Wizard Undercover

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The fireworks were about to start any moment. Seated with Hartwig on the crowded wedding party viewing platform, since poor gouty Brunelda was still confined to her couch, Melissande craned her neck to see in between the guests from Ottosland and Fandawandi and Graff and Blonkken, across to the next platform where various and sundry minions and lackeys were laughing and chatting and drinking cider.

Algernon Rowbotham and Gladys Slack, who’d not returned to the palace, weren’t among them.

Oh, lord. Oh, Saint Snodgrass. I hope they’re all right.

She also hoped the fireworks weren’t tampered with, because thanks to their special viewing platform she was sitting awfully bloody close.

Erminium, ruler-straight in the chair on Hartwig’s other side, was making clear her opinion of spoiled rotten servants who didn’t know how to enjoy themselves quietly.

Norbert of Harenstein, standing nearby with his young, beautiful wife, sighed and wagged a finger at the Dowager Queen. “Come, come, Erminium. It’s not so bad.”

Swallowing, Melissande stared at him as he coaxed Ratafia’s perpetually dissatisfied mother into taking another glass of cherry liqueur. How could Norbert be involved in the plot? He was here, with his empty-headed marquise. If the fireworks had been tampered with he’d be somewhere else, surely.

Like Volker and Dermit. They’re not here either. But then, they really are villains.

Of course, if Gerald was wrong again, and the fireworks were safe, then perhaps Norbert was a villain, too.

I hate this. I’ve had enough. I want to go home.

“Melissande?” said Ratafia, who’d decided to forgive her. She stood resplendent in topaz-gold silk, with Ludwig’s arm about her slender waist, blooming like a bride. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, smiling, feeling sick enough to weep. “I’m just excited.”

“So am I!” said Ratafia, her beautiful face aglow. “I love fireworks, and I love Luddie. This will be a perfect night!”

Melissande nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

A perfect night, or perfectly dreadful. If only I knew which.

“Blimey, I hate waiting,” said Bibbie. “How lucky are you, Gerald, that I’m not scared of heights?”

Pacing the observation tower’s viewing platform, skin crawling, palms sweating, Gerald stared down at the fireworks pontoons.

“Very. Can you feel anything yet?”

She sighed. “No. Still not yet.”

No. He dragged his hand down his face, felt the tremble in his fingers. Dread was alive in him now, howling through his bones.

Damn and blast. What I wouldn’t give to be wrong.

With a whistling rush the first fireworks ignited, tracing lines of green and gold against the deepening night sky. The crowd roared, drowning the screaming whizz of the thaumaturgically enhanced gunpowder. All the smiling upturned faces, splashed with colour, reflected wonder and joy. Next came a blossoming of flowers, gold and crimson and purple and white, promise of a distant spring.

Bibbie turned, laughing. “Look at them, Gerald. They’re fabulous!”

He wanted to smile back at her, to share in her wonder. But the howling dread wouldn’t let him, wouldn’t stop shaking his bones. Roiling beneath the beauty was a filthy promise of death.

Between heartbeats, Bibbie’s pleasure died. Her face twisted with pain.

“Gerald-”

“I know, Bibbie! I know!”

He fought to stay on his feet, but these thaumaturgics were worse than the blood hex, worse than what they’d faced at the Hanging Bridge. They beat him to his knees.

“Gerald!”

“Stay back, Bibbie!” he groaned, shuddering. “Please. Stay back.”

With an effort he got rid of Algernon, needing to be himself. Wanting her to see him, not that counterfeit face. Just in case… in case…

“Bloody hell, Bibs.” He was nearly sobbing. “It’s close, so damned close-”

And then she was kneeling with him, her fingers warm and strong around his wrists. A twisting ripple and she was herself again, Gladys Slack cast aside. The brilliant blue eyes he’d missed so much were wide with fear.

