Of course I wouldn't have blurted out a question like "Were you in love with Reed Richards all those years ago?", because whether the answer was yes or no, Victor might very well have lost control of the aircraft and sent us plunging into the Atlantic. I thought about it while I hunted through the internet for a original copy of the Malleus—it was so very improbable, yet difficult to dismiss entirely—but then I got distracted from that train of thought once I found a library in Antwerp which had both a copy and a cash flow problem. I had begun to think I would do better to buy some calfskin parchment and copy it out myself. (Calligraphy is my one area of artistic talent.)

The distraction came when I checked my bank balance to see how much I had left after the lingerie spree of the day before, and discovered that not only did I have more than I would have thought, I had a lot more than I had saved out of my salary. I knew who was behind that…

Apparently many arguments in new marriages stem from just three sources: sex (no problem there!) division of chores (Castle Doom had a household staff of 350) and finances. Surely, given who we were and the possibilities open to us, Victor and I could find more original and interesting things to fight about besides money. It was probably best that we came to an understanding about this as early as we could.

"Victor," I said, "Thank you for anticipating that my expenses were going to go up. I appreciate how thoughtfully and tactfully you dealt with it, too. A lot. I am a little lost, though, because I don't really know what these funds are intended to cover. I assume I'll be paying my lawyer out of this, but what about Ulrike, my wardrobe assistant? Do I pay her directly, or is she still on the staff payroll? And what sort of budget do you foresee for the next year? Before you make any sweeping statements like 'unlimited', let me say two words that should strike ice into your heart: 'Imelda Marcos.'"

He laughed. "Never tell me you have an unguessed passion for shoes?"

"I like nice shoes as much as the next woman, provided the next woman isn't Imelda Marcos, but I was thinking of other things. Of course you know I went to all the museums and theaters in Washington DC when we were there earlier this year."

"Yes. That is why we will be enjoying 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' on our wedding day."

"Exactly. I also went to the libraries, and after I visited the main branch of the DC public library, I thought that if I ever had enough money to donate, enough to make a significant difference, I would give it to them."

"Why?" Victor asked.

"Because, frankly, the condition of that building is disgraceful. It was designed by Mies van der Rohe, an important architect, named in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. a great man, and even if neither of those was reason enough to see to it that it was kept in good repair and well funded, it's the main branch of the public library of the capitol of the United States. Symbolically, it stands for all the public libraries of America—yet whenever I visited, half the elevators were out of order, the bookcases had things like banana peels, empty soda cans, and crumpled up potato chip bags shelved alongside of the books, the stairwells had sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling to funnel leaking water into enormous plastic garbage cans, and the ladies' room was scary for a number of reasons which I will not go into. The remains of the old pneumatic tube system for delivering messages was still in place."

"How much would you like to give them? They could hardly refuse a donation, even though it comes from Doom, and calling attention to the deplorable state of the library would deliver a subtle comment upon the American sense of priority—as subtle as if it were delivered with a stiletto. I approve of it."

Victor would naturally think that way. Well, whatever his reasons for donating the funds, they were sorely needed.

"One billion dollars would be good; two would be better. Someone would also be needed to oversee how it was spent, or else the greater part of it will be diverted to the new baseball stadium, and the children of DC will continue to think that empty sports drink bottles are shelved under 'B'." I quipped.

"Then five billion would be better still. I shall appoint Albert to select an overseer—he graduated from Howard University and therefore ought to have some sense of the political realities of Washington…"

Our finance discussion lasted the rest of the trip home, and it wasn't exactly all settled. We finally hammered out an agreement that purchases of a million Euros or more would call for a discussion first, but that left a lot of grey area. It was an amiable talk (I quietly arranged for the purchase and delivery of the Malleus while we talked.)

Then we were in Latverian airspace, and descending through the clouds to the main square of Doomstadt, where the citizens were waiting to welcome us home. Victor likes to be greeted with a great deal of fanfare when he comes back to his people, even after a short absence. He doesn't actually require a brass band, but there usually is one.

Anyone who wonders why Victor should be so loved by his subjects, and command such loyalty as he does should study more history. The Haasens were a joke, the Soviets were worse, but the Ceausescus were monsters. Under their regime, birth control was banned completely, and couples were paid a bounty for every baby they produced, so the population swelled prodigiously—but then the parents weren't able to house, feed and clothe all their many children. Ceausescu then kindly provided orphanages in which to stockpile the excess—in conditions which made my life with my mother seem paradisiacal, and my mother herself a stable and steady person.

Thanks to Victor's efforts, Latveria is now one of the three best places for mothers and children to live in the entire world—and he's seriously annoyed that we aren't first. That is only part of why he is greeted with such enthusiasm…

I had never before attended of his triumphal re-entries before, from either side—I had always returned via a commercial airline, or been somewhere else, but I had seen them from a distance. There seemed to be a lot of people down there—more than was usual. I said as much to Victor.

