She grabbed the horse bridles and tethered them to a nearby tree. She tossed Agatha a curry comb as Balthazar bustled up with two large leather buckets of water. The horses immediately lowered their heads and began to drink.
The Countess continued as she began to rub her horse down. “You saved our lives. And you tried to save Olga’s, too, even after we sent you away. We had to do this.” She gave Agatha a reassuring smile. “Anyway, Abner is no fool. He’ll be fine. He’s a fast talker—he’s probably got them convinced you never even existed by now.”
Agatha smiled back, then tentatively fingered the blouse she wore. “Hm. Still... dressing her in my things. Doctoring the body. And—um—especially taking her place. Even her name. It’s not that I want to be caught, I know it’s practical. It just feels so strange. Disrespectful.” She looked contrite. “Sorry.”
The Countess patted Agatha on the shoulder. “Olga was with us for over five years. She was a good friend, and I knew her very well. The life—traveling and performing—it was everything to her. She was never happier than when she’d pulled a really clever scam—convinced some rube that she was a runaway construct, or a grand duchess who had been swindled out of her fortune, or a lost explorer from the moon. She loved that sort of thing.” She smiled at some private memory.
“And now? Now she gets to fool not just some gullible townie, but Baron Klaus Wulfenbach himself! If she weren’t dead, she’d have killed herself to play this part.”
Agatha digested this. “Show people are very strange.”
She hadn’t quite meant it as a compliment, but the Countess looked pleased. “You’ll get used to it.”
“That’s what worries me.”
The Countess laughed. Professor Moonsock strode up, a roustabout carrying a stack of horse blankets following along behind her. She shooed The Countess and Agatha away and began to examine their horses’ feet.
The two women walked back to Professor Moonsock’s wagon, where Agatha had been temporarily assigned a tiny fold-down bunk. The Countess patted a wheel. “I’m afraid you’re stuck here again, but tomorrow we should have something more permanent sorted out.”
“Really,” Agatha protested, “You’ve already done so much—”
The Countess stopped her with an upraised hand. “Oh, have no fear, my dear. You’ll earn your keep.” She looked toward the center of the camp, where the old cook was busy shouting orders. Waving a long wooden spoon like a general’s baton, he was directing a group of men who had already emerged from the surrounding forest with armloads of firewood. “If you feel up to it, I imagine Taki would appreciate some help once he’s finished setting up.”
Agatha was smart enough to know that her life with these people would be significantly easier if she was seen pitching in as eagerly as she could.
“Of course. It will be my pleasure.”
The Countess nodded in approval and sailed off. Left alone, Agatha climbed onto the wagon bench and collapsed weakly.
She felt... hollow. She had expected to be hunted by the Empire, but she hadn’t expected him. And yet, maybe she should have. Of course she should have. Hadn’t he taken an interest in her right from the start? It had been Gilgamesh Wulfenbach who had questioned her so pointedly about the whereabouts of Adam and Lilith. Gil who had watched her carefully, brought her to work in his lab, and hidden the fact that she was a Spark from his father.
Krosp had warned her that Gilgamesh was up to something, and so he had been, but she still wasn’t sure exactly what. Some kind of power play was going on in the Wulfenbach family, and Agatha had an uneasy feeling that she had narrowly escaped being made a pawn in a perilous game. Adam and Lilith had hidden her away from the Baron all her life—they had even died trying to protect her from him. And Lilith had said that Gil would only be the first of the powerful people who would try to control her—to use her for their own ends.
And yet, although she didn’t—couldn’t—trust him, she had liked him. Liked him very much indeed, if she was honest with herself, in spite of the fact that she had seen him do such terrible things... Liked him enough to briefly think it might be worth taking the chance...
All day, Agatha had struggled to forget the devastating pain on Gil’s face when he believed she was dead. Had he really cared that much for her after all? Agatha shivered.
Krosp ambled around the corner of a wagon and leapt up to sit beside her. He nudged Agatha’s arm with the top of his head, and she reached down absent-mindedly to scratch behind his ears. The cat tumbled over sideways into her lap and closed his eyes. “So that was ‘acting’ was it?” He growled. “I don’t understand. How did that fool anybody? You smelled exactly the same.”
The corner of Agatha’s mouth twitched upward. “I don’t think he noticed.”
Krosp opened one eye at the pronoun. “Oh? Well he’s obviously an idiot.”
Agatha let this pass. “So what’s Professor Moonsock going to do with you?”
Krosp opened both eyes and looked apprehensive. “Well, for starters, I promised to hunt her up some fresh mimmoths. She says: ‘so you can talk, so what?’ I told her I can swear, too, but she says she’ll teach me to do something ‘stage-worthy.’”
Agatha had yet to see Professor Moonsock’s act, but earlier, she had noticed several large bats hanging out the Professor’s laundry. Krosp’s apprehension might be well-founded. “That sounds fun.”
Krosp glared up at her. “Oh right. Like she can train me. What am I? Some moronic hound?”
“Oh, heaven forbid. So... you won’t do it?”
“Of course I’ll do it! She has cream!” The cat licked his chops. “I just don’t want her to think it’ll be easy.”
Agatha nodded. Krosp curled into a giant ball and began to purr. Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open and stared up at Agatha inquisitively. “Say, you smell kind of sad. This isn’t about that stupid Wulfenbach boy, is it?”
“No. Well, maybe...” Agatha paused, and then sighed. If you can’t be honest with your cat... she thought to herself. Of course, most cats wouldn’t include your secrets as amusing anecdotes in their memoirs, but still...
“Yes,” she said, in a low voice. “Seeing him like that... I still feel like I’ve done something awful. I just wanted to run out and tell him that everything was all right, that I wasn’t really dead. I almost... almost didn’t care what happened at all after that.”
Krosp rolled onto his back and watched her carefully—his head comically upside-down. “But you didn’t,” he said. “Why not?”
“Why do you think? Because it would have been hugely stupid.”
The cat waited for Agatha to continue, but there didn’t seem to be any more forthcoming. “That’s it?”
Agatha nodded glumly. “Well, yes. Isn’t that enough?”
Krosp’s tail lashed a few times. “In my experience, that doesn’t seem to stop most people.”
“Ever since my locket was removed, I can think more clearly.” She paused, trying to find the right words. “Krosp, you’ve read a lot of history. Have you ever read any Classical mythology?”
The cat flicked an ear dismissively. “A bit. I like history better.”
“Then you should know what happens to mortals who get mixed up with the gods. It never ends well. The Wulfenbachs are like the Gods of Olympus, they’ve got the power of life and death over the entire Empire.