"Cantrip!" Jinetta shouted as she hopped up onto Bee's obstacle course for the fourth time. I felt the magik in the overhead force line surge slightly. Everyone turned her way as
she sauntered seemingly over thin air. Her body stretched and contracted as her feet touched down lightly, but her head stayed at the same level. "Voila!"
"Hey, pretty good," Bee said grudgingly.
"It was very good," Jinetta insisted. "It only took me four tries." She glanced at me. "All right, my turn." She went to pick up her buttermilk-colored briefcase.
"Something useful," Bee said, looking over her shoulder. "Not like how to change the color of my nails."
Jinetta glared at him. "This IS useful, you hayseed. It's really easy." She opened her snap case and began to dig through it. "You only need a piece of paper big enough to wrap around your hand." She pulled out a spiral-bound notebook.
A loud jingle attracted all of us. I glanced down as Jinetta removed the pad and stared down at a leather bag underneath.
"I smell money," Tolk exclaimed. He trotted over to sniff as Jinetta opened the bag and poured the contents into her hand. I recognized them at the same time as everyone else.
"Those are from Humulus," Melvine said.
"No!" Jinetta protested. "It couldn't be."
"It is," Tolk insisted, sticking his wet black nose right into her palm. "It's got the same scent as the money we got from Master Flink."
The tall Pervect looked outraged.
"Who put this in my bag?"
"Well, since it locks by magik," Bee said, "I'm gonna have to assume it was you."
"You, Jinetta?" Freezia looked aghast. So did Pologne.
"You must have made a separate deal with Skeeve for pay," Tolk said. "Behind our backs!"
I sprang up.
"Hold it right there," I said, advancing on them.
"Just didn't want to be seen accepting money in front of us, huh?" Melvine smirked. "So much for keeping it a teacher-student relationship."
"Melvine!" I warned.
The Cupy looked up at me in horror. "It wasn't me, Teach. I swear. I didn't do it. Ask Long Tall Sally, here. Looks like she did."
"How dare you?" Jinetta gasped, reaching for him, nails out. He threw up a wall of fire, and she recoiled. "I did NOT put it in here. I didn't touch that money! Someone else must have sneaked it into my briefcase!"
"Yeah, sure."
Jinetta whipped a knuckle-sized globe out of her bag. "Take that back, Cupy!"
Melvine fanned out his fingers. "You make me, Pervert!"
Bunny started to get up from her spot on the grass. I waved a hand to keep her from getting into the line of fire. Gleep automatically moved to protect her.
"Don't you threaten my friend!" Freezia shrieked, pointing a finger already beginning to generate sparks. Melvine cringed behind his wall of flame.
"Maybe she stole the money!" Tolk said, his brown eyes wide.
"You idiot! Her father owns the biggest carriage company on Perv," Pologne snapped.
"Who are you calling an idiot?" Bee asked. "You Pervects think you're so smart."
"We are smart, Klahd!"
I thrust myself in between them, feeling my eyebrows crisping from Melvine's spell. I dampened it with a heavy blanket of magik. "Stop it! I did not pay Jinetta anything. I didn't pay any of you anything. You turned me down, remember? Remember?"
Reluctantly, the six of them muttered, "Yes."
"Good," I said, firmly. "Now, go back to your exercise. You're making good progress. Keep it up."
"Will you swear to that?" Melvine asked.
I spun to face him. "Swear I didn't pay any of you or make a secret deal for compensation? Yes. I swear it."
His baby face seemed to crumple with disappointment. "Well, those coins are from Humulus, aren't they?"
"Bunny," I called. "Would you mind checking the strongbox and see if any of our reward money is missing?"
Bunny rose, and Gleep trotted after her, with a backward glance to make sure I didn't need him. No one moved while she was gone. When she returned, her face was grave. "Fifteen coins are missing," she reported.
I held the bag out to her. "Here they are. I'll have to come up with a better magik lock that only you and I can open."
Bunny took the money from me, and shot a distasteful look around at the apprentices. I knew what she was thinking. She was still convinced that there was something fishy going on.
"I don't like this," I told them. "Playing little jokes on one another is one thing, but I won't put up with outright crime. Someone stole that money from our strongbox."
"Someone set me up," Jinetta insisted furiously.
"I don't know that," I said. "Either someone set you up, or you want me to believe that someone did. I even bet it's pointless for me to do a trace spell. I'm sure whoever put the money here covered his or her tracks. But I'll tell you here and now that if I catch anyone doing anything dishonest like that again, you're out of here. Got that?"
"Yes, Skeeve," they chorused glumly.
"All right," I said. "Back to work."
No one moved. Their eyes darted from face to face, probably trying to figure out, as I was, who had sneaked the bag into Jinetta's briefcase, or if she had done it herself.
"Come on," I said sarcastically. "Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?"
"Hey, hey, hey, are you an audience or an illumination?" a hearty woman's voice asked. "Why so silent?"
Massha floated into the courtyard. She appeared to be carried on the shoulders of four young and good-looking courtiers dressed in Queen Hemlock's personal livery, until she sailed on beyond their grasp and settled to the ground on the toes of a pair of pointy orange silk slippers.
"Massha!" I went to greet her, and received one of her patent bone-crushing hugs. Bunny came over, too, and gave as good as she got.
"What's the silent treatment for?" she asked, looking at the group, who were now intently studying their feet.
"A misunderstanding," I said, passing it over casually. "Welcome! Do you want to freshen up before you start your lecture?" "No way, Hot Shot! It was a relaxing jaunt. Wasn't it, boys?"
"Yes, Lady Magician," they chorused.
Massha elbowed me. "I'm trying to get them to sing it in harmony, but Marco there in the left back corner is tone deaf. So, how's it been going? I see Bee's still standing." The young corporal blushed crimson and kicked the dirt. Massha grinned.
I grinned back. "Let's all have a drink, and we'll give you the short version."
Chapter Fifteen
"Oops." LAST WORDS OF ANY BOMB DISPOSAL EXPERT
"Well, you're still in one piece," Massha said, setting down her empty mug on the little table beside the heap of cushions that her attendants laid out for her to lounge upon in Bunny's sitting room. Gleep was curled next to her feet, his long neck resting contentedly along a spare lump of cushion. "So that's what really happened! A troubador from the town came to Possiltum and sang a song about the Great Skeeve defeating a beast by turning its lightning back on it."
"Not exactly," I said modestly, toying with my wine glass. "I just appealed to its self-interest."
"Most powerful force in the universe, after love," she agreed. "Hemlock was impressed. She'll laugh herself silly when she hears the real story." She surveyed my students, who sat around the cosy room on chairs or the floor. "And you all sound like you're making Master Skeeve proud. Old Massha was his first student, and look where she ended up? Happily ever after!"
"Thanks for the plug," I said. "I really can't take credit for where you've gotten. That was all you. I think you're doing a better job than I ever did."
"Don't sell yourself short, Superstar! You brought out the best in me."
"I thought Hugh did that," I said innocently. Massha blushed as bright as her lipstick. I turned to my class to give her a moment to recover. "All right, individual exercises are over for the day. At the beginning I promised you guest lecturers. This will make a welcome change of pace. I think we could all use one. The Lady Magician of Possiltum has come all the way from the royal court to demonstrate something in which