“Gerald, I don’t know how to-it’s grimoire magic, I’m not strong enough, I can’t-”

“I can,” he said, gasping. “But not alone.”

“Do you want me to hide you? I can do that much, at least, I can-”

“No!” He didn’t want her anywhere near what was coming. “It might make things tricky, this time. Two potentias.”

“Then what do you need, Gerald?” Her breath caught. “Anything. It’s yours.”

“Tell me again, Bibs. I need to hear it.”

She framed his face with her warm hands. Pressed her forehead to his. “I love you, Gerald Dunwoody, and I am not afraid.”

“Damn,” he muttered, torn between delight and dismay. “Sir Alec will go right round the bend. And your uncle!”

A small shrug. “Probably. But I say we jump off that bridge tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he said, and kissed her, too briefly, making the word a promise.

Four hundred and twenty-three steps below them, the crowd roared and cheered as fireworks streaked the night sky all the glowing colours of dawn. Melissande was down there. Rightly or wrongly, she mattered more than the rest. If he failed here, her death would belong to him forever. The ensuing Splotze-Borovnik conflict would be his too, countless deaths, rivers of spilled blood, a continent plunged into chaos.

So don’t fail.

Something malevolent shuddered through the ether. A putrid flower, unfurling, its petals stinking of decay. Another roar from the crowd, this time pocked with alarm. There were wizards among the thousands watching, and witches. They knew.

With an effort Gerald stood, and Bibbie stood with him. Walked beside him to the edge of the platform so he could see the tethered pontoons and the fireworks and the people he had to save.

“I don’t know who or what I am any more, Bibbie,” he whispered. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m making this up as I go.”

She laced her fingers with his, cool and slim. An anchor. A lifeline. “It’s all right, Gerald. I won’t let you get lost.”

And that was her promise. Believing it, he made his leap of faith into the dark.

The tainted thaumaturgics in the fireworks were rank and riddled with decay, dreamed to life by a twisted soul. He felt his changed potentia quail at the touch of them, changed not so much, it seemed, as he feared. He rode the roil of dark magics through the ether like a kestrel in a storm, feeling the whip and wash toss him, feeling his soul fight to stay free. Here there was no distance, he was a mere hairsbreadth from the terrible incants. Reach out his hand and he could touch them. Reach out his mind and see them crushed.

Provided they didn’t crush him first.

Don’t let go, Bibbie. Don’t leave me here alone.

He fought to remember all he knew of thaumaturgics. The lessons Reg had taught him. The things he’d learned on his own. What he’d discovered by accident in the attics at Chatterley Crescent, arguing mad experiments with Monk. And of course the grimoire magics that he’d given himself.

Every incant created contains the seed of its own destruction. For every syllable there is a silence. For every take there must be give.

He was standing on a viewing platform, high above Grande Splotze. Stretch up with his fingers and he’d touch the sky, catch a falling star, make the moon his toy. He could feel the ground below him and the emptiness of air. Behind his closed eyelids he saw traceries of fire.

And fire is ravenous. Fire feeds until it’s dead.

All the wicked, wicked magic. Before its gluttonous feast was over half the world or more would be consumed. Abandoning himself to instinct, to his remade and terrible potentia, he planted his own seed within the heart of every tainted incant. Showed it silence. Gave it death.

The incants screamed with their dying, died cruel, died hard. He struggled not to die with them but they were tearing him apart. Tearing quickly. Or was it slowly? He’d lost all sense of time.

The last incant perished. In its dying wake, a different, kinder silence. And then he heard, from far away, someone call his name, weeping.

“Gerald… Gerald… it’s over. Come back. Please, please, come back.”

Was he leaving? He didn’t want to. He had a reason to stay. Blood tasted like salt and iron. It was warm, and stank of life. He could feel somebody’s fingers, tightly interlaced with his. Someone’s tears fell on his cold face, warm as blood on snow.

Bibbie.

