"What's he doing?" Bibbie whispered, joining them. "Saying a prayer? Gosh. I didn't realize it was that far gone."

"No, he's not saying a bloody prayer," Monk whispered back. "I don't know what he's doing, exactly. He's-he's pulling a Dunnywood."

Reg looked down at her beak at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"That's what we call it down at the Department," said Monk, half-amused, half-sheepish. "Nobody understands what he does, you see. Or how he does it. According to everything we thought we knew about thaumaturgics what Gerald can do isn't supposed to be possible. Mind you, Gerald's not supposed to be possible." He shrugged. "And yet there he is, large as life and twice as tricky."

"Oy," said Reg. "Mind your language, sunshine. My Gerald's not tricky."

"Well, Reg, he's something," said Bibbie, and whistled. "Phew! Feel those etheretic particles dance, Monk!"

Not for the first time, and definitely not the last either, she knew it, Melissande felt a sharp twinge of regret as her erratic young man and his scatty sister marveled in low voices at something she'd never be able to feel. Very nearly a year now she'd had to get used to the knowledge that whatever else she was destined to be in this world, a dazzlingly stupendous witch wasn't part of the picture.

Almost a year. Shouldn't it have stopped hurting by now?

Startled, she felt Reg's beak brush swiftly and lightly against her braided hair. "Takes all kinds, ducky," the bird said softly. "Flash and fireworks are all fine and dandy provided someone's remembered to stock the pantry-and don't you forget it."

Oh, yes. The pantry. "I didn't know you knew about that."

"Ha," Reg snorted. "Bugger all escapes these beady eyes, madam. And if that young man of yours starts making a habit of taking credit where it's not due I shall definitely be poking him in the unmentionables." Another snort. "I must say I'm surprised at you for letting him get away with it."

"Oh well," she said, resigned. "It's just this once. I mean, he's been so terribly depressed about having his thaumaturgic usage curtailed. You know what he's like, Reg. Without his experiments and inventions I think he'd curl up and die."

"Who'd curl up and die?" said Monk, turning aside from Bibbie. "What are you going on about?"

She smiled at him. "Nothing. What's happening now?"

"Your guess is as good as ours," said Bibbie. "Gerald, what are you doing?"

But Gerald didn't answer. Still hunkered down beside Monk's wonky contraption, his pleasantly plain face was oddly serene. His outstretched hand moved gently, waving above the dimensionally-sliding equipment.

And then he nodded, sharply. "Right. I see it. That's your trouble, Monk." He opened his eyes. "You've got an inherently unstable connection between the dimensional phase inducer and the etheretic sub-stabilizer. They're like you and Bibbie-put them side by side and they can't stop themselves from squabbling."

"Huh," said Monk, frowning. "So are we talking fatal or fixable?"

Gerald straightened out of his crouch. "Oh, fixable," he said confidently. "Completely."

"Yeah, but by whose standards?" Monk said, his smile wry. "I mean, I'm only a genius. You're the freak of thaumaturgics, mate."

Reg rattled her tail feathers so hard she nearly overbalanced. "Right. That's it. Call him a freak one more time, my boy, and I really will poke you in your unmentionables!"

"Reg..." Gerald shook his head. "Honestly. What have I told you?"

"Bugger all worth listening to when it comes to Monk bloody Markham!"

Melissande dug her elbows into Monk's ribs. "For the love of Saint Snodgrass just apologize, would you?" she muttered. "Or Reg'll go on about this until the end of next week and I'm the one who has to live with her."

"Sorry, Reg," said Monk, rubbing his side. "Sorry, Gerald. Just kidding. No harm meant."

"Ha!" said Reg, and chattered her beak. "I'll remember that sincere apology for when I poke you in your-"

"Reg, give over, would you?" said Gerald. "We both know you're not poking him anywhere."

"You don't know anything of the sort," Reg said darkly. "Because there's a great deal you don't know about me. I may be a sweet and harmless bird these days, sunshine, but when I was a queen I did more with men's unmentionables than poke them!"

