"That's true." Alex took another big bite of sandwich instead of defending himself.
"I wonder if the artist saw anything," said Geoff idly. "She was in there doing quick drawings of people, silly ones."
"I suppose we could ask," said Alex. "I'm not interviewing any of the ladies again, though, not without Lapointe or someone there."
"That's probably wise," said Julian.
Alex sent him a little poke, not that he wasn't right. "What about you, Lucas? Going to get a little nap in after this, now that Rowlinson has everything in hand?"
Lucas sighed. "I don't think I can get away with it. Everyone wants a word, you know, just to be assured nothing's going to tarnish their reputations or ruin the party or, I don't know, cause a missed meal."
"That one's me," added Alex.
"Well, I prescribe a nap for us both," said Geoff, in his best doctor voice. "You two should nap after tea, before you get ready for dinner."
"The cats will probably like that," said Alex. "They slept in bed all night last night, usually they get bored and leave us at some point."
"Not that we don't know they didn't leave and come back," corrected Julian, "but it's still unusual to wake up to them still snuggling instead of trying to poke us awake for something."
"There was a little poking," Alex reminded him. "Mostly for petting, though."
"They're very spoiled, I suppose," said Julian, not that either of them minded. Cats were for spoiling, that was their truest function, even away from the Source like this.
Alex finished his sandwich half and had more water. "Whoever decided we needed feeding up is my hero, by the way. I have already used way more magic than expected and it's barely after noon."
"After you asking for food all evening yesterday, the staff asked me and were granted leave to treat you like a hungry fieldworker," said Chudleigh, amused. "This is about what they get during harvest season for lunch."
"Lucky them," said Julian, having another big bite of potatoes. "This is all really good, and filling. Good energy."
"I could use some sugar later," said Alex, "but tea will probably be soon enough."
"Especially if we get caffeine before then. Maybe they can switch to coffee, get the whole party wired," said Julian.
Alex sent him a wave of love for the suggestion. He definitely needed more caffeine to face the rest of the day.
Chapter 19
Julian sighed as unobtrusively as possible as yet another person came up to them and regaled them with increasingly improbable theories about the murders.
The current person was betting on it being ghosts.
"...no way anyone living could possibly have gotten to both cups!" declared Miss Periwig, who had seemed much more sensible the first time around.
"We'll keep that in mind," said Alex, "but ghosts have their own magical signatures that are quite distinctive."
They'd both made a particular study of the subject for a few weeks after the second Duckworth incident, comparing notes with the Guardians and everything. Everyone agreed that Duckworth was a unique case, because of the fog-man problem making it impossible to really tease out his magical aura at all.
Julian smiled wanly at her and said, "In the meantime, why don't you go play cards, get your mind off of things?"
"Oh, I don't know, it's such a serious time," she prevaricated.
"And there's nothing to do but wait now," said Alex, surprisingly gently for all Julian could feel through their bond that he wanted to smother the woman to shut her up.
"Well, yes, all right," she said. "I'm sure you two have something important going on, anyway."
That seemed to be the consensus, as well, that whatever Alex and Julian were doing was important to the investigation.
In reality, they were mostly killing time while Alex listened to people's magics, though most of them never shut up long enough for him to get a good sense of anything but the amazing quantity of personal care charms on every single person there, including them. He'd been complaining about it when Miss Periwig came up to them, in fact, and Julian had had to cover it up by asking after her.
