The Courtship of Julian St. Albans (32 page)

“Oh, to bring him chocolates, you
mean?” said Alex. “Yeah, maybe. Text him and ask what he’d
prefer?”

The Guardians looked amused, but they all kept
eating just in case a quick exit was still necessary, and it was a good thing
they did since Geoff admitted he hoped to have everyone kicked out and be
napping by then. Alex paid with his card to make it simple, letting anyone who
felt the need to repay him — mostly Smedley and Lapointe, who couldn’t be seen
taking bribes of any sort — do so at their leisure.

They piled into the car, with Alex ending up
between his Guardians while the two Agents shared the other seat, which was a
bit tight, but better than the alternatives. They joked around while they drove
to Geoff’s flat, not wanting to think about why they were going there and not
seeing him at work where he belonged.

“You guys are definitely the last visitors
for today,” said Geoff, answering the door in his pyjamas and dressing
gown and looking fairly done in.

“We’ll be quick, sorry,” said Alex,
sheepishly. Five at once was probably a bit much, but there was no way the
Guardians were going to let Alex come up here alone. “How’re you
feeling?”

They all filed in and Geoff settled shamelessly
back in his easy chair with a wan grin. “I’ll be better with tea,” he
said, making pathetic eyes at them.

Jacques laughed. “I’ll do it, just give us
a sec to clear the flat.” He and James moved off in that eerily smooth way
they had when they were working, and soon enough the sound of water running in
the kitchen was everyone’s signal to relax.

“So, mosquito, huh?” said Alex, using
his own status as the other injured party to steal half the sofa, Lapointe
taking the other half which was all the seating available in Geoff’s living
room.

“Biggest one I’ve ever seen,” said
Geoff. “You dealt with a wasp and a scorpion, right? Man, I don’t know
how, it was all I could do to keep that thing from doing more than poke
me,” he said, holding up his arm. There were little circles and scratches
where the construct had stabbed him with its proboscis, already healed and
fading away.

“Will you have scars?” asked Alex,
leaning forward to look at the marks, which were much smaller than the two
wounds he’d taken from the wasp’s stinger.

“Doc says no, I’m using potions and a
cream. Mostly it’s just blood loss and shock I’ve got to recover from,”
replied Geoff, “much like Lapointe.”

“Mine’s mostly faded, though I’m terrible
about remembering the cream,” said Lapointe, touching her shoulder
self-consciously.

Smedley leaned against the couch and looked
them over. “We’ve gotta catch this guy,” he said. Then he paused, and
added, “Maybe after he gets Armistead?”

They laughed, and James started ferrying out
cups of tea and getting people’s preferences, which turned into Smedley
helping. They all chatted about normal department gossip and the frustration of
having mountains of evidence, a dozen suspects and no good leads.

Eventually Alex’s phone chimed with their five
minute warning, and they loaded up the dishwasher and promised to come visit
again sometime in smaller groups when Geoff was well.

“I’m sorry you got
caught up in this,” said Alex, as they were leaving.

“You’ll figure it out, and either win your
consort or come let me console you,” said Geoff, flirting tiredly.

Alex chuckled. “You just want to get your
hands on my creamy mounds.”

“Damn right I do,”
said Geoff. “Now go woo your boy.”

They waved and left, getting to Saveur just a
little bit late, which Alex sheepishly blamed on traffic. The chocolatier was
kind enough to not mind, and took them not into the kitchen but back to the
break room where there was a table and chairs for enough people. Jacques stayed
with Alex while James checked the place for nasty surprises, not trusting the
more public setting enough to do it together.

“So you really do have Guardians,”
said the chocolatier, Ellen Young. She was a tall, slender woman with a
birdlike quality to her, fine-boned and beak-nosed under a cap of dark hair.

Alex chuckled. “I
really do,” he said, taking the proffered seat.

Smedley had volunteered to carry the box of
goodies, so he thumped the crate down on the table before sitting himself.
“It’s a good thing, too, because if the third time wasn’t the charm I hate
to see what they’ll try for the fourth.”

