by Amy Crook
"I am Courting Julian St. Albans, yes," said Alex, not sure where this was going.
"So, you're more one for the boys, then?" she asked, sounding a bit resigned.
Alex nodded, relieved. "I'm afraid so, but I promise it won't change my tips."
She laughed. "Well, it's good to know it wasn't just me, anyway." She left, and they all gave Alex good-natured crap until she and the coffee returned.
"I don't suppose this means I can get your number now?" asked Jones, while she poured coffee all around the table and gave them an extra pitcher of milk.
She chuckled. "Play your cards right, maybe," she said, giving him a wink and looking much cheered as she sauntered off.
They talked about the case and Courtship while they ate, but mostly concentrated on getting food into themselves so they's have time to visit Geoff before Saveur. "Though, actually, maybe we ought to go after," said Lapointe, after having her last bite of sandwich.
"Oh, to bring him chocolates, you mean?" said Alex. "Yeah, maybe. Text him and ask what he'd prefer?"
The Guardians looked amused, but they all kept eating just in case a quick exit was still necessary, and it was a good thing they did since Geoff admitted he hoped to have everyone kicked out and be napping by then. Alex paid with his card to make it simple, letting anyone who felt the need to repay him -- mostly Smedley and Lapointe, who couldn't be seen taking bribes of any sort -- do so at their leisure.
They piled into the car, with Alex ending up between his Guardians while the two Agents shared the other seat, which was a bit tight, but better than the alternatives. They joked around while they drove to Geoff's flat, not wanting to think about why they were going there and not seeing him at work where he belonged.
"You guys are definitely the last visitors for today," said Geoff, answering the door in his pyjamas and dressing gown and looking fairly done in.
"We'll be quick, sorry," said Alex, sheepishly. Five at once was probably a bit much, but there was no way the Guardians were going to let Alex come up here alone. "How're you feeling?"
They all filed in and Geoff settled shamelessly back in his easy chair with a wan grin. "I'll be better with tea," he said, making pathetic eyes at them.
Jacques laughed. "I'll do it, just give us a sec to clear the flat." He and James moved off in that eerily smooth way they had when they were working, and soon enough the sound of water running in the kitchen was everyone's signal to relax.
"So, mosquito, huh?" said Alex, using his own status as the other injured party to steal half the sofa, Lapointe taking the other half which was all the seating available in Geoff's living room.
"Biggest one I've ever seen," said Geoff. "You dealt with a wasp and a scorpion, right? Man, I don't know how, it was all I could do to keep that thing from doing more than poke me," he said, holding up his arm. There were little circles and scratches where the construct had stabbed him with its proboscis, already healed and fading away.
"Will you have scars?" asked Alex, leaning forward to look at the marks, which were much smaller than the two wounds he'd taken from the wasp's stinger.
"Doc says no, I'm using potions and a cream. Mostly it's just blood loss and shock I've got to recover from," replied Geoff, "much like Lapointe."
"Mine's mostly faded, though I'm terrible about remembering the cream," said Lapointe, touching her shoulder self-consciously.
Smedley leaned against the couch and looked them over. "We've gotta catch this guy," he said. Then he paused, and added, "Maybe after he gets Armistead?"
They laughed, and James started ferrying out cups of tea and getting people's preferences, which turned into Smedley helping. They all chatted about normal department gossip and the frustration of having mountains of evidence, a dozen suspects and no good leads.
Eventually Alex's phone chimed with their five minute warning, and they loaded up the dishwasher and promised to come visit again sometime in smaller groups when Geoff was well.
"I'm sorry you got caught up in this," said Alex, as they were leaving.
"You'll figure it out, and either win your consort or come let me console you," said Geoff, flirting tiredly.
Alex chuckled. "You just want to get your hands on my creamy mounds."
"Damn right I do," said Geoff. "Now go woo your boy."
They waved and left, getting to Saveur just a little bit late, which Alex sheepishly blamed on traffic. The chocolatier was kind enough to not mind, and took them not into the kitchen but back to the break room where there was a table and chairs for enough people. Jacques stayed with Alex while James checked the place for nasty surprises, not trusting the more public setting enough to do it together.