Gerald opened his eyes. He was sprawled on his back, the tower’s platform hard against his flesh and bones. But his head had a fine pillow, beautiful, wonderful Bibbie Markham’s lap, and she was stroking his hair with her cool, slim fingers, brokenly saying his name again and again. As he smiled up at her, not leaving, not dying, the crowd far below them roared its approval… and in the starry night sky above them untainted fireworks danced with joy.

A princess should carry smelling salts upon her person at all times.

It was one of the oddest admonitions she’d ever encountered, growing up, but as she bent over a stricken Lord Babcock, Melissande found herself grateful to the governess who’d left Dashforth’s Precepts for Young Royalty in the nursery’s library.

Lord Babcock, pale and clammy, slumped in a chair at the back of the viewing platform, breathing in shallow groans. He wasn’t alone in his discomfort. Aframbigi’s Foreign Minister, and Jandria’s, were also suffering pangs of some kind. Just not badly enough to require smelling salts-or so they claimed.

She wafted the foul salts under Lord Babcock’s nose one more time, to be on the safe side. As he snorted and spluttered, a fresh roar of appreciation from the crowd and much clapping from her fellow wedding guests and their minions on the other platform tipped her face skywards, but it was too late. The astonishing burst of fireworks was no more than a swiftly fading memory of blue and green.

The fireworks.

She felt her stomach jitter. There’d been a moment, just a moment, when she could have sworn she saw something creepily wrong in the brilliant, fiery lights bursting overhead. But then the moment passed, the fireworks continued beautifully brilliant, nothing creepy about them at all, and she’d thought, I really must learn to curb my imagination.

That was when someone said, “Oh dear, Lord Babcock’s not feeling too well.”

And naturally she’d gone to help, because that’s what one did. It was the reason one carried smelling salts at all times.

Satisfied that Babcock was coming around with no harm done, Melissande put the stopper back in the bottle of salts and returned it to her reticule. A pity she couldn’t put her suspicions away just as neatly.

I’ll swear this isn’t another case of finger food gone wrong. Something dreadful was about to happen with the fireworks, I know it. Something thaumaturgically catastrophic. But then… it didn’t.

Because of Gerald and Bibbie, she’d stake her life on that. And she’d bet it was the near-thaumaturgic disaster that had skittled Lord Babcock and the other two. Chances were that all three men, given who they were and where they came from, had finely tuned etheretic sensitivities.

On the other hand, Norbert of Harenstein hadn’t noticed a thing. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Another glorious burst of light and colour. More cheering. More clapping. The fireworks were reaching their breathtaking crescendo, boom boom boom, bloom and burst, a battering of beauty. Shaky with relief, Melissande smiled.

Well done, Radley Blayling. Unless of course you’re part of the plot, in which case, shame on you.

With another spluttering snort, Lord Babcock collected himself out of his slump. Bending again, she patted his arm. “Feeling better, Your Lordship? Oh, I am pleased.”

“What happened?” Babcock muttered, hand pressed to his head. “What the devil’s going on?”

Well, my lord, if it turns out I’m right that’s for me to know and Sir Ralph Markham to tell. Eventually. If he feels so inclined. Which he probably won’t.

“I’m not sure, Lord Babcock,” she said kindly, because the poor man did look seedy. “A little too much cherry liqueur, perhaps.”

His gaze sharpened, turning inwards. “Yes. Yes. Most likely. Thank you, Your Highness.”

Government ministers, no matter how exalted, did not dismiss royalty. Except when they did. Ah, the Ottish. Unoffended, because really, what would be the point, Melissande made her way through the well-bred cheering back to Hartwig’s side.

“Old Babcock all ship-shape, then?” he asked, his arm going around her, his hand resting, inevitably, on her hip.

“He’s fine,” she said, giving up. He was Hartwig, he was harmless, and he had a lot on his plate. “Twiggy, the fireworks were wonderful.”