Ellen’s eyes went a bit
wide. “Three attempts?”

“Well, the first one was more of an
accident,” said Alex, “but two, yes. Though I’d really rather not
talk about it.”

“Of course not… Ah, this is my
assistant, Pauline, with some drinking chocolate and a bit of a treat for
everyone,” said Ellen.

Pauline was smaller, rounder, blonder and
grinning. “We’ve got three drinking chocolates in house, I’ve prepared a
pot of each,” she said. She set down the tray in the space left by the
box, unperturbed, and pointed to each pot in turn. “Dark chocolate chile,
milk chocolate with lavender, and milk chocolate with bergamot.”

“Ooh, I’ll try the
bergamot,” said Alex. “Sorry, was that too eager?”

She laughed, and the rest of them chuckled with
her. “Not at all,” she said, pouring. “You’re Mr.
Benedict?”

“Alex, please,” he answered, taking
the cup and inhaling the heavenly scent. “Oh, this smells good.”

“And your
companions?” Pauline asked, turning first to Lapointe.

“Agent Lapointe,”
she said, “and I’ll have the dark, please.”

“Of course,” replied Pauline, pouring
and passing the cup, then turning to Smedley. “And for you?”

“Lavender, please.
What?” he said. “Oh, I’m Agent Smedley, sorry.”

Alex tried not to think about what it meant
that Smedley liked lavender things, and almost succeeded.

“Will your Guardians be having some?”
she asked, pouring the dark for Ellen and lavender for herself.

“Jacques?” asked
Alex, blowing on his cup. “It’s really good.”

“Lavender, please, and James will have
bergamot,” answered the Guardian.

“Very good,” said Pauline, pouring
two more cups. “Now, we had a little cosmetic mishap with one of our
gateau today, so I thought you all might enjoy trying it, this is our flourless
chocolate cake layered with mousse and salted caramel.” She pulled out a
cake, the design on top smeared, and then poised a knife over it. “Shall
we?”

“Hold on,” said Alex, peering at the
top. The designs were smeared, but, they didn’t look like the sort of abstract image
he was used to seeing on top of a cake. “Who decorated this?”

“One of our new people, we’ve had to add
staff since the Courtship,” said Ellen. “Wooing is in again, which
means fancy chocolates are very in.”

“I think it was Janice,” said
Pauline. “She did the design all wrong and then slipped and smudged
it.”

Alex palmed his watch fob, then struck a tuning
fork against the table, making everyone jump. He focused in on the tray,
feeling the magic there, charms for temperature on the carafes, one for stability
on the tray itself, and then in the cake itself like an evil worm, a very
subtle poison. It wouldn’t actually kill the person eating it, but it would
open them up to magical suggestion, priming them for the real attack by
undermining their defences from within.

Alex stilled the fork, feeling his ears pop.
“The cake’s poisoned,” said Alex.

Jacques was already on the phone to James, and
Murielle was dialling her own, presumably for the Agency.

“Poisoned, that’s
ridiculous,” said Ellen. “It’s just chocolate.”

“It’s chocolate and belladonna, spell-set
to disrupt a person’s defences against magic,” said Alex, “and now
it’s evidence in a murder investigation, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, my,” said Pauline, plopping down
into a chair. She stared down at her cup and then asked a bit dazedly,
“But the cocoa’s okay?”

“The drinking chocolate is untampered
with, probably because you made it just now, so it couldn’t be prepared in
advance. Though, I just made my appointment this morning, it seems odd that
they’d have someone in place so quickly,” said Alex.

“James has her,” said Jacques,
hanging up his phone. “She was bribed to poison anyone who came in that
was involved in the Courtship, Alex just happened to be the first one.”

“Not the first one,” said Pauline.
“That other man was here week before last, and we had another smudged cake
for a sample.”

“Oh, dear,” said
Ellen. “That was Pembroke.”

