by K. E. Mills
“The large table’s fine, Dodsworth. And since we now seem to have a spare serving, why don’t you join me? There’s no point letting good food go to waste.”
Dodsworth hesitated. “Really, Mister Monk, that’s most kind of you but—”
He slid off the arm of the chair. “Dodsworth, I insist. In fact, I’ll not take no for an answer.”
So Dodsworth set out the two plates, uncovered them, placed the covers and the silver tray out of the way, and joined him at the large reading table for a fragrant slice of Cook’s best venison pie.
Grinning, Monk lifted his glass of wine in a toast. “Here’s mud in your eye, Dodsworth.”
“Indeed, sir,” said the butler. “You are too kind.”
Savouring his first gravy-rich mouthful of flaky pastry and meat, Monk was struck by a thought. Can I? Should I? Sir Alec did make it clear it was results he cared about, not methods. And he doesn’t strike me as being a snob … Besides, from the outside, life as the Markham family’s butler looked awfully dull. He’d be doing their old family retainer a favour if he enlisted his help. Surely, after a lifetime of good care, he owed Dodsworth a little adventure in his old age.
And with Aylesbury so bloody unhelpful, I’m not sure I can do what Sir Alec wants without him.
“I say, Dodsworth,” he said slowly. “You’re a butler.”
Dodsworth considered him gravely. “Indeed, sir. I am.”
“And you know a lot of other butlers, don’t you?”
“That I do, sir. Yes. Were you perhaps thinking of engaging a man for Chatterly Crescent, sir? If so I would be pleased to—”
“What? No!” he said, recoiling. His own butler? How ghastly. Bad enough he had to answer to Bibbie for his scattered socks. “No, this is something else. Look. All these butlers you know. I don’t suppose any of them buttle at Ott’s foreign embassies, do they, by any chance?”
Dodsworth gave him an old-fashioned look. “Ah—Mister Monk …”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, grinning. “Right. Good. So, listen carefully Doddsy, my old chum. There’s something important I need you to do.”
Trying not to breathe too deeply, Gerald blinked the ceaseless sweat out of his stinging eyes. How much time had passed since he’d tripped this stinking entrapment hex? It felt like years … but he guessed it wasn’t more than a couple of hours.
Oh, lord. The girls will be going spare.
He was going a bit spare himself, to be honest. The hex holding him was the most powerful of its kind he’d ever encountered. Every time he caught hold of one strand, started teasing it undone, the other strands tightened to strangling point. All this time fighting it, and he was exhausted. Defeated. Covered in wire-thin bruises. He could feel them, and see some of them, snaking round his wrists and between his fingers.
So much for being a rogue wizard. I’m an idiot, that’s what I am. If only I’d listened to Sir Alec and left that grimoire magic where it was …
Because with his luck, the other Gerald had given him the perfect key to unlock this thaumaturgical door. But he’d never know now, would he? All he knew for certain was that no key lurked in the grimoire magic’s remaining dregs. He’d looked. So he was trapped here, with every chance that the men responsible for his capture, for Abel Bestwick, were on their way back right now, eager to see what insect wriggled in their clever web. And when they found him, they’d kill him. Or worse.
Come on, Dunnywood, come on. Think what Errol Haythwaite would say if he could see you now. Think what Reg would say, or Monk, or Sir Alec. Think!
A tickle in the back of his empty, aching mind. Words, a memory, drifting dreamlike to the surface.
I know more than I did. I just don’t know what I know. Y’know?
He’d said that to Monk, in the kitchen at Chatterly Crescent. A lifetime ago, or so it seemed.
I know more than I did. I just don’t know what I know. Y’know?
Yes, all right, he’d said it. But what did it mean?
He knew what he was afraid it meant. He was afraid it meant that he did have the power to break free from this hex … but only if he crossed a terrible line. Because there was using the grimoire magic and there was becoming the grimoire magic. And lacking a specific hex, to escape his entrapment he’d have no choice but to embrace it so completely that he became it.
The thought terrified him.
But did he have a right to that fear? With so much at stake—a brave man missing, hurt, possibly murdered, two nations in peril, the threat of bloodshed spreading further as treaties and alliances dragged more nations into war—wasn’t his fear a bloated self-indulgence that would cost more innocent lives?
