Beauty and Delicious scoffed at this. “The Douglas-MacPhees? Who wants to go to their funeral?”
“I didn’t like them any more than you. But they were werewolves still, and they were killed by hunters. They’ll get a proper burial from the Baron. If I don’t turn up for the funeral my mother will probably disown me.”
“Have a nice time,” said Beauty, mocking him. “If you see Dominil, tell her we hate her.”
“Sometimes I hate Dominil,” said Markus. He’d traveled from the castle to the capital expecting to have an enjoyable weekend with Beatrice and Heather. Thanks to Dominil, there hadn’t been much enjoyment. They’d spent the whole weekend working. “Who could enjoy themselves when she’s always on the phone, nagging and complaining?”
“I suppose she was right,” said Beatrice, who was with him in the car as they returned to Castle MacRinnalch.
“I know. But couldn’t she have just waited a day before phoning up and ruining our weekend?”
Beatrice looked rueful. “Two girls, one boy and a lot of lingerie. Who’d have thought we’d end up feeling guilty?”
Heather had gone off to work in Glasgow and they wouldn’t see her again for weeks. It might be a similar amount of time before Markus was free to try on a dress. He rarely felt comfortable doing it at the castle.
“I’ll make the Guild pay,” said Markus.
Beatrice looked worried. “When you find the Guild’s headquarters, you’re not going to go there are you?”
“Of course,” said Markus. “I’m going to lead the attack.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” said Markus.
“You’re the Thane. What if you get killed? The clan needs you.”
“The Thane should be a leader in war,” said Markus
Beatrice didn’t agree. “The Mistress of the Werewolves won’t want you to go fighting in London.”
Markus bridled. He hated any implication that his mother influenced his actions.
“I’m going,” he said angrily. “If Sarapen was still here, no one would expect him not to go. I’m fed up with people thinking I’m weak.”
“No one thinks you’re weak,” said Beatrice.
They drove on in silence for a long time, the atmosphere now quite strained.
“Damn that Dominil,” muttered Markus. “She really knows how to ruin things.”
Perhaps the only MacRinnalch thinking fondly of Dominil that moment was Sarapen. They’d been lovers once, though they’d ended up as enemies. He remembered her now as he stood, a huge brooding figure, on the balcony overlooking the fire that poured from the Eternal Volcano.
“She’s a proper werewolf,” mused Sarapen. “Fierce and determined. Not degenerate like the rest of the family.”
Sarapen wondered what Dominil might be doing. Still helping the twins, he supposed. That was a waste of her talents, though he had no doubt she’d be good at it.
I’d like to see her again, he thought. Not that it would go well. He smiled grimly. As part of the feud, Sarapen had kidnapped Dominil. He doubted she’d ever forgive him for that, even if she did have her revenge later.
Dominil, and the rest of the clan, believed him to be dead, according to the Empress.
“I might as well be, while I’m trapped here.”
Last night Sarapen had shared the Empress’s bedchamber. Given the choice, he’d have preferred not to, but he had a strong suspicion that if he didn’t, the Empress might decide to do away with him. Sarapen felt no fear at the prospect of death, but looked forward to meeting it in combat, rather than at the hand of some nameless palace assassin.
Which is my most likely fate, as far as I can see.
Sarapen had grown up in a castle among the ruling family of the MacRinnalchs, and he could interpret the motivations of those who circulated around power. He’d noticed influential courtiers looking at him in a way that suggested that without the Empress’s patronage, he’d be gotten rid of soon enough. A position so close to the Empress was valuable in the palace, too valuable to be granted to a stranger like him.
So I stay here as the Empress’s lover, and eventually get assassinated by some jealous courtier, thought Sarapen. Or I tell the Empress I’ve had enough of her, and she gets rid of me even quicker. It seems like a poor choice.
Sarapen put his hand close to his heart, feeling the scar. He wondered again if it were really true that he’d die if he returned to his own dimension. If he found a way to do it, he knew he’d risk it.
