Witches incorporated

CHAPTER EIGHT

They fought their way through the growing crowd, past the other contestants’ cake and pastry-laden tables, until they found themselves standing in front of Permelia Wycliffe’s nemesis, usefully camouflaged by two shifting rows of gossiping spectators.

Glimpsed between feather-crowned hats and silk-shawled shoulders, Millicent Grimwade lived up to her name. She was a tall, thin, hatchet-faced woman dressed head-to-toe in deep purple silk and basking in a premature aura of victory. A delicate lace cloth covered her display table right down to floor level, pinned in place by a cream-slathered gooseberry sponge, a primrose-yellow iced pound cake and a seductively glistening chocolate log.

Melissande considered the offerings, then sidled a little closer to Bibbie. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, mindful of eavesdroppers. “But I don’t see what’s so terrible about those cakes. They look like cakes you’d buy in a shop. In fact, they make Per-” She darted a glance around the jostling crowd. “ You-know-who look like a sore loser. Which means we’re in grave danger of making ourselves look like idiots if we start throwing about unsubstantiated accusations.”

“What? Are you blind?” said Bibbie, in a disbelieving undertone. “Those cakes are terrible, Mel. They’ve got no business being in the Golden Whisk finals. The cream on the sponge is over-whipped, there’s too much yellow in the pound cake’s icing and she’s used the wrong kind of chocolate for the chocolate log. I can only imagine what they taste like.” She shuddered. “Sawdust, probably. I can hear Great-aunt Antigone’s ashes now, whirling in their urn.”

Close around them the scented crowd swirled and shared its unfettered opinions. Everyone was praising Millicent Grimwade’s entries. Melissande considered the apparently ghastly cakes for a moment. No, she still couldn’t see what had woken Bibbie’s scathing contempt.

“Are you sure?”

Bibbie glowered. “Of course I’m sure.”

“Reg?” she whispered. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a long time since I ate cake,” Reg whispered back, mournful.

“That’s very helpful, thank you.” She chewed her lip. “The thing is, Bibbie, how is it you can tell they’re so awful when nobody else can? If they have been incanted surely you’d be singing their praises too.”

Bibbie’s cheeks turned pink. “Oh. Um. That. Well, I zapped myself with one of Monk’s classified anti-hex hexes. It-ah-it only works if you’re thaumaturgically sensitive. Sorry.”

Ouch. Thrusting aside the sting of that, Melissande glanced again at Permelia Wycliffe’s smug opponent, who was presiding over her entries like a queen receiving homage. “So you’re saying there is definitely black market thaumaturgy in play?”

“After one look at those cakes?” Bibbie snorted. “I’d stake my First-Class diploma on it. Only it’s some of the slickest incanting I’ve ever met.” She opened her neatly gloved fingers, revealing a small green crystal. “This thing is supposed to turn black in the presence of an obfuscation or enhancement hex. Kindly note, girls, its conspicuous greeniosity. Whoever designed Millicent’s judge-fuddling incant is good. I mean, they’re bad, they’re very bad, but-”

“Yes, yes, we get it,” Melissande snapped. “All right. Let’s see if we can put an end to this farce, shall we? I’d like to leave with at least the dregs of my self-respect intact.”

Ignoring the molten glances and mutterings from their fellow spectators, they shoved and insinuated their way through the crowd until they were pressed against the scarlet cordon-ropes separating the public from the Guild’s illustrious competitors. Trying to remain inconspicuous, Melissande wafted Monk’s carpetbag to and fro before the table of suspect cakes. Any second now, surely, if Bibbie was right, the sprite’s interdimensional nature would disrupt whatever thaumaturgic influences had been placed on Millicent Grimwade’s entries and this ridiculous expedition could be successfully concluded.

The gooseberry sponge, the pound cake and the chocolate log refused to co-operate. Not a single culinary crime went kablooey.

“Psst!” she hissed into Bibbie’s ear. “Your brilliant plan doesn’t seem to be working. Don’t suppose you thought of an alternative, did you?”

“We’re a good twelve feet from Millicent’s abominations,” Bibbie hissed back. “I think you’ll have to take Monk’s little friend out of the carpetbag.”