He could hear Sir Alec, curt and impatient.
Yes, Mister Dunwoody. So what are you waiting for?
Help. Rescue. A last-minute miracle. Only this time they weren’t coming. No Reg. No Monk. No Melissande. No miracle. He was on his own. This time he’d have to rescue himself … or not.
And if it’s not, if I choose to give in to fear …
Then chances were he’d destroy the world anyway. Or at least, this corner of it. Not directly, perhaps, but his inaction would make him responsible. And didn’t he already have enough innocent blood on his hands? Hadn’t he sworn an oath to himself?
Never again.
Fear to the left of him, terror to the right.
Pick your poison, Dunwoody. Pick your poison and drink.
With a stifled groan, Gerald sank into his rogue potentia. Glittering. Powerful. Welcoming. Changed. Still healing in so many places where Mister Jennings’s extraction procedure had torn it apart. He brushed lightly against those tender scars and moved on, moved deeper, towards those new, dark places he’d tried so hard to deny. He could feel them. Taste them. Hear them singing in his blood.
There.
Eyes closed, his throat coated with fear, he fought the urge to turn tail and run. Fought it sweating. Fought it panting. The entrapment hex howled, constricting him so tightly he thought he’d be sliced to bloody pieces. A long way distant he heard someone whimpering. Swiftly realised it was himself. Ignored the pathetic sound.
The lingering grimoire magic was a black pool in his soul. With a silent, despairing cry he half-leapt, half-fell. Cried out again, in pain and wonder, as it closed over his head. Flooded him, burned him, and turned him to ice. He felt his rogue potentia flare. Felt every wounded place in it mend. Felt its melding and remaking as the remaining grimoire magics changed his potentia again, changing him into something new. Something more than a mere rogue wizard.
Oh, lord. What have I done?
Gerald opened his eyes … and was shocked to find that Abel Bestwick’s small, wrecked coldwater kitchen looked exactly the same. The only thing different in it was him.
“Right,” he said, and was surprised to hear he still sounded like Algernon Rowbotham. “To hell with this.”
He took a deep breath and tensed every muscle in his body. Saw with his mind’s eye the entrapment hex’s binding filaments fly apart. A ripple, like a shadow crossing the sun. A sting of heat. A shiver of protest. The hex resisted, then gave way.
He was free.
Breathing slowly, though his heart raced, he waited for his roiled potentia to calm. When he was himself again—his new self—he lifted his hands. They were unblemished, the wire-thin bruises healed. The pain was gone, too. He felt stupendously alive. And he could see—he could see—
Bloody hell. I can see.
With both eyes, he could see. His blinded eye had been made whole again. The permanent reminder of that deadly battle with Lional and his dragon, of the little lizard life he’d taken, was vanished. Undone. As though it had never been.
But even as he started to laugh, an echo of dark thaumic energy struck him like an angry hand.
Elation vanished. He looked down at the floor, at the pieces of smashed crystal ball on the scarred timber before him. Not Abel Bestwick’s doing, this destruction. The fingerprint
s here belonged to the wizard who’d crafted the entrapment hex. So. For whatever reason, Bestwick had left his crystal behind and his attacker—or maybe attackers, in his desperate message he’d said they—had smashed it out of spite.
But what if they’d managed to extract information from it first? What if they now knew that Bestwick had called someone. What if they knew who? What if—
He leapt to his feet. Knowing it was reckless, and not caring, he unleashed his full potentia and sought for enemies unseen.
Nothing. No-one. He was still safely alone.
Then he caught a hint of something else. Something new, yet somehow darkly familiar. Following instinct, he returned to the ruined living room and stood adrift in the mess. It was in here, he was certain. Whatever he’d missed the first time, it was here. He could feel it through the powerful deflection incant that had defeated him before—before—
Before I leapt without looking.
And yes. There it was. Embedded in the blood stains that had soaked and dried the old carpet. Kneeling again, Gerald hovered his fingertips above Abel Bestwick’s blood. Let out a long, slow breath and opened himself to evil.