"Anyway," said Monk, breaking the hotly embarrassed silence, "about my wonky wavelength expander..."

Gerald cleared his throat. "Yes. Right. Well, as I was saying, the problem's fixable. I mean, I could fix it right now if you like, only-"

"Only no thanks," said Monk, alarmed. "With my luck Uncle Ralph's got a whole roomful of monitors trained on the house and with your screwball thaumic signature you'd set off an alarm, sure as shooting. Besides. It's my mistake. I want to fix it. And I will fix it once I've got unlimited thaumaturgic power at my disposal again. But in the meantime..."

"Never mind," said Bibbie, as her brother returned to the expander's control panel and began to shut down his wonky contraption. "You'll get it to work eventually, Monk. You always do."

Monk flashed her a small smile. "Bloody oath."

"So are we done here?" said Bibbie. "Or are you expecting me and Mel to climb back on those stupid pushbikes and pedal until our feet spontaneously combust?"

With a final shimmer and a series of clicks and groans, Monk's expander deactivated. He closed the control panel, gave the contraption a last, regretful look, then frowned. "Sorry? What did you say?"

"Never mind," his sister groaned. "Is there really food in the pantry or was that a lie to keep my bum on that bike seat?"

Melissande caught Monk's guilty eye and smiled, with faint menace. "No, there's food, Bibbie. What say we go downstairs and I make us all pancakes?"

"Pancakes?" Bibbie clapped her hands. "Really? With lemon and sugar and whipped butter and maple syrup?"

"And castor oil for afters," she said. "Yes. Why not?"

"Oh Melly, I do love you," said Bibbie, beaming. "Come on! I'm famished."

She had to smile. Sometimes, for all that Bibbie was a breathtakingly beautiful young woman and a devastatingly powerful witch to boot, more often than not Monk's little sister was hardly more than a child.

"Go ahead and fire up the stove, why don't you?" she suggested. "Tell Gerald about what happened today with Mr. Frobisher. Monk and I will be right behind you."

Taking the hint, for once, Reg flapped over to Gerald's shoulder. "Mr. Frobisher," she said, witheringly scornful. "That soggy old noodle! Didn't I say he'd give us a headache, eh? Didn't I? I swear, the next time that manky Sir Alec sticks his nose into the office I'm going to give him such a piece of my mind! Who cares if Frobisher is that Department stooge's friend? Ha! Forget about caring. Who believes it? Friends? Sir Alec? Don't make me laugh!"

"Hey," said Melissande, as Gerald, Reg and Bibbie made their way downstairs, Reg's ongoing outrage echoing in the stairwell. "Monk. Are you all right?"

Monk shrugged, not looking at her. "I'm fine."

"Monk..."

With a heavy sigh he shoved his hands into the pockets of his threadbare jacket. "No. I am. Really. It's just..."

She slipped her hand through his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder. She could feel his unhappiness like a small, damp cloud. "I know."

His cheek came to rest on her newly-washed hair. "It's not that I don't understand that we need rules and regulations. Thaumaturgics are dangerous. Without rules and regulations, all those tedious checks and balances, well-"

"You get something like Lional," she said quietly. "It's all right. You can say it."

"You never talk about him, Mel."

"What is there to say? Lional's the past. I'd rather think about the present." And the future.

Specifically our future, as in-do we have one?

Except the time never seemed right to have that conversation. And while she was perfectly confident running Witches Incorporated, either on its own or as a disguise for Sir Alec's mysterious Department, when it came to matters of the heart-when it came to her and Monk-all of a sudden she felt ridiculously shy and totally tongue-tied.

"Hah," said Monk gloomily. "If I think about the present I get a nosebleed. I mean, for all anyone knows, Mel, I could be on the brink of a thaumaturgical breakthrough that will change the world as we know it. But Uncle Ralph-all of them-they insist on playing it safe to a ridiculous degree. I don't understand it. What's thaumaturgy for if not to make progress?"