"So you really do have Guardians," said the chocolatier, Ellen Young. She was a tall, slender woman with a birdlike quality to her, fine-boned and beak-nosed under a cap of dark hair.
Alex chuckled. "I really do," he said, taking the proffered seat.
Smedley had volunteered to carry the box of goodies, so he thumped the crate down on the table before sitting himself. "It's a good thing, too, because if the third time wasn't the charm I hate to see what they'll try for the fourth."
Ellen's eyes went a bit wide. "Three attempts?"
"Well, the first one was more of an accident," said Alex, "but two, yes. Though I'd really rather not talk about it."
"Of course not... Ah, this is my assistant, Pauline, with some drinking chocolate and a bit of a treat for everyone," said Ellen.
Pauline was smaller, rounder, blonder and grinning. "We've got three drinking chocolates in house, I've prepared a pot of each," she said. She set down the tray in the space left by the box, unperturbed, and pointed to each pot in turn. "Dark chocolate chile, milk chocolate with lavender, and milk chocolate with bergamot."
"Ooh, I'll try the bergamot," said Alex. "Sorry, was that too eager?"
She laughed, and the rest of them chuckled with her. "Not at all," she said, pouring. "You're Mr. Benedict?"
"Alex, please," he answered, taking the cup and inhaling the heavenly scent. "Oh, this smells good."
"And your companions?" Pauline asked, turning first to Lapointe.
"Agent Lapointe," she said, "and I'll have the dark, please."
"Of course," replied Pauline, pouring and passing the cup, then turning to Smedley. "And for you?"
"Lavender, please. What?" he said. "Oh, I'm Agent Smedley, sorry."
Alex tried not to think about what it meant that Smedley liked lavender things, and almost succeeded.
"Will your Guardians be having some?" she asked, pouring the dark for Ellen and lavender for herself.
"Jacques?" asked Alex, blowing on his cup. "It's really good."
"Lavender, please, and James will have bergamot," answered the Guardian.
"Very good," said Pauline, pouring two more cups. "Now, we had a little cosmetic mishap with one of our gateau today, so I thought you all might enjoy trying it, this is our flourless chocolate cake layered with mousse and salted caramel." She pulled out a cake, the design on top smeared, and then poised a knife over it. "Shall we?"
"Hold on," said Alex, peering at the top. The designs were smeared, but, they didn't look like the sort of abstract image he was used to seeing on top of a cake. "Who decorated this?"
"One of our new people, we've had to add staff since the Courtship," said Ellen. "Wooing is in again, which means fancy chocolates are very in."
"I think it was Janice," said Pauline. "She did the design all wrong and then slipped and smudged it."
Alex palmed his watch fob, then struck a tuning fork against the table, making everyone jump. He focused in on the tray, feeling the magic there, charms for temperature on the carafes, one for stability on the tray itself, and then in the cake itself like an evil worm, a very subtle poison. It wouldn't actually kill the person eating it, but it would open them up to magical suggestion, priming them for the real attack by undermining their defences from within.
Alex stilled the for
k, feeling his ears pop. "The cake's poisoned," said Alex.
Jacques was already on the phone to James, and Murielle was dialling her own, presumably for the Agency.
"Poisoned, that's ridiculous," said Ellen. "It's just chocolate."
"It's chocolate and belladonna, spell-set to disrupt a person's defences against magic," said Alex, "and now it's evidence in a murder investigation, I'm afraid."
"Oh, my," said Pauline, plopping down into a chair. She stared down at her cup and then asked a bit dazedly, "But the cocoa's okay?"
"The drinking chocolate is untampered with, probably because you made it just now, so it couldn't be prepared in advance. Though, I just made my appointment this morning, it seems odd that they'd have someone in place so quickly," said Alex.
"James has her," said Jacques, hanging up his phone. "She was bribed to poison anyone who came in that was involved in the Courtship, Alex just happened to be the first one."
"Not the first one," said Pauline. "That other man was here week before last, and we had another smudged cake for a sample."
