by K. E. Mills
Bibbie grinned. “And something tells me you’re right. Illegal doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“So is it one of Monk’s little—”
“Monk?” said Bibbie. She sounded annoyed. “Why do you assume Monk had something to do with it? Honestly, Mel, if you let being sweet on my brother turn your brains to slush I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she said hastily. “I wasn’t thinking. So—you made it?”
Mollified, Bibbie tapped a finger to her nose. “Gift horse, remember? No peeking allowed. And whatever you do, don’t let anyone catch you with it. Since it’s a liquid hex, at a pinch you really can pretend it’s perfume but I don’t recommend more than a single short spritz. Now shoo. So many hexes to distribute, not very much time.”
Melissande looked at Bibbie’s inventive and illegal gift then closed her fingers around it. Saint Snodgrass give me strength. “Fine. I’m shooing. But are you sure you’ll be all right here on your own again? Maybe Reg should stay in the office today.”
“No, maybe Reg shouldn’t,” said Bibbie, sharply. “Do you mind? It’s bad enough when Gerald and Monk get all patriarchal on me. Don’t you start or I’ll have an apoplexy. Besides, that chap in Births, Deaths and Marriages I sweet-talked is letting me have a peek at some personal information about Permelia Wycliffe’s gels today, remember?”
Oh. “Well, yes, but—”
“So probably, Mel, you should just wobble on your way, yes?” said Bibbie, with a dangerous smile.
“Yes,” said Reg. “She should. And so should I. There’s a tree in that employee garden with my name on it, unfortunately. But I’m telling both of you, duckies, I’m giving you fair warning: if that constipated male pigeon living in the roof of the R&D building tries one more time to look up my feathers those gels really will have a dead bird to scream about.”
Uncomfortably aware that time wasn’t on their side, Melissande took a cab almost the whole way to the old Wycliffe estate on the outskirts of West Ott, where the family company did its business. After paying the driver, hiding her wince behind a polite smile, she half-walked, half-jogged along the quiet road, through the open gates with their enormous “W”s and decorative ironwork airships, under the not-quite-life-sized tethered model airship and up the long tree-lined driveway towards the administration office.
According to her watch it was a few minutes after half-past six. The early autumn air had a nip to it, and the birds were yet to finish their rousing dawn chorus. Somewhere over to the left, behind a carefully cultivated swathe of greenery, Permelia was hopefully still abed in the family mansion. Ambrose, too. Unlike Monk, he’d been able to persuade his unwed sister to run his household for him.
Holding her breath, praying this wasn’t the one morning that Permelia or Ambrose decided to greet the dawn in person, or that one of Ambrose’s wizards hadn’t succumbed to a fit of dedication—or worse, that officious Miss Petterly wasn’t doing some investigating of her own—she crept to the administration office’s front door, fished Bibbie’s highly suspect confounder out of the carpetbag and squirted some hex over the front door’s lock. There was a subdued hum, a discreet flash of green light, and the handle turned without resistance.
“Oh, Bibbie,” she whispered. “Promise you’ll only ever use your powers for good!”
Biting her lip with nerves, she let herself in to the ground-floor reception area. It was hushed and empty, thank Saint Snodgrass. Miss Fisher, the receptionist, never arrived before eight. Climbing the stairs up to the office as quickly and quietly as she could, uncomfortably aware of her heart thudding against her ribs, she clutched the carpetbag in one hand, the confounder in the other and begged the muse of good luck not to desert her.
The door into the administration office was also locked. Melissande pressed her ear against it but couldn’t hear a sound. Bibbie’s confounder took care of that minor impediment and she found herself alone in the grey, cubicle-crammed dimness.
Oh, lord. Where to start, where to start…
Permelia’s office seemed the logical place. Closing the door behind her, she put down the carpetbag then made her way through the gloom to the curtained window behind Permelia’s desk. After letting in the morning light, she unlocked Permelia’s private supply cupboard, put on the gloves she’d stuffed into the carpetbag and quickly hexed everything she could think of that the office thief might decide to pinch.