~ ~ ~

In the end, the whole place was overrun by
agents, and Ellen was very cooperative, giving them anything they wanted for
samples, though during the quiet times between demands, she and Alex actually
worked out a plan for his food. “I’ll have to get all-new ingredients in
the kitchen anyway, so they might as well take it all,” she said wryly.
“But once I’ve done that, I can still make your gift, I can’t wait to do
something with these pears.”

“They’re really good pears,” agreed
Alex. Jacques was still by his side, but all business now. He and James had
tried to insist Alex leave, but he was needed to go through the rooms one at a
time and look for any other little traps. So far he’d found one other cake with
the runes un-smudged as well as a suspicious batch of truffles, and he’d yet to
go through the front cases, just the back kitchen.

“I’m so sorry about
Janice, I had no idea,” said Ellen, sighing.

Alex hoped he was right when
he said, “I know you didn’t.”

~ ~ ~

Despite being allowed to sit often, and eat or
drink any chocolate deemed safe, Alex returned home exhausted all over again.
“I don’t want to see anything chocolate for a week,” he said,
flopping on the couch, coat and shoes shed at the door. He laid his cane on his
chest like a sword on a bier. “Well, maybe a few days.”

Jacques chuckled, sounding nearly as tired as
Alex. “We’re staying home tomorrow,” he said, in a tone that brooked
no argument. “I’ll slow-cook something from the food Victor sent, and
we’ll refuse all visitors.”

“That,” said Alex
with a soft sigh, “sounds like heaven.”

“Also a fantasy,” said James, sitting
rather heavily in the chair that Alex had started to think of as his.
“Lapointe and Smedley will want him.”

“Sod them,” said
Alex. “I’m healing.”

“Four attempts,” said Jacques.
“And you haven’t checked your wards for another one.”

Alex sighed, but he closed his eyes and
whistled at his wards, and sure enough, there were nibbles around several of
the edges. “Something tried to get in, but no success.”

“You should make yourself a protection
charm,” said James. “Even if it’s just one of those little Keep-Safe
things you made for Julian.”

Alex chuckled. “I have a really, really
good one, but it kind of muffles my magical hearing, so I don’t wear it
much.” He sighed. “I’ll wear it whenever we go out, though I reserve
the right to take it off for work.”

“An acceptable compromise,” said
Jacques. He stretched, and Alex heard several things pop. “I’m going to
text your Agents and tell them you’re staying in, they won’t argue with
me.”

“Convenient,” said Alex. “I’ll
let Jones know he’s got the day free, and that I won’t be admitting visitors,
so not to bring any of our family here to me.”

“That won’t stop your mother,” said
James, shaking his head. “She’s clearly used to being a law unto
herself.”

“She does realise you’re not seven,
doesn’t she?” said Jaques, heading into the kitchen.

Alex laughed. “Honestly, I’ve no idea. But
if you’re making tea, I love you.”

“Don’t let Julian hear
you say that,” said Jacques.

“He hasn’t written recently, I wonder
why,” said Alex, pulling out his phone to text.

“Yes, he has,” said James with a
chuckle. “Sorry, I intercepted the courier and then forgot to pass this
along.” He pulled a familiar envelope out of his shirt and handed it to
Alex.

“Thanks for keeping it safe,” said
Alex, quite sincerely. He sat up to more comfortably read, face going all soft
at Julian’s sweet words.

“It felt like part of my job,” said
James softly, watching with undisguised curiosity. “Keeping your heart
safe as well as your-”

“Creamy mounds,”
interjected Jacques.

“I’m sure someone appreciates both,”
said Alex with a chuckle, slipping the letter into his own breast pocket for
now. “I’ll answer once I’ve had some tea.”

“It’s herbal and plain, the last thing you
need is more sugar,” said Jacques, coming out with a tray of chopped
veggies and tea.

“For the first time
ever,” said Alex, snagging a carrot stick, “I agree.”