“Oh, that’s a bright idea!” she whispered, staring. “I’ll just wave the interdimensional sprite around for all and sundry to see, shall I? I’m sure nobody will blink twice at the sight of a bright blue buzzing thing in a birdcage!”

“They won’t if you don’t activate the etheretic normaliser,” Bibbie retorted. “There’s no need for anyone to see anything except Millicent Grimwade being unmasked!”

“So you’re saying they’ll completely ignore the mad woman waving the empty birdcage about?”

Bibbie groaned. “No, Mel, I’m saying-”

“Oy,” said Reg, speaking out of the side of her beak. “Don’t look now, duckies, but we’re attracting the wrong kind of attention.”

Sure enough, Millicent Grimwade was staring at them in a less than friendly fashion. Her gimlet gaze raked them up and down, then darted suspiciously to Eudora Telford, who was doing her very best to ruin everything, it seemed: smiling and nodding at them, and wagging a finger at Millicent while Permelia was distracted by a question from the crowd.

Bibbie cursed under her breath. “Strategic withdrawal, girls, quick, before the Grimwade crone screams for a Guild Invigilator.”

“A what?” said Melissande, as they hurriedly retreated to the nearest stretch of empty wall.

“A who, not a what. Over there,” said Bibbie, jerking her chin. “There’s one. See her? The Guild appoints six of them altogether and trust me, we do not want them taking an interest in us. Guaranteed to cramp our style, that is, and get us tossed out on our well-padded posteriors.”

Safely withdrawn from Millicent Grimwade’s line of fire, Melissande stared over the heads of the milling spectators and saw an official-looking woman prowling the edges of the chattering crowd. Dressed in a severely plain blue gown covered in a capacious and crisply spotless white apron, and carrying a wooden spoon of office, she looked imposing enough to tame a ravening horde single-handed.

“Blimey,” said Reg. “Let her get near the cream and it’ll be clotted whether you want it clotted or not!”

“Oh, don’t be mean,” said Bibbie. “She’s just doing her job. Believe me, it’s a thankless task. Great-aunt Antigone got her start as an Invigilator so I know all about it.”

Holding their breaths, they waited to make sure the dreaded Guild Invigilator’s attention was focused elsewhere then went into a huddle.

“All right,” said Melissande. “What do we do now? We’ve been here nearly half an hour, the judging must be about to start and we’re no closer to proving Millicent Grimwade is a cheating cheater who cheats than we were this time yesterday. Suggestions?”

“What I already said,” said Bibbie, impatiently. “We’ve got to get the sprite in a direct line of sight with Millicent’s cakes. Which means like it or not, Mel, it’s got to come out of the carpetbag.”

“And then what, Bibbie? I’m telling you, the minute I start waving an apparently empty birdcage around the place those Guild Invigilators are going to-”

“What if it’s not empty? What if we put Reg in there?”

“Over my dead body, madam!” Reg almost shrieked. “Are you out of your tiny mind? Shove me in a cage with an interdimensional sprite, would you? I’ll bloody shove you, ducky, I’ll-”

Melissande pinched the wretched bird’s beak shut before someone noticed that her exotic shoulder ornament was having a fit. “She’s too big to squish into the cage, Bibbie. Besides, it says quite clearly on the door: No Pets Allowed.”

“Good point,” Bibbie admitted, and lapsed into furious thought. “All right,” she said after a moment. “How about this?”

“How about what?” said Melissande suspiciously, watching as Bibbie removed the velvet choker from around her neck and carefully unthreaded the exquisite cameo dangling from it. “Bibbie, what are you doing?”

Bibbie dropped the cameo into her reticule then held out her hand. “Give me the birdcage, Mel, quick.”

Baffled, she took the cage out of Monk’s carpetbag, handed it over and watched as Bibbie threaded the velvet choker through its handle. Then, in a blinding bolt of horrified comprehension, she realised what Monk’s mad sister was doing.

“Oh, no. No, Bibbie. You cannot be serious!”

“I can, you know,” said Bibbie, testing the weight of the cage as it dangled from her velvet choker.

“It’s out of the question! You can’t wear a birdcage around your neck, it’s far too conspicuous!”

Bibbie glanced up. “Well, no, of course I can’t. But you can.

“ Me?”

“Yes, Mel. You.” Bibbie rolled her eyes. “I know this might come as a shock but women wear jewellery all the time.”

