However Lucrezia had managed it in the first place, connecting a Muse to Castle Heterodyne proved predictably fiddly. Just as predictably, it was one of the more fascinating technical experiences of Klaus's life. Beetle's rhapsodies about the Muses were entirely justified, even if this particular clank was at present occupied by the wrong mind.

Once that was settled, they headed back to Castle Wulfenbach, where Von Pinn greeted them with urgent alarm. "Herr Baron. Master Barry. Where are Master Gil and Miss Agatha?"

"They're still in Castle Heterodyne," Barry said. "They're fine. But it turns out we need you to come with us."

"You left children alone with Castle Heterodyne?" she demanded. "Take me to them right now."

Well, Klaus thought, that solved getting her to come with them. Whether they could convince her to come to Lucrezia's lab instead of running off to find her charges he had no idea.

The ride back down to Mechanicsburg passed in uncomfortable silence, and she was hard enough to keep up with once they landed that they were inside Castle Heterodyne before there was really another opportunity for conversation. "Where did you leave them?"

"Gradok's lab," Barry said, laying a hand on her arm. "Madame Von Pinn, I mean it, they're fine." Then, apparently deciding on the direct approach, "But we found a copy of Castle Heterodyne occupying Otilia's body. It claims you're the one who belongs there."

She stiffened under his hand, trembling violently, and finally said in a choked voice, "The Castle...always..." She hissed. "I am...I can...I will go with you."

"Thank you. We just need to, ah, collect your body and head down to Lucrezia's lab." He glanced up and addressed the Castle. "Which you can locate now, right?"

"There is a secret passage leading down from her bedroom. I still can't feel it, but I now remember where it is. As you go down it, please see if my mechanisms near it have been blocked," said the Castle.

The Muse was shut down and empty when they reached the library, an oddly unsettling sight. Barry disconnected it, and Klaus carefully folded the great tattered wings and picked it up. Even at his height, it made an awkward burden, but was easy enough to carry. Less fragile than the tales of the Muses' destruction suggested - the interior workings were a marvel of delicacy, but if you didn't open it up and start taking things apart, you weren't going to damage them that easily.

Lucrezia's bedroom still felt like her, which also remained vaguely unsettling, as if she might pop out from behind a mirror at any moment. Klaus was distracted enough by that fancy that Barry opening the secret passage made him start, despite being at the Castle's explicit direction.

"And you can't feel this at all?" Barry was saying, stepping in and out of the passageway and inspecting the entrance.

"Ah, no," said the Castle, sounding rather unnerved. "It's as if you keep disappearing."

Klaus walked over and peered past Barry into the passage, not at all sure what he was looking for.

"I suppose your awareness has to have boundaries somewhere," Barry muttered, "but this is bizarre. What in the world would..." He trailed off, into classic Heterodyne humming with a distinctly baffled air. "...Correspond to a local anaesthetic?"

Klaus frowned, as an edge to the humming caught at his mind. Every so often Barry would hit a particular note and there would be an echo, a soft burring noise. "Do you hear that?' he whispered, twisting his head back and forth as he tried to work out where the echo was coming from.

Barry paused, then resumed humming more systematically. The echo caught again and held, and then Barry picked a wrench off his belt and jammed it into the wall.

"Ah," said the Castle. "Ow. Pins and needles. But I can see you, now. The passage fades out again about ten feet in."

"There must be a lot of them, then," Barry said, frowning down toward where the passage spiraled out of sight. "Thanks, Klaus." He started humming again as he advanced down the steps.

"We should try to get hold of an intact one," Klaus said.

"Would that really be necessary?" asked the Castle.

"Useful," Barry admitted. "We could figure out how they work. I should have dug that one out, I was just... annoyed."

"Family feeling?" said Klaus.

Barry eyed him a bit balefully. "...Maybe."

Klaus managed not to laugh.

Barry dutifully extracted the next device from its camouflaged niche and took it apart in a less irreversible manner until it stopped working. Then he poked around the niche until there was a snapping noise and a blue spark and drew back. "How's that? If they were all on the same circuit, they should be off now."