Instead of answering him straight away, she looked around his crowded attic. Aside from the unreliable multi-dimensional expander she could count seven other experiments and inventions in various stages of completion. Everything from a scaled-down thaumic combustion engine to a funny little contraption he swore blind would brew tea without the need for human intervention.

"Maybe," she said, her gaze inexorably drawn back to the deactivated expander, with its faintly ominous implications, "it's that they feel Ottosland's progressed far enough for the moment."

"But-but that's ridiculous!" he protested. "Thaumaturgy's like a shark, Melissande. If it doesn't keep swimming it'll die. We can never stop challenging the limits of our understanding, if for no other reason than to make sure we don't get left behind and some other country, like Jandria, say, a country without our conscience, gets ahead of us in the thaumaturgical race. Because if that should happen..." He shook his head. "Well. I dread to think."

"I'm not saying I agree with your uncle, or the rest of those Ministry dodderers," she said. "I don't. If it was up to me I'd hand you a big bag of money and say have at it! Invent me something to make the world a better, safer place!"

He slid his arm free of hers and walked away a few paces. Shoved his hands back in his pockets and brooded down at a portable thaumic cauldron he'd said was cooking up a new and improved hex to keep Gerald's silvery eye brown. Then he glanced at her.

"But?"

"But you're forgetting about the politics of the situation," she said gently. "And politics-"

He pulled a face. "I hate bloody politics."

"I know you do, but so what? Politics is the sinew of our society, Monk. And like it or not you have to take that into account. You can't just-"

"No, Mel. What I can't," he said, turning on her, his eyes wide and full of turmoil, "is stomach this constant interference. You know, they take my work, my inventions, the ones they find out about, anyway, or that I tell them about, and the ones I'm working on down at R&D, and once they're out of my hands I don't know what happens to them. I don't know what they're doing with them. I don't know if they've been stuck on a shelf in a warehouse somewhere, or if they've handed them over to some other wizard to-to fiddle with-or-" He folded his arms over his head and stamped his haphazard way around the attic, neatly avoiding his various works-in-progress. "At least I know what happens to the work I do here, Mel."

She'd never seen him so upset. "I don't understand," she said, after a moment. "Monk, are you saying you don't-you don't trust the people you're working with? That you don't trust the government?"

With a heavy sigh he slumped against the pushbike she'd pedaled so hard. "No, I'm not saying that," he muttered. "I just wish I had more control over what I do. Over what gets done with what I do. That's all. Especially now, with me answering to Uncle Ralph and Sir Alec."

"I thought you said the arrangement wasn't working out too badly."

"It's not," he said, and heaved another sigh. "Sir Alec says I'm making an important difference, even though he won't go into detail. I mean, he's a sneaky, secretive, unscrupulous bastard but funnily enough I do trust him."

Oh, dear. "But not your Uncle Ralph?"

"No," he said, grudging. "I trust him too, even though he's an interfering, self-righteous prig. But the thing is he doesn't work alone, does he? Neither of them does."

"Monk..." Stepping carefully, mindful of what her young man would say if she so much as nudged one experiment a hair's-width out of place, she joined him at the dratted pushbike and took his hands in hers. Squeezed lightly, reassuringly. "I think you're worrying for no good reason. You're letting your imagination run away with you because you're tired and crotchety and you don't like being bossed."

He managed a small grin. "Well-that's not entirely true. I mean, it depends on who's doing the bossing, doesn't it?"

"Oh," she said, feeling her cheeks heat. "Well-"

His fingers tightened around hers. "Melly, I do wish you'd reconsider. Things are different now. With Bibbie moved in here, and Gerald, nobody could accuse you-accuse us-of doing anything improper. I'm the owner of the establishment, my sister's the housekeeper and Gerald's a lodger. You could be a lodger too. It's all perfectly respectable. And there are so many empty rooms in this old pile I'd hardly notice you were here. Seriously, how much longer can you keep on living in that horrible little cubbyhole at the office?"