“Yes, well,” he said gruffly, and smoothed his moustache. “Only got one brother, haven’t I? Got to do the right thing by him. Even if he is an idiot who dives into canals.”

Carriages were waiting to take the wedding party back to the palace. Riding with Hartwig, the horses trotting through a storm of cheering and tossed confetti, Melissande searched every face in the crowd as it passed. But no Algernon. No Gladys. She wanted to weep.

It didn’t kill them, did it? Saving us? Please, please, don’t say I brought them here to die.

“Look at that,” said Hartwig, pitching his voice above the happy throng. “We’ve got clouds coming in. Think it might rain a bit, later tonight. S’posed to be a good omen, a touch of rain at a wedding. Brings luck, the old wives say.”

She glanced at the sky. He was right, the stars were clouding over. “Let’s hope so, Twiggy.”

Because right now I need all the luck I can get.

Toiling her way up to her suite, she debated with herself about whether or not she should tell Hartwig she’d misplaced her secretary and her lady’s maid and ask him to send out a search party for them. She knew he’d say yes in a heartbeat… but if she did ask, might she unwittingly be putting Gerald and Bibbie in danger? Assuming, of course, they weren’t- weren’t No. I refuse to entertain the possibility.

She was still trying to decide on the best thing to do when she walked into the guest apartment’s bedchamber.

“Good, there you are,” said Bibbie, neat and tidy in a primly demure dark blue satin dress. “I’ve got your green silk evening gown pressed and ready, because you can’t stay in that hideous purple thing. Honestly, all it’s good for is dusters.”

Melissande blinked. For a moment it was a toss up, whether she hugged Bibbie or slapped her. In the end she simply sat on the bed, beyond caring if she crumpled her maligned mauve dress.

“You wretched bloody nuisance,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Don’t you realise I thought you were dead?”

Bibbie’s brittle brightness faded. “Oh. Look, Melissande, there’s-”

“No, Bibbie. There is no looking. No there’s no need to make a fuss. Not after what happened with the fireworks. Something did happen, didn’t it? I mean, I’m not losing my mind?”

Her Gladys Slack face sombre, Bibbie perched on the edge of the nearest chair. “No. Something happened. Or rather nothing happened. Thanks to Gerald.”

It was a different kind of relief, to know she’d not been wrong. “And where is Gerald? Is he all right?”

“Honestly?” said Bibbie, after an unnervingly long silence. “I’m not sure. I think so. He didn’t die or go mad, which is good. Only…”

“Only what, Bibbie?” she demanded. “Please. Just say it. You’re frightening me.”

Bibbie looked up, her eyes haunted with wonder. “Well, the thing is, Mel? I think he should have. The grimoire incants in those fireworks?” She shivered. “I’ve never felt-I never imagined… ” She pressed her hands to her face, briefly. “They were brilliant, y’know. Wickedly, dreadfully brilliant. Monk could’ve made them. He wouldn’t, but he could. I don’t know who else is good enough. And I don’t know any wizard besides Gerald who could’ve destroyed them, and survived.”

Melissande stared. “Not even Monk?”

“No, not even Monk. Because Monk isn’t-he hasn’t-”

And now Bibbie was really frightening her. “What? Monk hasn’t what?”

But Bibbie shook her head. “I can’t, Melissande. I’m sorry. It’s not for me to say. You’ll have to ask Gerald.”

She slid off the bed. “Fine. Where is he?”

“In his room, getting gussied up.”

“Go and fetch him, would you? I needed to talk to him anyway. You two aren’t the only ones who’ve had an interesting night. Now, Bibbie. Or I’ll be late for the party.”

But when Bibbie returned, she was alone and frowning. “He’s gone down to the reception. He left a note.”

“The wedding reception?” Melissande said, disbelieving. “But you minions aren’t invited, he knows that. You’ve got drinks in the Servants’ Hall. What is he thinking? Upstairs isn’t going to let Algernon Rowbotham crash the pre-wedding party.”

