“Friendly?” Veronica echoed incredulously.
“They wouldn’t try to kill us if they thought we were civilians,” Alice explained.
“Besides,” Daniel said, “we have something more important to worry about.”
“The next assassination attempt?” Snodgrass said, looking around as if he expected it to happen at any moment.
“No, I mean the announcement Frederick Bassingthwaite made at afternoon tea. There will be a ball tonight.”
Veronica gasped. “Oh my!”
“Exactly,” Daniel intoned grimly.
“How wonderful!” The junior agent’s eyes lit with shimmery dreams as she clutched her hands to her breast.
“What? No.” Daniel shook his head. “There will be dancing. And as supposed pirates, we will be expected to join in.”
“How is that worse than people trying to kill you?” Veronica asked.
“I have spent the past several years in Rotten O’Riley’s company with people trying to kill me. That is regular pirate culture.”
“It is also regular life for a secret agent,” Alice pointed out. “If you do not find yourself on the verge of being murdered at least once a week, you are not doing your job properly. Rather that than attend a ball.”
Daniel nodded in agreement.
Veronica’s shimmer began to dim. “But—”
“I do not dance,” Daniel said in an end-of-conversation tone, which from a professional assassin also threatened end-of-life.
“Nor I,” Alice added.
The junior agent continued staring at them bemusedly. They were side by side, arms crossed, expressions stony, postures on the brink of reaching for a weapon. Veronica proved either her stupidity or her fitness as an A.U.N.T. agent by asking one more question. “Surely you were taught how to dance at the Academy?”
Both agents stiffened even more. “There was an—incident,” Daniel murmured.
“There was an—accident,” Alice murmured at the same time.
“I do not dance,”they reiterated in unison.
“You did the conga the other night,” Veronica pointed out.
“Under duress,” Daniel said. “And that was more a matter of accessorized walking.”
“Well, you must dance tonight,” Veronica persisted in what was perhaps the most death-defying action of the entire narrative. “Suspicion will fall on you if you don’t.”
“Cannot a chandelier or ceiling panel fall on me instead, thus excusing me from the evening?” Alice asked.
“Ha ha ha!” Snodgrass laughed heartily. “What a funny joke, Miss Dearlove!”
Alice stared at him with such icy intensity, it was remarkable he did not freeze on the spot. But instead he flushed, his mustache bristling. “I have just the solution!” he declared. “A little thing I’ve been working on in my spare time—self-dancing shoes! Why, put them on and you’ll be doing the can-can in no time!”
“More likely the crash-bang,” Daniel muttered.
“There is a far easier solution,” Veronica said. “You must practice!”
Before the agents could react, she reached out, grabbing Daniel’s hand and tugging him toward Alice. Only his utter bewilderment saved her from the tedium of three weeks in a hospital bed.
“Now, Agent B, place your hand on A’s upper back—thusly. And Agent A, place your hand on B’s arm. No, higher up—higher—just let me put it there for you. That’s it. Now, each hold the other’s free hand... Oh dear.”
