Melissande staring at them, vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to seeing. As for Sir Alec, he was frowning. He nodded. I know, I know. Gently he disentangled himself. “Here’s an idea, Bibs. Why don’t you and Mel go see where Reg’s got to? Do something irritating so she can scold you. That always cheers her up.”
Sniffing, almost laughing, Bibbie gave him a half-hearted slap. “Cheeky bugger.”
“I do my best.” He shifted around. “Melissande…”
Like magic, her Royal Highness returned. “Don’t worry, Monk,” she said, formidably composed. “We’ll hold the fort here. And if things don’t go the way we want them to, over there, well-that other Gerald Dunwoody will be in for a nasty surprise. Forewarned is forearmed, after all. I can promise you, we’ll be waiting for him.”
He felt his heart thud. Bloody hell. I love her. “I know you will, Mel.”
The bedroom door closed behind the girls, and it was just him and Sir Alec and the body on the bed. Sir Alec put the hexed book on the dresser, beside the hexed box, his movements restrained and deliberate. Whatever he was feeling he was keeping it to himself.
“So, Mr. Markham,” he said. “We reach the point of no return. You understand the risks of what we’re about to attempt?”
His mouth was dry. He swallowed. “If you mean do I realize I could fry my brain like an egg, then yes. I understand.”
Sir Alec crossed the carpet to the bed then clasped his hands in front of him like a meek civil servant. “You can still decline. We both know I’m in no position to insist.”
No, Sir Alec really wasn’t. His position, to put it mildly, was professionally precarious. And how did it feel, knowing his future rested in the hands of a wizard young enough to be his son, who’d never been one for slavishly following the rules?
Bloody awful, I’ll bet.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he said, wishing he could sit down. Wishing he couldn’t feel a tremble in his knees. “I don’t think it’s ever been done. Has it?”
Sir Alec raised an eyebrow. “No, it hasn’t. Or rather, to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t. And if it has, then it’s certainly never been documented. Not that I’ve seen. But I’m sure we’ll work it out, Mr. Markham. Rumor has it you’re a genius-and how often does rumor lie?”
Bloody hell, he was a sarky bastard. How did Gerald stand it? “Are you sure it doesn’t matter that the shadbolt’s on a-a corpse?”
A breath, a whisper, of a mordant chuckle. “Sure? Not at all. But I’m moderately optimistic. After all, Mr. Markham, it is a fresh corpse. Well. Fresh- ish. Not decomposing, at any rate-so that’s all to the good.”
He’d like to kiss whoever had recovered the dead Monk with the sheet-even if it had been Sir Alec. It was a very thoughtful gesture. He never wanted to look at that empty face again. “And you’re sure there’s enough left of the shadbolt to transfer?”
Another soft snort of dry amusement. “No.”
Saint Snodgrass save him, he was starting to feel sick. “But you have transferred a shadbolt before?”
“I have,” Sir Alec said, after a long hesitation. “From one living subject to another. And if I had the choice I wouldn’t do it again.”
“And what if even a rumored genius like me can’t cobble together what’s missing well enough to fool the other Gerald?”
“In that case, Mr. Markham, your little vacation will most likely take an interesting turn.”
Well, that was encouraging. “So-this incant you’ve got shoved down-” Hesitating, he reconsidered his choice of words. “Up your sleeve. The one that lets a wizard disguise his own thaumic signature as somebody else’s. Is that-y’know-legal?”
Sir Alec held his gaze steadily. “Your point, Mr. Markham?”
“Blimey,” he breathed, awestruck. “Sir Alec, you’re a fraud. You’re no more a rah-rah team player than I am. Does Uncle Ralph know the truth about you?”
“Your uncle, Mr. Markham, knows precisely what he needs to know.”
He grimaced. “In other words, my uncle’s a bloody good politician.”
“And a good man,” said Sir Alec coolly. “Who cares deeply for his country and will do what he deems necessary to see it kept safe.” A small, wintry smile. “As will I. And you. Which, to my astonishment, places all three of us on the same team.”
“Apparently,” he said. “Just let me get my smelling salts, would you?”
Another cold smile. “Sarcasm I can live without, Mr. Markham. Now I suggest that we start with you learning the dubious incant I have shoved-where was it again? Oh, yes. Up my sleeve.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Close enough.”
He took the incant and read it quickly. Deceptively simple, it had to be one of the most dangerous pieces of wizardry he’d ever come across. Blimey. Compared to this my bloody portal opener’s a kiddy’s toy. He glanced up.
“Right. Got it. Now what?”
Sir Alec gave him what Reg liked to call an old-fashioned look, crossed to the wardrobe and took out two of Gerald’s shirts. “Now, Mr. Markham, we see if rumor is, in fact, fact.” Choosing at random, he turned one shirt from white cotton into green, then tossed him both garments. “Match that.”
Feeling faintly ridiculous, Monk closed his eyes and sank himself into the ether. Sir Alec’s thaumic signature was piquant, like a freshly cut lime. Strong. Even intimidating. Interestingly it reminded him of Gerald’s. Not in power, of course, because nobody was as powerful as Gerald. But in its complexity and subtle shadings there was a definite resemblance.
So maybe Gerald was born to be a janitor and it was only ever a question of how he got there.
A provocative notion. One he looked forward to dissecting with his best friend, over a beer. Soon.
“Mr. Markham…”
Bloody hell. “Right, right,” he muttered, and summoned the masking incant to mind. Tightened his fingers around the hexed shirt, closed his eyes, and focused on the fabric’s altered thaumic signature. The trick was in the balance between the two incants: the easy-peasy color change hex and the quicksilver slippery incant that would fool another wizard into thinking Sir Alec had hexed both shirts. They had to trigger simultaneously or the masking element wouldn’t take.
Tweak this one here… nudge that one there… a little push… some more pull…
As the shirt changed color he felt the masking incant click into place as though a key had turned in a difficult lock. Surging through him, a sense of release. An odd, shivering quiver in his potentia. He opened his eyes and looked at the shirt. It was now the same shade of green as the other one. The only difference between them was the badly reattached top button on the one he’d hexed. He doubted Sir Alec had noticed.
He jumbled both shirts behind his back, then tossed them to Gerald’s superior. “Which one was yours? Can you tell?”
“No,” said Sir Alec, after a considering pause, and smiled. “Well done.”
Stupidly, he felt a warm rush at the compliment-and on its heels, resentment. He made it a point never to get carried away by praise. Anyway, why should he care what this cool, self-contained and ruthless bastard thought of him?
Because he’s a wizard whose respect is worth having. Because I get the feeling he’s done things that mean I get to breathe free air. Because-because Well. Just because.
And then he remembered what the other Monk had helped the other Gerald do to their Sir Alec.
“Mr. Markham?”
He shook his head, bile burning his throat. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. All right, so what’s next?”
In Sir Alec’s gray eyes, a hint of sympathy. “Next, Mr. Markham, we get you fitted with a shadbolt.”
And once more his mouth sucked horribly dry. I swear, when this is over I am never leaving my lab again. “I’m ready.”
“I doubt it,” said Sir Alec. “Nevertheless. If I might have your assistance?”
“To do what?” he said warily.
Sir Alec looked at him as though he were dim. “Rearrange the body. You need to be in close proximity to the original bearer of the shadbolt, and I need access to both of you to effect the transfer.”
“Wait-you want me to share a bed with my own corpse?”
