is so wrong. “Melissande,” he said again, and risked a light touch to her arm. “Please. It’s all right. Open your eyes.”
She obeyed him, instantly. As though disobedience was too dreadful to contemplate. And seeing him, she sucked in a small and shocked gasp of air.
“What? What? I don’t-Who are you? Where did you come from? How can-”
“I know,” he said. “It’s a bugger, isn’t it? But you’re not dreaming. It’s real. I’m real.” Hesitating, he glanced behind him but the other Gerald and his Bibbie were still lost in each other, stroking and murmuring and laughing under their breaths. He looked back and lowered his voice. “And Mel? Here’s the thing you need to believe. I’m not him. All right? I’m a Gerald who never read Uffitzi’s grimoires. Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” she said, choking, her fingers twisting in her ruined apron. “Well, no. Not entirely. But if you say so. Only… what does that mean?”
Even in her worst moments, in the cave, when she finally realized what her mad brother had become, she’d not sounded like this: beaten down and hopeless and shackled to fear. But then, in the cave, she’d not been wearing a shadbolt. He didn’t dare tamper with it, or even look too closely. A cursory examination showed him it was brutal, though. No wonder she’d not tried to defend herself from the eggs.
“Mel, where’s Monk gone? Do you know? And Reg? Is Reg all right? He said she was around, but-”
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “You mustn’t ask me any questions. I’m not allowed to talk to anyone but them.”
Tears had started leaking from her green, haunted eyes. Her nose was running too. They’d broken her to pieces.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said quickly. “All right. I won’t.”
Any moment now he’d start weeping himself.
He did this? How could he do this? Is this all because of the grimoires, or was it in him all along? Oh, God. Is it in me? Am I capable of this?
In rejection, in revulsion, he summoned his power out of sleep. Stepped back from weeping, egg-soaked Melissande and undid what cruel, scarlet Bibbie had done. Even as the incant wiped away the rotten muck, cleaned her hair and face and spectacles and apron, sweetened her to roses and blanched the stink from the air, he felt a shiver in her shadbolt. A warped and darkened version of his own potentia had made the disgusting thing and now power called to power. A reflection in a mirror.
“Well, Professor, aren’t you gallant,” said the other Gerald behind him. “Never mind. I’ll soon cure you of that. Still, I suppose it had to be done. That stench — I was about to lose my appetite.”
With a last, reassuring glance at Melissande, he turned. “Glad to be of service, Gerald.”
The other Gerald smiled, his arm tucked close around Bibbie. “That’s good to hear, Professor. Just the attitude I’m looking for. Now, shall we be seated so the uppity wench can serve us? I like to breakfast in the kitchen. It’s so cozy and unpretentious.”
Could he eat, after this? He suspected not, but he’d have to try. For one thing he was going to need all his strength… and for another he just knew that to refuse this Gerald’s hospitality would be a very big mistake. So he took his place at the table, opposite this world’s dreadful Gerald and Bibs, and looked at his plate so he’d not have to look at them.
Oh, God. What do I do now? How do I get out of this?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He’d thought that in the final analysis, dining with Lional would prove to be the worst culinary experience of his life-but apparently he was being far too optimistic.
Breakfasting with himself was a hundred times worse.
Melissande was so frightened, serving them, that she spilled coffee on the table. The other Gerald’s shadbolt punished her, driving her to the floor where she trembled with pain.
“For pity’s sake, Gerald!” he protested. “What’s the matter with you? It’s only coffee. You’re not even splashed! Let her go!”
The other Gerald considered him. “You’re being gallant again, Professor. How bloody tedious!” Then his eyes opened wide. “God, don’t tell me you and your Melissande are canoodling back in your world?”
He stared. “What? No. We’re friends. Good friends. But even if we weren’t I’d never do this to her. I’d never do this to anyone. Now let her go. ”
The other Gerald sighed. “Oh, all right. Just this once. Enough.” Melissande slumped, gasping. Sitting back in his chair, he reached for Bibbie and linked his fingers with hers. “As for thinking you’d not slap a naughty wrist, Professor, well, don’t be so sure. You and I might’ve taken different paths back in New Ottosland but as I’ve already said, we’re still the same man. Whatever I can do, believe me… you can do it too.”
Released from punishment and clambered back to her feet, Melissande set about cleaning up the mess from the dropped coffee pot and the tiny trickle on the table. Gerald watched her closely, his stomach churning. He could still feel her pain, fading tremors in the ether. Then he locked gazes with his counterpart and shook his head.
“You’re wrong, Gerald. I’m not the same as you. I never touched those grimoires. We’re two different men now.”
His counterpart shrugged, unperturbed. “We’ll see. Now hurry up and finish eating. We’ve got things to do and places to go.”
Ignoring his unquiet belly, he ate. Conversation languished. He had questions but he knew this Gerald wouldn’t answer them, so there was no point asking and he lacked the intestinal fortitude for idle, carefree chitchat. Besides, the other Gerald and his Bibbie were so busy canoodling he doubted they’d have heard him even if he tried. And talking to Melissande was out of the question. At least it was in front of them.
The dreadful meal ended, eventually. As Melissande started to clear the table of plates and cutlery, the other Gerald gave Bibbie one last, lascivious look then stood. “Right. Run along upstairs, my dove, and make yourself beautiful. You know it’s important to dazzle the locals.”
Bibbie blew him a kiss and sauntered out of the kitchen.
“And as for you, Professor-”
“I’m going to help Melissande with the dishes,” he said. “You can come and fetch me when it’s time to go wherever it is we’re going.”
The other Gerald looked at him in stony silence, then abruptly smiled. “Fine. Suit yourself. Have a cozy chat. But she’s not going to tell you anything that could possibly hurt me.”
“I never thought for a moment she would.”
Standing, the other Gerald laughed. “Liar. Oh-and if you were thinking about making a run for it? I wouldn’t. The house is quite secure, Professor.” The kitchen door closed gently behind him.
Secure? What did that mean? He reached out, cautiously testing the ether, and winced. Oh. Right. He’d been too distracted before to feel it, but a tangle of incants bound the old house in Chatterly Crescent like lights strung on a Solstice tree. How odd, feeling his own potentia in the hexes, knowing he hadn’t created them. They were vicious. If he was idiot enough to try leaving the premises without the right thaumic password he’d be ripped to bloody shreds the moment his fingers touched window or door.
Very slick. Very nasty. Score one for Gerald.
“You’re a fool to push,” said Melissande, running hot water into the sink. “People are like bugs to him now. He squashes them without thinking.”
He fetched a fresh tea towel from the drawer and threaded it through his hands. “He won’t squash me. He needs me for something.”
Melissande started washing the dishes. “What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me.”
“Well, I can tell you this much… whatever it is, it won’t be good.” She put the first clean plate into the dish rack. “So he’s kidnapped you from an alternative reality, has he?”
Of course she’d worked it out. She was one of the three smartest women he knew. “’Fraid so,” he said,
