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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-One - Fast Travel

  I ehe mage’s guild with wide-eyes and a smile so big my cheeks were hurting. The pce was incredible, with floating banisters, lights that hovered a few timeters from the ceiling and a rge desk made of some sort of still-living tree taking up the middle of the room.

  It felt like I had stepped into Hogwarts.

  Amaryllis, the party pooper, didn’t even gawk. She just walked straight up to the front desk and o the young man with a pin wizard’s cape behind it. “We’re here for an appoi with Magister Dupuis,” she said.

  I spun around. There were big portraits above the entrance, each of a man or woman in eborate robes and with plicated hats.

  “Broccoli!” Amaryllis was waiting by the side of a spiral staircase, Awen by her side, aalons on her hips. “If you want to walk all the way over to the Fort then you’re more than wele to stay,” she said.

  “Right! ing.”

  Up the stairs we went, and then down a short corridor and inte wood-panelled room. The walls were covered in tig clocks with the names of cities on pques o them, and a spot in the middle of the room was cleared of anything except a wooden dais.

  A man was reading from a rge tome off to one side, with a pointy-brimmed hat on his head held in pce by a pretty red ribbon tied in a bow under his bearded .

  He turned our way, intelligent eyes sing over us before he smiled. “Ah, Miss Amaryllis! And these must be your friends. Hello!”

  “Hello Magister,” Amaryllis said. “We’re here for our appoi.”

  “I assumed as much,” the man said with a chuckle. “I doubt you’re here for my versational abilities!”

  “I wouldn’t mind talking,” I said.

  The magister barked a ugh. “You’re too kind, then. Not too nervous about telep?”

  I shook my head. “No way! I’m super excited. What’s it like? Will I vomit when we reach the other end? Or see eldritch monsters if I keep my eyes open when we move?”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ve got the Teleport skill, which means that this should all be quite smooth and easy. I do have some advice, if you’ll hear it.”

  I nodded. “Of course, you’re the expert.”

  His grin grew. “Nothing too plicated. Hold onto each other wheeleport, bend your knees just a bit, and keep your eyes closed.”

  “Because if I don’t close them I’ll be catg glimpses of the unknowable horrors between time and space?” I asked.

  “It’s more like the differen lighting hurt your eyesight. Plus Fort Sylphrot be quite the windy pce. You might also want to make sure all of your equipment is on tight, just in case.”

  I was a bit disappointed, but I nodded all the same and made sure my hat was on nid tight. “Will do,” I said. “Why do we o bend our knees?”

  “I tend to prefer telep in a handspahe ground. Which means a bit of a drop on arrival. It be jarring if you’re standing tall and straight. I once had aire group of soldiers fall onto their backs on arriving. Terribly embarrassing.”

  I gave him a thumbs-up. “I got it,” I said. “Is that all we o do?”

  “Well, there’s the delicate matter of payment....”

  Amaryllis was quick to pull a page from her ring. In no time at all, a small pouch that ked of gold was handed over to the wizard who stashed it away in a little vault.

  The magister brought us over to the rge dais off to the side, then he did something on a paig out of its side that made the ptform shift just a tiny bit. “This adjusts the level on which we stand. See, Dirt is actually round, so you o stand at an angle where, upon arriving, you won’t fall ft on your face. Of course Fort Sylphrot isn’t terribly far, so it’s barely noticeable. Ahh, is that cat a familiar?”

  I blinked and looked down te inding her way around Awen’s ankles. “Oh, that’s e, she’s my spirit kitten,” I said.

  “Might want to unsummohen,” he said. “Or you try holding onto her. Spirit animals tend to do as they please.”

  I picked e up and hugged her close. She must have been in a good mood because she didn’t fight me off or anything. “I think we’re ready,” I said.

  “Wonderful! Get closer now, yes that’s right. You’ll want to link arms, just like at a formal.” The magister directed us close together, Amaryllis on my right, Awen on my left, and then we all linked arms. It was a bit awkward, but not too bad. “Very well, now close your eyes....”

  I shut my eyes as tight as I could.

  And then a cold breeze was slipping past my legs and face a moment before I dropped no more than a couple of timeters. The quiet tick-tog of Magister Dupuis’ room was repced by the murmur of a crowd, broken by the occasional whistle and the distant chug of airship engines.

  “You look around, we’ve arrived,” the Magister said.

  I blinked a few times and took in the form of a huge wall and the top of a rge mountain. We were just outside a city, standing on a white-brick courtyard o a gatehouse. I hugged e close, but the kitty wiggled out of my grasp and climbed onto my shoulder.

  Behind us was a geous se, mountain tops rising up to a cloudy sky, and beyond them a grassy ftnd for as far as the eyes could see. Iher dire were more mountains, peaks and jagged sides rising up way above us to touch the sky.

  “Wele to Fort Sylphrot,” the Magister said. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways.” the wizard bowed. “Thank you for using the Mages Guild’s services this afternoon. I wish you dies the fi of days.”

  “Ah, thank you,” I said.

  “Ihank you, Magister Dupuis,” Amaryllis said.

  Awen murmured her own thanks to the man a moment before he disappeared without so much as a ‘zorp.’

  Grinning from ear to ear, I took a deep breath of thin, cold air and turned back to the walls of the fort. They were tall, made of shaped stohat were the same colour as all the mountains around us. “So, this is Fort Sylphrot?” I asked.