“Trust me, Melissande,” said Bibbie, her expression grim. “He won’t give them a choice. He’s so angry about the fireworks. I’ve never seen him so angry. He swore he was going to unmask the plotters tonight or tear the wedding apart, trying.”

She could’ve screamed with frustration. “I’ve already unmasked them! It’s Dermit and Volker. Quick, Bibbie. Help me get changed. We need to find Gerald, just in case those Steinish bastards have figured out who keeps putting a spoke in their dirty wheel.”

But Bibbie was so still she might’ve been nailed to the carpet. “Dermit and Volker? Are you sure? How do you know?”

Heedless of seams and buttons, Melissande started undressing herself. “Abel Bestwick told me.”

“Abel Bestwick? When did you-”

“A few hours ago.” Melissande flailed out of the purple dress and flung it on the bed. “And no, I wasn’t holding a seance. He’s not dead, Bibbie. He’s been hiding in Mitzie the kitchen maid’s room in the palace.”

“Good lord,” Bibbie said faintly.

“I told you I’d had an interesting time,” she retorted. “Anyway, once I’d convinced him I wasn’t a madwoman, or an enemy agent, he told me everything he knew.”

“And he says it’s Harenstein? But-but what about the Lanruvians?”

“The Lanruvians have gone home,” she said, fumbling with the buttons on her boots. “I have no idea why. All I know is that Abel Bestwick swears blind that Dermit and Volker are our villains, and seeing as how one of them stabbed him I rather thought contradicting him would be impolite.”

“Good lord,” said Bibbie. “Dermit and Volker. Well, at least that explains why they wouldn’t succumb to my charms.”

Oh, for pity’s sake. “Yes, Emmerabiblia,” Melissande said slowly. “Because that’s what really matters. I’m so glad we’ve cleared that up. Now fetch me my bloody evening gown before I forget I’m a bloody princess and do you a bloody mischief they’ll write up in the Times!”

Bravely undeterred by the memory of crab puffs, and lured by the promise of limitless cherry liqueur, the well-placed and well-dressed of Hartwig’s acquaintance had arrived promptly to celebrate Splotze and Borovnik’s highly anticipated nuptials.

Eating, drinking, gossiping, the wedding guests swirled in a colourful cloud of national dress and perfume and sprightly music. Watching from a discreet nook halfway along one wall, almost but not quite hidden behind a crimson velvet curtain, Gerald paid special attention to the dancers who’d gone on the wedding tour… and admitted to a grudging respect. Life in the rough and tumble worlds of politics and international diplomacy certainly hardened the nerves. Not a one of them showed any sign of nerves over the near-tragedy at the Hanging Bridge. And if one of them was disappointed, well, he couldn’t tell that, either. Which was a damned shame.

The guests from Blonkken arrived, and were immediately plied with refreshments. But still no Lanruvians. Probably planning to make yet another fashionably late entrance. Puzzling bastards, they were. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure them out. He’d not felt them at the fireworks… but what did that mean? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. It was too soon to know.

The fireworks.

A dull, persistent ache was throbbing behind his eyes. And he felt oddly disconnected, as insubstantial as the music being played by Hartwig’s favourite ensemble. Echoes of the observation platform, belling through his blood.

I don’t know who or what I am any more, Bibbie. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m making this up as I go.

It was true then. It was true now. What he’d become… what he was becoming…

What I did tonight was impossible. Damn that other Gerald. Only a madman would meld a rogue potentia with grimoire magics.

What a blessing he’d had Bibbie. Without her to hold on to, to come back to, he’d never have survived. The observation platform, the Hanging Bridge. She’d saved him both times.

And when Sir Alec finds out…

But that was another bridge that could wait till tomorrow.