I'd hardly notice you were here. Now there was a romantic invitation... "It's respectable to have a male lodger and a relative for a housekeeper, yes," she said, shaking her head. Pretending his careless comment didn't hurt. "But that's as far as it goes, Monk. Especially since I'm not like other people."

He groaned. "Oh come on, Mel, don't start with all that I'm a princess malarkey again. This is Ottosland, we don't believe in roy-"

"Not constitutionally perhaps, but the social pages of the Times believe in it with a passion," she retorted. "And I am not about to do anything that will reflect poorly on Rupert. Besides, I like my little cubbyhole. It's peaceful, it's private, and it's very economical. I'm particularly fond of the walk to work."

Now it was Monk's turn to shake his head. "I just don't understand how you can bear to be cooped up in that little box. After growing up in a palace? It makes no sense to me."

And it makes no sense to me why you'll ask me to move in here like a lodger but you won't suggest a-a formal arrangement.

But she couldn't bring herself to say those terrible words out loud. For all that she'd railed against tradition back home, there were some time-honored practices she was happy to support. Like being the marriage proposee, and not the proposer. Because there was bossy and then there was overbearing and she had no desire to cross that particular line.

"Yes, well, you don't have to understand it," she said. "All you have to do is accept it."

Monk grumbled something under his breath, then shrugged. "Fine."

They were still holding hands. That was something, wasn't it? That was-was encouraging. A sign. Wasn't it?

I wonder, is it being overbearing if I try to-I don't know-nudge things along a bit? Drop a not-so-subtle hint?

"Monk, I-"

A flapping of wings, and then Reg was perched on top of the half-open attic door. "Oy, you two, that's quite enough surreptitious canoodling to be going on with, thank you. Mad Miss Markham says to tell you that she's finished telling Gerald all about Mr. Frobisher and she's so famished now she's beginning to feel faint, so if you don't come downstairs this instant and start cooking her those promised pancakes then she's going to start cooking them herself."

"God, no," said Monk, paling, and let go of her hands. "She'll have the whole kitchen on fire. Come on, Mel. Quick. Before the house goes up in flames around our ears and I'm out on the street looking for a cubbyhole of my own."

So they trooped on down to the cozy kitchen and she made what felt like hundreds of pancakes, each one crisp and light and flavored with laughter and friendship. Monk had abandoned the notion of keeping on a full-time staff after his late Great-uncle Throgmorton's people refused to return to Chatterly Crescent, even though the sprite that chased them away had been sent packing to its home dimension. But it didn't matter. He and Bibbie and Gerald managed between them, more or less, and if sometimes little chores like pantry-stocking got left up to her, well, she didn't mind. It made her feel... needed.

At last even Bibbie pushed her plate away. "If I eat another bite I'm going to explode," she announced. "That was wonderful, Mel. Y'know, if the agency does end up going ass over eyebrows you can always hire yourself out as a cook."

"Hear, hear," said Gerald, around his own last mouthful.

Monk was grinning. "And you can count on us for references."

"Thank you so much," she said with a sarcastic curtsey. "Truly, I'm touched." She glanced at the kitchen clock, quietly ticking. "Golly. Look at the time." A tug and a twitch had her apron strings untying. "I'll have to head home. I've still got some I's to dot and some T's to cross with the Frobisher business."

"So don't you sit there like a rabbit in the headlights, Mr. Markham," said Reg, with a rattle of tail feathers. "Go fire up your jalopy so you can drive us back to Witches Inc."

"Oh," said Monk, whose grin had faded. Now there was an all-too-familiar glazed look on his face. "Yes. Um-"

Gerald shook his head. "Bloody hell, Markham. You're hopeless, you know that, right?"

"Don't tell me, let me guess," Melissande said, resigned. "You've been struck by a thaumaturgical thought and you need to follow through on it without delay."

At least Monk had the grace to be embarrassed. "Ah-"

"It's all right," said Gerald. "I'll drive you and Reg home."

"What?" said Bibbie. "No. I can drive-"