“Jewellery, yes. But since when is a birdcage a fashion statement, you raving madwoman?”

“Since Her Royal Highness Princess Melissande of New Ottosland makes it one,” said Bibbie, with her most anarchic grin. “Royalty always sets the trend in fashion, didn’t you know? After today, Mel, I’ll guarantee you that an empty birdcage around the neck will be the must-have accessory of the season! Or the week, at any rate. Even a day will do, provided it’s today.” She looked around the crowded room. “I wonder if that photographer from the Times is here…”

Melissande tried to ignore Reg’s strangled laughter. “I hope so!” she hissed, glowering. “I’ll bet he’d just love to photograph a woman swallowing a birdcage whole!”

“Now, now, you two,” Reg chided, her voice still choked. “We don’t have time for girlish romps.”

“But-”

Reg tightened her claws, warningly. “Like it or not she’s right, ducky. We’ve got to get that sprite close to Millicent Grimwade’s tricked-up nosh, and hanging it round your neck is our best bet.”

“But it’ll never work!” she protested, even as the clammy waters of inevitability closed over her head. “I’ll be a laughing-stock! One of the Invigilators will throw me out!”

“I doubt it,” said Reg with a derisive snort. “Not if they let that woman wearing the stuffed monkey stay. Now hurry up, because unless I’m mistaken those three fat men coming in now are the judges.”

“What? Where?” Melissande spun round. “How can you tell?”

“Well, for a start, it says “Judge” in six-inch high letters on their chests.”

Botheration, the bird was right. They were indeed the judges, solemn and sober in their black morning coats and boiled shirt-fronts, diagonally bifurcated by their gaudy crimson sashes of office, guarded by the Guild Invigilators as though they were visiting royalty.

The richly dressed and enthusiastically scented spectators broke into enthusiastic applause as the judges made their way from the doorway to the special “Judges Only” section of the chamber, which was also cordoned off by ropes.

“Quick, Mel,” said Bibbie. “Get this on while nobody’s paying us any attention.”

Depressed, Melissande stared at the birdcage dangling from Bibbie’s velvet choker. Then, with a surreptitious glance around the judge-absorbed crowd, she flicked on the etheretic normaliser.

“Ah-is it my imagination, or does the sprite look sickly?” she whispered, staring through the cage’s bars at the unlikely creature. Its bright blueness had definitely faded since yesterday, and even its odd, not quite certain little face looked forlorn.

“It’s fine,” said Reg, hopping over to Bibbie’s shoulder. “You’re imagining things. Now let’s get this over with! I’m about ready for my morning tea.”

Get this over with. Easy for Reg to say. Reg didn’t have to make a fool of herself by dangling a birdcage round her neck. Honestly, if she’d ever once thought that she’d be brought this low she’d never have approached Bibbie with the idea of opening Witches Inc. She’d have applied for a position as a governess first, even though other people’s children appalled her.

“Come on, come on,” whispered Bibbie, quivering with anxiety. “Before it’s too late!”

It was already too late. But I don’t have a choice, now. I’m committed… or I will be, once this madness is over. She gave the sprite one last worried look, switched off the etheretic normaliser and donned her lovely new necklace. The cage balanced precariously on her front, drawing embarrassing attention to her bosom. It was so in the way she was forced to rest her chin on it.

“Excellent!” said Bibbie. “Now, let’s get into position, quickly, before the judges start their perambulations.”

With ruthless courtesy, sublimely oblivious to glares and complaints, they pinched and pushed and weaselled their way back through the crowd of perfumed spectators until they’d reclaimed their prime ogling position directly in front of Millicent Grim-wade’s table. Upon spying their return to the fray, Eudora Telford immediately began flapping her hands and pulling alarming faces. Even Permelia lost a little of her iron-clad composure and began to lock and unlock her fingers in a nervous rhythm. Fortunately, before Millicent Grimwade or one of the prowling Invigilators could notice, they were both distracted by the polite yet insistent ringing of a tea bell.

“Ladies! Ladies!” cried a fluting, excessively modulated voice. “The annual Golden Whisk competition now commences to be adjudicated! Resounding applause, if you please, for this year’s revered, respected judges, Ottosland’s Mister Huffington-Smythe and Mister Pertpeach, and our very special overseas guest adjudicator, Mister Grilliski from Blonkken.”