That done, she took a moment to inspect the crowded wall of framed photographs. Permelia starred in each one, the collection seeming to span at least three decades. There was Permelia at around Bibbie’s age, standing beside a younger and slightly less flinty Orville Wycliffe than the one in the portrait. Behind them hovered an enormous tethered airship—the Ambrose. There didn’t seem to be a corresponding photo of an airship called the Permelia. Sad, but perhaps not entirely unexpected. After all, Permelia was only a gel.
Other Permelias, gradually aging, proudly posed with various cakes and pies, each one adorned with either a ribbon or a cup or, in sixteen repetitive cases, a Golden Whisk. The award’s design hadn’t changed a whit over the years. Many of the photographs showed Permelia with an assortment of apparently important and exotically-attired women from around the world: given the cake-themed badges pinned to their breasts it seemed reasonable to assume they were international sister-Guild members.
And lastly there was a very recent photo indeed: Permelia clutching her most controversial and hard-won seventeenth Golden Whisk.
“Blimey,” she muttered. “That didn’t take you long, Permelia.”
Although really, could she blame the woman for surrounding herself with the trappings of her success? At least in the Baking and Pastry Guild Permelia was someone of influence and importance. In the Guild she wasn’t treated like a housekeeper. In the Guild she wasn’t a gel. Or if she was, at least she was the head gel.
I suppose it makes up for not having an airship named after you. Or being banned from setting foot in your own research laboratory.
Again, she was aware of that inconvenient tug of sympathy—but she thrust it aside, quickly, because time was marching on and she still had an entire office to hex.
First she took care of the contents of Miss Petterly’s jealously guarded office supply cupboard. Then she hexed everything locked in the staff tea room’s cupboard: packets of plain biscuits and sugar and all the teacups, just in case. After that she hexed the portable items on each cubicle’s grim, impersonal desk: typewriter, abacus, pens and pencils, rulers.
Bibbie was right about going to Monk for help, drat her. Without his friend in the Births, Deaths and Marriages Bureau we’d never learn a thing about these girls. Honestly, would one little picture bring productivity screaming to a halt?
Last of all she hexed the windows and the door. Then, task finally accomplished, she bolted back downstairs and out to the employee garden.
“Well?” said Reg from her camouflaged position in the bushiest fig tree. “Any trouble?”
“Of course not,” she said, shoving the carpetbag and her plain, work purse under a handy low-growing shrub. “Why would there be?”
Reg snorted. “Why does flypaper attract flies, ducky?”
Charming. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “Now all we have to do is wait.”
“You can wait if you like,” said Reg. “Me, I’m going back to sleep.”
Yes, well, it was all right for Reg. “Fine,” she said, feeling grumpy. “And I’m going for a walk.”
As she left the garden she saw a posh silver car glide down the driveway towards the hallowed Research and Development complex, which was strategically distant from the administration building in case of unfortunate thaumaturgical accidents. As it passed she caught a glimpse of the driver: none other than that handsome plonker Errol Haythwaite.
She looked at her watch, pinned tidily to her ghastly black blouse. Just gone half-past seven. Goodness, Errol started work early, didn’t he? All the
better to hide his treachery, perhaps? Curiosity piqued, she started down the long, hedge-trimmed driveway towards the sprawling R&D building.
Errol’s flash car was the only vehicle in the staff car park adjacent to the main R&D laboratory. Squished against the hedge, peering through a straggly patch, Melissande watched him unfold himself from its sleek interior, retrieve an expensive-looking briefcase and even more expensive-looking staff from the passenger seat, secure the car and make his way to the laboratory. A touch of the staff to a brass plate beside the doors unlocked them, and he went in.
“Rats,” she said, under her breath. “If only I could follow him inside. Saint Snodgrass knows what he’s getting up to in there.”
On impulse she scuttled across the almost empty car park and over to the imposing laboratory complex. There were no windows along the front, but perhaps along the back? Hardly daring to breathe, she crept around the corner of the building and peered along its rear length. She was in luck. There was indeed a scattering of windows. None of them was open but not all were screened by curtains. And one of them, it turned out, belonged to Errol Haythwaite’s office.
