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“I don’t see why you even want to go back away to school,” Christopher said moodily, kicking his heels back against the bed. “You know Gabriel would let you stay and have lessons with us now if you wanted, especially after the fuss of the last one being awful.”
“But I don’t want to stay,” Milly said placidly. “I like school – at least I think I will – and he says this one is much better. Conrad, pass these pyjamas would you, please?”
Conrad, who had started to suspect he had been invited to help mostly to act as referee between the other two, did as he was told. Christopher had been sulking around the Castle like a small storm-cloud since they returned, and the news that Millie was finally healthy enough to go back to school did not seem to be helping his mood at all.
“It’s a stupid waste coming all the way to live here from another Series, and then being away at school half the time,” Christopher complained. “I barely see you except during the holidays, and they’re never long enough. I don’t see what you’ll get from hanging out with a group of silly girls all the time that you couldn’t do just as well here.” He turned to Conrad. “Tell her, won’t you, Grant? You don’t plan to go running off to school now we’ve brought you here, do you?”
“Uh..” Conrad bought time to answer by handing Millie another pile of clothing. “I’ve only just got here,” he pointed out diplomatically. “And besides I think your guardian wanted me educated here. It’s different for Millie.”
“What he means is that Millie’s already been here long enough to know she’d want to strangle you if she was here full-time,” Millie said, her voice suspiciously sweet as she carefully paired socks together. Christopher had spent the last fortnight getting on her last nerve, and enough was enough. “I can just about cope with you in the holidays. And as for it being a waste – you do realise that people come here for reasons other than to be your entertainment?”
Christopher scowled. “It’s hardly fair anyway,” he said. “It’s not as though Gabriel is going to allow me to leave the Castle ever again – or not until I’m actually Chrestomanci at any rate. Considering it was you I was coming to rescue, I think it’s very ungrateful of you to go off and leave me stuck here on my own.”
Millie held up three fingers and counted down on them. “One,” she said, folding a finger down, “you’re hardly on your own here. You have Conrad here, never mind everyone else – if you don’t want to be on your own I suggest you stop speaking to them as though they are your natural servants. Two, I never asked you to come and rescue me. If my plan had gone right, I was perfectly happy to stay – and in the end Gabriel would have turned up whether you were there or not. Three, if you want to leave the Castle again someday just stop being so stupid and proud and go apologise to him. You know that’s all he’s waiting for.”
“I’m not apologising when I was the one in the right!” Christopher said indignantly. “I said you were unhappy at that school, and I was right! I said you were off in another Series, and I was right again! All I did was get my life to take with me and that was mine anyway.”
“Your life – that was in Gabriel’s locked safe,” Millie pointed out. “That you broke into.”
Conrad concentrated hard on folding clothes and looking as though he wasn’t there. This was not an argument he particularly wanted to be in the middle of.
“If he didn’t want me to break into it, he shouldn’t have locked it away from me to start with,” Christopher said, too grumpy to be reasonable. “Anyway, I was highlighting important holes in his security. If I could get in there, so could someone else.”
Millie rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure the Series is just bursting with nine-lifed enchanters with the power to shake off the spells around it by snapping their fingers,” she said drily. “Really, Christopher, you can be insufferable when you want to be right.”
“I don’t want to be right, I am right,” Christopher informed her. “It’s just this Castle is filled with people who refuse to recognise that. Which is another reason why you shouldn’t leave me stuck here with them.”
“I’m hardly going to help when I agree with them!” Millie said. “Stop whining, Christopher, do. It’s hardly as though it’s even going to be that long – a third of the term is gone already thanks to the time I was stuck in bed. There’s really no need for all this complaining.”
Christopher refused to be cheered up. “And then you’re back at home for what, a whole three weeks before you go back again?” He gave her a doleful look. “If we’d followed my plan, we’d be on an island alone for as long as we liked just now.”
“And if you were in this kind of mood that would be about five minutes!” Millie retorted. “People are allowed lives that don’t centre entirely around you! For Heaven’s sake, if you’re complaining this much now what are you going to do when I leave school and get a job!”
That shut Christopher up, if only for a moment. He stared at Millie, looking startled. “You’re not going to stay at the Castle when you leave school?”
“It is customary for people to get a job when they grow up.” Millie looked as though she was unsure whether to glare at him or laugh at him. “What, did you think I was just going to stay around as ... as some kind of hanger-on?”
“There’d be plenty of jobs here at the Castle. Why can’t you work here?” Christopher protested.
“Yes. I can just see it now, I’d have a very promising career calming down everyone you managed to upset when you had your high-and-mighty head on,” Millie said, her voice teasing. “I don’t know. It might not even be in this Series even. There are a lot of worlds out there to explore.” She glanced at Conrad. “I could go look at yours for a while, hey?”
Conrad looked startled to be noticed. He’d been practicing looking like a useful piece of furniture with rather more success than he’d ever had as an Improver. “If you want,” he said doubtfully. “It might be dull if they’ve stopped the time-shifts now.”
“But that would be terrible!” Christopher said, sounding honestly distressed by the whole idea. “That would be even further away than Switzerland. I might not see you for years at a time.”
He sounded so genuinely upset that Millie set down the skirt she had been folding, softening a little. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she chided him gently. “You’re the very last person to have problems getting between worlds. And you really can’t expect people to stay forever, you know, not just to keep you company.”
“I’m not talking about people,” Christopher said, scowling. “I’m talking about you. That’s a different thing entirely.” He brightened suddenly, as an idea struck. “In fact, you should stay and we should get married. That would resolve any problems!”