Lord Babcock and the Jandrians entered the reception chamber together, playing nicely for once. Behind them a clutch of local dignitaries and their wives. He’d seen them before, at the doomed State Dinner. Still no soon-to-be happy couple though, or their families. No Melissande, either. But Secretary of State Leopold Gertz was here, doing his damp best to jolly things along as discreet palace servants brought in more finger food on silver platters. Though he was bone weary, and hurting, Gerald felt himself smile.

Tuck in quick, everyone, before the Marquis of Harenstein arrives.

Cautiously he unshielded his potentia. Touched it lightly here and there, but felt nothing untoward. And perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps whoever had failed first at the Hanging Bridge and then with the fireworks had belatedly come to his senses.

But I won’t hold my breath. This villain, whoever he is, has come too far to turn back now.

By now the reception chamber was so crowded and gabbleish that Hartwig’s ensemble was having to play twice as loudly to be heard. And blimey, what were they playing? It was awful. But as he winced at the tuneless collection of sharps and flats, something distracted him.

Shifting his gaze towards the chamber’s far end, he glimpsed a man dressed in severely fashionable black and white sidling his way through a large knot of guests who stood beside an enormous urn filled with Borovnik wildflowers.

Losing sight of him, Gerald cursed. Too many men dressed in black and white, too many parading silver platters and eager hands reaching for the food. Stirred instinct prickled an urgent warning. There’d been something… furtive… in the way the man moved.

Dammit. If only I’d seen his face.

And then a commotion erupted before the loudly playing ensemble, raised voices and a ragged expiration of music.

“-too bad, Goby, this is entirely too bad! You were told not to play that caterwauling rubbish! Are you an imbecile or a typical Borovnik, too arrogant to live?”

The commotion rippled outwards as guests retreated, snickering and muttering and even laughing out loud. Gerald saw Leopold Gertz, like a damp bantam cockerel, fists clenched and chest thrust forward, confronting a man who clutched a conductor’s baton and seemed dangerously inclined to use it.

Excellent. Perfect timing. Thank you, Secretary Gertz.

Under cover of the swiftly escalating dispute, Gerald wove his unobtrusive way through the goggling guests to the far end of the chamber. Pressing his back to the nearest empty bit of wall, he closed his eyes and let loose his potentia.

And this time he felt them, the slumbering grimoire thaumaturgics. After the fireworks they couldn’t hide from him any more. The man, the mysterious villain he was hunting, had attached four sickeningly powerful hexes to the back of that flower-filled urn.

A touch, a thought, and he’d killed them. No-one was dying here tonight. Grimly smiling, he looked across the crowded room… straight into the shocked eyes of Bern Dermit. Who like himself was a lackey, and shouldn’t have been allowed into the reception.

But I have my potentia. What’s his excuse?

From one breath to the next, Dermit’s shock twisted to incredulous fury. To understanding. To hate.

I’ll be damned, thought Gerald, blinking. It’s you.

Melissande and Bibbie had nearly reached the bottom of the palace’s sweeping staircase when they crossed paths with the wedding party and got swept up in Hartwig’s expansive enthusiasm.

“Of course, Melissande, of course you must make a grand entrance with us,” he protested. “Why, you’re as good as family. Isn’t she, Brunelda?”

Poor gouty Brunelda, reduced to hobbling with a stick, seemed about to remonstrate… until she caught sight of Erminium’s face.

“Absolutely she’s like family, Hartwig,” she said, sweetly smiling. “The daughter we never had, my dear.”

With Hartwig choking on that one, and Erminium at long last speechless with rage, Melissande risked an eloquent glance at Bibbie.

Stay close. I’ll find Gerald.

Bibbie nodded, bless her, and demurely retreated to bring up the rear.

Ratafia smiled, radiant, soppily entwined with her besotted Ludwig. “I’m glad you’re here too, Melissande. And that’s a very nice dress. Green suits you.”

“Thank you,” said Melissande. And when she heard Bibbie giggle, thought, Oh, shut up.