Under cover of the obedient response, scores and scores of gloved hands patting each other with such restrained, ladylike enthusiasm it sounded as though a velvet-clad thunderstorm had struck, Melissande inched forward until she was pressed as hard against the scarlet boundary rope as she dared. In its cage round her neck the invisible sprite whined… but there was no reaction from Millicent Grimwade’s allegedly illegal cakes.

“Get closer!” hissed Bibbie, handily muffled by the continued applause.

Melissande glared at her. “I can’t,” she muttered. “Not without making a scene.”

The judges were already inspecting the first simpering contestant’s offerings. Ceremoniously they sliced into an oozing jam roll with a large silver knife supplied for the purpose, popped bite-size portions into their eager mouths and masticated solemnly, like judicial cows. There followed a great deal of nodding and eyebrow-waggling, and the furtive recording of notes in official notebooks. Next they partook of cherry tart, and after that blueberry scones. Judging concluded, they proceeded to the next contestant and began assessing the relative merits of a custard flan.

“This is no good, Mel. We’re running out of time,” whispered Bibbie, as the crowd commented and tittered and passed judgement on the cakes they were never going to taste for themselves. “I’m going to create a diversion.”

Alarmed, Melissande shook her head. She didn’t dare remonstrate aloud because the ladies crowded beside and behind them, many of whose silk-covered chests were decorated with enamelled chocolate eclair pins, were clearly irritated by the non-cake based conversation and were muttering and frowning and threatening an all-out protest.

Naturally, Bibbie paid no attention to that. Instead she closed her eyes, wiggled her fingers, and waited.

Nothing happened.

“Damn, my thaumics are fritzed,” she whispered. “It’s the sprite. Unlike Millicent’s cakes I’m too close to the little darling.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Melissande whispered back. She darted a glance along the row of tables. The judges, having finished with the second contestant’s offerings, were now sampling the third contestant’s vividly-hued pumpkin cheesecake. “Permelia looks ready to burst into flames.”

Bibbie flapped her hands, heedless of the annoyed “hushes” and “well, reallys” and “disgracefuls” being uttered all around them. “ I don’t know, Mel! You’re the organised one, you think of something!”

Think of something? Think of what? What could she possibly think of that would save them from this horrendous debacle? This was all Bibbie’s fault, volunteering the agency’s aid without consultation, practically promising that awful Permelia Wycliffe they’d save her from Millicent Grimwade’s unhinged machinations.

I never should’ve agreed to this. I should’ve known it’d go arse over teakettle.

“ Blimey,” said Reg, rattling her tail feathers. “So it’s up to me to save the day again, is it? That’d be right. Fine, you two. Listen to me. As soon as I’ve got everyone’s attention, someone shove that bloody birdcage under Millicent Grimwade’s table, right? That should get our invisible friend close enough to trigger the hex in the cakes. If there’s a hex in the cakes, that is. And if there isn’t… run.”

Before Melissande could stop her Reg uttered a piercing shriek and launched herself off Bibbie’s shoulder to fly in manic circles beneath the chamber’s ceiling. Still shrieking, she flapped round and round at speed, eliciting ladylike cries of fear and alarm from the startled contestants and spectators below.

“Quick!” said Bibbie. “While the old cat’s not looking at us!”

With a helpful shove from Monk’s mad sister, Melissande ducked awkwardly under the scarlet cordon-rope, one hand tugging at the birdcage round her neck. The velvet choker gave way and she thrust the sprite beneath the long lace cloth covering Millicent Grimwade’s table.

Mission accomplished, she staggered back under the cordon-rope and looked up. “Done!” she shouted, hoping Reg could hear her over the increasingly agitated cries from the crowd.

With one last piercing shriek Reg stopped imitating a crazed falcon and instead dived through the nearest open window. Three determined strokes of her wings and she was gone from sight, lost among the city’s prosperous rooftops.

“Gosh,” said Bibbie, eyes wide with repressed hilarity. “She’s better than a circus, isn’t she?”

“Never mind Reg,” said Melissande, staring at Millicent Grimwade’s cakes. “Just cross your fingers that this actually works!”