"That's much better," said the Castle. "I can see the laboratory too, now, but...hmmm. I still can't see the end of this passageway, it just keeps going down further than I've ever been able to see."

"Something else we'll have to check later," said Klaus. He wondered how, exactly, Lucrezia had dug a tunnel. Either she'd had help or she'd built a tunneling device without any of them knowing.

"Worrying," Barry said. "But yes, we'll investigate later." He steered the unresisting Von Pinn onward, down the spiral - Klaus glanced back and noticed that the stairs had a pre-gloating checklist on them - and into a surprisingly cosy laboratory that bore the signs of unplanned departure but (thankfully) not of beasties, prisoners, or dark gods. Unless you counted the skulls in the autoclave, which had long since lost its seal and leaked. Several items had fallen over; Lucrezia evidently hadn't secured her secret laboratory in preparation for the destruction of the Castle. There was a tea cart, complete with the residues of very stale tea.

Barry, of course, seated Von Pinn carefully in the armchair and headed straight for the notebooks, while Klaus set down the Muse and went to inspect the equipment directly. They'd have to rebuild a lot of melted circuitry - probably backwards - but the basics seemed to be in reasonably good shape.

"How long is it going to take before we can do this, do you think?" Klaus asked. There was a limit to how long they could leave the children in even the most fascinating laboratory, and probably a limit to how long the Castle would wait for them to present Agatha.

Barry brought the notes over to compare them to the equipment. "Less than an hour, I think, and that's with a few minor revisions to reduce the risk of overload. All the groundwork's laid already."

"Why a Muse?" Klaus wondered aloud, as he read the notes over Barry's shoulder, and then answered his own question. "Clank lifeform. The Muses and the Castle must be the only known examples, I suppose getting access to both was too much to resist."

"Not a lot of Sparks who get hold of a Muse do resist," Barry said wryly. "Although most of them don't go swapping minds around. Muse to an organic brain, Castle to Muse... of course, the Castle was based on a human mind originally..."

"It never talks about itself that way," Klaus said. "As a human, I mean. But neither do the Jägers."

"Evidently, becoming a building changes you," Barry said flippantly, and then he laid the book down and his face drained to a ghastly ashen grey.

Klaus grabbed his arm. "Barry? Are you okay?"

Von Pinn surprised him by walking over to take Barry's other arm. "Come and sit down," she suggested.

"I'm-" Barry blinked, looking slightly less ill and more confused at Von Pinn's arrival, then took a deep breath. "Not... actually going to faint," he finished, in a rather wan effort at humour. He did let them sit him down, though. "Lucrezia was too... purposeful to be shunting minds around just for fun," he said. "We know she meant to copy herself into Agatha. I don't know if she thought she could empty the Castle's mind into Otilia, or what... but Bill and I found her in a fortress she'd built out in orbit." He swallowed. "I only just thought of it. I suppose anyone else would have thought it was odd for so many things to move on their own."

"You think there's a fortress in orbit that contains a copy of her mind," said Klaus, feeling rather grey himself at the thought.

"Hmph," said the Castle. "My mind is far too vast to be emptied out so easily."

"Yes," Barry said. "Ah, we did a lot of damage. Hers is probably in worse shape than this Castle was when we got here. At least it shouldn't be able to start dropping rocks again independently... I think. We should probably check on that."

"On the one hand that's good to know. On the other the Castle was insane when we got here, and Lucrezia..." Klaus sighed. "As long as she can't do anything about it, I suppose." He tried not to think about the vast damaged mind hanging alone in space that had once, in some form, been the woman he loved.

Barry looked over at him, then surged back to his feet to begin work on the wiring. "I don't know what she can do," he said. "I... assume I only survived because I was with Bill most of the time and she still didn't have the heart to kill him on purpose."

She hadn't had the heart to kill him either, Klaus thought. Shipping him to Skifander had been unnecessary, but she had cared enough not to just kill him. Considering that she had killed Bill though, even by accident, and after so much destruction, made what she'd done to him seem almost trivial. He turned back to the wiring. "We'll have to deal with her sooner or later," he said.