CHAPTER
25

In Which There is Yet Another Attack and We Prepare for a
Masquerade

The only thing of note about Tuesday was how
blissfully quiet it was. There was a single visitor, a courier with an
invitation for Alex, who stayed to get Alex’s RSVP. Since it was an invitation
for Julian’s Courtship Masquerade, Alex accepted and also sent his letter,
written last night, back with the man.

Jacques made some sort of magnificent stew for
dinner that made the whole house smell wonderful, and they spent the day on
ridiculously domestic things like doing a few loads of wash in Alex’s tiny
laundry room. Even their butterfly fairy guest was quiet and content to sip at
milk and honey and a bit of syrup from the last of the Indian sweets.

Wednesday couldn’t hope to compete, but at
least all three of them felt rested as they prepared to face a morning spent at
the couturier for Alex’s Masquerade costume.

Alex opened the door, his protection amulet in
place and ears feeling annoyingly stuffy as a result, turning to say something
to Jacques as he went into the hall. His foot crunched on something and he
looked down, then scrambled back into the apartment, falling on his arse in the
process. “Ants!” he gasped, running his hands down his legs even
though he’d felt his wards trap the ones that had begun in those few moments to
climb his trousers.

“Constructs,” said James, slamming
the door shut. “They’re trying to overwhelm your wards.”

“Flute,” said Alex, crawling toward
his work room. “I can keep them strong with it.”

Jacques scooped Alex up and onto his feet, half
carrying him to the work room door. “Where is it? Can you cast from in
there?”

“I can, go ahead and lock me in,”
said Alex, accepting the cane that James tossed to Jacques, barely even noting
the way Jacques caught it without looking. “Be careful, they weren’t
complex but there were a lot of them.” Alex slipped his amulet off and
handed it to Jacques in trade for the cane, knowing he couldn’t work with it
on.

“We can see them outside your wards, now
that we’re looking properly,” said James tightly. “Go on, we’ll be
much worse off if they make a hole.”

Alex closed himself into the room and found his
flute, then sat in his reading chair and centred himself before starting to
play. He was fortunate to be inside the work room wards, which gave him ideas,
snippets of melody to use to shore up the larger flat wards. He found they were
being nibbled on from all sides; these ants were the things that had prodded
them on Monday, but there’d only been a few back then. He was unpleasantly
reminded of the real ones invading his kitchen, first a harmless-seeming one or
two followed by a hundred, a thousand.

He shuddered, and put that revulsion into his
wards, adding in a desire to destroy them rather than just shove them away.
That was harder, active protection instead of passive, but Alex was well-rested
and well-motivated, knowing his friends were on the front line. He wondered if
they’d called anyone and if so, who, then shoved that thought aside and
concentrated on his playing, on spinning his energy out into his wards. He
found one of the ones that was trapped against the front door and slipped his
music into it, disabling it, then once he’d found the way to disrupt their
magic he added that dissonance to his wards.

The feeling set his teeth on edge, but he could
feel the constructs falling silent, one by one, as the implacable march that
drove them fell apart, skipped a beat, and came to a screeching halt.

When the disharmony got to be too much, Alex
let it go, returning the wards to their former strength and making sure every
little nibble was, not patched, but rebuilt into the whole so there was no
missing notes, no weak places in the harmony. Then he let his flute fall silent
and collapsed into the chair, feeling more worn than ever.

His phone beeped, and he laughed to see the
message. He levered himself up and emerged from the work room. “It hurt my
ears, too, but it worked. There might be a few outliers still functioning,
though, I couldn’t sustain it.”

“You look drained,” said Jacques,
worried. “Sit, I’m going to make tea. We can be late to the
couturier.”

“We’re going to have to check the car
over, anyway,” said James. “I find it unlikely that a few haven’t
climbed up into the body of your waiting vehicle.”

“Ugh,” said Alex,
shuddering. “Don’t say that. Did you call the Agency?”