"Oh, dear," said Ellen. "That was Pembroke."
~ ~ ~
In the end, the whole place was overrun by agents, and Ellen was very cooperative, giving them anything they wanted for samples, though during the quiet times between demands, she and Alex actually worked out a plan for his food. "I'll have to get all-new ingredients in the kitchen anyway, so they might as well take it all," she said wryly. "But once I've done that, I can still make your gift, I can't wait to do something with these pears."
"They're really good pears," agreed Alex. Jacques was still by his side, but all business now. He and James had tried to insist Alex leave, but he was needed to go through the rooms one at a time and look for any other little traps. So far he'd found one other cake with the runes un-smudged as well as a suspicious batch of truffles, and he'd yet to go through the front cases, just the back kitchen.
"I'm so sorry about Janice, I had no idea," said Ellen, sighing.
Alex hoped he was right when he said, "I know you didn't."
~ ~ ~
Despite being allowed to sit often, and eat or drink any chocolate deemed safe, Alex returned home exhausted all over again. "I don't want to see anything chocolate for a week," he said, flopping on the couch, coat and shoes shed at the door. He laid his cane on his chest like a sword on a bier. "Well, maybe a few days."
Jacques chuckled, sounding nearly as tired as Alex. "We're staying home tomorrow," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. "I'll slow-cook something from the food Victor sent, and we'll refuse all visitors."
"That," said Alex with a soft sigh, "sounds like heaven."
"Also a fantasy," said James, sitting rather heavily in the chair that Alex had started to think of as his. "Lapointe and Smedley will want him."
"Sod them," said Alex. "I'm healing."
"Four attempts," said Jacques. "And you haven't checked your wards for another one."
Alex sighed, but he closed his eyes and whistled at his wards, and sure enough, there were nibbles around several of the edges. "Something tried to get in, but no success."
"You should make yourself a protection charm," said James. "Even if it's just one of those little Keep-Safe things you made for Julian."
Alex chuckled. "I have a really, really good one, but it kind of muffles my magical hearing, so I don't wear it much." He sighed. "I'll wear it whenever we go out, though I reserve the right to take it off for work."
"An acceptable compromise," said Jacques. He stretched, and Alex heard several things pop. "I'm going to text your Agents and tell them you're staying in, they won't argue with me."
"Convenient," said Alex. "I'll let Jones know he's got the day free, and that I won't be admitting visitors, so not to bring any of our family here to me."
"That won't stop your mother," said James, shaking his head. "She's clearly used to being a law unto herself."
"She does realise you're not seven, doesn't she?" said Jaques, heading into the kitchen.
Alex laughed. "Honestly, I've no idea. But if you're making tea, I love you."
"Don't let Julian hear you say that," said Jacques.
"He hasn't written recently, I wonder why," said Alex, pulling out his phone to text.
"Yes, he has," said James with a chuckle. "Sorry, I intercepted the courier and then forgot to pass this along." He pulled a familiar envelope out of his shirt and handed it to Alex.
"Thanks for keeping it safe," said Alex, quite sincerely. He sat up to more comfortably read, face going all soft at Julian's sweet words.
"It felt like part of my job," said James softly, watching with undisguised curiosity. "Keeping your heart safe as well as your-"
"Creamy mounds," interjected Jacques.
"I'm sure someone appreciates both," said Alex with a chuckle, slipping the letter into his own breast pocket for now. "I'll answer once I've had some tea."
"It's herbal and plain, the last thing you need is more sugar," said Jacques, coming out with a tray of chopped veggies and tea.
"For the first time ever," said Alex, snagging a carrot stick, "I agree."
CHAPTER 25
In Which There is Yet Another Attack and We Prepare for a Masquerade
The only thing of note about Tuesday was how blissfully quiet it was. There was a single visitor, a courier with an invitation for Alex, who stayed to get Alex's RSVP. Since it was an invitation for Julian's Courtship Masquerade, Alex accepted and also sent his letter, written last night, back with the man.
