Come to me, Fairfax.
She flew straight into him. He barely caught her.
She lay still and stunned in his palms. He passed his fingers over her wings. You did well, nothing broken. The first time I tried this, I gave myself a concussion and fractured my elbow.
He placed her in the spare cage, atop of layers of clean newspaper. Rest for a few minutes, then we need to go.
He went around the room gathering what he needed. She wobbled toward the water cup.
Drink the water if you are thirsty, but do not eat anything from the feed cup. You may look like a bird, but you are not one. You cannot fly very well, and you most certainly cannot digest raw seeds.
She dipped her beak into the water, drank, and hopped around a little more in her cage.
The door of the cage was still open. He held out his hand. Come here.
Her little bird head cocked to one side, looking almost as suspicious as her human self. But she hopped onto his palm. He raised her to his lips and kissed the top of her downy head.
It will be you and me against the world, Fairfax, he murmured. You and me.
Dalbert was on time, as always.
Your Highness. Dalbert bowed from the waist.
He held open the door of the private rail coach. Titus nodded, gave his satchel to the valet, and mounted the steps into the coach with the cage in his hand.
Dalbert brought Titus
a glass of hippocras and tipped some waterose seeds into Fairfaxs feed cup.
Hullo there, Miss Buttercup.
Titus watched her. She dipped her beak into the feed cup and took out a seed. But when Dalbert had smiled in satisfaction and turned to putter elsewhere in the coach, she dropped the seed back into the feed cup.
Titus breathed again. All the literature had insisted that a mage in a transmogrified state clearly understands language and instructions, but this was the first time he had been able to test the claim for himself.
The trains whistle shrieked. Its wheels ground against the tracks. They were on their way.
They remained on the rails for only a few minutes. The prince used the time to throw on a tunic and change into a pair of knee-high boots. Then Iolanthe was no longer looking at the English countryside, but at distant mountain peaks.
Which turned out not to be real mountain peaks, but a large mural that adorned the circular room in which the private rail coach now stood.
The prince rose from his seat. In her current size, he appeared immense, his hand the size of a door. He lifted her cage and alit, followed by his manservant.
A set of heavy, tall double doors swung open. Shed anticipated a great room of some sort on the other side, but it was only the stairwell, lit by sconces that emitted a remarkably pure white light.
They descended a long flight of circular stairsthe rail coach was parked at the top of a tower. Another set of doors opened, and they walked down a wide corridor with open arches that looked out to a garden terrace that hung several hundred feet above the courtyard below.
The corridor turned, split, turned again. Now there were attendants everywhere, bowing and scraping as the prince walked by. They went up a few steps, passed a library, an indoor garden with a sculpture fountain in the middle, and a large aviary filled with birds of all descriptions.
When they finally entered the princes apartment, she found it rather sparsely furnishedMaster Haywood had a more impressive parlor when he was still at the university. Or so Iolanthe thought, until her gaze landed on the tri-panel screen before the window. Inside each translucent panel, silver-azure butterflies fluttered. As she watched, one butterflys color changed into a vibrant yellow, another to a delicate shade of violet, and yet a third an intricate pattern of green and black.
The butterflies must be made from blue argent, a priceless elixir sensitive to the least changes in the heat and intensity of the sun. The prince paid no attention at all to his incalculably precious screen, but charged past. In the next room she caught a glimpse of an enormous vase of ice roses, their pale blue petals like blown glass. The room after that housed a spinning globe. She couldnt be sure, but she thought she saw a thunderstorm going on somewhere in the tropics, with tiny flashes of lightning. The prince ducked under the moon as he marched on.
In his bedchamber he stopped to pull off his boots; then they were in an enormous bathroom that boasted a tub carved out of a single block of amethyst, with fittings and claw-feet of pure gold. Steam curled above the tub, petals and herbs floated atop the watershe smelled orange blossom and mint.
She used to relish long soaks. It had been one of the most enjoyable applications of her elemental power, a gentle fire beneath the tub to keep the water at a constant temperature, while she made elaborate, fanciful sculptures with water droplets in the air.
The prince set her down and dismissed his valet. The latter left with a bow and closed the door. Leaning against the wall, the prince pulled off his stockings. As he walked toward the amethyst tub, he yanked his shirt over his head.