The grimoire magic inside him leapt to life, like to like.
“Dammit,” he said softly, as his remade potentia rippled and writhed and his belly started to heave. “Oh, Bestwick. You poor bastard. How am I meant to help you now?”
CHAPTER TEN
Sprawled face up on the guest chamber’s ridiculously large, high bed, Bibbie flopped her arms wide, dangled her legs over the end of the counterpaned mattress and sighed, gustily.
“Honestly, Melissande. It’s not much fun being cooped up in here. I thought this janitoring business was going to be fun.”
Melissande, peering into the room’s ornate dressing mirror, held up one of her late mother’s gold-and-emerald earrings and let it dangle beside her cheek.
“And I thought Hartwig would take one look at Gladys Slack and start drooling,” she said, admiring the effect. “But he didn’t. I wonder if there’s something wrong with his eyes?”
“Since there’s no way I can answer that without getting into trouble, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you,” said Bibbie. “Now can we please get back to—”
“No,” she said, frowning at Bibbie’s disgruntled reflection. “Because trust me, Miss Slack, nobody’s having fun around here tonight, most especially me, since a whip and chair won’t go with my gown and short of a whip and chair there’ll be no way of keeping Hartwig at a decent distance at the reception. Not with gouty Brunelda still confined to her couch.”
Bibbie hooted. “Oh, Mel. I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
“Really?” Offended, Melissande slewed round on the padded crimson velvet dressing stool. “So you’re saying you can’t imagine Hartwig, or anyone else for that matter, getting— carried away—in my presence?”
Bibbie flopped her legs like a mermaid wondering where her tail had got to. “Don’t be silly. But it’s an official State Dinner, Melissande. The Crown Prince of Splotze isn’t going to make a cake of himself in front of all those important guests.” She sniffed. “Of which I am not one.”
At moments like this it was hard to remember precisely why she was fond of Monk’s sister. Just like Monk, Bibbie could be thoroughly obtuse, self-involved and clueless. It had to have something to do with being a genius. So much of the Markham siblings’ intellect was occupied with being brilliant, it seemed there wasn’t much room left for anything else.
“Of course you aren’t invited to Hartwig’s State Dinner,” she said. “You’re my lady’s maid, remember?”
“Who’s being relegated to the Servants’ Hall!” Bibbie wailed.
“The Servants’ Ball in the Servants’ Hall,” she corrected. “Personally, I think it sounds like fun. You’ll get to eat food that’s actually food, and kick up your heels in a jig afterwards, while I’m stuck sucking tadpoles’ eyes off toothpicks then spending the rest of the night keeping Hartwig at a desperate arm’s length while getting my toes trodden on in one dreary quadrille after another.”
“Oh, Mel, not tadpoles’ eyes! Nobody eats—”
She shuddered. “Trust me.”
Unfortunately, Bibbie was feeling too hard done by to be properly sympathetic. “Yes, well, even with the tadpoles it’s still a State Dinner, isn’t it? And I’ve never been to one. Monk and Aylesbury have, but I’m always left out of things. That’s the thanks I get for being born a gel. It’s all right for you. You might be a gel too, but at least you’re royal.”
Melissande shook her head. Obviously Monk’s sister hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention to all those tales of life in New Ottosland.
“Believe me, Bibbie, you’re better off as you are. Being royal is like living in a cage.”
Bibbie made a rude sound. “Maybe, except from what I’ve seen it’s a pretty swanky cage.”
“Yes, perhaps, sometimes,” she admitted, “but at the end of the day a prison’s still a prison even if the bars are gilded.”
“Well, if you hate the idea of this State Dinner so much, Your Highness, we could always swap places,” said Bibbie, suddenly hopeful. “Monk and I once cooked up a wonderfully effective doppleganger hex. I’m pretty sure I remember it. We could—”
“No, Bibbie, we couldn’t!” Exasperated, Melissande resisted an urge to throw the earring at her. “You don’t know the first thing about behaving like a princess. You don’t know anything about Hartwig. And you certainly don’t know enough about me and Rupert and New Ottosland to fool him when he starts romping down memory lane, which I promise you he will.”
