Bibbie’s reply was to rest her forehead against the warded door. She stood there for what felt like hours, the fingers of her left hand gently drumming the wood, her Gladys Slack prettiness twisted ugly with painful effort. Beads of sweat stippled her skin, and her cheeks paled to sickliness. Her breathing deepened. Harshened. Became pants. Became gasps.
And then, on a cry of anguish, she fell back.
“It’s no good,” she said hoarsely. “His potentia’s too different now. I can’t get past his-there’s a thaumaturgical kink in there somewhere and I’m not strong enough to-”
“Codswallop. You are strong enough,” Reg snapped. “You’re Emmerabiblia Markham.”
“Yes, but he’s Gerald Dunwoody! And you don’t know what that means, Reg. Not any more.”
Reg’s eyes gleamed in the miserly gaslight. “Oh, don’t I? Well, madam, speaking as an imposter, I’d say I-”
“I didn’t mean that,” said Bibbie, the heel of her hand pressed to her temple. “Gerald’s not that.”
Head tipped to one side, Reg narrowed her eyes. “Then what is he, Miss Markham?”
Turning away, Bibbie picked up her reticule from the front door step. Retrieved from it a small crystal ball and tried to open a connection.
“Oy!” said Reg. “That belongs to Gerald. Thieving now, are we, madam?”
“He brought three with him,” Bibbie said distantly. “And it’s not like he’s using any of them at the moment.”
Somewhere along the shabby lane, a cat yowled. Startled, Melissande stared into the shadows.
Oh lord, this is taking too long. Why did we run? I should’ve screamed for Hartwig, not Bibbie.
“Can you get it to work?”
Bibbie cast a swift look around, as though she were examining the invisible air. “It feels like the ether’s starting to settle. I just hope it’s enough.”
“If it is, contact Sir Alec. He should-”
“No, I need Monk. I need to ask him about-well, never mind. It’s thaumaturgical. You wouldn’t understand.”
No. Right. Of course she wouldn’t. Trying not to be offended, Melissande left Bibbie to her etheretics and retreated to crouch beside Gerald. A moment later Reg joined her in a flapping of wings.
“His colour’s bad,” the bird said. “And he’s in a muck sweat. But he’s still breathing, so there’s hope. Even if his lungs are whistling like a kettle.” A thoughtful sniff. “I thought you said the poison acted fast?”
“It did,” she said. Oh, Gerald. He looked so helpless, so vulnerable lying on the cobbles. This is all my fault. If I’d never asked him for help in New Ottosland… “Moments after he drank his cherry liqueur, he doubled over in pain and collapsed.”
“Hmm,” said Reg. “Open his shirt, ducky.” With Gerald’s slowly rising and falling chest exposed, she leaned down for a closer look. “Bugger. See those little purplish blisters? I’ve seen ’em before. There’s a good chance our boy’s swallowed tincture of dirit.”
“Dirit? I’ve never-”
“It’s a weed,” Reg said darkly. “And a scourge. If you’re a witch or a wizard and you smoke the stuff, nine times out of ten you’ll croak yourself. Slowly. Might take a few months. But if you drink it
…”
The grim finality in Reg’s voice iced her blood. “Is there a cure?”
Reg’s feathers flattened. “Not that I’ve ever found.”
“Oh,” she said, and fastened Gerald’s shirt and smart evening jacket with fingers gone cold and numb.
“The mystery is — ” Reg chattered her beak. “-why isn’t he dead already? Because if we are talking tincture of dirit, and I’m pretty sure that’s it, he should’ve turned up his toes long before you girls reached the Canal.”
Shivering, Melissande smoothed Gerald’s blond, Algernon hair. She was finally starting to get used to it. “Don’t tell me you’re complaining, Reg.”
“Don’t be bloody silly,” the bird retorted. “But-”
“Oh, you poxy, poxy — ” Bibbie snarled, shaking the crystal ball. “Make the connection!”
