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"Yes, Niece, you suular spinster of severe attitude and liht once have been pretty but obviously never allowed herself, nor others, to enjoy that fact There was ood humor and mischief that the aunt had never bothered to cultivate The specter was beginning to go fuzzy, not so badly as Alexia’s ghostlyfor this world

As soon as she spotted Lady Maccon, the ghost drew herself inward, appearing to wrap the drifting threads of her noncorporeal self closer, as a raps his cloak around after shifting

"Why, you have the soulless visiting you, Niece Honestly, I don’t knohy you persist in such an association" The ghost’s voice was bitter, but more out of habit than any real offense Then she see "Where? What? Where airl?" She swirled in a circle "You have built an octoain What could possibly be so dire?" As she spoke, the ghost shifted between French and heavily accented English Luckily, Alexia was tolerably competent in both

Madame Lefoux, her expression stiff in an atteers in front of her deceased aunt’s face "Now, Aunt, please pay attention Lady Maccon here has so very serious to ask of you Go on, Alexia"

"Formerly Lefoux, are you familiar with the attempt on Queen Victoria’s life that took place in the winter of 1853? A Scottish olf pack was ihost bobbled up and down in surprise, losing some small measure of control over bits of herself An eyebrow detached froh not intimately, of course Not from the actual assassination perspective but more from the sidelines I lost one of my students because of it"

"Oh?"

"Why, yes Lost her to the , so????wait What were you asking? What are we discussing? Why air assassination atteine having to take on that kind of responsibility At sixteen! And over olves Werewolves who planned a poisoning So s out of character Out of the supernatural order Was it ever put right, I wonder?"

Alexia pulled aMaccon was your student?"

The ghost’s head tilted "Sidheag That name is familiar Oh, why, yes So hard to finish in one way, so easy to finish in another A strong girl, good at finishing But then again, strength in girls is not so ht to be"

Lady Maccon, as interested as she was in anything to do with her husband’s great-great-great-granddaughter, now one of the only feair Pack, felt she host back onto more relevant matters "Did you happen to hear, at the time, whether there was a connection between the assassination attempt and the Order of the Brass Octopus?"

"Connection? Connection? Of course not"

Alexia was taken aback by the firhost’s voice "How can you be so certain?"

"How can I not? Iainst Queen Victoria We would have known I would have known Someone would have told me" Formerly Beatrice Lefoux swirled about in her distress, once ht of Madah hypnotized by the i "Oh, Genevieve, I can’t believe you would I can’t Not for anything Why, child, why? IAlexia onceher for the first ti in the end, won’t you? Even ether, closed her eyes, and gave a sad sigh "There she goes We won’t get anyI’ht It wasn’t precisely what I was hoping for, but it has convinced air as soon as possible I must convince inal plot Only they can fully unravel this mystery I can’t believe that the OBO was not involved, but if your aunt says so with such conviction, only the source of the threat itself can reveal the truth of the matter"

"And, of course, my aunt was never a enuinely surprised

"Absolutely not Women weren’t allowed to join back in her day It’s difficult enough now" The French inventor, one of the smartest people Alexia had ever er the octopus tattoo that lay hidden there, just under the curls of her scandalously short hair Alexia tried to iround world Impossible

Alexia said, "I shall have to send someone to Scotland I don’t suppose?????"

Madame Lefoux looked even more unhappy "Oh, no I am sorry, ht now I have this"--she waved a hand at the --"to finish And my aunt to think of I should be with her, now that the end is near"

Lady Maccon turned to the inventor and, because she seeently It ard given Alexia’s belly but worth it for the slight lessening Alexia could feel in Genevieve’s stiffened shoulders "Would you like me to send her on?" she asked in a hushed voice

"No, thank you I ahed and released her friend "Well, worry not on this particular et to the bottom of it Even if I have to send Ivy Tunstell to Scotland for me!"

Fated words that, as is often the case with frivolous speech, Alexia was going to coret

CHAPTER SIX

In Which Mrs Tunstell Proves Useful

Were they not recently ht have ers, perhaps But the pack was in chaos over the relocation They were nowhere near as tethered to a place as vampires, but olves were, in simple terms, tethered to each other and were creatures of profound habit Such arbitrary reorganization ruffled the fur Solidarity and proximity became ever more necessary for the pack’s continued cohesion Were BUR not occupied with its own investigation as to the current threat against Queen Victoria, Alexia ator And, finally, were the Shadow Council supplied with its own agents, the muhjah would have had manpower to call upon However, with none of these options readily available, Lady Maccon cast about herself and found that she had only one possible choice--as unlikely and as addlepated as that choice ht household, despite overseeing her rented accommodations with a floppy hand and absentminded disposition Her abode was clean and neat, and callers could be assured of a decent cup of tea or candy dish of rawupon taste and inclination Despite an interior resplendent in every shade of pastel, Ivy’s ho hole As a result, the Tunstells had developed a na the reeable hosts interested in a wide range of topics and ever willing to open their door to the friendly visitor This uaranteed to find some breed of indifferent poet or insipid sculptor in residence

So it was that when Lady Maccon called around teatihted Mrs Tunstell welcomed her inside with assurances that while they had indeed adopted a stray poet, that versifier was quite firmly asleep and had been for the better part of three days