“And whose fault is that?” Bibbie muttered. “I’d never even met your brother before—”
“Yes, and while we’re on the subject of Rupert …” She fixed Monk’s incorrigible sister with her best gimlet stare. “What was all that flirting about, back in New Ottosland? Honestly, Bibbie, I didn’t know where to look! And as for poor Gerald …”
One of Bibbie’s swift, impish grins lit up her altered face. “I know. Good, wasn’t it? He got really tetchy. I thought for a moment he might actually turn grass green!”
“So you did all that flirting to make Gerald jealous? Using my brother?” she said, tossing the earring back in its velvet-lined box. “Emmerabiblia Markham! How could you?”
At least Bibbie had the grace to squirm. “But I had to do something, Mel. I mean, it was either make Gerald notice me by flirting with your brother or ask Reg to poke him in the unmentionables on my behalf. And while I know our Reg would poke him, I’m not nearly so sure how co-operative this new one is.”
Melissande sprang off the dressing stool and relieved her feelings with some stamping about. “Right now I don’t give two fat ferrets about the romantic adventures of Emmerabiblia Markham. If you ever put Rupert in that position again I’ll—I’ll—”Whipping round, she fisted her hands on her hips. “You do realise, I suppose, that he was halfway to taking you seriously?”
“Oh,” said Bibbie, blinking. “Really? Well. That’s awkward.”
“It certainly is! Rupert might be a king, but he’s not sophisticated, Bibbie.” She thumped herself back on the dressing stool. “After growing up in Lional’s shadow, and all those years of pretending to be a gormless dimwit, well, he’s got some cosmopolitan catching up to do. Right now he’s no match for feminine wiles. He’s no match for you. And even if he were, that isn’t the point! Gerald doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, either. Really, Bibbie, it’s too bad.”
Bibbie’s bottom lip trembled. “I thought you’d understand. I mean, Monk’s just as hopeless. They’re peas in a pod, those two, when it comes to admitting their feelings. And I love Gerald, Melissande. I can’t imagine loving anyone else. So if I don’t give him a gentle nudge, then what? I spend the rest of my life pining? Well, bollocks to that!”
Though she was still cross on Rupert’s behalf, and Gerald’s—and a little pricked by the uncomfortable reference to
pining—she had to laugh. “Miss Slack! Such vulgarity from a royal lady’s maid!”
But it wasn’t really a laughing matter. The last thing this mission needed was romantic misunderstandings and bruised hearts getting in the way.
“Look … Bibs …” She sighed. “This isn’t the time or the place for demanding declarations from Gerald. Sorting him out will have to wait till we get home. And even then, please, you must leave Rupert out of it. He has quite enough grief to be going on with, thanks to that old goat Lord Billingsley wheezing down his neck.”
Disconsolate, Bibbie flopped again. “Fine. I’ll wait. But if I die a spinster, Your Highness, I shall come back from the afterlife and make your life a bloody misery!”
Oh dear. Bibbie really was glum. Biting her lip, trying to think of something cheerful, Melissande was struck by a fortunate thought. “Actually, Bibs, I think you’re missing something.”
“Am I really?”
“Yes.”
“About what, exactly?”
“Tonight, of course.”
Propping herself up on her elbows, Bibbie squinted. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Oh, Bibs, don’t you see?” Melissande said, exasperated. “While I’m upstairs, dodging Hartwig and putting faces to names on the wedding guest list, you’ll be downstairs, won’t you? With Gerald. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to show him first-hand that you’re not a gel in need of his manly protection. In short, this evening gives you the best chance you’ve ever had to dazzle Gerald on his own turf.”
“Oh, yes?” said Bibbie, still squinting. “And how am I s’posed to investigate an international-crime-in-the-making surrounded by bootboys and scullery maids?”
Melissande heaved another sigh. “Honestly, Bibs, don’t be so obtuse. The Servants’ Ball will be crawling with wedding guest minions, and minions always know who’s doing what with whom and how often. But Gerald can’t talk to so many people by himself, can he?”
“True,” said Bibbie. Puffing, she wriggled herself upright and cross-legged on the billowy bed. “Go on.”
