“Kreski? Who’s Kres-mmph!”
“And try not to drool on it,” he added, as the bird glared at him over the envelope, which he’d shoved into her open beak. “You might set off the thaumaturgics.”
Dark eyes promising a proper poking of his unmentionables, Reg rattled her tail, flapped her wings, and launched herself into the night.
For one precious moment he let himself sag over the office windowsill. Please, please, let that note be what gets Gerald and the girls home in one piece. And then he pulled back inside, reignited the no-see-’em, breathed hard until his protesting potentia settled, and made his way back downstairs to tackle the embassy supper’s dirty dishes.
“Well,” Bibbie remarked, once again comfortably sprawled on the royal bed in the palace’s sumptuous guest suite. “You’ve done a bang-up job, Mel, I must say. After that stunt you pulled at what’s left of the Hanging Bridge, now the only person speaking to you is Hartwig.”
Melissande, seated in the bedchamber’s largest plush velvet chair, folded her arms. Y’know, I’m getting rather tired of this. “That’s not true. You’re speaking to me. And so is Algernon.”
Cross-legged on the carpeted floor, Gerald grunted, not looking up from his crystal ball. “Only because I have to.”
She kicked her heel against the carpet. “Honestly, Algernon. I think you’re being rather mean.”
“Mean?” Gerald laughed, unamused. “Wait till you hear what Sir Alec has to say. Trust me, Your Highness, that’s when you’ll hear mean.”
“Only if you can get that wretched crystal ball to work,” she said. “Can you?”
“No,” he said curtly. “The etheretics are still out of whack. Which means the portals won’t be working either. We’re stuck here, curse it, with no way of reaching Sir Alec.”
“Maybe you should let Gladys have a turn,” she said, feeling nasty. “A fresh eye. A woman’s touch. That sort of thing.”
“There’s no point, Melissande,” said Bibbie. “If Algernon can’t get that crystal ball working, nobody can.”
Disbelieving, Melissande stared at her. Bibbie giving up on a thaumaturgical challenge? Bibbie surrendering the high ground to a wizard? And then she saw the look that passed between Monk’s sister and Gerald. It was full of secrets. Of the mysterious thaumaturgical communion they’d shared at the bridge. She remembered there were things about him that Bibbie still hadn’t told her. Remembered their shocking, heart-stopping kiss. Passion and need and triumph, inextricably intertwined.
So much for her not being sure he loved her. So much for him worrying that for her, he was the wrong man.
Gerald had confided that fear, late one night a few days after coming home from the mess in that other, dreadful Ottosland. But apparently things changed. Monk. She felt a little ache in the region of her heart. Perhaps if she ignored it, the bothersome pain would go away.
“Anyway,” said Bibbie. “We’re back in Grande Splotze, after a lovely cross-country motorcar dash, and the second fireworks display is set for tonight.” She frowned. “Algernon-”
Gerald picked up his crystal ball and stood. “I told you already, Gladys. I don’t know if there’s danger tonight. I was convinced the first fireworks were a trap and it turned out I was wrong. Perhaps my funny feeling was actually about the bridge. Who can say? Not me. I don’t have much experience with thaumaturgically-induced premonitions.”
It felt most peculiar, being in disgrace with Gerald. Melissande found herself faltering. Reluctant to speak up. But then she felt her chin lift.
I’m not going to let him shut me out. I did what I thought was right, what I thought would save lives. I answer to my conscience, not to him… or Sir Alec.
“Perhaps it was, and perhaps it wasn’t,” she said. “But I don’t think we should take any chances, do you? I think you should trust your instincts, Algernon.”
“Mel’s right,” said Bibbie. “Because in this case, yours are the only instincts we can trust.” She groaned. “Lord, thaumaturgically-induced premonitions give me a headache!”
“And what gives me a headache,” said Gerald, crossing the bedchamber to glare out of the window, “is that after everything that’s happened we still can’t give a name to our villain.”
“Perhaps we will, after tonight,” said Bibbie. “Or perhaps it won’t matter. If you’ve been right all along, and Ratafia and Ludwig really are in danger from the pre-wedding fireworks, then there’s still time to save them. With the wedding set for midnight, we’ve hours to go yet. So really, it’s simple.”
Gerald stared at her. “Simple?”
“Yes!” Bibbie said brightly. “You get us through the fireworks in one piece, Grande Splotze’s bells ring out with joy, Hartwig heaves a sigh of relief, Erminium complains about something else entirely trivial, the cooing lovebirds get married then sign the Splotze-Borovnik treaty, and that’s that. There’s no urgent reason to kill anyone, then.”
Gerald frowned. “Yes. Right. Simple as pie. Only you’re forgetting there’s the chance that if they’re killed soon enough after the wedding, say on the honeymoon, the Canal treaty might still be at risk.”
“True,” Bibbie said, sliding out of her chair. “What matters, though, is that we’ll have bought time for Sir Alec to work with Uncle Ralph and bodgy up a story about accidentally stumbling across a plot against the wedding. Time to keep on investigating too, if we still haven’t worked out who’s behind it. That way nobody need ever know there were janitors involved, or that the three of us were here under false pretences. It’ll be an international diplomacy affair… and we can go back home leaving no-one the wiser.”
The smallest smile tugged at the corner of Gerald’s mouth. “Beautifully reasoned, Bibbie. There’s just one tiny fly in your ointment.”
“No, there’s not, Gerald,” said Bibbie, determined. “Because we are going to make sure nobody dies tonight.”
Secretary of State Leopold Gertz jumped so hard, hearing his name called, that he nearly fell off the royal dais.
“I’m so sorry,” Melissande said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The damp little man waved a hand, pretending indifference. The beads of sweat rolling down his face told another story. He’d been placing scallop-edged, gold-chased name cards at each setting on the official wedding table. She had to wonder if he realised his fingers were slowly crumpling the ones he had left.
“Princess Melissande,” he said, close to squeaking. “I didn’t hear you come in. Was there something you wanted?”
She looked around the palace’s state dining room, which had been decorated all over again for the post- nuptial feast. A few servants were adding some finishing touches: silver streamers, potted flowers, ribbon rosettes in crimson and royal blue, each one centred with a simpering portrait of the happy couple.
“It all looks lovely, Secretary Gertz,” she said, hoping to charm him. “You should be very proud.”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” he said. “It’s a blessed occasion.” His eyebrows pinched. “Rather rushed now, of course, with the wedding tour being cancelled.”
“Which is my fault. I know,” she said. “That’s why I’ve come to see you, Secretary Gertz. I’m at a bit of a loose end, and I thought you might like an extra pair of hands. My way of making things up to you.”
Secretary Gertz stared as though she’d grown another head. “But-you’re a Royal Highness, Your Highness.”
“True. For my sins. But that doesn’t precisely make me incompetent.”
“But-but-” Gertz looked around the dining room, his expression hunted. “Your secretary. Your lady’s maid. Surely it’s more appropriate that they should-”
“Well, yes, but they’re not here,” she said, unable to take her eyes from the expensive place cards he was slowly destroying. “I gave them leave to visit the township.”
Gertz, realising at last the mess he was making, dropped the ruined cards on the official table as though they’d burst into flame.
“You sent your servants away? You’re unaccompanied?”
She shrugged. “Only for an hour or so. I had to do it, Secretary Gertz. After that awful business at the Hanging Bridge, Slack could do nothing but burst into tears. She was getting on my nerves. I thought an outing with Rowbotham might cheer her up.”