CHAPTER 60
“Who’s in charge of Empress Kabachetka’s social engagements?”
The Fire Queen looked uncertain. “What do you mean ‘in charge,’ Dominil? The Empress herself is in charge, I’m sure. She’s not a woman to listen to advice.”
“But who records her engagements? Who keeps her diary?”
“Her secretary, Gezinka.”
“Does the Empress trust her? Would she have a full record of her movements?”
“I’m not certain. Who knows what Kabachetka thinks or whom she trusts?”
Under interrogation from Dominil, the Fire Queen was beginning to wilt. “I really can’t imagine why you wish to know so much about the court life of the detestable Kabachetka. It is a painful subject, Dominil, as she has so recently cheated and bribed her way into Vogue.”
Dominil was taking occasional notes, though mostly committing the Queen’s answers to memory. It was frustrating trying to get information from the Fire Queen, as she had a habit of straying off topic, but Dominil persevered.
“Does she have a bodyguard who always travels with her?”
“At home, yes. But on Earth, not necessarily. I have known her to come here with only her handmaiden Alchet.”
“Who else would know where she was when she visits London? Surely she must inform her government?”
The Queen shook her head. “Again, not necessarily. After all, I sometimes do not. But if anyone else were to know the Empress’s movements, I imagine it would be her adviser Bakmer. My intelligence services report that he now has the Empress’s ear.”
The Fire Queen fidgeted. “Dominil, I am suffering from this relentless interrogation. Would you mind if I were to ask Moonglow to bring us tea? Have you noticed how much care she takes over her tea?”
“Yes,” said Dominil. “She brews it properly, in a pot. So do I. I’ll make us tea.”
Dominil was tall, and stooped slightly as she walked beneath the light shade on the ceiling from which Moonglow had hung a dark, patterned headscarf. As she descended the stairs she heard Moonglow talking angrily on the phone.
“I just pressed these numbers!” Moonglow pressed some more buttons, listened briefly, then gave up and ended the call. “I hate these automated payment things! You have to press so many buttons.” She had a council tax bill in her hand. “I must have entered some numbers wrong.”
Dominil didn’t comment. She used automated payment systems without any trouble. “The Fire Queen asks for tea. If you like, I’ll make it.”
“That’s all right,” said Moonglow. “I’ll do it. I need a break from these bills. It’s always me that has to sort them out.”
Dominil accompanied Moonglow to the kitchen and helped her make tea, placing a small milk jug and a sugar bowl on the tray while Moonglow boiled the kettle and warmed the teapot.
“Are you seeing Malveria about werewolf business?” asked Moonglow.
“Yes.”
“Is Kalix in trouble?”
“No.”
“Is she going to be?”
“I can’t say,” said Dominil.
Moonglow abandoned efforts at conversation. After sending Dominil on her way with tea for the Fire Queen, she called the council’s automated payment line again, with the council tax bill in front of her and her credit card in her hand, ready to make another attempt.
In the expanded attic, the Fire Queen was grateful for the tea and the plate of biscuits Moonglow had thoughtfull
y provided.
“I do like Moonglow,” she said. “She is so welcoming, and so good-mannered.”
Dominil nodded. It was true.
“Daniel is rather good-mannered too,” continued the Queen. “Even Kalix is, when not afflicted with her fears and worries.” The Fire Queen sighed. “I had hoped their good manners would rub off on Agrivex, but have seen no sign of it so far.”
“About the Empress’s military command,” said Dominil. “To whom does she give direct orders?”
The Fire Queen raised her hand. “Please, Dominil. I’m sure that this is all of the greatest importance to the MacRinnalchs, but my throat is simply parched. I have been ordered to rest, you must remember, after suffering a most serious illness.”
The Queen nibbled at a ginger biscuit and sipped her tea. “Has it ever happened to you that you have been absolutely overwhelmed with suitors?”
“No,” said Dominil.