Jacques made some sort of magnificent stew for dinner that made the whole house smell wonderful, and they spent the day on ridiculously domestic things like doing a few loads of wash in Alex's tiny laundry room. Even their butterfly fairy guest was quiet and content to sip at milk and honey and a bit of syrup from the last of the Indian sweets.
Wednesday couldn't hope to compete, but at least all three of them felt rested as they prepared to face a morning spent at the couturier for Alex's Masquerade costume.
Alex opened the door, his protection amulet in place and ears feeling annoyingly stuffy as a result, turning to say something to Jacques as he went into the hall. His foot crunched on something and he looked down, then scrambled back into the apartment, falling on his arse in the process. "Ants!" he gasped, running his hands down his legs even though he'd felt his wards trap the ones that had begun in those few moments to climb his trousers.
"Constructs," said James, slamming the door shut. "They're trying to overwhelm your wards."
"Flute," said Alex, crawling toward his work room. "I can keep them strong with it."
Jacques scooped Alex up and onto his feet, half carrying him to the work room door. "Where is it? Can you cast from in there?"
"I can, go ahead and lock me in," said Alex, accepting the cane that James tossed to Jacques, barely even noting the way Jacques caught it without looking. "Be careful, they weren't complex but there were a lot of them." Alex slipped his amulet off and handed it to Jacques in trade for the cane, knowing he couldn't work with it on.
"We can see them outside your wards, now that we're looking properly," said James tightly. "Go on, we'll be much worse off if they make a hole."
Alex closed himself into the room and found his flute, then sat in his reading chair and centred himself before starting to play. He was fortunate to be inside the work room wards, which gave him ideas, snippets of melody to use to shore up the larger flat wards. He found they were being nibbled on from all sides; these ants were the things that had prodded them on Monday, but there'd only been a few back then. He was unpleasantly reminded of the real ones invading his kitchen, first a harmless-seeming one or two followed by a hundred, a thousand.
He shuddered, and put that revulsion into his wards, adding in a desire to destroy them rather than just shove them away. That was harder, active protection instead of passive, but Alex was well-rested and well-motivated, knowing his friends were on the front line. He wond
ered if they'd called anyone and if so, who, then shoved that thought aside and concentrated on his playing, on spinning his energy out into his wards. He found one of the ones that was trapped against the front door and slipped his music into it, disabling it, then once he'd found the way to disrupt their magic he added that dissonance to his wards.
The feeling set his teeth on edge, but he could feel the constructs falling silent, one by one, as the implacable march that drove them fell apart, skipped a beat, and came to a screeching halt.
When the disharmony got to be too much, Alex let it go, returning the wards to their former strength and making sure every little nibble was, not patched, but rebuilt into the whole so there was no missing notes, no weak places in the harmony. Then he let his flute fall silent and collapsed into the chair, feeling more worn than ever.
His phone beeped, and he laughed to see the message. He levered himself up and emerged from the work room. "It hurt my ears, too, but it worked. There might be a few outliers still functioning, though, I couldn't sustain it."
"You look drained," said Jacques, worried. "Sit, I'm going to make tea. We can be late to the couturier."
"We're going to have to check the car over, anyway," said James. "I find it unlikely that a few haven't climbed up into the body of your waiting vehicle."
"Ugh," said Alex, shuddering. "Don't say that. Did you call the Agency?"
"Smedley's on his way with, and I quote, 'an entire army of those sodding boxes,'" said James. He went and rummaged through one of his bags. "Here, this should help, but you can't rely on these."
Alex listened to the magic in the little bottle, then downed it, feeling a rush as the power stored in the replenishing potion hit his system. "Wow, that's. Yeah, that is not an everyday thing," he said, feeling a headache starting to build. "Aspirin?"
"Aspirin," said James. "I'll get you some water. We mostly just stood there waiting, so we're not nearly so worn as you."
"That's not the way it normally goes," said Jacques from the kitchen, sounding a bit cranky.
Alex chuckled tiredly. "Next time, you can kill the horde of magical ants," he agreed. Then he pulled out his phone and stared at it. "Aspirin, then calling to move my emergency appointment for fancy dress."