They arrived at the reception chamber to find Leopold Gertz and another man hurling spittled insults like hammers, much to the astonished amusement of Hartwig’s many guests. Melissande looked at the other man’s waving baton.

Good lord. Master Goby, I presume.

But then Leopold Gertz realised the wedding party had arrived, and the altercation collapsed in a mutual exchange of fulminating glares. Goby turned back to his musicians, and a moment later the chamber was blasted by a brass fanfare.

As Gertz retreated in embarrassed confusion, Melissande looked for Gerald. And there he was, standing beside a huge flowerpot, his expression oddly blank. She bounced a little bit and waved to attract his attention. No response. And then he saw her.

“Won’t be a moment,” she said to an oblivious Ratafia, and braved the crush of guests to join him. They collided almost halfway.

“It’s Harenstein!” they declared in simultaneous undertones.

“How did you know?” Gerald demanded, catching hold of her arm and tugging her towards the wall.

“Abel Bestwick told me. Have you seen him too?”

“Bestwick?” Gerald gaped, then shook his head. “No. I just caught Bern Dermit setting grimoire hexes. It’s all right, I killed them, but the bastard’s given me the slip. He could be anywhere in the palace setting some more. Where’s Bibbie? I need her to help me find him. And I want you to warn Hartwig, politics be damned.”

Her head was spinning. “Bibbie’s outside. Gerald, are you sure about telling Hartwig? Sir Alec-”

“Damn him, too,” he said, furiously intent. “If we don’t stop Dermit, Sir Alec will be the least of our worries.”

Very true.

But they’d not made it five paces before Leopold Gertz appeared in front of them, holding two glasses of richly red cherry liqueur.

“Your Highness!” he said, his face pallid and sweating. “Don’t go. Master Goby has played his last trick, I promise. Here.” He held out a glass to her. “We’ll drink to it, shall we? Here you are, sir.” He gave the other glass to Gerald, then snatched a flute of sparkling wine for himself from a passing servant. “To Splotze and her music! May she reign forever sovereign!”

It would take more time to protest and excuse themselves than make the toast. With a flicker of his eyelid- Come on, let’s drink and run — Gerald raised his glass.

“Indeed. To Splotze!”

Loathing cherry liqueur, Melissande pressed the lip of her glass deceptively against her teeth. Pretending to sip, she watched Splotze’s Secretary of State watch Gerald drain his glass dry. Lord, Gertz really did look dreadful. And his eyes… Hungrily avid. Almost manic.

Then, just for a moment, his alarming gaze shifted past Gerald towards something, or someone, standing behind them. Terror. Triumph. Shame. She saw them all in Gertz’s sweating face, and spun round.

Bern Dermit. Standing with him, Grune Volker. And in their faces she saw nothing but gloating hate.

Dropping her own glass she grabbed Gertz by the arm. “Leopold! What have you done?”

Gertz pulled free and backed away. “What I had to do. For Splotze. You wouldn’t understand.”

With a grunt, Gerald pressed a fist to his belly. Then he looked at her, astonished pain dawning.

“Melissande?”

Catching hold of him as he folded, she turned on Leopold Gertz. “You’ve poisoned him?”

Not waiting for Gertz to answer, because she already knew, she started dragging Gerald towards the reception chamber’s door… and saw Dermit and Volker, those two Steinish bastards, bullying their way through Hartwig’s heedless guests with murder in their eyes.

“Bibbie!”

And Bibbie was beside her, taking Gerald’s other arm, helping to drag him towards the chamber doors. Now people were turning, curious, too bloody stupid to get out of the way. Dermit’s hand was in his pocket. Everything about him screamed: You’re dead.

“Bibbie, he’s got hexes,” she said, nearly sobbing. “We need a diversion!”

Bibbie clenched a fist and whispered. All around the chamber, curtains burst into flame.

“Done,” she said, vicious. “Now let’s get out of here.”