Even as she spoke, the lace cloth rippled as though a breeze had sprung up beneath it. On the table’s top, the three cake-laden plates jittered. Millicent Grimwade leapt back with a startled cry.

The plates began to dance in earnest. Squeals of surprise and consternation went up as spectator after spectator noticed blobs of over-whipped cream fly into the air, primrose-yellow icing turn an embarrassed vermilion and all the chocolate smothering the chocolate log begin to curdle. One of the Invigilators marched along the row of staring, whispering contestants to investigate, wooden spoon at the ready.

“What is this?” she demanded, goggling at the metamorphosing cakes as they shimmied back and forth across the lace tablecloth. “Miss Grimwade, please explain!”

“I–I can’t!” said ashen-faced Millicent Grim-wade. “It’s a trick-it’s foul play-it’s-it’s-” Staring wildly about her, she caught sight of Permelia Wycliffe’s expression of undisguised triumph. “It’s sabotage!” she cried and pointed an unsteady finger. “ That woman has sabotaged me! She’s pea-green with envy because I’ve beaten her at every turn and now she’s trying to steal the grand prize. But the Golden Whisk is mine, I tell you! Mine!”

Uproar as Permelia advanced upon Millicent Grimwade with dreadful solemnity, Eudora Telford bleating loyally in her wake. The judges scattered like lawn bowls before her barely-restrained wrath. Helpless, because Permelia Wycliffe was Guild president and no-one in her right mind smacked the president with a wooden spoon, not if they wanted to keep their prestigious position, the Invigilators dithered on the fringes of the fray. And all around them the spectators gasped and wittered and repeated the dreadful accusations until the Town Hall chamber sounded like a henhouse routed by a fox.

Now the transformed cakes were leaping up and down as though they’d been imbued with unnatural, frantic life.

“Stop it! Stop it!” sobbed Millicent Grimwade. “Permelia Wycliffe, I demand that you stop this sabotage at once!”

“And I demand that you confess you’ve been cheating, Millicent Grimwade!” cried Permelia Wycliffe, majestic in her triumph. “You’ve hexed your cakes so they’ll win the Golden Whisk!”

Millicent Grimwade’s hatchet face flushed as vermilion as her pound cake. “How dare you? I have done no such thing! How could I? I’m not a witch.”

“Then you hired a witch to do it for you!” Permelia retorted. “Or a wizard. It’s plain for all to see, so don’t go trying to split hairs now you-you termagant!”

Highly entertained, Melissande felt a sharp elbow-nudge in her ribs and looked at Bibbie. “Don’t do that, this is just getting interesting.”

“I’ll say,” said Bibbie, her sharkish grin on full display, and unfolded her fingers. In the palm of her hand the green hex-detecting crystal pulsed a deep and vibrant black. “Looks like we’ve got her, Miss Cadwallader.”

“Indeed it does, Miss Markham,” she replied, feeling an equally sharkish smile spread across her own face. “Don’t look now, but I think that’s your cue.”

“I say that you have done this dreadful thing!” Permelia Wycliffe continued in her vindicated glory. “And not just today. You’ve been cheating all year! You, Millicent Grimwade, have single-handedly brought the Baking and Pastry Guild into dire disrepute! By the power vested in me as president I demand that you hand over your Guild badge at once! You are a disgrace to the chocolate eclair!”

“I’ll do no such thing!” cried Millicent Grimwade. She was practically panting. “You can’t prove I’ve cheated, Permelia Wycliffe. You can’t prove a thing!”

“ She might not be able to, Miss Grimwade,” said Bibbie, ducking under the scarlet cordon-rope. “But I can. And I will.” She held up the black crystal in full sight of the crowd. “Do you see this?” she demanded in a loud and carrying voice, brandishing the crystal overhead. The closest of the deliciously shocked spectators craned their necks for a closer look. “It’s a hexometer, ladies. Designed to register thaumaturgic activity. If there isn’t any in the immediate vicinity it’s a pleasant pale green. But if there is it turns black. And as you can see, this crystal is indeed black.” She spun round to face a shocked and gibbering Millicent Grimwade. “As black as the heart of a woman who’d stoop to illegal thaumaturgy to win the Golden Whisk!”

A fresh outcry, as the direness of Bibbie’s claims registered with every Guild member in the room.

