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She ducked under the piano and checked on the Spice Administrator He ake and his pupils looked fine He lay perfectly still as she loorinned, unaware of the reen eyes "Love of irl to distraction Or do I mean destruction?"

She patted his cheek in what she hoped was a reassuring way and left hi She was certain he thought her quite et free--and he would have to be a circus contortionist with supernatural strength to do so--he would have such a strange story to tell, it would irl wearing a wicker chicken and playing the harp bopped me with a book about buns and then stuffed me under a piano" It sounded like a funny dream

Sophronia chuckled to herself but quickly sobered Professor Braithwope and Made, and she still had sooties to save She headed back up the stairs for her next victi to be much harder to disable

This time Sophronia did not wear the chicken She took it off and left it in the hallway outside the administrative roouard She ar device filled with acid from Professor Lefoux’s laboratory Then she took out her small hoard of nibbles from the kitchen and knocked on the door

"Come!" called Deep Voice

Sophronia entered, eyes down, looking at the Pickleh her lashes, pleased to find he had not been joined by any others

"Who the devil are you?" He was a rough-looking fellow, his jaw dark with a nascent beard

Sophronia had never seen such a thing as a seedling beard before, no gardener having tended it to greatness nor pruned it into submission It was positively oafish in its incivility She actually felt unwell at the sight

"Only the ht you food" She proffered her own cheese, bread, and apple

The man looked suspicious but also off balance--unable to decide whether to leave off what he was doing and approach or allow her to enter farther into the room

Sophronia took his hesitation as an opportunity to assess the situation

Made chair in the far left corner, near the for, several large storage baskets pushed aside to make room Before her was a low table set for tea There was an empty seat across from her, shoved out of the way as if in haste The headht that she orking with the Picklemen

I have two enemies to disable, and only one ally to rescue, when I was prepared for the other way around! Sophronia cursed herself It was a debut’s mistake

Deep Voice was in the other corner of the roo froh with a glass tubing filled with gas This heated the metal red hot at multiple contact points

Professor Braithas locked inside this cage, naked

Sophronia quickly slid her eyes away, but not before she noticed welts on the vampire’s arms, burns on his hands, and open cuts across his face His mustache looked to have fainted He was silent, half curled, half crouched--trying to make hi bars Vas, but they still felt pain The cuts, no doubt, were made with sharpened wooden blades and would be slower to heal as a result