Distracted from belly-churning thoughts of death, she frowned at Monk’s sister. “Why won’t the call connect, Reg? If you portalled in-”
“In’s not the same as out when it comes to Splotze’s dodgy etheretics,” said Reg. “In my case it was a one way trip. It’s just a bloody shame I couldn’t get here an hour or two earlier. Then I could’ve stopped those buggers from feeding Gerald tinctured dirit.” An angry chatter of beak. “That manky Sir Alec! This never would’ve happened if he’d let me come with you. First rule around these parts: never accept a drink from a man of the Steinish persuasion! I’m speaking from personal experience, you understand. When I-”
“It wasn’t Dermit and Volker who gave him the liqueur,” Melissande said, following Bibbie’s example and chafing Gerald’s lax wrist. Beneath her cold fingers his pulse alternately stuttered and raced. “It was Leopold Gertz, Hartwig’s Secretary of State.” And though she’d stood there and watched that damp little man poison Gerald, still she was finding it almost impossible to believe. “But why he’d do it, why he’d be working with-” And then she realised what the bird had said. “Wait a minute. How do you know Harenstein is up to its armpits in this mess?”
“Ah,” said Reg, raising her voice over the top of Bibbie’s extravagant cursing. “Well, me and that Markham boy and the Markham family’s doddering butler, we’ve been doing a little sleuthing of our own. Popping in and out of a few foreign embassies, looking for clues. Only you didn’t hear me say that.”
A rush of relief. “Monk found something.”
“He did,” said Reg, sounding pleased and proud. “Encrypted instructions from the Marquis of Harenstein to Roland Dermit, his Ambassador to Ott. Be so kind as to contact that terribly helpful blackmarket wizard you know, and present him with this wish list of highly illegal and dangerous thaumaturgical hexes. Money no object, time of the essence. Or words to that effect.” A thoughtful sniff. “Y’know, if ever he gets tired of inventing portable portals, that young man of yours has quite the future in codebreaking.”
Dermit. There was the connection. Feeling ill, Melissande carefully tucked Gerald’s arm back to his side. Some of those blackmarket hexes must’ve been for protection. Against the rock slide, against the fireworks. Against who knew what else?
So Norbert is to blame. And none of us saw his true face behind the jovial mask.
“Now, now, ducky, don’t go hating yourself for getting hoodwinked,” said Reg. “Some buggers are very, very good at being bad.”
Yes, they were, weren’t they? Buggers like Lional, and Permelia Wycliffe and her ghastly brother. Quite a list of villains she was accumulating.
Remembering Permelia and her use of illegal thaumaturgics, she looked at Reg. “The wizard who sold Norbert all those hexes… is there any chance that-”
“That he’s the same blackmarket wizard what’s put the cat among the pigeons at home?” said Reg. “The thought did cross your young man’s busy mind. I expect he’s telling that manky Sir Alec about it right now. Always assuming said government stooge hasn’t bitten his head off for sending me here without mentioning it beforehand.”
“What?” said Bibbie, giving up on the crystal ball. “Monk’s gone and thumbed his nose at the Department again? Oh, honestly!”
Reg shrugged. “First rule of dealing with Departments: forgiveness after the fact is come by faster than permission before. Especially if you make the Department look good.”
“Maybe,” said Bibbie, scowling. “But if I end up back on a stationary pushbike in the bloody attic because of Monk, I’ll be buying hexes from that damned blackmarket wizard!” With an exasperated sigh, she returned the useless crystal ball to her reticule then crouched beside Gerald and took hold of his hand. Her Gladys Slack face was suddenly tender. Pressing her other hand to his cheek, she bent down. “Gerald. It’s Bibbie. Can you hear me?”
Gerald’s closed eyelids fluttered. His breathing hitched. His eyebrows pinched in a frown.
Bibbie bent lower and brushed her lips against his. “Please, Gerald? I need you.”
Gerald moaned, the faintest breath of sound.
“Gerald, you have to help me get past Abel Bestwick’s front door. I need the key to that hex. Please, Gerald. Don’t give up. You beat the fireworks. You can beat this too.”
He moaned again, as a shudder ran through him. Seized with painful hope, Melissande squeezed his knee.