Despite the desperately dancing plates on her table, which was starting an alarming shimmy in counterpoint, Millicent Grimwade managed to rally. “And who are you, pray tell? Some hussy Permelia’s dragged in off the street?”

“ Hussy?” said Bibbie, milking her moment. “How dare you, madam? I am Miss Emmerabiblia Markham, one third of Witches Incorporated, the new witching locum agency recently opened in town. No task too large or too small, reasonable rates, absolute discretion guaranteed. Unmasking thaumaturgical villainy is our business and you, Millicent Grimwade, may consider yourself unmasked!”

Still Millicent Grimwade stood her ground. “Poppycock!” she retorted. “Do you think we’re going to take one look at your silly little crystal and believe that a woman of my social stature would stoop to cheating? That my Guild sisters would take your word over mine, some upstart young person who dares to show her ankles in public? Do you?”

As Bibbie stared, momentarily silenced, Melissande shoved under the scarlet cordon-rope and ranged herself at Bibbie’s side.

“ Yes!” she said, in a loud, commanding voice. “Because those ankles belong to none other than the great-niece of former Guild President Antigone Markham!”

Outright chaos ensued. The judges shouted, the shrieking Invigilators waved their wooden spoons, Eudora Telford bleated her support, Permelia Wycliffe demanded Millicent Grimwade’s confession and Millicent Grimwade demanded her presidential resignation in return. Not a single woman in the chamber kept her opinion to herself. The noise was so loud the windows started to vibrate.

And at the height of the uproar… Millicent Grimwade’s hexed cakes exploded.

“Well,” said Bibbie into the ringing silence, flicking a blob of chocolate log off the end of her nose. “I suppose that’s one way of winning the argument.”

Everyone within twenty feet of Millicent’s table was now wearing a sticky souvenir from the most exciting Golden Whisk competition in the Baking and Pastry Guild’s long and chequered history.

“Urrrgghhh…” said Millicent Grimwade, dripping gooseberry sponge, and fainted theatrically onto the floor.

Which was a signal for the room to erupt into fresh cacophony. Ignoring the outcry, Permelia Wycliffe stepped over Millicent Grimwade’s prostrate body to snatch Bibbie’s chocolate-daubed hands in a convulsive clasp. Incredibly, she seemed on the verge of tears. It made her all of a sudden more human. Less dislikeable.

“Oh, thank you, Miss Markham. Thank you.”

Reprehensible Bibbie grinned. “You’re welcome, Miss Wycliffe. We guardians of the Baking and Pastry Guild have to stick together, after all.”

Permelia Wycliffe leaned close, still clutching, her black silk-clad bosom painted with sloppy vermilion icing. “I must speak to you on another matter, Miss Markham,” she said, eyes narrowed with purpose. “Now that I know I can trust you implicitly. The Wycliffe honour is at stake and I feel you might be my only hope.”

Smeared with cream and bits of gooseberry, Melissande turned away from incoherently gushing Eudora Telford, determined to step in before Bibbie had the bright idea of volunteering their unpaid services in the name of Baking and Pastry Guild sisterhood.

“I’m sure it sounds most serious, Miss Wycliffe,” she said briskly. “And of course Witches Inc. would be only too pleased to undertake any commission on your behalf. Perhaps we might discuss the particulars tomorrow morning, at ten?” She fished in her reticule for the account she’d prepared last night, and held it out. “When you come by the office to settle today’s successfully concluded assignment?”

Permelia Wycliffe stared at her blankly for a moment, then nodded and took the sealed envelope. “Why, er, yes. Yes, certainly.” She turned. “You will be in attendance, won’t you, Miss Markham?”

“We’ll both be there, Miss Wycliffe,” said Melissande firmly. “The agency is our joint endeavour.”

Permelia Wycliffe drew breath to say something blighting, but before things could go from wonderful to woeful she was swept away by a gaggle of voluble Invigilators and various other agitated Guild members.

Melissande felt a plucking at her stained sleeve, and turned. Oh, dear. “ Yes, Miss Telford?”

“I must go, Your Highness. Permelia will need me,” Eudora Telford whispered. Tears sparkled in her faded brown eyes. “I just wanted to thank you, again. This was so important to her… and I couldn’t help.”

Honestly, she really was the soggiest woman. “It was my pleasure, Miss Telford.”

