Witches Incorporated by K. E. Mills

Author:K. E. Mills [Mills, K. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Fantasy, Fiction, General, Science Fiction/Fantasy
ISBN: 9780730400318
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I think it’s time you stopped sulking, madam,” said Reg, with a rattle of tail feathers. “You can’t tell me you don’t understand about difficult choices. Every princess knows all about those. Well. Every princess worth her tiara, anyway.”

Melissande looked up from her horribly early breakfast of hard-boiled egg and glowered. “I am not sulking.”

“All right, then. Moping… with a snooty look on your face,” said Reg. “Same thing.”

She sprinkled more salt on her egg. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Look,” said Reg, hopping down from the bedpost onto the bed, and strutting back and forth like a teacher in front of her class. “What did you think was going to happen when Gerald agreed to work for that Sir Alec? Did you think he was going to be romping through alpen fields picking daisies? He’s in a dirty business now, ducky. He’s going to get grimy.”

“Fine,” she snapped. “If he wants to get grimy that’s his choice. But now there’s a chance his grime is going to rub off on me!”

Reg stopped strutting and fixed her with an angrily gleaming eye. “Like your grime rubbed off on him, do you mean? Back in New Ottosland?”

“That was different,” she muttered. “I didn’t know Lional was a raving lunatic.”

“Yes, well, I think we’ll leave what you did and didn’t know about Lional for another argument,” said Reg. “Let’s stick to this one for now, shall we?”

Shocked, Melissande stared at her. “I don’t—what are you—I resent that insinuation, Reg!”

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” said Reg, looking down her beak. “Now as I was saying, it’s time you pulled yourself together, madam. Gerald risked everything by telling us why he’s at Wycliffe’s. And since it has nothing whatsoever to do with why we’re at Wycliffe’s we are going to leave him alone to get on with things. We’re still owed half our retainer, remember?”

“I don’t understand why you’re defending him,” she complained, ignoring that. “I thought you weren’t even talking to Gerald.”

“Ha!” said Reg. “Didn’t you know? I’m ambidextrous. I can be itching to kick his arse and yours at the same time.”

Abandoning her other egg, Melissande got off the bed and stalked over to the window. Gazing across the rooftops, she caught sight of something floating through the sky, flashing silver in the light of the rising sun. A Wycliffe airship.

Floating not on the air but on a river of innocent blood.

She turned. “I’m not just worried about me, you know. About how I’ll feel if there’s another portal incident and more people get hurt or—or even die. What about Gerald?”

“Gerald’s a big boy,” Reg said quietly. “He knew what he was getting into when he jumped in the boat and started rowing with that Sir Alec. There’s no such thing as a perfect solution, ducky. There’s the best you can do at any given moment on any given day and that’s all. Besides, we don’t know what else that Sir Alec knows. If we go wading into the middle

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