"Why, why did I not wish for those elephants to be gone when I was making my wish on Otherplanet?" cried Dr. Grabengon, taking another drink. He rubbed his head, but the headache still did not go away. The pink elephants had returned with a vengeance: they danced around him, tapping their feet, and some even took to the air and flew about him in circles, using their ears to accelerate when necessary and to bank. Dr. Grabengon shook his head. He was alone. Eagle was away, helping Miranda find Kingman. They both could fly, but Dr. Grabengon couldn't. To get to the secret, lofty Cliffcastle on foot was nearly impossible, and so he was left behind, miserable and, once again, completely drunk.
Meanwhile, as Dr. Grabengon sat alone in his pink misery, Eagle and Miranda were flying high above dark, whispering forests, silent silvery rivers that wound their way through the land, cities, towns, villages - they all went by in a flash, for Miranda was the Dark Fairy after all. Eagle didn't mind the speed; in fact, he was getting rather used it. Only his feathers kept flying out occasionally and disappearing swiftly into the gloomy night.
For his help, Miranda had promised her Verdillac briefcase, which was full of exotic, rare plants that blossomed pleasantly and eventually produced lots of lush, green paper bills.
They flew for several hours straight, for even at their present velocity, Cliffcastle was very far away. As they neared the Land of the Mountains, Eagle could see only dark rock below, but not a town, village, or city was otherwise in sight. The foot of the Tall Cliff was bathed in moonlight, and sharp, jagged basaltic rock rose up all around, reaching up to its summit, where flickered a few little yellow lights.
Soon they began to approach the castle. All the windows were now dark, except for one at the very top of the tallest Tower. Eagle and Miranda slowed down a bit here and looked at each other very seriously.
"This must be Kingman's Tower," Eagle said, chipping away at a bit of frost that had formed on the end of his beak.
"Yes," Miranda replied. "We must be careful now. People say that he never sleeps."
"That might be a problem," said Eagle. "Why can't you cast a spell on him though?"
"My powers on Earth are limited, Eagle. We must be very careful not to be noticed."
Miranda and Eagle flew near the window of the Tower, stealthily hovering close to it and peering inside through the frosted glass. They could see Kingman seated at the table. He looked very grim. Long icicles hung from the ceiling of the office, and there was frost on all the windowpanes, both inside and out. That made it kind of difficult to see the interior of the room, or what Kingman was doing.
"I don't see the Stella Mars," said Eagle, whose vision was not very good at night. The Dark Fairy breathed lightly upon the window, and some of the frost slowly melted away, forming a fairly clear round spot. Miranda looked through it for a while.
Kingman suddenly got up and walked away from the table. For some time, they could not see him inside the room, but then he returned, carrying the flower in its glass container. He looked at it, holding it up before him, his lips moving silently. It was hard to see his face, but he seemed very angry. He said something vile and dropped the flower to the floor. The glass canopy shattered, and the flower withered immediately in the cold of the room.
Miranda began to drop down quickly at this sight, but Eagle caught her up just in time. "What? What is it?" he asked.
"The flower…it's dead," Miranda said, and became limp and heavy in Eagle's arms. He flew up to the roof of the Tower and left her there. She would not wake up.
He did not know what to do now. Miranda seemed to be completely lifeless, the flower was dead, he was thousands of miles away from home, and the green Verdillac suitcase was obviously lost now as well. Eagle scratched his head with a yellow talon. "Oh, what the deuce," he said to himself. Then he flew back down and looked through the window, which was slowly being overtaken again by frost.
Kingman was standing very still. The Stella Mars lay broken on the floor, with all its earth and red and pink roots lying among the shattered glass.
He was laughing in a very unpleasant way. He stomped the flower with his foot several times, and then he stood still, looking blankly at the floor with completely empty, dead eyes.
The window to the room suddenly broke open, and a large bird burst inside, flapping its wings in a menacing manner. Kingman reached for the special red button on his desk, which would have brought him some help, but it was frozen solid and stuck in place. Meanwhile, the eagle snatched the remains of the Stella Mars off the floor and headed back out the window.
"Where are you going?!" shouted Kingman, and tried to stop the eagle, but the bird was very fast, and all he could manage to do was pull three feathers from its tail. Kingman stood with the eagle's feathers in his hand in utter bewilderment. He could distinctly hear a man's voice cursing him somewhere from the roof of the Tower, and the sound of clawed feet walking about on the parapet.
Kingman was terribly afraid now and ran toward the door, but it wouldn't give way. It was frozen stuck as well. He peered out the window, but saw no one. He could no longer hear the sound of the eagle walking, or cursing. Kingman pulled a heavy curtain over the window just in case, and sat back down again at the table, thinking of how he was going to get out of his own room. A few minutes later, he heard a knock on his door, and ran up to it very quickly.
"Sir, I am very sorry to dist---" a timid voice began.
"You're not disturbing me at all! Please let me out of this horrible room!" Kingman began to pound on the door. All the servants and staff came running then. It took them several hours to break through the ice.