“I cannot tell you how wearisome it is. There hardly seems to be a duke, lord or earl in the land who has not decided to pay court to me. One struggles to understand it. It is not as if I am a recent addition to the nation. I have been there for some time.”
“Presumably it would be a great step up the social ladder to be your consort?”
“Of course. There would be no greater honor. But the normal procedure would be to wait until given a hint by my council of ministers. Once that hint was received, a cautious advance may be permissible. But now they are simply stampeding toward me in a great herd. My first minister swears that the council is not responsible and has not been giving any hints.”
“Perhaps someone else has,” said Dominil, who hoped to end this part of the conversation quickly so she could return to her questions. “Who else might want to see you married?”
“No one that I can think of.”
“How about your niece Agrivex?”
“Why would she want to see me married?”
“So as you could produce an heir, thereby ensuring that she never had to be Queen and take on responsibilities?”
The Fire Queen went rigid. “Why do you suggest that?”
“It seems a reasonable conjecture, given what I know of her character,” said Dominil. “Could we return to discussing the Empress?”
Dominil stopped. The Fire Queen had compressed her ginger biscuit in her hand, turning it into a pile of flaming crumbs which fell onto the bedspread. A flame flickered in her left eye.
“Agrivex,” muttered the Fire Queen. Heat from her hand caused the tea to start boiling in her cup. “Why did I not see this before? Who else could inflict such misery on me? Wait till I get my hands on this most dismal of nieces. There will be great suffering!”
CHAPTER 61
In the small gallery in Brixton, Kalix was surprised when Manny broke off from describing one of his pictures to whisper in her ear. “You’re feeling anxious, aren’t you?”
“No. Yes. How did you know that?”
“I suffer a lot from anxiety,” said Manny, still keeping his voice low. “I’m getting therapy for it. Never does much good. Do you want to go and sit on your own in the storeroom at the back? Or do you want to talk, would that help more?”
Kalix looked at him. She was interested to meet a young man who knew about anxiety. That had never happened before.
“I’m all right. More wine would help.”
Manny smiled. “Anxiety is a big problem, isn’t it? People generally don’t understand.”
They moved away from the paintings to stand by the table where there were a few bottles of wine provided for guests. The gallery was still very quiet.
“How long have you suffered?” asked Manny.
“Always.”
“Me too.”
Kalix stared at Manny and thought how much she liked this young artist, who suffered from anxiety like she did, and was so pretty with his long blond hair. Her anxiety lessened.
“My therapy was hopeless too,” said Kalix. “I stopped going because it just got annoying. Stupid therapists. But I liked the diazepam.”
“You got diazepam?” said Manny admiringly. “I wish I’d got that. Do you ever feel like the walls are closing in and you’re going to faint?”
“Yes. I hate it when I get a panic attack and there are people around and you know they won’t understand about it. I just want to run away.”
Manny nodded. “I know the feeling. It takes me ages to get over it.”
Kalix nodded enthusiastically. “If I get a bad panic attack, I’m still anxious for days afterward. People say, ‘What are you anxious about, there’s nothing to worry about.’ They don’t understand.”
They smiled at each other.
“Do you write about it?” asked Manny.
“Yes, in my journal,” replied Kalix immediately, though her journal was something she very rarely talked about.
“I thought you’d be a writer,” said Manny. “As soon as I saw you I knew you were artistic.”
Kalix felt pleased. She’d never been called artistic before. Manny swept his arm around, pointing at all his pictures.
“I like your paintings,” said Kalix. It was true. She did like his colorful and childish animals. “Does it make you calm?”
“Sometimes. When you get involved in a painting, you sort of forget your problems for a while. It’s good. But it doesn’t always work.”
Kalix nodded. She understood this. “When it gets really bad, nothing works.”
She noticed that she was standing close enough to Manny for their arms to touch. She let it continue and didn’t move away. “I’m glad I came now.” She looked around at the empty gallery. “I’m sorry other people didn’t come.”
