Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess

Agatha allowed herself to relax slightly. Othar still hadn’t attacked...

Trish nodded as she threw a new costume across Agatha’s shoulders and began to tighten a series of cleverly strung laces. “Very edgy! It was like you expected someone to shoot you or something.”

The idea made Agatha go tense again. She took a deep breath. “I think I saw Othar Tryggvassen out there! The big blond guy with the weird visor glasses?”

Trish grinned. “Oh, you saw him? Yeah, he loves our shows!”

Agatha blinked. “He’s—you’ve all met him before?”

The Countess whipped a huge bunch of false curls out of a hatbox and began to fasten it to the back of Agatha’s head. It felt like she was using nails. “He gets around a lot. We’ve seen him five—”

“Six,” Trish corrected her.

The Countess nodded. “Correct. Six times in the past year. He buys a lot of popcorn.”

“And he hasn’t shot anybody?”

Trish gave her an odd look. “Of course not. It’s good popcorn. He gets free refills.”

Then, Agatha remembered that the Sparks of Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure took pains to hide their true talents. Othar most likely saw nothing here but ordinary actors and sideshow wonders. The Spark could be hidden.

Finally, Marie stepped back and gestured meaningfully—it was nearly time for her next entrance.

Relief had lifted Agatha’s spirits, but the nervous energy that terror had lent her remained. When Lucrezia Mongfish strode into her laboratory in a towering rage and demanded of her three cringing minions: “Who has deactivated my beautiful frogs?” the audience pointed as one to Bill Heterodyne, who lay stripped to the waist and shackled to a huge wooden laboratory table. “He did!” they screamed.

All in all, it was a tremendous success.

The rest of the show passed in a kaleidoscopic whirl, and then... suddenly... Lars was kissing her.

They had carefully pecked at each other during rehearsals, but for the real show, Abner had ordered them to hold the kiss as long as the audience cheered them on.

The audience cheered them on for approximately six and a half years. When it was over, Agatha tottered dizzily backward, her face burning. She stuttered through her last lines and fled the stage with as much grace as she could manage.

The Countess caught Agatha as she entered the wings. She adjusted her hairpiece and tucked her disheveled costume back into place just as the final curtain fell. Then she spun Agatha about and gave her costume one last expert tweak, exposing shoulders and an alarming amount of decolletage in one quick tug before propelling her back onto the stage. She landed hard against Lars, who caught her expertly in the crook of his arm.

At her entrance, the applause doubled in volume. Cheers and whistles filled the air.

Agatha had never received such overwhelming approval as she was getting now—nearly everything she had done at the University had either been ignored or had gotten her into trouble. She drank in the adulation, astonished at how satisfying—how right it felt. She ventured a peek at the audience to see how Othar was reacting, and was surprised to see that he was gone.

Lars beamed as he waved to the crowd. He leaned down and whispered in Agatha’s ear: “I knew you’d be great!” He took her arm and led her toward the edge of the stage. “Now we head on down and mingle.”

Agatha nodded. Othar was much less likely to try to kill her in the center of the crowd—he might hit an innocent bystander—and she didn’t think that would fit with his delusions of heroism. She donned her glasses, pulled her costume back onto her shoulders, shook out her skirts, and straightened up to follow Lars—only to walk directly into Othar. He was standing patiently off to one side of the stage, obviously waiting for her. Agatha gave a little shriek of surprise.

Othar laughed genially. “So! Madame Olga!” he boomed, “You are, I’m told, a sayer of sooths and a teller of fortunes, yes?”

Agatha was taken aback. He couldn’t possibly have forgotten her already, could he? Lars leaned in and answered for her. “Indeed she is, sir!”

“Excellent!” Othar looped a muscular arm around her shoulders and began to walk her away. “I would like my fortune told! Now, if you please!”

Agatha was so stunned that she allowed him to gently steer her toward her tent. Less than a minute later, Othar was dropping onto a cushioned chair—leaning his elbows on the ornate little table that stood before Madame Olga’s skull-draped throne. Agatha took her time at lighting the vast collection of candles and lanterns that hung around the tent, trying to collect her thoughts.

“A fine performance!” Othar said as he leaned forward, peering at the dials and meters set into the huge brass-bound crystal orb that rested on the table.

“Thank you.” Agatha was confused. Othar’s body language conveyed no sense of menace whatsoever. Somehow, this only made the tall, jolly man even more frightening.

Othar idly scratched his beard. “You seem a bit on edge.”

Agatha spun about to face him directly. “The last time I saw you, you tried to kill me!”

“Oh, that.” Othar waved a hand in dismissal. “That was before I knew that you were a Heterodyne.”

Agatha started. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Why, not long after we—” he coughed politely into his fist, “—parted ways, I ran into a young man who I believe to be your cousin: a Master Theopholous DuMedd?

“You didn’t do anything horrible to him, did you?”

Othar paused, and a frown flitted across his features. “Ah, I see. No, I was unaware that he was a Spark.” He sighed. “What a pity. At any rate, he was traveling with a small group of the Baron’s hostages who had snatched the opportunity presented by my rather dramatic departure to affect their own escape from Castle Wulfenbach. All very nice young people, and all fans of mine, as it happens!

Young DuMedd told me everything. He was very glad to hear that you were in good hands as my spunky girl assistant!”

Agatha glowered. “I am not your assistant. You tried to kill me.”

Othar waggled an admonitory finger at her. “See? That’s why friends shouldn’t keep secrets from one another.”

“I don’t keep secrets! Not from my real friends.” Agatha was digging through a small chest to one side of her throne. Who knows what the previous Madame Olga had kept in it? Maybe she could poison his tea.

Othar sat back and folded his arms. “Ah. So these traveling players know who you really are?”

This brought her up short. “No,” she admitted, after a deep breath. “No, they don’t.”

Sergeant Zulli stood atop the city wall, watching the moon rise from behind the eastern mountains. He had just spent a half-hour instructing one of the new recruits in the correct use of the town’s prized night scope—and was hoping the boy would prove himself a fast learner. The instrument was huge, an ornate, cumbersome affair full of mirrors, lenses and strange, colored filters, bristling with switches, knobs and gauges all up and down the sides. It had been a gift to the town long ago, built by the local lord—a Spark who occasionally had trouble containing his monsters. Even Zulli had to admit he had no idea how it actually worked, but work it did, and very well, too. A competent operator could view all three roads leading up to the town as clear as day, even on a moonless night[28].

Tonight, Zulli could hear the crowd below—roaring with laughter at the circus’ antics. Things were going smoothly, and he was beginning to think he would soon be able to join the fun, when the boy suddenly started back from the scope’s eyepiece with a yell of alarm, nearly falling from his perch.

Zulli was at his elbow instantly, steadying him with one hand. “Anybody you know?”

“No sir! There’s something coming up the East Road.”

Zulli frowned. “Some thing—”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s big and it’s fast.”

“That’s never a good combination.” Zulli removed his helmet and fitted his eye to the scope.

“It should be coming up on the five lengths mark,” the boy said.

Zulli spun an engraved wheel and pointed the instrument at a distant road sign—the large white V newly