She held him tight. “My rescue, my rules.”
He kissed the shell of her ear. “Then let me tell you this: I live for you, and you alone.”
CHAPTER 
25
Kashkari had followed Fairfax’s directions beautifully. He had tied, blindfolded, and gagged Trumper and Hogg with strips of their own clothes. Then, once they had regained consciousness, he had thrown a barrage of German at them, as Fairfax had asked, in order to make them think that he was Titus, generally known to be a native speaker of German.
When Fairfax and Titus arrived on the scene, he shook their hands and then left with Fairfax to join the other boys. Titus did the same after rendering Trumper and Hogg unconscious again and dropping them on the front steps of their house, stripped to their drawers.
All the boys stood together and admired his handiwork. Now that their night’s task—and fun—was done, they started back for their own beds, yawning. At Mrs. Dawlish’s, the front door was open, the downstairs lights on, and Mrs. Dawlish and Mrs. Hancock both waiting. Mrs. Dawlish wearily waved them up. “Go to bed now. We’ll deal with the lot of you tomorrow.”
“Except you, Your Highness,” said Mrs. Hancock. “Would you mind coming with me to my office?”
Fairfax stepped in front of him. “We all went. The prince shouldn’t be singled out.”
Titus briefly rested his hand on her shoulder. “Go. I will be fine.”
In Mrs. Hancock’s office, it was Baslan’s spectral projection again, pacing into shelves and walls.
“You may leave us,” Baslan said to Mrs. Hancock.
“I would like to remind you, sir, that I am a special envoy of the Department of Overseas Administration, not your subordinate,” Mrs. Hancock said, smiling.
Baslan gave Mrs. Hancock a cold stare.
Titus plunked himself down on Mrs. Hancock’s best chair. He enjoyed squabbles between agents of Atlantis. “What do you want this time, Baslan?”
“You will address me as Inquisitor, Your Highness.”
Inquisitor. So Titus’s nemesis was truly dead. He gave his stomach a moment to settle. “Inquisitor, Baslan? Is everybody at the Inquisitory called the Inquisitor these days?”
Baslan flinched at Titus’s suggestion. “Madam Inquisitor can no longer carry out her duties. She has departed this earth.”
Titus found that he did not need to pretend to be shocked. He was shocked, still. “It cannot be true. I last saw her only hours ago. Right here at Eton. She showed no signs of imminent death.”
“To our lasting regret, it is quite true.”
“How did it happen?”
“That is strictly private. I need Your Highness to give an account of your whereabouts tonight.”
“And that is not strictly private?”
“No,” said Baslan without any sense of irony.
Titus crossed his arms before his chest. “After your lot finally let me go in the evening, I retreated to my room to enjoy a little peace and quiet. I was there until lights-out. Not long after lights-out, two boys threw a rock into my window. I chased them down, gave them what-for, and dragged them to the front door of their house.”
“Are there corroborating eyewitnesses?”
The question was for Mrs. Hancock. “The prince was in his room at lights-out—I knocked myself. Both the prince and his neighbor’s windows were broken. As for the rest, I will go check right now.”
“And you will confiscate all the prince’s books,” ordered Baslan.
Mrs. Hancock rolled her eyes but did not remind him again about their separate jurisdictions.
Titus exhaled. A very good thing that Fairfax had his mother’s diary. And that he had stowed his copy of the Crucible, disguised as a volume of devotional poetry in medieval French, at the school library, until he could move it to the laboratory.
Baslan held up the Citadel’s copy of the Crucible. “What do you know about this book?”
“Oh, that. I play Big Bad Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood. She likes it rough, did you know? I did not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What else are you going to do with such a contraption? Of course Sleeping Beauty is probably prettier, but I am not going to fight dragons for any girl. And the chit who lives in the woods is agreeable enough, but those dwarfs in her cottage are perverts. They always want to watch.”
Baslan’s face turned splotchy. “Did you use such a book as a portal to get into the Citadel tonight and make away with Horatio Haywood?”
Titus laughed. “Listen to yourself, Baslan. Are you mad?”
Baslan’s throat worked. “As you are no doubt aware, Atlantis is seeking a young woman who can summon lightning. We encountered her tonight.”
“Why did you not take her into custody?”
“She was in this book. We want to know where she is now.”
“Still in there, obviously. Have you never heard of Helgira?”
“Who?”
Titus rolled his eyes. “Helgira the Merciless, one of the most famous mythological, folkloric characters known to magekind. Oh, I forgot, Atlanteans don’t know anything.”
Baslan clenched his teeth. “Atlanteans are not ignorant, but we do not pay attention to stories of lesser lands.”
“Well, then, how did you enjoy your encounter with Helgira?”
Baslan fumed, but had nothing else to ask Titus. Mrs. Hancock returned shortly with Trumper and Hogg, still mostly naked.
There followed a scene of great comedy, at least to Titus. Trumper and Hogg, half-frightened, half-opportunistic, neither quite noticing they were speaking to a phantom projection, accused Titus of not only abduction, but of innumerable acts of violence and perverse cruelty on their persons, and therefore providing incontrovertible evidence that if anyone had killed the Inquisitor, it could not have been Titus.
Mrs. Hancock returned once more, carrying an armload of books. “I have His Highness’s collection here, Inquisitor. Will you send a courier for them or shall I?”
Titus rose. “I will leave you two to discuss details. Good night, Inquisitor. Good night, Mrs. Hancock. And good night, Messrs. Trumper and Hogg—it was my pleasure.”
The no-vaulting zone was gone in the morning. And when the prince’s spymaster returned, reports flew out of the writing ball.
The Inquisitor was indeed dead. As was, apparently, the Bane—though no intelligence on whether he had been killed outright by Iolanthe’s lightning or by the subsequent fall. The double deaths caused both panic and rejoicing in the Citadel—which turned into ashen fear a short while later, as the Bane walked back into the Citadel looking younger and more vibrant for having been resurrected a third time.
Inquisitory personnel initially accused Lady Callista of tampering with evidence—the blood that came out of the Crucible had all been cleared away by the time they’d arrived. But she’d wept over how awful the blood looked on the floor, and all of a sudden everyone agreed that of course she had every right to keep her own home free of such upsetting sights.
The news that mattered most to Iolanthe, however, concerned the punishments that were to be meted out to the boys who’d left Mrs. Dawlish’s home that night: twenty lashes to Titus, five each to everyone else. What if she’d be required, as she’d heard rumored sometimes, to lower her trousers in the course of the punishment? She’d lasted this long; she did not want to be found out as a girl for such a silly reason.
But Titus came out of his punishment smiling. Birmingham not only didn’t require the removal of trousers, he didn’t even hit Titus—the lashes were given to a rug instead. In addition, Birmingham congratulated him warmly on making Trumper and Hogg into laughingstocks before the whole school.
Still Iolanthe practiced her memory and confusion charms. But her time with Birmingham turned out to be very pleasant. They had a cup of tea together and a lively chat on Homerian epics—something near and dear to Birmingham’s heart.