“Yeah?” Frank got up, dug around in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled bank note and tossed it onto the table. “Let’s hope so, for all our sakes. I’ll see you back at Nettleworth.” He touched two sardonic fingers to his forehead. “Sir.”

Returning to his office some thirty minutes later, intending only to jot down a few notes for an upcoming inter-Department meeting before joining Frank in his education of Bocius Pennyweather, Sir Alec saw the small, flashing crystal ball on his desk and halted.

Only a handful of people were entrusted with its vibration. And every one of them knew they should only call him on it as a last resort. He had a telephone, a general crystal and the Department’s communications room for anyone desirous of a regular conversation.

He closed the office door, crossed to his desk and coded in the password that would release the ball’s recorded message.

A familiar and totally unexpected face swam into focus.

“Sir Alec! Sorry not to come through regular channels. Had no choice. Don’t think I know who to trust!”

Abel Bestwick, one of his long-term sleeper janitors. Sweaty, panicked, his voice ratcheted too high, the words spitting out too fast.

“Dammit, why aren’t you there? Sir Alec, there’s something funny afoot. I’ve just — ”

A spasm of pain crossed Bestwick’s pale face. He lifted his hand, staring. Blood dripped between his fingers.

“Oh. That blade must’ve been longer than I — ”

Another spasm of pain, more severe. Groaning, Bestwick seemed to collapse into himself. And then a sharp sound from beyond the scope of his crystal ball’s recording field snapped his head round. He breathed in, sharply.

“Sir, it’s the wedding! They’re trying to — ”

A loud crack. A flash of light. Abel Bestwick’s face vanished.

Stunned, Sir Alec picked up the small crystal ball. Had to fight not to shake it, as though shaking it would bring Bestwick back. He replayed the short message. Replayed it again. And again. And then, frustrated, threw the damned ball hard at the far wall. It struck, leaving a dent in the paper-covered plaster, and thumped to the carpet.

“They? Who’s they? You bloody idiot, Bestwick!” he fumed. “Living in Splotze has rotted your brain, has it? Four years of indolence has turned you into a pudding?”

The most basic emergency protocols, unheeded. Every janitor on assignment had them hammered into memory.

If you must make an emergency report, stick to the salient facts. No blathering.

And what was that bloody recording, if not a prime example of blather. So what if he’d been hurt? It was a risk every janitor took. Bestwick knew that. And he knew better than to blather. Or he had done, four years ago.

I left him over there too long.

But this wasn’t the time for self-recriminations and post mortems. He’d assess his own culpability once he’d sorted out the mess.

The wedding.

Obviously Bestwick meant the Splotze-Borovnik affair. And hadn’t he been saying for months that trouble was a distinct possibility? A familial alliance between Splotze and Borovnik signalled a major power shift in that thaumaturgically volatile region-and change always sent the cockroaches scuttling. Hadn’t he put Bestwick on alert for precisely that reason? He’d have done a damned sight more, only Lord Attaby had over-ruled him, citing delicate trade negotiations and the easily-pricked sensibilities of Borovnik’s capricious Dowager Queen.

Now it seemed he’d been proven right. Again. Danger to do with the wedding, that if not averted could easily lead to all-out war. A war with thaumaturgics this time, he could feel the danger in his bones, and the United Magical Nations’ accords be damned.

But how to stop it? How?

Well, there was only one answer. He needed eyes and ears in the wedding party. And with Bestwick unaccounted for, quite possibly dead, he’d have to send someone else.

The question was, who?

And even if he could find the right man… how the hell was he going to get him invited to a bloody royal wedding?

CHAPTER FOUR

Still wrapped in her pink flannel dressing gown, because it was early and she was alone-well, except for Boris and he didn’t count-Melissande sat at her desk in the office and worked her way through Witches Incorporated’s neatly kept account book.

“Y’know,” she remarked to the sleepily attentive cat, “I’m starting to think we might not sink like the proverbial lead balloon after all.”

Curled up on Bibbie’s desk, green eyes slitted, Boris twitched his tail.

“Yes, really. I mean, all right, we’d have probably sunk already without Sir Alec’s totally self-serving assistance, but leaving that aside…”-which she was more than happy to do-“… there’s no getting away from the facts. Nearly three-quarters of our clients last month came from legitimate, non — Sir Alec sources. Word of mouth, mostly. And that’s the kind of advertising money can’t buy.”

Saint Snodgrass be praised. Because they didn’t have the money to buy any kind of advertising, beyond a tiny entry each month in the Wizarding Times. And they could only afford that by going without their sticky buns every other week.

Bibbie was getting very scathing about that.

“Which is a problem, Boris,” Melissande added, “because without Bibbie we would be sunk. She might be scattier than a flock of deranged hens, but it’s her thaumaturgical genius that keeps people coming back.”

Boris flicked his whiskers, agreeing.

“If only Gerald didn’t have to go on pretending he’s nothing more than a Third Grade wizard,” she said crossly, double-checking her addition of the figures in column three of the ledger. “I tell you, Boris, we’d be using gold bars for paperweights if that wretched Sir Alec would just let him off his leash once in a while. I mean, honestly, how much could it hurt?”

But that was never going to happen. Not so long as Gerald remained a janitor. And despite the awfulness of what had transpired in that mysterious other Ottosland, she couldn’t imagine Gerald ever abandoning the Department. Or the Department letting itself be abandoned, for that matter.

“So I suppose we’ll just have to keep muddling along, relying on Bibbie’s formidable talents,” she sighed. “But if Bibbie decides she’s bored with Witches Inc., or if her Uncle Ralph gets it into his head she’d be an asset to the government even though she’s not a man, or if she gives up the notion of living happily ever after in wedded bliss with Gerald-which, let’s face it, might not be a bad idea-and decides to go adventuring abroad to mend her broken heart, then honestly, Boris… I don’t know what I’ll do!”

You could always marry Monk and live happily ever after in wedded bliss yourself, her treacherous inner Melissande slyly suggested.

The thought made her blush, then slap the office ledger closed.

“He has to ask me first,” she pointed out to the cat, putting the cap back on her fountain pen. “And Monk’s been a bit preoccupied lately.”

“Not to mention slow off the mark,” said an almost familiar voice from the open office window. “Ducky, you do know what they say about women who sit about in empty rooms talking to themselves, don’t you?”

Reg. Sort of. Melissande snatched up the pen cloth and wiped a smudge of ink from her fingers. “I wasn’t talking to myself, thank you. I was talking to Boris.”

With a hoot, Reg flapped from the windowsill to the ram skull on the battered filing cabinet. “If you think that makes it better, madam, you’d best think again.”

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