Tarvek took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. It’s not exactly your fault, but it is happening because you showed up. Yes, there was a plot to install a false Heterodyne girl. My father and his people have been working on it for a long time.” He sighed. “They were nowhere near ready.” He looked thoughtful. “I guess between your performance over Sturmhalten and the Baron’s injuries, it must have seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.”
Agatha snorted. “Did they really think that the Baron’s son would do nothing?”
Now Tarvek was angry. “I didn’t say they weren’t idiots! I didn’t tell them to go ahead. We know nothing about this son of the Baron’s! I’ve never met him! No one has!” He paused. “Actually, from what you told us at dinner back in Sturmhalten, it sounds like you know more about him than anyone else in Europa.”
Agatha sighed. Her initial anger had mostly passed, but she was still far from pleased. “He’s a bossy, violent idiot who thinks he knows what’s best for everyone, even though he can’t even keep himself in one piece.” She gave Tarvek a pointed look. “You’ll like him.”
Gil was peering between two shutters onto the busy street below. The crowd was dispersing and he was relieved to see that his father’s troops were letting them go.
“Get away from that window, you fool!”
Gil closed the shutters and grinned. He had been astonished to see two of his dearest friends, Theopholous DuMedd and Sleipnir O’Hara, appear out of nowhere in the streets of Mechanicsburg.
Theo and Sleipnir were two of the students that Gilgamesh had grown up with aboard Castle Wulfenbach,52 and they had fled, along with several other of Gil’s acquaintances, during the chaos that had attended Agatha’s own escape.
They had used an invisibility device he had given them back on Castle Wulfenbach to whisk him out from under Captain Vole’s nose, leaving his new group of friends behind. Ha. Friends…he had his doubts about that cat…
“Well, excuse me for being concerned. There are people I know down there.”
Theo paused, a bottle tipped upwards. He caught himself just before the drink he was pouring sloshed over the edge of his glass. “Anyone you want us to go get?”
Sleipnir looked up from the device she was tinkering with. “It wouldn’t be any trouble. We can get at least another hour’s use out of your little invisibility lamp dingus here.”
“It’s not a lamp.” Gil’s reply was almost automatic by now. Why did everyone think it was a lamp?53 “No. Leave them be,” he answered. “They’d only insist on coming along, and I don’t want to take anyone into the Castle who doesn’t deserve it.”
Sleipnir tossed a screwdriver at him without rancor. “Nice.”
Gil snatched it out of the air and threw it back. “I am not taking you in with me.”
Sleipnir caught it and slid it back into the loop on her belt. “Of course you are.” Gil opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. “And the last time you won an argument with me was…?”
Gil frowned, and changed the subject. “What are the two of you even doing here? Theo, you said you were going to search for your father’s lost laboratory.”
Theo looked uncomfortable and sipped at his drink. “Well…I still am. I mean, I will. We have some map fragments and I’m pretty close to cracking the cipher he used in his journal.”
Sleipnir spoke up, “And I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of where the Eye of the Snake Eater is hidden.”54
“But,” Theo admitted, “I did promise Agatha that I’d catch up with her here.”
Gil looked at Theo. “You promised Agatha…but why didn’t you tell me that before you left?”
Theo and Sleipnir looked at each other. Then Sleipnir turned back to him. “I’m sorry, Gil. It was…well…it was because we didn’t entirely trust you.”
The awkward moment stretched out until Gil shrugged and turned away. “Can’t blame you, I guess. You hadn’t seen me in years and I suppose it was a bit of a shock, finding out who I really am.”
Sleipnir snorted. “You think?”
Gil smiled mirthlessly. “If we’re talking about trust, I guess I felt more betrayed than you did because I never got any mail.” He raised a preemptive hand. “I’m still trying to find out what that was all about. But…I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. Really sorry, it would’ve been…nice to tell someone about it,” he admitted. “Anyway, you were right. I probably would have made things worse. Agatha didn’t trust me either.”
Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Theo stepped forward and put his hand on Gil’s arm. “For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, “I trust you now.”
Gil looked surprised. “Oh?”
Theo gestured towards the street below. “I was standing right behind you when the soldiers found you. I listened. You really do want to help her. Out there? You sounded just like the Gil I grew up with.”
“I’m not,” Gil said flatly. “Too many things have changed. I’ll never be that person again.” He smiled and punched Theo in the arm. “But I can remember the important bits.”
With that, it was like a switch had been thrown and the tension drained from the room. Minutes later, they were lounging about the room’s settees, drinks in hand. Gil had protested but Theo had pointed out that they couldn’t really do anything until the streets were clear of Wulfenbach soldiers.
Sleipnir leaned forward. “So Agatha is in the Castle and the Baron is going to destroy it. Why?”
Gil paused. “Because he thinks Agatha is the Other.”
Both Theo and Sleipnir looked horrified. “Is she?”
“No!” Gil paused. “Well, yes. Sometimes…” He saw the two of them staring at him. “She’s…possessed.”
Sleipnir stared at him for another second, and then deliberately put her drink down. “Possessed.”
Gil spent several minutes bringing them up to speed. He sighed as he finished. “I know it sounds crazy! It is crazy! But the important point is that if it’s true, it’s not actually Agatha who’s the problem, and that means that there’s got to be something I can do to save her!”
Sleipnir folded her arms together. “And if you can’t?”
Gil drained his glass and slammed it down onto the table. “Then I’ll take care of her myself. But, unlike my father, I’m willing to give her a chance.”
Sleipnir and Theo glanced at each other and suddenly grinned. They turned back. “Listen to you!” Sleipnir snagged the bottle and poured Gil another drink. “That’s why we can trust you.”
Gil stared at them and suddenly slumped back into his seat. “I am so glad to see you guys again. My head is spinning. I…” He suddenly examined the drink in his hand. “What am I drinking?”
Theo grinned. “I cooked it up myself! It’s a new recipe!”
Gil looked alarmed. “And you let me drink this?”
Sleipnir shrugged. “It’s great. It helps you open up. Express your inner thoughts. In vino veritas and all that.”
Gil frowned “Yessss… that sounds like one of Theo’s. I remember his ‘Electrical Acid Two Hundred Proof Jolly Sugar Doom.’” He carefully put his glass down.
Theo looked offended. “This from a guy who once concocted an aperitif from toothpaste and hedgehogs.”
“They’re still selling that,” Gil said breezily. He caught himself. “Oh dear, it’s still building, isn’t it?”
Theo pulled out a pocket watch. “Relax, you just had the one, yes?”
Gil racked his brain. “I…I can’t remember.”
Theo waved a hand. “If you’d had more than one, then by now you’d be weeping maudlin tears over all those hedgehogs.”
“Poor little hedgehogs,” Gil whispered. Then he shook himself. “Yeah, that would be bad.” He looked at them. “What were we talking about?”