"Yes." Barry started heterodyning after that agreement, which Klaus took as a cue that he didn't want to talk, even though it wasn't always.

The atonal noise didn't always make concentration easier for people who weren't Heterodynes - some found it downright irritating - but Klaus had worked with them enough that he associated it with focussed work and close companions. Perhaps because they were both ferociously trying not to think of anything else, the work took nearer half an hour than a full one before the empty Muse was connected.

"Madame Von Pinn," Barry said quietly. "...Otilia. Ready when you are."

"I have been ready for a long time," said Von Pinn, which was probably not a comment on how long they'd taken. "Where do you need me?"

"On the slab, please. The restraints are purely in case of convulsions." Or possibly last-second activation of an implanted compulsion to resist. They weren't entirely sure they could restrain Von Pinn, but Lucrezia appeared to have scavenged the shackles from old Heterodyne laboratory materials, so at least they were sturdy.

Von Pinn smiled faintly and allowed them to restrain her, and Barry threw the first switch. Electricity danced through the room, but that was expected. (Klaus could think of a few ways to cut down on it, but they'd been more concerned with speed than conserving power. Sometimes the trick was convincing Castle Heterodyne you only needed so much, especially since it seemed to be fond of the displaced Muse.) Lucrezia's admittedly elegant system of indicators informed them that neural translation and synchrony had been achieved, and they threw the remaining switches. The rock of the floor vibrated under them, briefly; Von Pinn went still and white, and Otilia's eyes opened.

"How are you feeling?" Klaus asked.

Otilia sat up and examined her hand, opening and closing it, then flexed her wings before looking down at herself. "Somewhat in need of a new dress," she said. "Thank you. It is a relief to be in a mechanical body again."

"I'll get somebody to work on the dress," Barry said. "And your feathers."

"There's some damage to the wing structure, too," she said. "It feels like just the struts, not the mechanisms."

"I know someone who can look you over, if you like," said Klaus, thinking that they were going to make Dr Beetle's entire life if they turned up with a Muse who needed even a little fixing. And he could probably be trusted not to do anything but fixing, especially with both of them waiting nearby. "After that do you want to remain in my employment? I take it you no longer need to take care of Agatha."

"I do," said Otilia. "That order did not come from Lucrezia alone."

Barry looked up from dismantling the transfer circuitry again, bemused. "Who else could have given it?"

Otilia clasped her hands together, posture rigid. "My Master instructed me to protect the Heterodyne Girl. My Creator ordered me to keep her safe."

The Storm King and Van Rijn. It never seemed tactful or prudent to ask Castle Heterodyne or the Jägers too much about them. But Klaus throttled his thoughts back from historical fascination to that peculiar emphasis-

Barry beat him to it. "Safe," he said. "As in the opposite of dangerous, I'm guessing?"

"Yes." Otilia's wings shifted, Klaus got the impression if she was human she would have swallowed. "I thought I would have to kill her and guard her grave. But Agatha is a darling child, and certainly no threat to Europe."

"I'm glad you agree," Barry said, sounding... relatively composed considering Otilia's declaration. "But she's also," he pointed out, "not Euphrosynia. Did they both seriously say 'the Heterodyne Girl'?"

"Yes," said Otilia. "Unfortunately I cannot ignore orders because they were given by fools."

"Okay," said Barry. "That's... awkward, but at least you apparently have some room to interpret them. Although 'kill her and guard the grave' is clearly not a solution any of us want to see. If you don't see Agatha as a threat to Europe, that one shouldn't be an issue... right? So what would satisfy the order?"

"My Creator's original intention was that I should guide her, teach her to be someone who would not plunge people into war to satisfy her own whims. In this case you've done much of my job for me already," she added, smiling at him slightly. "I will not harm a child, ever, you have my word on that. I would prefer to teach her, and to protect her, and to do the same for those others currently placed in my charge."

Barry smiled at that. "So, Klaus found pretty much the perfect role for you already after all?"

