1
Whilst Miss Vivian Henry’s mind was busy plotting how best to steal the Crown Jewels, she fried a pan of bubble and squeak with her left hand, pulled down cups and saucers with her right hand, knocked the silverware drawer shut with her left hip, and kicked her cousin’s round leather football out of the kitchen with a well-practiced swing of her right boot.
In other words, it was an utterly ordinary Sunday.
“Breakfast is ready,” Viv yelled as she set the table.
“Coming!” came her cousin’s muffled voice through the thin walls. “Have you seen my daggers?”
“On the mantel, between your faux spectacles and the pile of rope,” she called back, refraining from additional comment.
The long-running jest that Viv was the only one who learned anything from Quentin’s special-interest tutors had stopped being funny for both of them. Perhaps today was the day her cousin would finally practice. She hoped he didn’t hurt himself.
“Aha!” came Quentin’s triumphant shout. “Found you.”
Someone brown, furry, and impatient darted beneath Viv’s skirts and between her legs.
“Not now, Rufus, you roly-poly glutton,” Viv scolded him as she served bubble and squeak onto two porcelain plates. It wasn’t how she’d broken her fast when she lived in Demerara, but it would do.Even Rufus thought it smelled tasty. She rubbed his furry head with her toe. “Sorry, sugar. You must wait until supper for more.”
Quentin darted into the room. He flung his arms wide with dramatic flair. “What do you think?”
Viv kicked a chair in his direction as she poured the tea. “What the devil is in your hair?”
“Chalk,” he answered happily. “It’s to make me look older.”
“It makes you look ridiculous. Do you know how long it took me to set all those twists in your hair just so?”
“Hours,” he replied with feeling. “I was there.”
“Then why would you spoil all of my effort with powdered chalk?”
“I’m Godfather Wynchester today,” he explained. “The white hair is to make me look distinguished.”
Quentin looked like an eighteen-year-old itinerant with powdered sugar in his curly black twists and inexpertly drawn “wrinkles” on his golden-brown forehead. Nonetheless, Viv knew from experience that if she voiced such observations, she would be the one tasked with improving the disguise. This morning, she simply had no time to spare.
“Eat,” she commanded her cousin. “Grandfather Wynchester can’t save the day if he passes out from malnutrition.”
“Godfather,” Quentin corrected her with his mouth full. “You could be Grandmother Wynchester.”
“I’m ten years older than you, not fifty.” Though sometimes eight-and-twentydidfeel like a lifetime.
Her young cousin pointed to his head. “Try chalk dust.”
“Try again. I refuse to have anything to do with that family. As should you. Won’t you please let the Wynchesters perform their own skullduggery?”
Quentin flashed hurt eyes at her. “I’ve told you a hundred times; my secret club and I have sworn a solemn oath to help them.”
And Viv had pointed out a hundred times that the real Wynchesters had no idea Quentin and his costumed friends existed. Not that inconvenient facts had ever stopped her cousin from spending his days in search of adventure.
“Please remember to say ‘friends,’ not ‘secret club,’” she reminded him. “The newest Seditious Meetings Act explicitly forbids secret societies. No solemn oath will save you from the noose.”
“We’re being careful,” he promised her. “That’s why we use false names and disguises, just like the Wynchesters.”
“That’s not enough protection. Do you have a powerful duke for a brother-in-law, like they do? Or access to the Wynchesters’ lawyers and endless piles of gold?”
Quentin shoved eggs into his mouth rather than respond.
As Viv turned back to the sink, Rufus burrowed between her skirts again. She hiked her hem up to her shins. “Summon your creature. He’s in my way.”