Nose pressed against the narrow width of uncurtained glass, quaking in fear that he’d look up and see her, Melissande held her breath again and spied on Gerald’s nemesis and number one suspect.
Tall, lean and indisputably dazzling, Errol stood in front of a large drawing-desk, a series of blueprints spread out before him. Even though he was facing the window, he didn’t notice he was being stared at, so intently was he focused upon his work. He’d taken off his expensive suit-coat and hung it on the back of his closed office door. His white shirt shone with a definite silkish shimmer, and his tiepin looked like solid gold. Definitely he wasn’t short of dosh.
Melissande glared. Come on, you rich plonker, do something incriminating. You’re owed such a smacking for the way you spoke to Gerald.
Errol, unobliging, picked up a wax pen and began to scribble all over his blueprints. Every so often he paused and stood back to consider his handiwork. Sometimes he smiled, which made him even more handsome.
On the desk behind him, his crystal ball pulsed red. Irritated, Errol turned and glared at it. Almost ignored it… and then changed his mind. Tossing down the wax pen he answered his incoming call.
“Rats,” said Melissande. She could see his lips move, but she couldn’t hear a thing. “I wonder if Bibbie’s invented an eavesdropping-hex too…”
Whatever was being said to Errol by his mystery caller, one thing was clear: he didn’t like it. Not at all. Now he was pacing his small, tidy office, hands fisted on his hips, and as he strode in and out of view Melissande saw his face was contracted in a scowl. But even angry and upset he was still shockingly handsome.
Just like Lional. Don’t let his looks fool you…
With Errol moving around so much it was far more likely he’d catch sight of her at his window. Time to go… especially since according to her watch it was nearly a quarter to eight and she still had to make her way back to the office.
She met up with Gerald on the way.
“Melissande!” he said, looking suitably Third Grade in a worn brown suit, a limp white shirt and slightly threadbare blue tie. His gaze narrowed suspiciously. “What have you been doing?”
Trust him to notice. “Doing, Gerald? I don’t know what you mean.”
With a quick look around to make sure no-one was coming, he took her elbow and tugged her against the hedge. “You know perfectly well what I mean. The only thing at the end of this driveway is the R&D lab. Melissande, please, stay out of my case. I know you’re only trying to help, but you can’t.”
“No?” she said, tugging her elbow free.
“No.”
“Does that mean you’re not interested in what I just saw?”
A riot of emotions chased over his face. “Melissande…”
She patted his cheek. “I’ll tell you if you’d like to know. I’ll even waive my regular fee as a professional courtesy.”
He closed his eyes. “Yes. I’d like to know.”
“Say please.”
“Please.”
Two more wizards were walking down the driveway. As much as she enjoyed teasing Gerald, she’d have to make this fast. “Someone contacted Errol,” she said quickly. “Through his crystal ball. Whoever it was made him very angry.”
Gerald took her arm again, his eyes intent, his grip veering towards painful. “Who was it? What did they talk about?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I couldn’t hear, I could only see. Gerald—”
Abruptly aware of himself, he let go of her arm. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Of course you couldn’t hear him, Errol’s got his office thaumaturgically sound-proofed. But did you see anything else?”
“No,” she said, resisting the urge to rub where his fingers had gripped her. “Well… except I don’t think he was just angry. I think he was afraid, too.”
Gerald laughed, unamused. “Errol? Afraid? That doesn’t seem likely.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not, but he was.”
The other wizards were much closer now, their shoes scrunching the driveway’s loose gravel. Gerald glanced over his shoulder. “We shouldn’t be seen together. Melissande—” He shook his head. “Thank you. That might be important. But please, I’m begging you—stay out of my way. If anything happened to you, or Reg, or Bibbie…”
This was only the third time she’d seen him since New Ottosland, and Lional. Even so—she could tell that he’d changed. That tentative, sweet man she’d met his first day in the palace was gone. Vanished, as though he’d never lived. And in his place stood this quietly haunted man, with one good eye that showed her dreadful things.