“Gosh,” said Bibbie, emerging from under Millicent Grimwade’s table with the sprite trap as Eudora scuttled after her friend. “So that’s another job for Witches Inc., eh? Hmmm, didn’t someone recently say that using Monk’s interdimensional escapee to solve the Case of the Cheating Cake Cook might well work out to our advantage? Who could that have been, I wonder?”

Melissande sighed. “Yes, yes, rub it in, why don’t you?”

“Don’t worry, I will,” said Bibbie, grinning, the sprite trap dangling on the end of one careless finger. “I’m going to rub it in until-”

“I say! I say!” an excited voice called out. “Can you look this way?”

“What?” said Melissande, turning. “I know that voice! It’s-”

And then she was blinded by a flash of thaumically-enhanced light as the appalling photographer from the Times assaulted her yet again with his camera.

A tide of red and righteous wrath rose within her. “ You! What are you doing here? Give me that camera, you revolting little man!”

The photographer yelped and ran. Hurdling the still-prostrate Millicent Grimwade, scattering spectators like skittles, she chased the mingy weasel out of the chamber, down the Town Hall steps and into the busy carriage-filled street.

“That’s right, you little rodent!” she bellowed after him. “Run, go on! And just you keep on running, you hear? Keep on running and don’t look back!”

“Now, now,” said Reg, landing on her shoulder in a fluttering of brown-and-black feathers. “That’s not very nice of you, ducky. I mean, in a roundabout way he did get us this job.”

Hotly aware of the stares and imprecations she was collecting from various shocked pedestrians and carriage-drivers, Melissande leapt back onto the sidewalk and lifted her chin, refusing to be embarrassed. “I don’t care. It’s an invasion of privacy, that’s what it is. He’s a weasel and a toad and I’ve half a mind to slap Millicent Grimwade silly with a soggy cooked noodle until she gives up the name of the witch or wizard who devised that hex of hers. Could be I might have some business for them. There’s a certain camera I need to futz with.”

“No, don’t do that,” said Monk, behind her. “Black market thaumaturgy is kept strictly hush-hush. If you stick your nose in I’ll have to report you to the Department and that could get a bit awkward. And speaking of awkward, Mel, what have you done with my sprite?”

Melissande spun on her heel. “Monk? What are you doing here?”

“Reg came and got me,” he said, his eyes warm, his expression guarded. “Now can I have my sprite back, please? We’re up to our armpits in a controlled thaumic inversion back in the lab, and Macklewhite won’t cover my absent arse forever.”

“The wretched thing’s inside,” she said, desperately attempting to recover her poise. If only she wasn’t wearing quite so much whipped cream…

“Inside?” Monk repeated, horrified. “What do you mean, inside? You mean inside the Town Hall? Where people can see it? Mel, what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t!” she said hotly. “This was all your mad sister’s idea! So if you want to shout at someone I strongly suggest you shout at her!”

Monk scrubbed a distracted hand over his face. “Mmm. Yes. That never turns out well for me.”

“And you think this conversation is destined for a happy ending?”

“Quit while you’re ahead, sunshine,” said Reg, snickering. “Want me to go and fetch Mad Miss Markham?”

They stared at her in mutual dismay. “ Absolutely not! ”

Reg sniffed. “Suit yourselves.”

Melissande watched her flap away, then sighed. “Wait here, Monk. I’ll fetch Bibbie and your precious sprite.”

But there was no need, for as she turned to trudge back into the Town Hall Bibbie came out with the deactivated sprite trap.

“ There you are!” said Monk, wrathfully advancing. “Bibbie, are you completely cracked?”

Ignoring the question, his sibling thrust the seemingly-empty birdcage at him. “Here’s your sprite, Monk. Lucky for you it came in handy or I might’ve had to devise a truly awful payback hex. As things stand, we’ll call us even.”

“ Even?” he said, flicking on the etheretic normaliser. “Not bloody likely!”

“Honestly, it’s in there, Monk,” said Bibbie, with unrestrained sisterly scorn. “Do you really think I’d-oh.”

Oh was right. The interdimensional sprite was puddled on the bottom of the birdcage, its only sign of life a faint, pulsating blue twitch.

