Georgette nodded. “I kind of see,” she said.
“I don’t,” Pip said helplessly. Unlike Georgette and Clovis, Pip had never had alchemy lessons.
“It means that he would instantly have power over everything. Even over the other Specters. There would only ever be him. No one else. Forever.”
“What’s the point of that?” asked Pip.
“He’s the loneliest person there ever was. I thought I was. But he’s even more lonely than that. Because he never understood that other people were real.”
Georgette shuddered. “I don’t feel sorry for him,” she said.
“I don’t either,” said Clovis.
They watched until the end, until the final old man wound back through middle age and youth and childhood to babyhood, and then dwindled until there was nothing there at all.
It took a long time.
“What happened to all those souls, I wonder,” said Georgette.
“They died,” said Clovis. “Like I will one day. I hope.”
Pip wiped his brow with his sleeve. “I thought that was going to happen right now. But we didn’t die.” He looked down at Clovis and grinned. “You saved my life. That’s being a real friend.”
Clovis blushed bright red. Pip looked away to save him embarrassment.
“What now?” said Georgette, looking around at the shadows.
“We go back to Clarel,” said Clovis. “That part is easy.” He took both their hands in his and then hesitated. “I won’t be there, though. Not like this, anyway.”
“Does that mean you’ll be back in my head? It’s better being able to see you, like a proper person.”
“Do you mind very much?” Clovis looked down at his feet, and his hands were twisting nervously. “It’s just that I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
Pip looked doubtful. “What if I want to be on my own once in a while?” If there was always someone inside his head, it might be embarrassing.
“I can go somewhere private, I promise. And I won’t argue too much. And I’m not a Specter, really I’m not. Not a real Specter. I won’t try to eat your soul or anything.”
Pip thought about it. It was true that Clovis had nowhere to go, and Pip knew all too well what that felt like. It was weird, for sure, having another person inside his brain, but on the whole it was better than being dead. And Clovis had saved all their lives.
“All right then,” he said. “Though we shouldn’t tell the witches. They won’t like it.”
“Oni will know,” said Clovis.
“I always trusted Oni,” said Georgette.
“Of course we can trust Oni.” Pip smiled at Clovis. Maybe it would be all right. And if it wasn’t, maybe they could work it out. “That’s settled, then. Though if you ever call me a commoner again, I’ll throw you out.”
Clovis laughed. “I promise I won’t,” he said.
In the next moment, although Clovis didn’t appear to do anything, they were back in the daylit street that they had been walking down — when? Minutes ago? Hours ago?
Pip and Georgette blinked as a dazzling shaft of late-afternoon sunlight hit their eyes. Pip wasn’t sure if it was the sunshine or the sheer relief of being back in Clarel, but he could feel a tear creeping down his cheek.
Thank you, Clovis, he said.
Oni’s coming, said Clovis. She looks all kinds of cross.
Pip looked up and saw Oni walking toward them very fast. She did look cross.
GEORGETTE DIDN’T EVER BECOME QUEEN. TO HER surprise, she didn’t mind at all.
The battle in front of Clarel Palace that she had run away from had been nasty but short. There were other struggles that day, all over the city, and in the end the people did win. Not even the king’s soldiers could withstand the entire city rising up against the palace.
Arresting everyone in the Weavers’ Quarter on the day of the Midsummer Festival had been, it turned out, a very bad idea indeed. Everyone was already sick of the nobles and the cardinal’s assassins, and the arrests were the final straw.
After a few days of chaos, Missus Clay, as chief of the Witches’ Council, announced a new Republic of Clarel. There was to be a People’s Parliament, and witchcraft was to be taught properly to anybody who wanted to know it. King Axel was put in the tower instead of being decapitated, in deference to Princess Georgette, who had decided to take her mother’s name and was now just plain Georgette Livnel.
Georgette thought on balance that it was better that her father didn’t have his head cut off, but she also thought, in a secret part of her, that she wouldn’t have especially minded. The king had never shown her a moment’s kindness in her whole life, and she wouldn’t have spared him a single tear.
A lot of nobles fled the country in that first week, taking as much gold as they could carry. Queen Theoroda asked to return to her own kingdom, and most of her ladies-in-waiting wanted to go with her. Others, like Sibelius, stayed and gave up their titles. Sibelius was, to his surprise, appointed to the committee that was going to organize the new elections. The Witches’ Council suggested that he should be nominated as a minister in the new People’s Parliament. So was Harpin Shtum, who was even more surprised.
But people had to vote for them first, and organizing an election was a lot of work. Everything took much longer now, because there wasn’t a king to give orders. Sometimes, despite everything, Georgette missed that. There had been far fewer arguments back then.
The only person the witches thought should be executed was the cardinal, but obviously King Oswald had taken care of him. His chief assassin was nowhere to be found. In the end, they decided that Ariosto must be dead, by unknown means. Perhaps it was
