Tarvek grimaced as he completed his examination. “Gil, this looks really bad.”
Von Pinn stirred and glanced his way. “Ah. And Prince Sturmvarous. Of course…naughty children…always getting into trouble when you are together…getting into places you do not belong…”
Tarvek leaned in. “Just…Just hold on,” he said fiercely, “You are severely injured.”
Von Pinn’s lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. “Tsk. No, child, I am dying.” She closed her eye and sighed. “It feels very peculiar, and I do not like it.” Her voice grew faint. Her attention was wandering. “But then, I have not enjoyed any of this. I would just as soon be done with it. Still…to have failed…”
Airman Higgs joined them. He still carried the angel clank in his arms. At its command, he placed it near the dying construct’s head. “You-you-you will not cease!” it said fiercely. “The-the-these children will he-elp-help.”
Von Pinn groggily turned her head toward the clank. “Ah. You! You have returned.” Her eyes focused and she took in the full extent of the angel’s condition. Her eyes widened and she bared her sharp teeth. “But what have you done to my body?” she growled.
Gil and Tarvek had been holding an intense, whispered conversation. Finally, with the help of Higgs and Mezzasalma, they were able to gently lift the wounded construct and begin moving her toward a heavy table. Violetta darted ahead and began to sweep books and papers away to make room.
“What do you think you are doing?” Von Pinn hissed. “Foolish children.” She struggled weakly as she was laid down.
“Violetta!” Tarvek ordered, “Find the medical supplies! This place must have something!”
Violetta briefly considered arguing that he no longer got to boss her around, then thought better of it and ran to look.
Agatha merely stood by, watching in horror.
Von Zinzer also stood by, wondering at the activity. He turned to Krosp, who was fastidiously washing his paws in a small laboratory sink. “Uh…aren’t you supposed to lick yourself clean?”
Krosp rolled his eyes. “We’ve been walking across old, deserted lab floors in Castle Heterodyne. You wanna lick that?”
Von Zinzer scratched his beard. “You are a smart cat.” He glanced back at the bustling scientists. “Do you understand what’s going on?”
Krosp looked around and then dried his paws on von Zinzer’s shirt. “Yes. I think I do. It sounds like Lucrezia was big on swapping minds. The clank says it’s Castle Heterodyne. Fine. So Lucrezia stuffed some of the Castle into the angel clank body. Von Pinn’s outburst makes me think that she is probably the muse Otilia, stuffed into an organic construct body.”
Von Zinzer frowned. “But Castle Heterodyne had a mind.” He thought about this. “…Of sorts.”
“It had a patchwork collection of sub-minds. Why not one more piece, stuck in a smaller frame?”
“Why would Lucrezia do that?”
Krosp just looked at him with half-lidded green eyes.
Von Zinzer shrugged in embarrassment. “Yeah, okay. She was a Spark. I get that. But… She was living here. It was one of the things protecting her and her kid.”
Krosp considered this. “True, but remember who we’re talking about. I’ll bet being under the eye of an all-powerful intelligence she couldn’t control was driving her even more crazy than usual. I can see her deciding to see if she could catch a bit of the Castle and put it in a doll she controlled. She’d feel like she had some power over it.”
Von Zinzer nodded sagely. “That never works, you know.”
Krosp paused, looked around at the ruined laboratory. Then he glanced up towards the ceiling, and the rest of the Castle beyond it. “Yeah…and I’m beginning to wonder just how badly it didn’t work.”
With Gil and Tarvek ordering the others around, a surprisingly serviceable medical setup was soon built around the supine construct. Professor Mezzasalma finished carefully threading some tubes. Gil plucked them from his hands and spun them into place. Agatha and Violetta were slicing away Von Pinn’s thick leather outfit, while Tarvek followed closely behind, inserting catheters and assessing the damage revealed.
The professor stepped back and took a deep breath. He studied the two men for a moment. “You two seem… unusually agitated. You are familiar with this creature?”
Gil glared at him. The Spark rang in his voice. “This ‘creature’, as you call her, is the closest thing to a mother I have ever known.”
Tarvek nodded. “She’s the only caretaker I ever had who showed me love or kindness.”
“She never cared about our backgrounds.”
“She never played favorites.”
“Yes, she was strict…”
“She was terrifying.”
“But she knew the life we’d lead.”
“She made us strong.”
Gil gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “And now she is reduced to this!”
Tarvek placed his hand on her other shoulder. “Who could have done this?”
They met each other’s eyes. “Whoever they are, they will pay!” Gil growled.
“Yes!” Tarvek agreed fiercely. “Slowly and painfully!”
Agatha cleared her throat nervously. “For what it’s worth, she did kill my parents.”
An awkward silence filled the room. The two young men glanced at each other. Agatha continued. “I…can never forgive her for that, but…
“But if you can manage to hold off on the slow, painful vengeance, I will do what I can to help.”
Tarvek tentatively raised a finger. “Erm, are you sure it was her?”
This was too much for Agatha. “I watched her rip them to bits right in front of my eyes!” she screamed.
Tarvek turned to Gil, worried. “Okay, that’s all I’ve got. You got anything?”
Gil rubbed the back of his neck. “Hm…Maybe…”
“Go for it. Please.”
Gil took a deep breath. “Actually, I wanted to tell you at, I don’t know, a better time, but Punch and Judy? They’re still alive.”
Agatha was shocked. Then she glowered, and looked like she was going to punch him. “Impossible! Why would you say—”
“Not impossible,” Gil interrupted. “Just very, very difficult! After you escaped from Castle Wulfenbach, I had them in my lab within the hour, hooked up to oxygenated nutrients, and being prepped. I stitched them back together and the reanimation process was underway within a week.”
Agatha’s face was now filled with a look of wonder. Gil continued. “As far as I can determine, there’s almost no memory loss. They’re still recuperating, but—” All at once Gil found his arms full of Agatha. She was hugging him with almost bone-cracking force.
“Gil! You’re wonderful!” She kissed him and thanked him over and over again, still holding him tight.
Gil tried to enjoy the moment, but he could almost feel Tarvek glowering at him.
“Seriously? The old ‘bring her family back from the grave’ gambit?” Tarvek’s lip curled. “Have you no shame?” He turned away from Gil and Agatha, picked up a syringe, and got back to work, muttering bitterly to himself. “I mean, jeez, it’s such a cliché! The last time I saw it was in Feydeau’s ‘The Clockwork Pantalettes’! And the reviews for that were terrible!”99
Violetta kicked him in the shins. “Are you listening to yourself?”
Gil tried to ignore Tarvek’s jealous rambling. “They’re stable now, but they’re back on Castle Wulfenbach. I’ve left orders for them to be transferred to the Great Hospital as soon as it’s possible.”
Agatha let go of Gil sat down abruptly. “I just…it’s amazing.” she said in a daze. “She tore them to shreds.” “The thing we should be asking,” Zeetha said grimly, “Is what will she do to you if she gets a chance?”
Agatha considered this. “She didn’t kill me,” she said slowly. “And she had the chance.” She looked at Gil and Tarvek. “She’s important to these two. I’ll help them now, and, well, try to talk to her later.”