Lex’s mouth dropped open in pure horror at being mistaken for his pale, weedy brother. ‘I’m not Lucius!’ he spluttered indignantly.
‘Oh, is that you, Lex?’
‘Yes!’
‘Feeling better?’
‘Well, I was,’ Lex grumbled, ‘until you just insulted me like that.’
‘Have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently?’ Schmidt asked. ‘At the moment I’m afraid Lucius is the healthier-looking one of the two of you.’
Lex scowled. ‘I’m going to have a wash and cut my hair after this and then I’m sure I’ll look much better. So where’s Lucius?’
‘Looking for Zachary. He keeps wandering off.’
‘Good, I hope he falls overboard,’ Lex said, throwing one of the refreshing fruit sticks to Schmidt before taking a bite out of his own.
‘I would have thought your recent illness would have made you a little more sympathetic to Zachary’s plight,’ Schmidt said, after biting into his fruit stick.
‘Well, then you were entirely wrong,’ Lex said with a shrug. ‘Don’t feel bad about it.’
The door opened then and Lucius walked in with a struggling ferret tucked under his arm. ‘Lex!’ Lucius exclaimed, dropping Zachary in delight when he saw his brother on the deck. To Lex’s irritation he came over and tried to hug him. ‘I’m so glad you’re feeling better. You’ll never have to eat another mugget again!’
‘I hope not,’ Lex said, trying to twist out of his twin’s grip.
‘Well, it was your own fault, anyway,’ Schmidt pointed out helpfully. ‘Lucius did try to warn you.’
‘It was worth it,’ Lex declared. ‘I was a king for five seconds. My name will be on the Royal Monument in the Wither City now, Mr Schmidt. You’ll have to check it out when you get back.’
‘I’m sure you plan on seeing it for yourself, as well,’ the lawyer said, watching him closely.
‘Of course. But I’m not going back to the Wither City with you. You’d turn me straight over to the police and I’d get stuck in jail.’
‘Well, you did break the law,’ Schmidt said with a shrug.
‘How long will Lex have to serve, Mr Schmidt?’ Lucius asked, looking distinctly unhappy.
‘Well that depends on the judge to some extent,’ Schmidt said. ‘But you’ve got theft, fraud, criminal damage, evasion of justice-’
‘It would be about five years,’ Lex interrupted.
‘If you were lucky,’ Schmidt said.
‘I’m always lucky.’
‘Five years?’ Lucius said, looking horrified. ‘Oh, Lex-’
‘Shut up, Lucius. I’m not going to prison. They’ll never catch me.’
‘But do you really want to be running your whole life?’ Lucius asked.
‘Ha! Only if somebody’s chasing me,’ Lex grinned. ‘It wouldn’t be fun otherwise. Who’s done what with my crystal ball, anyway? I want to watch the footage from the second round.’
Lucius dug it out of the pile of blankets and handed it over to Lex.
‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘Now I’m going to clean up and cut my hair. We’re looking a little too similar for my liking. I’ll be back later.’
He left the bridge and went down the corridor to the bathroom. It was a large ivory room with a huge circular bath in the centre. When he’d first found it, Lex had been put off from using the bathroom by the thick black toenail clippings that blocked the plughole. When he’d turned the taps on, he’d washed them all away but the image had stuck in his mind. The enchanter had clearly had something of an obsession about his feet, for Lex found a myriad of foot creams and lotions and — urgh — a whole bag of pumice stones neatly laid out in one of the mirrored cabinets. But now the thought of clean hot water outweighed Lex’s distaste and he filled the tub to the brim, sloshing water everywhere when he stepped in. He couldn’t help a groan of pleasure when he sat down and a whirlpool motion started up, pummelling his back and easing away all the aches and pains. The hot water was wonderfully soothing and slightly honey-scented and — whilst Lex would have preferred a more manly scent — being clean again felt indescribably good. He ducked his head under the water to wash his hair, getting rid of the horrible build up of grease at last. He’d always hated long hair, anyway, for it got in the way and gave him a wimpy look, but having lank, greasy strands stuck to his head was unbearable. Whatever else he might be, Lex was a stickler for cleanliness.