  “It is,” Amaryllis said. She looked caught between being gd she was bae and a strange form of mencholy, so I pulled her into a sidelong hug. “Get off me,” she said. “The guards are looking our way.” She might have been pining, but she wasn’t doing anything to push me off.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said. “Awen and I are with you!”

  “Aw, we are,” Awen said.

  Amaryllis huffed and began stomping her way over to the gate.

  There weren’t all that many guards there, nor were there any carts or anything leading up to the gates. I guessed that being half a mountain in the middle of a range kind of made carrying stuff overnd plicated.

  We moved over to the gate where the guards saluted us. “Greetings,” one of them said. I hadn’t seen that many harpies sining to Dirt. Sure, I’d spent a lot of time with Amaryllis, but that was about it. The guards were some of the first boy harpies I saw.

  The ohat had spoken looked a bit older than the rest, with a few of his feathers looking a bit dull and worn along his arms and head. He wore a thickly padded gambeson, but al armour. I supposed that it made sehat harpies in general would want to avoid heavier armour if they were able to fly.

  “Hello,” Amaryllis said. “ we enter or will there be trouble?” Amaryllis asked.

  “Uh,” the guard said. “We’ll o see your passes,” he said. “Just as a matter of security.”

  Amaryllis huffed and pulled a page from her ring. A moment ter--after using the wall as a table--she had a little booklet in hand which she passed to the guard. I noticed that the pages all had tabs on them, probably to make it easier for someoh talons to sift through it.

  The guard stood taller and his head feathers puffed out a bit. “Miss Albatross, ah, five me, ma’am. I didn’t reize you.”

  Amaryllis waved the ent off. “I’ve been away for a bit. We’re heading straight to my estates, all three of us. Is that well?”

  “Of course ma’am,” the guard said as he gave her back the booklet. “Wele home.”

  Amaryllis huffed and walked past the guards, so it fell onto me to thank them for all of their hard work, at least until Amaryllis started tugging at my colr.

  We paused just beyond the gate, Amaryllis turning to face me with her talons on both of my shoulders. “Okay. Let’s get this over with right away. We’re going to walk over to my family’s estates. Between here and there, please try to get all of yawking and try bumpkin-ing dohin one fell swoop. I’ll grudgingly py the tuide for you.”

  “You have tuides?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Fort Sylphrot is sed only to the capital in terms of importance. More so, if you take into at its strategic value.”

  I hen, finally, took some time to look around.

  The ey felt a little small, with a footprint that was much tighter than Port Royal. But uhe chaotically anic Port Royal, Fort Slyphrot was built vertically. Hardly any of the buildings I could see were shorter than four stories, with some reag six or seven. There were stairwells all over, and rge balies overlooking the tight streets below.

  The vast majority of the people moving about were harpy, but there was the occasional human and even the rare grenoil milling in the crowd. A crowd that was surprisingly colourful. Most of the people walking by had clothes in dull colours, browns and greys, but their plumage made up for it. Frht, ary yellow, to peacock-like feathers atop the head of groups of young men.

  I couldn’t pin the kinds of birds most of the harpy were like, though some were rather obvious. Wide-eyed oy salesmen were hawking food with loud hoots and a few dark-feathered croy were preag from a street er.

  The food stalls were filling the air with the st of freshly cooked meats and breads, which was nice because the stench of bird poop would have been overwhelming otherwise.

  Above us, younger harpies were skipping from roof to roof with cheerful whistles, pletely ign the no doubt lethal fall below them.

  “This pce is so alive!” I cheered.

  Amaryllis trilled, her chest puffing out with pride. “Of course it is. The ing Kingdom is one of, if not the, greatest kingdom on all of Dirt.”

  I decided not to poke at her patriotic bubble, not when she seemed so happy. “Are you going to show us around? What kind of food do they have here? Oh, are there any special armours and ons for sale? What about the airships? Your family is big on those.... we do some window shopping? Is it called window shopping when you’re shopping for aire ship?”

  Amaryllis scoffed. “I’m certain we squeeze some time for all of that ter. e on, there are a few things I’d like to show you.”

  “What sort of things?” I asked.

  Instead of answering me, Amaryllis turo Aas being quiet and demure while also taking ihing around her. “Have you ever been to a proper bath house, Awen?”

  “I have,” Awen said with a nod. “They are quite popur in Mattergrove, and Greenshade has a few for the noble dies. Um. It’s a pce to trade gossip, mostly. We always took a bath at home before and after.”

  Amaryllis snorted. “Well, I’ll show you a proper bath house ter. You too, Broccoli.”

  “I’m pretty ,” I pointed out.

  “You wore the same uhings for far, far too long. You might be , but that doesn’t mean you’re .”

  I bli that. “Uh.”

  “Oh, nevermind. e. We’ll stop by my house first. If the world is kind to us we’ll mao avoid meeting anyone from my family until ter.”

  ***

  Annouwo small annous!

  One of my best friends, Materia Bde, has just unched a ory called The Sor Towers: Telilro. I, uh, haven't actually read it yet, but Mat's a better writer than me, so it's probably pretty good. Figured I'd mention that.

  Oh, and Book Two of Stray Cat Strut; OR, a Young Lady's Guide to Exploding the Corporate Ladder, has just gone up!