"That will be on your account, my dear. This is a joyous occasion for them—their first opportunity to greet you as my bride."

Indeed, as Victor landed our craft as delicately as a snowflake alighting on the ground, and I beheld the crowd at street level, there was a certain flowery, bridal component to this greeting—garlands of blossoms, streamers, and a whole flock of little girls in their Sunday best white frocks, with little bouquets of flowers in their hands.

As Victor stood up and handed me out of the aircraft, the people sent up a cheer, and the little girls rushed me, holding up the flowers as high as they could, and waving them. It made me laugh just out of happiness, and I took them, giving each a hug and kiss in return for her flowers.

It felt natural, like holding little Hugo Angevin had, while he looked up at me with his root-beer candy eyes and gurgled. It felt like kissing a child repeatedly and frequently would be something I could not only handle, but enjoy—even though one had got hold of some candy and was sticky.

I knew why the people were giving me all this attention—I represented a lot of things to them as Victor's bride, his wife, the potential mother of his children. I meant stability and change both—I represented the future, the possibility of an heir. I was a lot more hopeful now than I could have been only a short day before, and so I smiled and waved and thanked them like anything. Victor thanked them, too, and we went up the hill to the castle together.

There was indeed a lot to be done for the wedding, but before I got into it all, I went up to my suite to change my blouse—between the lily pollen from the flowers and the little girl with the candy, it was a mess.

I paused and looked around. My bedroom was just as it was before, except that the horticulture department had put vases of tall vanilla-ice-cream colored roses around. Yet something was different. It somehow no longer seemed like a place I could never live in. It seemed a lot more like home. If nothing about the room had changed—then I must have done the changing.

It was still a bit impersonal, though. There were only a few things around that I had chosen, things that had a private significance for me—the millifiore paperweight I bought in Venice when I was eleven, when my birth mother had taken my stepsister and I on a vacation to Italy—the photograph of Galina Florescu, who was also my mother, through being the first Joviana Florescu's mother. I would have to find more ways to make this room mine.

I found a fresh blouse. In the moment between removing the soiled blouse and putting on the new, I paused again, and looked at myself in the mirror. Why was I so concerned about my breasts being too small? I mean, I was a woman, not a cow. I wasn't flat chested. I was…proportionate for my height and build.

Maybe it was about what breasts were for. Not just sex, but babies. Maybe the real reason I thought my breasts were inadequate was because I had been afraid I didn't have what it took to be a good mother—that I wouldn't be able to nurture.

It could be that I was reading too much into it. In a world with Pamela Anderson and the Wonderbra, there was plenty to make a more modestly built girl insecure. I put on my blouse.

What had I said to Victor the night before? "I wonder how much else of what I thought I knew about myself is false."—or something to that effect. Now I wondered what the truths were that had to be there instead. I was looking forward to finding out…

This level of the tower was divided—there was Victor's suite—which he had yet to show to me, there was mine—but the tower was larger than that. There was an area that had to be at least the same size as mine. I left my rooms and stepped into the little circular hall.

There was a door, and it was not locked. I opened it, and entered—an empty space. An area that was all bare walls and floor, no furniture, nothing that divided it into rooms, no fixtures, just walls and windows, ceiling and floor.

I knew what it was meant for, of course. It was the nursery suite. I crossed the space to look out the windows. My suite faced the mountains—Victor's, from the orientation of it, must look out over Doomstadt, which meant that this window showed the interior courtyard of the castle itself. The well which had been my doorway to Hades was there, far below, as well as the medieval garden, now replanted and restored to the way it had been when it was first planted, where I had been standing when Johnny Storm made the comment that first made me aware that I could be attractive—and which had prompted Victor to remark that he had noticed, too.

It was also the best-guarded direction, the one which would be hardest to attack. The safest, in other words. Victor was thinking of the future. There were a lot of possibilities in that room…

Then I realized something which I had not taken into account before, something which made me break into one of the biggest smiles of my life.

Mephisto had tempted me with many things, but the only one which had truly tried my resolve was the promise that I would not have to fear motherhood. He had said there was no trick, that I would be able to have children, and be a good mother, that I wouldn't die until I was very old, in my own bed, with my family around me, after a long and happy life.

But what was the first and immutable law about dealing with demons? "Demons always cheat." Always. Whatever they actually promise you, you will get, but there is going to be a catch.

Where would the catch be in that circumstance, if I got what he promised?

Only if what he promised me was something I already possessed…

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A/N: The description of the MLK jr Library in DC is unhappily accurate. I live in the DC area. So too is the detail about the Ceaucescu regime.