Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Lucrezia gave a fond smile and put a hand to her cheek. “Why… So I did!”

Theo nodded. “And you brought me a clockwork snake!”

Lucrezia went misty-eyed. “Mr. Hissyfit! He used to be mine, you know,” she confided.

“Yes! He tried to eat my father and knocked the bishop into the punchbowl!”

Lucrezia smiled nostalgically and gently took Theo’s face in her hands. “Oh, let me look at you! My, yes! You do take after your father.”

Theo smiled. “Really?”

Her hand clamped around his throat. “Oh, yesss. You know, when we first met, he blew up my favorite lair, and then he had the temerity to leave me behind while he escaped with my sister, dear little goody-goody Serpentina.” Her fist tightened.

“Really,” Theo choked out.

Lucrezia’s eyes narrowed. “And I never liked her much, either.”

Stars slowly swam before Theo’s eyes. “Really?”

Lucrezia’s fist tightened again. “Really.”

The angel clank stared at Higgs, then glanced again at the damaged wall. “You-non-possible-you…” it said haltingly. It focused again on Higgs and new lights came on behind its eyes. “Accessing non-essential core memories…”

A set of lights flashed green. Higgs held up a hand. “Wait…”

Tarvek shivered back to consciousness and rose on one elbow. “What’s happening?” he mumbled.

The clank straightened and stared at Airman Higgs. “I know you,” it whispered. Tarvek coughed, and the clank pointed to him. “You must help me. By the terms of—”

In a single smooth motion, Higgs stooped and grabbed a large hammer off the floor. With a sideways blow, he hit the clank so hard that its top half tore free and smashed into a wall several meters away.

He then dropped the hammer and turned to Tarvek, who was staring at him in terror. “You…” His eyes clicked to the angel’s twitching legs. “How…” He then looked up into the airman’s bland, indifferent face. “Don’t…”

Higgs’s hand moved. Tarvek flinched—and then saw that the man was simply reaching into his coat pocket to pull out his pipe. Higgs continued to silently regard Tarvek as he slipped it into the corner of his mouth. He then pulled it out and pointed at the broken clank with the stem while his eyes never left Tarvek. “More messed up than I thought,” he sighed. “All this fighting must’ve been too much for it.” He put the pipe back into his mouth. “Not really made for fightin’, you know?”

The two men stared at each other for a timeless moment. Then Higgs squatted down until his face was a few centimeters from Tarvek’s own. “Don’t you agree?” He paused. “Sir?”

Tarvek stared up into Higgs’s eyes, and without the man shifting, or even changing expression, Tarvek was suddenly all too aware of the rock by his side, the one that could have fallen and smashed his head; The live wire sparking a meter away, the one that could easily have touched his foot; The great fists of the Muse, still twitching faintly, that could have, all too plausibly, crushed his throat just before it fell apart…

“Goodness, yes,” Tarvek said reasonably. “Why, it’s a miracle that it was still functioning at all!”

Higgs nodded once, almost imperceptibly, as his eyebrows rose with interest. “Is that so? Guess we got lucky.” He straightened and offered Tarvek a friendly hand up. “I’ll tell ’em you said that, sir.”

Meanwhile, Zeetha bounded towards Lucrezia. “Okay, spooky girl,” she sang out. “Time to go back to sleep!”

Effortlessly, using Theo as a blunt object, Lucrezia swatted Zeetha backward into Violetta’s arms.

“Ah…I meant you, not me…” Zeetha mumbled. Then she rallied. “She seems healthy, anyway. That’s good. I guess. Ouch.”

Violetta nodded glumly. “She’s riding the Post Revivification Rush. She’ll be faster, tougher, and stronger for a while. Also meaner.” She peered at Zeetha. “You—I saw you in a circus once, right?”

Zeetha blinked. “Uh…probably…”

Violetta firmly pushed her aside. “Okay, you listen up. This thing inside the Lady Heterodyne is a killer. Stage clowning will only get you killed, so you just stay back here out of the way while we sort her out.”

Zeetha’s blinked. Then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’ve got news for you. That harpy inside Agatha? She’s only the second most dangerous thing in the room.”⁹⁴

Violetta nodded. “Well of course. There’s all this half-baked madboy stuff lying around.”

“I am Zeetha! Daughter of Chump! Royal princess guardian of Skifander!”

Violetta rolled her eyes. “Oh jeez—seriously?”

“Silence!” Lucrezia shouted. “I am leaving! If you want this fool to live, you will not impede me!”

“No,” Theo protested. “You can’t!”

“Oh don’t worry,” Lucrezia assured him. “Killing you will be simplicity itself.”

“Um…That’s not actually what I meant…”

Lucrezia shook her head affectionately. “Silly boy.”

“You’re not killing anybody,” Violetta announced. “Because I won’t let you.”

Lucrezia looked at her with contempt. “Oh, just look at you. You’re one of the Order’s Smoke Knights. With your pathetic attempts at misdirection and your silly sleight of hand. But I am Lucrezia Mongfish, and whether you acknowledge it or not, your order serves me.”