“How?” Bibbie demanded, her voice catching. “When we can’t tell him which poison that bastard gave Gerald?”
Yes, well, trust Emmerabiblia Markham to spot the flaw in her plan.
“Can you walk yet, Bibbie? We have to get on.”
Gingerly, Bibbie put some weight onto her right foot. “I think so,” she said, wincing. Then she frowned. “You know, I really should risk-”
“No,” Melissande snapped. “Are you out of your mind? With Splotze’s etheretics as bad as they are, a levitation hex might explode Gerald to smithereens. Now help me up, then grab hold of his knees again. We can’t stay here, Bibs. It’s not safe.”
Awkward and clumsy, they got Gerald slung between them once more like a lumpy sack of potatoes. If only he weren’t such a dead weight. If only he could open his eyes.
If only he’d not drunk that damned cherry liqueur.
“Right,” said Bibbie. “Which way now?”
Her own pulse racing, Melissande stared around them. A short stone’s throw further along the street was the entrance to another laneway. Should they go that way? She had no idea. What they needed was a bird’s-eye view of Grande Splotze.
“I’m not sure. Lord, I wish Reg was here.”
Bibbie rolled her eyes. “Which one?”
“Emmerabiblia Markham! That’s a dreadful thing to say!”
“Yes. Well.” Sounding shamefaced, Bibbie settled her pale pink satin-clad shoulders under the heaviness of Gerald’s sagging lower half. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought it. Honestly, trying to remember which bits of our lives this new Reg remembers, and which bits she doesn’t, and constantly being reminded that she isn’t our Reg, that’s not much fun either.”
No, it wasn’t. But what could they do about it? Their Reg was gone and the new Reg was the only one they had left. The sooner they all got used to that fact, the better.
“Anyway,” said Bibbie. “I’m ready. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said curtly, blinking away the sting of inconvenient grief. “Let’s go. And we’ll keep going until we reach the end of this street.”
Limping only a little bit, Bibbie started walking. Melissande fell into step behind her, pulse racing. Dangling between them in his elegant evening wear, looking less rumpled and more important than ever they’d seen him, Gerald wheezed the damp night air in and out of his lungs.
“Look!” said Bibbie, after a few moments. “There’s a street sign, at last.”
Still slipping and staggering, nearly bursting a blood vessel trying to catch any sound of pursuit, Melissande squinted through her foggy spectacles at the faded board hanging by one rusty nail from the house on the corner.
“Groontzeshilsitz Place,” she said, stumbling over the surfeit of syllables and sibilants. “Sound familiar?”
Bibbie snorted. “Not the way you pronounce it.”
She peered both ways. “Looks like a dead end to the right. We’ll have to go left. Or turn around and take that little laneway after all. Or-”
“We can’t,” Melissande said, shaking her head. If we go back, we’ll run straight into trouble.”
“Y’know,” said Bibbie, “I really do hate it when you’re right.”
“Ha,” she said. “You should be used to it by now.”
They shuffled around till they were pointed in the right direction, then kept going. Several unsteady steps later, Bibbie cocked her head again.
“Do you hear that?”
That was a sluggish sloshing sound, growing more definite the further along the street they walked.
“It’s the Canal,” said Melissande, and briefly closed her eyes. Oh, Saint Snodgrass be praised. “That means we’re going the right way. Gerald said Abel Bestwick’s haunt was directly across from it.”
“Yes, he did,” said Bibbie, suddenly doubtful. “Only across from the Canal sounds awfully vague.”
“Now who’s being the spoilsport? Come on, Bibbie, hurry.”
With an effort that sent her cross-eyed, Melissande picked up the pace, forcing Bibbie to shuffle along faster as well. Every muscle she owned was howling in protest. She had three blisters on each foot and was sweating so much that she thought she could easily drink the Canal dry, even if there were thirty dead cats floating in it.
Miraculously, they’d managed to reach the Canal’s deserted public promenade. Stumbling to the watery thoroughfare’s walled edge, Bibbie looked over her shoulder. “Wait-wait-I need a moment. I have to stop.”
“All right,” Melissande said, rasping. “But only a moment, Bibbie. We’re running out of time.”
They lowered Gerald to the cobbles and fell against the Canal wall, heaving for air. Melissande clutched at her side, where a white-hot pain was sawing her in two. Despite it, she stared across the city rooftops in the direction of the Royal Palace. Oh, dear. There was a definite glow in the night sky, shimmering crimson above the tiles and chimneys and gilding the crowns of the distant trees.
“Y’know, Bibbie,” she said, wheezing only a little bit now. “On second thoughts, perhaps setting fire to the reception hall wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
With no gaslight close by it was too dark to see Bibbie’s face, but she felt the searing touch of her friend’s glare.
“Is that so?” Monk’s sister demanded. “Well, correct me if I’m wrong, Your Highness, but aren’t you the one who shrieked Quick, quick, we need a diversion!”
“Yes, all right, I did,” she said, caught, “but I meant for you to knock over a tray of drinks, not indulge in a spot of wholesale arson! Hartwig’s going to be terribly upset.”
“Right!” said Bibbie. “That’s it. Next time you create the diversion!”
“Oh, come on, Bibbie, don’t be like that! I’m only saying-”
Bibbie stamped her foot. “I don’t care what you’re saying! From here on in, Your Royal Snootiness, you can take care of your own bloody dirty work, because nothing I do is ever good enough for you!”
“What? What?” she spluttered. “Emmerabiblia Markham, that is the most-”
But before she could finish refuting such a rankly unfair accusation, the dank night air was unexpectedly full of feathers and beak and claws and a loud, angry indignation.
“Oy, you pair of hoydens!” Reg screeched. “Put a sock in it, right now! And then you can tell me what you’ve done to my Gerald!”
CHAPTER ONE
Three and a half weeks earlier…
“R ight,” said Mister Jennings, the Department of Thaumaturgy’s leading technician. “That does it, I think, Mister Dunwoody. The monitoring crystals are all in place. How do you feel?”
So nervous I can’t see straight, Gerald thought. But since obviously he couldn’t say that, he shrugged. “Fine, Mister Jennings. I feel fine.”
“Hmm,” said Mister Jennings. A few years past middle age, he was corded with sinews and afflicted with adenoids, and a faintly fragrant pomade slicked his thinning grey hair close to his skull. Lips pursed, light brown eyes wearily cynical, he made another tiny adjustment to the clear crystals he’d fixed to his patient’s forehead. “Good. That’s good.”
In other words, I know you’re a big fat liar, Mister Dunwoody, but for your sake I’m going to pretend I believe you.
Satisfied at last, Mister Jennings glanced at the small, bare room’s ceiling. “All set here, Sir Alec. Anything you wanted to say?”
“No,” came Sir Alec’s crystal-thinned voice. “You may proceed, Mister Jennings.”
Trying not to feel the trickle of sweat down his shirt-covered ribs, Gerald frowned.
What, Sir Alec? No last words of encouragement? Not even a feeble, half-hearted good luck? Miserable bastard.
Except that wasn’t true. Not really. Soothing platitudes just weren’t his chilly superior’s style-something he should be used to by now.
“Now then, Mister Dunwoody,” said Mister Jennings, and patted his shoulder. “Breathe slow and deep and keep as still as you can. Mapping your potentia for the grimoire hexes shouldn’t be a problem, but once we start extracting them, well, there’ll be a bit of discomfort. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. But I’ll be right outside, keeping a nice close eye on you. Most important thing is, don’t fight what’s happening. You’ll want to, but you’ll only make things harder on yourself if you do.”