Millie burst into laughter. Conrad too was stifling the urge to break into giggles. Christopher looked hurt. “I don’t see what’s so funny,” he protested. “You ought to be honoured. I’ll be Chrestomanci by then, there are plenty of people who would find that a tremendous honour.”
“I’d imagine most of them weren’t a Goddess once,” Millie said, her voice still filled with laughter. “Thanks, but I’ve had my fill at being centre of attention. Honestly, Christopher, you are in a strange mood today.”
“I’m not the only one refusing to get married,” Christopher said indignantly. “Which is a perfectly sensible idea. Even Grant here can tell you that.” He turned to Conrad again, raising his eyebrows. “I’m sure Grant would be very honoured to get married to me, wouldn’t you, Grant?”
Conrad turned slowly beet-red. “Uh. My name’s not Grant,” he pointed out. “And ... not really, no. She’s right, you’d just order anyone who married you around all the time.”
Millie was making a determined effort to stop giggling. It was not an easy feat. “No-one is ever going to marry you, Christopher, if you can’t remember their name,” she warned him. “And behaving as though you’re doing them a favour by asking is really not going to help.”
“Neither of you seem to understand that I am doing them a favour,” Christopher said sourly.
“I’m sure you are,” Millie said. “That’s why Gabriel has such a line of women beating a path to his door.”
The thought of dour old Gabriel turning into a womaniser was enough to raise a smile from even Christopher. “Fine,” he conceded. “But I’m not Gabriel, am I?”
“No,” Millie agreed. “When you’re in the mood to be, you’re a great deal worse I would say. You do realise that getting married means you’d have to admit you were wrong sometimes?”
Christopher opened his mouth to protest that, but Millie was already continuing, seeing a unrepeatable opportunity to explain to him just how annoying he could be at times. “And seeing as anyone you marry is probably going to have to soothe whoever you’ve insulted, you’re going to have to be nicer to everyone else too!”
“I’m very nice!” Christopher interjected, looking at Conrad as though for rescue from this litany.
Conrad considered, then shook his head. “You’re not, not really,” he said truthfully. “You can be very courteous, but only when you want to be, and that’s not really the same anyway.”
“It’s only ever when you want to be,” Millie agreed. “Everyone else you speak to as though they’re utterly stupid or something.”
“They usually are,” Christopher muttered, sounding sulky. He was not used to being so scolded.
“So ignore them!” Millie said, exasperated. “Or if you can’t do anything else, stare off into the distance and pretend you haven’t heard or something until you think of a better response! But, for Heaven’s sake, start soon because if you keep doing this when you’re Chrestomanci you’re going to offend someone really important and then there’ll be no end of trouble!”
“I’m not sure ignoring people counts as more polite,” Conrad said doubtfully.
“Oh, ignoring people is easy.” Millie shrugged that off. “I used to do that all the time as the Goddess. You just stare into the middle distance and look vague and people assume you’re thinking hard about something important.”
She demonstrated while Conrad looked on in fascination.
“If you’re both quite finished tearing my character to bits,” Christopher said with dignity. “I believe I have things to do. Or is there anything else you’d like to insult?”
Millie considered the question seriously. “Well, you could stop being so picky about your clothes all the time,” she said. “Honestly, you’d go mad if you did back go to school. You’d never cope with having to wear a uniform. I don’t know how you ever coped with it when you were little.”
“Excuse me, I do believe I just did wear a uniform, thank you very much,” Christopher retorted. “And Conrad will tell you that I looked very nice in it.”
Conrad hesitated, wondering how exactly he’d become a weapon in this disagreement. “Well..”
“Did he cheat?” Mollie demanded. “I bet he cheated. Did the uniform magically look as though it were made for him from the moment he put it on?”
“Something like that,” Conrad admitted.
“Ha!” Mollie looked triumphant. “I thought so. He can’t bear to wear anything he hasn’t already modified to look perfect. Except usually when he’s here he gets someone else to modify it because he can’t be bothered to do it himself.” She pointed an accusing finger at Christopher. “And as for the fuss about his pyjamas and dressing gowns!”
“What’s wrong with my dressing gowns?” Christopher demanded, outraged.
“You could feed a small village for a week on the cost of one of them!” Millie said. “And how many do you have now, six? And every single one someone has had to find, get shipped in and pay for.”
“Seven,” Christopher admitted. “But I didn’t have one for Sundays! I needed one!”
“Christopher, normal people do not have a Sunday dressing gown,” Millie told him sternly. “Or one reserved for any other day of the week for that matter. And now that you have seven, does that mean you’ll never need to buy another dressing gown?”
Conrad would never have believed that Christopher could have looked quite so ... crestfallen was probably the right word. He found himself feeling a little sorry as Christopher shuffled his feet.
“I like nice dressing gowns,” Christopher said stubbornly. “That’s hardly a crime.”
Even Millie looked a little repentant, as though suspecting she might have pushed things too far. “Fine,” she conceded. “Keep the silly dressing gowns. But at least do all the work for them yourself rather than having Castle staff looking after you. And I meant it about everything else needing to improve.”
“Before you’ll marry me?” A little of the impishness crept back into Christopher’s tone.
Mollie laughed at him again, but more gently this time, perhaps sensing it might be too easy to trample on his feelings. “Before anyone should,” she clarified. “I’m not promising anything. I’ve got years yet, and I’m not even sure I want to get married.”
It was an answer that Christopher seemed to like better than her first one, and he grinned, recovering his equilibrium. “We’ll get married,” he predicted confidently. “You just wait.” He glanced across at Conrad and winked. “Never mind, Gra—Conrad. No need to be jealous. You can be best man.”