Reg rattled her tail feathers. “Flaunt? Flaunt? Who said anything about flaunt? I never said you should flaunt. But you could wear a regal dress and your mother’s tiara, couldn’t you, and let the local snobs draw their own conclusions? Drop them a hint, where’s the harm in that?”
“Oh, Reg!”
“Don’t you Oh, Reg me!” said Reg crossly. “Because you know that I know the piggy bank’s pretty much run out of oink!”
Yes, she knew it. She wished she didn’t. She wished-well, she wished a lot of things. But wishing wouldn’t change the facts. Reg was right, drat her. They were facing dire financial straits, and without some kind of miracle the agency’s doors wouldn’t stay open much longer than another week. Maybe two, if they were lucky.
I don’t understand. It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult.
“ It’s one thing for that Markham boy’s sister not to use her family’s connections,” Reg continued, relentless. “She doesn’t turn twenty-one for two more years so they’ve still got some say over what she does. But what’s your excuse? Cutting off all our noses to spite your freckled face, that’s what you’re doing, madam, and I for one don’t approve!”
“Really?” she replied. “I had no idea, Reg. You’ll have to stop being so subtle.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Look, I know you think I’m being contrary. I know you’d give anything to get your old life back. You liked being royal, which is fine, but I’m not you. I’m me. And I want to find out who I am. The real me, not the me who’s spent her life being a-a- title. A function. Just one more portrait in a long line of portraits. Is that so unreasonable?”
“Weeeeell…” Reg let out a grudging sigh. “No, I suppose not, when you put it that way.”
“Besides, things will improve around here,” she said. “Every new venture takes a little time to find its feet. It’s not like we haven’t had any clients. We just haven’t had enough. But they’ll come. And in the meantime we’ll just have to economise.”
Reg looked around the tiny room, which had started life as a smaller second office. “Ducky, this place is worse than Gerald’s bedsit in the Wizard’s Club and that’s not something I ever thought I’d hear myself say. The only way you’re going to get more economical is by moving into the outdoors convenience.” She sniffed. “Or you could try tapping that Markham boy on the shoulder. He’s got plenty of empty rooms going spare in that new house of his, I’m sure.”
Melissande turned away so Reg wouldn’t see the tell-tale flush of colour in her cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous, Reg. I might wear trousers but I’m not completely abandoned. Bibbie could move in with him, she’s his sister. I’m not.”
The truth is I’m not sure what I am to him. Honestly, things were much less complicated when we were in the middle of an international crisis.
Another sniff. “All right, all right. Untwist your knickers, ducky. It was only a thought.”
But not the kind of thought she wanted to be thinking. Besides, she had far more immediate concerns. “Well, those kinds of thoughts are best kept to yourself,” she said briskly. “Anyway, I’ve already come up with one way for us to pinch our pennies. I’m going to brew up a fresh batch of tamper-proof ink. I might not be a patch on Miss Markham when it comes to proper witchcraft but I’m a dab hand at brewing tamper-proof ink. I went through gallons of the stuff once Lional-”
And there he was, tripping her up again, curse him. Ottosland’s wizards were wrong. There really were such things as ghosts.
I wonder if it’s like this for Gerald, too? Wherever he is. Whatever he’s doing. I wonder if he thinks of Lional every time he remembers he’s only got one good eye.
“Good idea,” said Reg, breaking the difficult silence. “That’ll keep you out of mischief. And I’ll help. I was brewing tamper-proof ink five minutes after ink was invented.”
Melissande groaned. “Of course you were.”
It was still too early to go shopping for regular ink that she could gussy up with a dash of her limited thaumaturgy, so she trudged back downstairs to see if the morning paper had arrived. Yes, it was there on the building’s front doorstep beside the agency’s daily half-pint of milk, which they had delivered in the frail hope that prospective clients would arrive parched and desperate for a rallying cup of tea. Sadly, Boris had been the main beneficiary of that little plan.
Of course it could be argued the newspaper was another pointless extravagance, except there was always the hope-possibly forlorn, but a hope nonetheless-that a client might be found by perusing the crime section. Or the social pages. According to Reg they were usually one and the same. And even though Bibbie was forbidden from actively exploiting her family connections, she still knew a great many people in the upper strata of Ottosland society. Inside information would never go astray.
The clunk of the stoppered milk jug against the steps brought Boris out of hiding from the shadows next door. Green eyes gleaming, black tail flicking suggestively, he wound himself endearingly around Melissande’s tweed ankles.
“Forget it,” she told him. “Prospective clients come first.”
Boris twitched his whiskers in disgust and leapt back into the shadows. Arms full of newspaper and milk jug, Melissande looked up and down the narrow street, searching for signs of life, but it was empty. Daffydown Lane wasn’t what anyone could call a bustling thoroughfare. Unfortunately, the rent for premises on bustling thoroughfares was daylight robbery. Daffydown Lane was the best they could afford.
She turned to go back inside… and was confronted by the tenant roll attached to her building’s brickwork beside its slightly warped door frame. Amid the faded listings for Briscowe’s Best Bootlaces, Argent Exports and Dashforth’s Superior Comestibles, one entry stood out.
Witches Inc. No thaumaturgical task too large or too small. Reasonable rates, discretion guaranteed.
The bold, black-edged gold lettering leapt starkly to the eye, still so brand-new and hopeful compared with the faded announcements of the building’s other occupants. Without warning she felt a flutter of fear in the pit of her stomach, as delicate as one of Rupert’s butterflies.
Please, Saint Snodgrass. Don’t let us fail.
Subdued, she trudged upstairs to the office and made herself comfortable with the paper in the over-stuffed, high-backed client armchair. She wasn’t supposed to, because the client armchair was the only newish piece of furniture they possessed and was meant for Special People, otherwise known as clients, but it seemed a pity to let it go to waste.
Ignoring violent partnerly opposition, Reg had insisted on keeping her revolting old ram skull on top of the office’s sole filing cabinet. Ensconced there now, she looked down her beak.
“Well? Find anything interesting?
The paper’s front page was decorated with a splendid photograph of Rupert, diplomatically losing a camel race to his next-door neighbour Sultan Zazoor. She felt her heart skip and quickly flicked the paper open. Homesickness was like a scab: not nearly so painful if you didn’t pick at it.
“Interesting?” She scanned the various stories of the day. “Well, the last injured travellers from the most recent portal accident have been released from hospital, poor things. Still no official announcement of what went wrong this time. Five accidents in four months? It’s unprecedented.”
“What went wrong is some fool of a government inspector fell asleep on the job,” said Reg, scornful. “Portal travel might be convenient but it’s only been around for five minutes. Mucking about with that kind of metaphysics is no romp in the park. What else?”
Melissande turned another page. “Not much. Lots of nattering about this upcoming symposium. The usual blowhards blustering in Letters to the Editor. Oh, and the Potentate of Aframbigi’s lodged a formal complaint about his sanctions.”