After he’d sat there for a while, he reached over for the crystal ball he had left at the side of the tub and leant back to enjoy the footage from the second round. Like the first one, it had been edited to make him look suitably impressive and he could just imagine it beaming out over the stadiums accompanied by oohs and aahs as Lex raced through the magic forest — an entire herd of draglings and a mad king in pursuit. The wicked witch footage in particular had been very heavily edited — Lex was sure her remaining teeth hadn’t been as sharp as that in real life and she hadn’t been so big either and she certainly hadn’t chased after them when they escaped from her cave, as the recycled dragling-chase footage seemed to imply. The fairy godmothers’ village and Matilda had been cut altogether and so had the whiskerfish transformation as none of that really seemed very dignified at all. The last image of Lex showed him standing with the gleaming crown on his head and a self-satisfied smirk on his face. He was still the bookies’ favourite to win by a long shot, for he had already won both the first two rounds by a mile. But the slate would be wiped clean for the third round, so that it was anybody’s Game.
When, at last, Lex managed to drag himself out of the bath, he wrapped a white towel around his waist and took a comb out of the mirrored cabinet. He carefully ran this through his chin-length hair to detangle it. When he was done he put the comb down on the edge of the sink and opened the cabinet door again to get the scissors. But when he shut the mirrored door, he jumped and almost dropped the scissors as Jezra’s reflection swung into view. The God of Wit and Daring was standing just behind Lex by the now-empty bath, wearing his usual high-necked pale blue jacket, a lazy smile on his face.
‘Hello, Lex. Feeling better?’
‘I’m afraid so, my Lord,’ Lex said, bowing stiffly.
He did not overly resent Jezra for what he’d done. Lex understood the need to win. But it was hard not to feel just a little bit bitter when looking directly at the person responsible for making the last two weeks of his life an utter misery. Especially when Jezra had always been something of a hero to Lex.
‘It was nothing personal, you know,’ Jezra went on, running a hand through his long hair.
Nothing personal? Of course it had been personal! But Lex just nodded. There was no sense in arguing with Gods. He turned back to the mirror and raised the scissors to his hair but froze at the sound of Jezra’s sharp command, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you!’
‘Why not?’ Lex asked, looking at the God in the mirror, scissors still poised at the side of his head.
Jezra smiled. ‘Because if you cut your hair then all those awful muggets you ate will have been for nothing.’
‘I don’t follow,’ Lex said, putting the scissors down carefully on the side of the sink and then turning to look at Jezra. Something in the God’s voice alerted Lex to the fact that Jezra was excited about something.
‘You didn’t really think my plan was to kill you, did you?’ Jezra asked, and then, when Lex didn’t answer, he continued, ‘Lex, you’re far too valuable for that. I’m not the kind of God who would destroy something he wanted just because someone else had it at the time. I would wait patiently, fully expecting to procure the object of my desire in good time.’
Lex stared at the God, a suspicion suddenly coming into his mind. ‘You want to switch us?’ he said incredulously as realisation dawned.
Jezra laughed. ‘Yes, I’d like to pass you off as Lucius. What do you think?’
Lex turned and gazed at himself in the mirror. He did look virtually identical to his brother now that his hair had grown and his skin had taken on a sickly pallor. But Lucius was merely pale, he did not have the dark shadows under his eyes that Lex had or the greyish tinge to his skin and he wasn’t as thin as Lex had become after a week spent eating nothing but muggets. Lex was about to voice these objections to the God but then he realised that they could all be overcome. There was a week to go before the last round and by then Lex would just look pale rather than sickly. And any weight he hadn’t put back on could be disguised with the right clothing. A slow grin spread across his face.