“Smedley’s on his way with, and I quote,
‘an entire army of those sodding boxes,’” said James. He went and rummaged
through one of his bags. “Here, this should help, but you can’t rely on
these.”

Alex listened to the magic in the little
bottle, then downed it, feeling a rush as the power stored in the replenishing
potion hit his system. “Wow, that’s. Yeah, that is not an everyday
thing,” he said, feeling a headache starting to build. “Aspirin?”

“Aspirin,” said James. “I’ll get
you some water. We mostly just stood there waiting, so we’re not nearly so worn
as you.”

“That’s not the way it normally
goes,” said Jacques from the kitchen, sounding a bit cranky.

Alex chuckled tiredly. “Next time,
you
can kill the horde of magical
ants,” he agreed. Then he pulled out his phone and stared at it.
“Aspirin, then calling to move my emergency appointment for fancy
dress.”

“Definitely aspirin first,” said
James, handing Alex two pills and a glass of water.

Jacques emerged with a tray of tea for all of
them, a pot of his restorative blend and a dish of leftover candied pears for
Alex as well. “This should help, anyway,” he said, handing Alex the
dish and a spoon.

“I do love having a mage’s metabolism some
days,” teased Alex, taking a big bite of the sweet. Jacques had added a
bit of cream, too, and the whole thing was almost enough to make Alex ignore
the jangle of his phone. “Are you all right?” asked Alex.

“Fine, fine,” said Jones. “There
were a couple coming for the car, but I remembered what you said and used a
tire iron to smash ‘em. I wanted to ask if you needed me to get anything before
you come down.”

“No, and my Guardians want to give the car
a once-over, in case one crawled in somewhere vital,” replied Alex.
“We’ll be down soon. If Smedley shows, tell him to call so we can be sure
it’s safe to come up.”

“Will do,” said
Jones, then he hung up.

Alex sighed. “Right, one more bite, and
then the stupid clothing shop.” Alex savoured his bite, tasting the warm
spices and cool cream wrapped around the sweet taste of ripe pear.

It was James’ phone that rang this time,
Smedley letting them know they were almost there. “I’ll go out and meet
them,” said James, downing his tea and standing. “You get some food
into him.”

“Will do,” said
Jacques, his face serious for once.

Alex took another bite, just because he could,
then drank off half his own cup of tea and dialled up the couturier. After a
bit of fluttering over the phrase “another attempt on my life,” Alex
managed to get them to agree that he could come in at any point today, and they
would make room in their busy schedule.

Alex hung up and flopped back. “No going
back to bed and pretending today never happened?” he asked Jacques
hopefully.

Jacques smiled at him fondly. “No, but you
still have spiced pears to eat.”

“That I do,” said
Alex, sitting up to do just that.

~ ~ ~

Smedley got the forensics crew set up in the
vacant flat across the hall because neither Alex nor his Guardians would agree
to relax Alex’s wards enough for them to go in and out. Since none of the
constructs had actually made it inside Alex’s flat, they had grudgingly agreed
to stay locked out while Alex was carted off for his various appointments.

He was surprised when
Lapointe insisted on going with them.

“I can take your statement during down
time at the clothing place, or lunch after, and this way no one will harass
you,” she said quite reasonably.

“We would welcome your assistance,”
said James. He and Jacques had found three of the little ants in the body of
the car and disabled them, and they were waiting for forensics to remove them
and make sure there was no damage before they left.

“Who am I to object?” said Alex. He
was cocooned in a blanket on his couch, drinking more of Jacques’ tea while they
waited. “Not having to go downtown again would be nice.”

“I’m not sure you have the energy for PT
today,” said Jacques, laying a hand on Alex’s forehead. Alex heard a
little tune, a slightly more sophisticated version of the assessing magic
mothers used on their children, and sat still for the intrusion. “You’re
quite depleted.”

