange spheres, which were covered with tiny, nubby spikes, but eyed them warily. If they fell and hit her, it would probably hurt, and she didn’t like being hurt. Avery was upset because he’d lost the shine from his shoes—ha! She’d lost her shoes entirely, and one sock, and was barely on the civilized side of barefoot. Zib scowled before bending down, pulling off her remaining sock, and hurling it into the bushes. Let someone else be civilized. The Crow Girl got by just fine without socks.
As soon as the sock disappeared in the weeds, she felt a pang of guilt. Her parents worked hard to buy her those socks, and she’d already lost her shoes, and her mother was always so disappointed when she came home with holes where her toes were or tears where her ankles were, and how much more disappointed would she be by an entire missing pair? It wasn’t kind. Zib glanced anxiously around. She wasn’t supposed to leave the road. She also wasn’t supposed to be walking it all by herself, and it wasn’t like there was anything around here that would hurt her; it was nothing but trees and berry bushes and weeds as far as her eye could see.
Sometimes things which seem like excellent ideas are actually terrible ones, and we wait for someone to tell us so. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, that person comes along and says “stop” before it’s too late.
No one came along. No one said “stop.”
Zib stepped off the path.
The grass, for all that it was dry and windswept, was soft under her bare feet, and the stones seemed to roll out of the way, leaving her with nothing but gentle surfaces to walk upon. Her sock couldn’t have gone far. All she had to do was find it and she’d be able to go back to the road and keep looking for the lock. Something white caught her attention. She turned, and there was her sock, hanging on a nearby bush. Triumphant, she rushed over to grab it, then ran back to the road—or ran in the direction of the road, anyway, because when she reached the place where it should have been, there was no road there at all.
Zib stopped, blinking repeatedly, trying to make sense of what she saw. The grass looked like all the grass around it. There were trees, and bushes, and no space wide enough to place a road, no space at all. The road wasn’t there. The road had never been there.
“I got turned around, that’s all,” she said, and started in another direction. The road would be there. Surely the road would be there.
The road wasn’t there.
Zib stopped again, expression going very solemn and small. The road had abandoned her because she had abandoned the road. She was lost. But Avery and the Crow Girl were still on the road, and the Crow Girl had left them once, to get food, and come back by looking for them, not the road. So all she had to do was look for her friends, and everything would be all right again.