Melissande stared at it, aghast. “Oh yes? My imagination, was it? I said the thing didn’t look very well, didn’t I say that? But no-one ever listens to me. Just because I’m not a thaumaturgical genius I get ignored!”

It was true. Bibbie was ignoring her now. “You’d better do something, Monk. If the stupid thing dies it’ll be your fault.”

“ My fault?” He looked in danger of falling to the pavement in an apoplectic fit. “Bugger that, Bibbie! If you’d done what I asked in the first place and brought me the damned sprite as soon as you caught it-”

“ Not here!” said Melissande, acutely aware of the unfortunate attention they were attracting from the public-at-large. She grabbed brother and sister by an elbow each. “Let’s find somewhere to discuss this in private, shall we?”

Monk wrenched himself free. “There’s no time. Can’t you see the rotten thing’s dying? And if it dies in this dimension I have no idea what the thaumaturgic fallout might be. And I really don’t want to find out the hard way! Do you?” Clutching the birdcage with its ailing occupant close to his chest, he made a dash for the pool of shadows cast by the Town Hall’s wide, imposing front steps.

“What are you doing?” said Melissande, following him, with Bibbie at her heels.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he retorted, harassed. “I’m sending this bloody sprite back where it came from!”

“Here? This minute?” said Bibbie. “Monk, you can’t! There are too many people around, what if-”

Now it was Monk’s turn to do the ignoring. Deeply frowning, he pulled a rock out of his pocket and hummed complicatedly and untunefully under his breath, then held it above the sprite trap he’d so casually invented. Melissande recognised the rock as a relative of the portable portal he’d used in New Ottosland.

“Oooh!” said Bibbie, twitching. “Feel that!”

Melissande stared at her. “What? Feel what?”

“ That,” said Bibbie. “Ewww, it’s like a thousand caterpillars crawling over my skin! Can’t you feel it?”

No. She couldn’t. Because she wasn’t a real witch. But that didn’t bother her at all.

Monk was grinning now, and Bibbie was grinning back at him, their nursery-squabbling forgotten. “Any second,” he murmured. “Wait for it… wait for it…”

The air surrounding the ailing sprite shivered. Sparkled in an impossible whirlpool of silver and gold. The sprite emitted a tiny, surprised squeak. Then, as though an invisible hand had reached out to grab it by the scruff of the neck, or what passed for its neck, it was sucked into the sparkling whirlpool… and vanished.

“ Excellent!” said Monk briskly and returned the rock to his pocket. “Now I’d best be on my way. Oh, and there’s no need for you to worry about Millicent Grimwade. Reg filled me in on her shenanigans, and I’ve passed along the particulars to the relevant Department. In fact-” He nodded as an official-looking black car pulled up in front of the Town Hall. “Here comes justice now.” He grinned as two stern-faced men spilled onto the pavement and started marching up the Town Hall steps. “So that’s the cake cheat and her black market chum taken care of. She’ll spill every last bean, I’ll bet, to make things easier for herself.” Still grinning, he shoved the birdcage at Bibbie.

“And what am I supposed to do with this?” she said, bemused.

“Hang onto it until the next time we have dinner?” he suggested, walking backwards. “Thanks!”

They stared after him, open-mouthed, until he was lost to sight amongst the city’s teeming pedestrians.

Then Bibbie laughed. “Never mind. All’s well that ends well.” She linked her arm through Melissande’s. “Now I want tea. Lots of tea. And scones with lashings of blackcurrant jam and cream.”

Melissande shook her head. The Markhams were totally incorrigible and utterly impossible. “Bibbie, no. We can’t afford — ”

“Oh, pishwash!” scoffed Bibbie. “We just solved the greatest crime in Baking and Pastry Guild history, sent a sightseeing interdimensional sprite home to its mother and put a black market thaumaturgist out of business! If that’s not an excuse to celebrate then I don’t know what is! Do you?”

“Well… no,” said Melissande, reluctantly. “Only we mustn’t go overboard, Bibbie. One celebratory scone each and a teapot between us. That’s it. And then we go back to the office and make sure we’re ready for round two with Permelia Wycliffe. Because if you’re right, and this ridiculous cake fiasco is the start of something big, then I want to be ready for it. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Bibbie, rolling her eyes. “Now come on, do. It’s time for some fun!”