“It doesn’t matter really,” said Manny, though he did look disappointed.
“People are stupid,” said Kalix by way of encouragement.
Manny poured more white wine. A friend of Manny’s approached him to talk, and Manny engaged in a conversation, but he remained close to Kalix. She noticed that her anxiety had almost vanished. Even when a few more visitors did turn up, Manny stayed close to her.
“Do you do your paintings here?” asked Kalix later, and then worried in case that was a stupid question.
“No, I paint at home. I can’t afford a studio. But the light is quite good. I live at the top of the block.”
Kalix thought she’d like to see the place where he painted, but she suddenly felt tired, which sometimes happened to her after an episode of anxiety.
“I have to go home now.”
“Can I call you?” asked Manny.
Kalix gave him her phone number before she left. She’d told Manny her name was Alex, as she always did on the rare occasions she was obliged to introduce herself. Kalix was too distinctive a name to use in public. The pavements outside were busy as people emptied out of two pubs near the gallery. Kalix brushed past pedestrians as she made her way back to the bus stop, her hands in her pockets and her eyes on the ground. She smiled to herself and thought that she liked Manny more than anyone she’d met for a long time.
But it was still bad of Vex just to abandon me!
CHAPTER 62
Kalix slept well. It was past midday when she entered the kitchen to find Moonglow heating a Pop-Tart in the toaster.
“For Malveria,” said Moonglow. “How was the exhibition?”
“It was good,” said Kalix. “Vex just abandoned me because her boyfriend turned up and they left me on my own, which wasn’t very nice, and I felt nervous, but then it was OK because I met Manny who’s the painter and he’s really nice and we talked a lot and I liked his paintings and he’s going to call me.”
Moonglow was startled by what was, by Kalix’s standards, a long and enthusiastic speech.
“He’s going to call you?”
Kalix nodded and looked happy.
“Is this a romance?”
“Maybe,” said Kalix.
Moonglow had a fleeting, uncomfortable feeling that romance was breaking ou
t all around but missing her. She suppressed the feeling because it was good to see Kalix looking happy.
“He paints all these funny animals. Like pink tigers and blue elephants. They’re good. There weren’t that many people at the exhibition, but he’s got a better one coming up. He goes to art school and he’s a cycle courier to make money till he starts selling paintings.”
They heard the sound of the front door, followed by heavy boots on the stairs. Vex had returned. She was humming the theme tune to Tokyo Top Pop Boom Boom Girl and arrived in the kitchen looking cheerfully disheveled.
“Hi, Kalix, did you have a good time at the exhibition?”
“You went away and left me!”
“Of course,” said Vex with no trace of shame. “My boyfriend arrived.”
Kalix looked toward Moonglow. “Aren’t girls meant to stay with each other even if their boyfriend arrives? Isn’t there some sort of code?”
“Uh . . . it’s flexible,” said Moonglow.
Vex laughed. “It was for your own good. I knew you’d get on well with him.” She peered at Kalix. “And you did, I can tell.”
“Stop reading my aura, you stupid Hiyasta,” said Kalix.
“Though you didn’t sleep with him. Why not?”
“I said stop reading my aura.”
“No point hanging around now you’ve finally met someone you like, after all these loser werewolves you’ve been dating.”
Vex ran her hand through her hair, trying to resurrect some of the flattened spikes. The makeup around her eyes was smudged and there was a stain on her Hello Kitty T-shirt. Moonglow had noticed that when Vex arrived home in this sort of state, she never looked like someone suffering from the excesses of too many late nights. She looked more like a young model who’d been deliberately dressed in an untidy manner for a photo shoot, and was pretty, and pleased about it.
Vex took a bowl from the cupboard and began filling it with two kinds of cereal.
“Who’d have thought I was so good at matching people up? Here’s Kalix got a new boyfriend right away and me and Pete getting on really well and”—her voice dropped to a theatrical whisper—“even Aunt Malvie’s making some progress.”