Page 30 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

“But how will you get home?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he chuckled. But when he cast her a last, sad look, his expression was pained enough to halfway break her heart. “Are you sure I can’t change your mind? You might find it’s easier loving me than him, you know.”

Luna shook her head, hiccoughing slightly. “I’m sorry, Ward. I . . . I don’t think love works like that.”

“Yeah, probably not. Still, you’re worth the shot, remember?” Stepping forward quickly, he dropped a kiss on her forehead, far more chaste than any kiss he’d given her hitherto. “See you around, Luna Talbot. I’ll send someone to let you know when the carriage is ready, all right?”

With that, he turned and strode off quickly, leaving her behind in the hedge maze. Luna listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps on gravel until they faded to silence. Then she rolled her head back, gritting her teeth and staring up at the distant moon, which sailed through starry skies, faraway and dispassionate. She found herself oddly wishing that Ward hadn’t gone. Not because she craved his company. No, because now that he was gone, she had nothing but her own thoughts to face.

Oh gods. Oh gods and goddesses, how could she be sostupid?How had she not realized what was happening between her and Mr. Grimm ages ago? She kept dismissing it, convincing herselfit was, at worst, just a crush. And all the while, she’d been head-over-heels.

If she’d known . . . if she’d only realized . . . she would have left weeks ago.

A shadow moved on her right. Startled, Luna spun in place, her petal-soft skirtsshushingsoftly as they twirled around her. Her heart leaped and then leaped again, more painfully, when the tall, awkward figure of Ebenezar Prodigimus lurched suddenly around a bend in the maze. Moonlight winked off his monocle, while the other eye stared down at her with eerie intensity. Up close, the weird warping of anti-glitter surrounding his features was far more obvious.

“What are you doing here?” Luna demanded, hoping her voice sounded more fierce than petrified.

He jolted to a halt, his whole body swaying as though it were about to topple. Despite his height, he was hardly a threatening figure. But in the darkness, hidden deep within this maze, far from any other eyes, Luna felt her vulnerability like the point of a knife at her throat.

Then he spoke. “Erm,” he said. And his voice sounded so much like Mr. Grimm’s, it almost made Luna laugh. “Erm, I was looking for you, actually.”

Luna dashed a stray curl back from her eyes. “Why?”

“Well, actually, erm. You might not recall, but we have met before.”

“I remember.”

He raised an eyebrow. It was an awkward affair, with the brow in question jerking and jolting unwillingly, but he managed it in the end. “Yes,” he said, “but you probably remember me as Ebenezar Prodigimus, Minister Supreme, due to this incredible disguise I’m wearing. But I am, in fact—”

“Fabian Grimm.”

He stopped. Blinked, his monocled eye exaggerated behind its lens. “Ah. Nigey must have told you.”

“No. I figured that one out for myself.”

“Did you?”

Luna nodded.

The face of Ebenezar heaved a sigh. Then, with a mutter of, “Damn face cream,” he turned to one side and scrubbed a sleeve across his features, deftly unpinning the sorcerous workings holding his disguise in place. Luna watched the little motes of anti-glitter diffuse and disperse, and the features of the Minister Supreme warped oddly, expanding and shrinking and expanding again, until they no longer looked remotely like the proud and aged minister. Instead, a face that looked shockingly like Mr. Grimm’s turned to stare at her. He was broader, stockier, not so refined. Where her Mr. Grimm might well be described as “pretty,” this man was more “solid.” His eyes were dark and glinted with a subtle malice that did not suit him at all.

But unlike the last time they met, there was something more than malice in the gaze he turned upon her. Luna couldn’t name it. Perhaps if the lighting were better she could, but as it was, she had only her best guesses. If she didn’t know any better, she might say he lookedconcerned.

“You’re a lot thinner than you were,” Luna said after a long silent moment of mutual contemplation.

His eyebrow lifted again, more successfully this time. “Yes, well,” he said, lip curling, “I’ve spent the better part of the last month in the Phrigidos Isles.” His throat spasmed, and he made a spontaneous gagging face which he swiftly sought to suppress. “Gods! If I never eat whale blubber again in my life it’ll be too soon.”

Luna frowned. She had no idea what could have sent Fabian Grimm all the way to the Phrigidos Isles. The last she’d seen ofhim, his tea-leaf fortune had revealed a rather sumptuous cake in his future. Nothing whatsoever about whale blubber.

“So,” she said rather sternly, crossing her arms, “you’re back from your . . . vacation. What do you want? Mr. Grimm isn’t here, you know.”

“Yes, well, but I wasn’t looking for him. It’s you.” Fabian glanced nervously this way and that, but there was nothing but shoulder-high hedgerows to be seen. Even so, he looked nervous. “May I sit?” he asked.

Luna hesitated. Then nodded. He took a few quick steps and settled down on the stone bench, but she remained standing, poised on the balls of her feet. Just in case. Fabian breathed out a sigh and gripped his knees with his hands. One leg bounced with nervous energy. His clothing did not fit him well, Luna noted, being much too large on his frame. Apparently, it had belonged to the real Ebenezar Prodigimus.

“All right,” Luna said, breaking the silence at last. “What do you want?”

He pressed his lips together in a tight line. Finally, with a little shrug, he said, “I want to know if what you said just now is true.”