“I should go and get the potion,
anyway,” said Alex with a sigh. “But you’re right, I’m probably too
done in for therapy.” He got out his phone and made yet another call;
fortunately, the doctor agreed when he heard what had happened, and said he’d
have another prescription ready to help combat Alex’s continued exhaustion.

Alex supposed that was one
bright spot in his day.

Jones texted that the coast was clear, so Alex
roused himself from his blankets, re-donned shoes and coat, and headed out,
grateful for the cane’s sturdy support. The hallway had been cleared of
“dead ants,” but Alex was unpleasantly surprised when a few came
creeping out from here and there, sensing his presence outside the wards.

His Guardians were fast learners, however, and
the two of them sent out a burst of what sounded to Alex like the same
dissonance he’d used earlier, making the constructs drop to the ground. One
that had been creeping along the ceiling nearly hit Alex on its way, and Alex
shuddered as he side-stepped it.

“I never, ever want to see those things
again,” said Alex, and then he sighed. “Which is why I’ll want one to
disassemble in my own work room,” he added to Lapointe.

She chuckled. “I’ll arrange it, but only
one. They don’t seem too dangerous on their own, but we haven’t tested them for
poisons yet.”

Alex nodded, letting them be led down the
stairs rather than use the elevator. “None of them touched skin. There was
no residue on my trousers, but it might’ve been evaporated by the wards when I
backed through them to scrape the things off.”

“I’ve never been so glad you’re a
mage,” said Lapointe with a wry smile. “They found evidence that the
leak at Pembroke’s was sabotage, by the way, and signs point to it being
Pembroke himself that did it.”

“That would fit the spell on the
cake,” said Alex, wishing he lived on a lower floor as they trooped down
another set of stairs. Seven hadn’t seemed very high when he wasn’t too
paranoid to use the elevator. “Pembroke probably wouldn’t even realise
what he was doing had the potential to cause him harm.”

When they made it out into the lobby, Lapointe
went straight for Smedley and demanded that the elevator be working before they
got back. Catching a glimpse of himself in the glass doors, he had to agree
that he looked bloody terrible. “Does this mean I can convince you all to
stop for coffee?” asked Alex plaintively.

James chuckled. “I’m certain your
couturier will provide,” he said. “I’d rather get that out of the way
and get you back home safe faster.”

“Yes, all right,” said Alex,
resisting the urge to cuddle up to Jacques’ solid form and just rest there.
“Yeah, okay, I’m tired.”

Jacques chuckled. “I’ll pretend you didn’t
just eye me up like a teddy bear if you will.”

James laughed. “Come on, we can wait for
Lapointe in the car.” The two Guardians were mostly watching around them,
including above, and Alex could hear the thrum of their magic, the low-level
spells they used to alert them to dangers. He wasn’t sure if it was stronger
today, or if he was just more attuned to them, though he suspected the former.
Two attempts in two days was getting a bit ridiculous, even if Alex had
survived them both.

“When’s the Masquerade?” asked James,
as they exited the building. Just as Alex stepped through the door, the
Guardians sent another burst of magic out, and this time Alex barely dodged a
half-dozen falling ants.

“Sunday, and warn me next time instead of
distracting me,” said Alex irritably.

James chuckled. “Habit, most charges are
less trouble if they don’t know what’s coming.”

Alex humphed, but his heart wasn’t in it. He
couldn’t imagine what a wreck he’d be by now if he’d had to deal with all of
this without the Guardians there to help.

Jones was holding the car door, and, Alex was
amused to see, wearing Alex’s protective amulet. “Your Guardians said it
might help protect the car,” said Jones by way of explanation.

“It would, it’s designed to encompass a
vehicle since a protected person in a car crash is just as dead,” said
Alex. “Keep it until this is all over, it’ll save time for our
Guardians.”

Jones nodded, looking
relieved. “Yes, sir, thank you.”

“It’s my skin, too,” said Alex with a
wry smile, and then he let them shove him into the car. Lapointe joined them a
minute later, and they were off. Alex leaned back against the seat and tried to
summon the energy to care.