I wonder what he can see that’s different in me.
“You mustn’t worry,” she said gently. “Nothing’s going to happen. Have a good day, Gerald. I expect we’ll talk again quite soon.”
With a nod and a smile she walked away, heading back to the employee garden so she could retrieve her reticule. She could feel Gerald stare after her, his gaze heavy between her shoulder-blades.
When she was clear of the two approaching wizards she broke into an unladylike jog. If she wasn’t careful she was going to be late… and getting fired was the last thing she needed.
“Here you go, Gerald,” said Japhet Morgan, fellow Third Grade menial, wheeling yet another trolley-load of thaumaturgically-stained beakers and test tubes and etheretic containers into R&D’s industrialsized scullery. “Compliments of Mister Haythwaite.”
Gerald looked round, and managed—just—to keep his face blank. That made five trolley-loads washed and six waiting for his attention. He’d been at this for nearly four hours now with no sign of a reprieve. So much for spying on Errol. And with what Melissande had told him this morning, he really, really needed to spy.
“Fine, Japh,” he sighed. “Just leave them with the others.”
Japhet parked the trolley, then lingered. “So. It was really you who blew up Stuttley’s?”
Was there any point in yet again protesting his innocence? No. People believed what they wanted to believe. Especially when someone like Errol was telling the tale.
“Yes, Japh,” he said wearily. “It was really me.”
Japhet, young and pimpled and easily awed, whistled soundlessly. “Gosh. No wonder Mister Haythwaite hates your guts. He says that staff of his you ruined cost thousands.”
“Does he?” He reached for another manky beaker. “Then I guess it did.”
“He says everywhere you go, disaster follows. He says you probably got a king killed. You didn’t, did you?”
What? He put down the scrubbing brush and turned to face Japhet. “No. I didn’t. And you should know better than to listen to gossip, Mister Morgan.”
Japhet flushed. “It’s not gossip. It’s what Mister Haythwaite says.”
Gerald turned back to the sink. “Yes, well, Mister Haythwaite’s going to say a lot more than that i
f he catches you in here idling. So you’d best leave me to my scrubbing and get back to work.”
“Right. Yes,” said Japhet, suitably cowed. “Sorry, Gerald. It’s only what Mister Haythwaite says.”
Alone again, Gerald rinsed the beaker and stacked it with the other twelve on the draining board. Outrage at Errol tangled with his ongoing remorse for blabbing to Monk and the girls about his true purpose here at Wycliffe’s. Reaching for yet another beaker, plunging it into the sink’s scalding, soapy water, he throttled the urgent desire to run out to the lab and beat Errol about the head with his brand new First Grade staff.
Stupid, stupid, mingy pillock. He’s trying to turn everyone here against me. He’s trying to get me fired. Does he know I’ve got my eye on him? Has he guessed? Did I give myself away somehow? He said he could sense there was something different about me. What if he really can? What if that wasn’t just bluster? Oh lord. If he gets me fired Sir Alec will be furious.
He scrubbed and scrubbed at the dirty beaker, feeling his shoulders ache. Feeling the heat of the scalding water. Even wearing rubber gloves he was developing dishpan hands. He could feel his fingers shrivelling; a few more hours of this and he’d have no fingers left.
But I’d better get used to it. If I let Errol get me fired this’ll be my first and last field assignment. Of course it’ll be my first and last field assignment anyway if Sir Alec finds out I spilled the beans on the investigation…
He wouldn’t feel so bad about it if he’d managed to convince the girls to give up working for Permelia Wycliffe. But he’d been mad to think he could talk them out of it by telling them the truth.
If anything, he’d actually made things worse. Melissande spying on Errol? The stupid girl had lost her mind. Maybe if he put a call through to Rupert…
I can’t. Melissande would never forgive me. Besides, Rupert would tell Sir Alec and that’d be that.
He’d just have to trust that, between them, Melissande and Reg would be able to find their biscuit thief. Maybe he could help them. Solving their stupid case would get them out of the way and he could breathe easily again. Focus on finding the link between Errol and Haf Rottlezinder.