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FIFTEEN
“STEP ON IT, old chap!” cried Xemerius. “High time for a showdown with the baddie!”
I was in the passenger seat of Gideon’s Mini, with Xemerius on my lap, as Gideon threaded his way through the early afternoon traffic in the Strand.
“Shut up,” I hissed at Xemerius. “The count can wait forever as far as I’m concerned.”
“What did you say?” Gideon cast me an inquiring glance.
“Oh, nothing.” I stared out of the window. “Gideon, do you really think our idea will work?” My cheerful mood of this morning had worn off, to be replaced by a nail-biting uneasiness that left me feeling trembly.
Gideon shrugged his shoulders. “At least it’s better than—what did you call it?—the rough plan of action that was all we had before.”
“I didn’t call it that, it was Lesley,” I corrected him. For a moment, we were both lost in our own thoughts. Our meeting with Lucy and Paul had shaken us both. And I hadn’t realized how much time travel can take out of you until, on the way back, we arrived right in the middle of a choir practice and had to run for it pursued by several seventy-year-old screeching sopranos. But at least we were now forearmed for our meeting with Count Saint-Germain. It was Lucy who had come up with the brainwave, and that brainwave was also the reason for the aforesaid nail-biting uneasiness.
“Watch what you’re doing, laddie!” cried Xemerius, covering his eyes with his paws. “That was a red light!”
Gideon stepped on the gas and failed to give way to a taxi before turning right toward the Guardians’ headquarters. A little later, he was coming to a halt in the parking lot, tires squealing. He turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Gwyneth,” he began in a serious voice, “whatever happens, I want you to know that—”
He got no farther. At that moment, the door on my side of the car was flung open. I was about to turn and give the unspeakable Mr. Marley a piece of my mind, but it was Mr. George, looking anxious and running his hand over his shiny bald patch. “Gideon, Gwyneth, at last!” he said reproachfully. “You’re over an hour late.”
“The later the evening, the better the party,” crowed Xemerius, hopping off my lap. I glanced at Gideon, sighed, and got out.
“Come along, children,” Mr. George urged us, taking my arm. “Everything’s ready for you.”
“Everything” meant a dream of a dress for me, combining cream embroidery and lace with velvet and brocade in a cool shade of gold, and a colorfully embroidered coat for Gideon.
“Are those monkeys on it?” Gideon stared at the embroidery on the coat as if it were drenched in prussic acid.
“Yes, zey are capuchin monkeys, to be precise.” Madame Rossini beamed at Gideon, and assured him that exotic animal embroidery motifs were the latest thing in 1782. She started getting up a good head of steam to tell us how much time it had taken her to generate the embroidery data files on the model of original patterns, so that her sewing machine could follow them, but Mr. George stopped her in her tracks. He had been waiting at the door, staring at his gold watch. I had no idea why he was in such a hurry. After all, it didn’t make any difference to the count how late it was here.
“You’re elapsing in the documents room today,” announced Mr. George, going ahead of us for once. We hadn’t set eyes on Falk and the other Guardians yet. Presumably they were sitting in the Dragon Hall, renewing the oaths they had sworn when they joined the Lodge, or drinking toasts to the Golden Rules, or doing whatever it was that Guardians did when they got together.
Only Mrs. Jenkins hurried past with a thick folder—working on a Sunday for once!—and waved to us.
“Mr. George, what are today’s instructions?” asked Gideon. “Any details that we should bear in mind?”
“Well, for Count Saint-Germain, exactly the same amount of time has passed since the ball as for you—that’s two days,” said Mr. George at once. “However, we ourselves are a little puzzled by the instructions in his letter. According to what it says, Gwyneth will spend three and a half hours with him, while your visit is to last only fifteen minutes, Gideon. But we are assuming that there’s some other task he wants you to perform, because he expressly said that you were neither of you to elapse earlier today.” He stopped for a moment and looked out of the tall window at Temple Church. There was a good view of it from here. “We didn’t know quite what to make of certain hints in the letter, but … obviously the count feels sure that the Circle of Blood is about to be closed. He wrote that we were all to hold ourselves in readiness.”
“Uh-oh,” said Xemerius.
Uh-oh, I thought, glancing quickly at Gideon. It sounded very much as if, although Operation Sapphire and Black Tourmaline had been really intended for yesterday, the count had expected it to fail. And as if he’d had another plan up his sleeve all along.
Possibly a more brilliant plan than ours.
My nail-biting uneasiness turned into outright fear. The idea of being alone with the count brought my arms out in goose bumps. As if Gideon could read my thoughts, he stopped and held me tight, paying no attention to Mr. George.
“It will be all right,” he whispered into my ear. “Don’t forget, he can’t do anything to hurt you. And so long as he doesn’t know that, you’re safe.”
I clung to him like one of those capuchin monkeys on his coat.
Mr. George cleared his throat. “Well, I’m glad to see that you two have made up your differences,” he said. A mischievous smile flitted over his face. “All the same, we must get moving.”
* * *
I JUST HAD TIME to hear Xemerius shouting, “Mind you look after her, bonehead!” and then I was in the year 1782. The first thing I saw when I landed was Rakoczy’s face only twelve inches or so away from me. I let out a small shriek and swerved aside. Rakoczy himself jumped in alarm.
I heard a laugh, and although it sounded pleasant and melodious, all the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “I told you to step aside, Miro.”