"Yes. I would like to continue in it."

"You're welcome to," said Klaus, unable to help grinning at the idea of a Muse wanting to stay on as schoolteacher. Goodness knew what the nobility were going to think. "I know the children will be safe in your hands."

"Wonderful," said Barry. "Speaking of which - we should probably go get Agatha and Gil. Castle Heterodyne's been waiting long enough, and Castle Wulfenbach is certainly out of range of the bell."

The laboratory had boxes full of dragons. Barry Heterodyne's description of his childhood sounded weird and kind of disturbing, and Castle Heterodyne apparently didn't approve of caring about anyone outside your town, but... on the other hand, it had boxes of dragon clanks.

"Your house isn't quite what I was expecting," Gil said to Agatha, as he lifted out a segmented and rather snakelike dragon. This one didn't have any wings, so he set it aside gently and reached back in for another.

"Me neither." Agatha picked up a blue one and regarded it in surprise when it sloshed. "It can be mean, but it sounds like it's happy to see us."

Gil nodded. "I was expecting it to be evil, like things in stories that are really scary all the time. Mostly it seems like it bullies people, but...it's a lot like a person." He laid out five dragons with different wing types, including one of the tiny ones with insect wings, and set about comparing them.

"I think maybe it is? Uncle Barry said it was based on one of our ancestors..." She dug out a double handful of the tiny clanks, making Gil wince for the sake of the stiffly outstretched wings, then flopped down on her stomach on top of the worktable, with the swarm scattered in front of her. They didn't look damaged.

"I knew that," said Gil. And he had, it just hadn't quite sunk in that a building that bit people could also be something quite human. "I guess your ancestors sounded a bit like evil wizards in stories too. Sorry."

Agatha thought about that a moment, not really looking offended. "Uncle Barry also says people used to call Sparks magic, and stuff. Maybe they were."

"Wizards and dragons and talking castles," said Gil. "And skulls," he added, remembering the chapel. "I feel like we should be rescuing a princess." Only given the make-up of their school Agatha was more likely to be rescuing Gil from princesses. "This is more fun though," he added, very gently spreading a bat-like wing of worn canvas on ivory struts.

Agatha giggled. "It is." She thought for a minute. "I guess Uncle Barry and Baron Wulfenbach are kind of rescuing a Muse?"

"I hope she's happier being a proper Muse again," said Gil.

"Me too. It seems like it'd be uncomfortable having somebody put you in a different body." Agatha bit her lip. "I don't know why my mother would do that..."

Gil reached over to put an arm around her, the position slightly awkward with her lying on the table. It sort of looked like both sides of Agatha's family were strange in different ways. "I don't know."

Agatha sighed and leaned her head against his for a few seconds, then sniffed and sat up. "I'm gonna look at the tools and see if they're all dragony."

Gil pulled back and nodded. "I was wondering if any of these could be scaled up. If I built a flying dragon I'd want to ride it. Maybe I'll ask your uncle later if Franz can fly."

"Ooh." Agatha perked up at that. "If you make a riding-dragon, can I come too? If Franz gives rides I'll bring you..."

"Of course," said Gil. "I probably can't actually do it, though. No one even knows if I'm likely to be a Spark."

"I guess," Agatha said, set back a bit by this. "But you're really smart and I bet we can come up with something!"

"Well, if it's both of us we can probably do something," said Gil, grinning at her. "If I'm not a Spark I could be your minion instead."

Agatha grinned back, but wrinkled her nose. "If we're waiting for me to break through it would take too long," she complained. "Baron Wulfenbach said ten was early. Hey, this is weird..." She clambered down to show him a particularly complicated little dragon. "This was in with the tools. Look at its feet!"

"Oh, wow." Unlike most dragons it had six feet, and each of them had four talons with bits sticking out, like on a key. "Do you think it opens doors?"

Agatha poked at them, intrigued. "Why would... ohh, I see." She jumped up and went to look at the unused lock on the laboratory door, then up at the ceiling. "Castle, couldn't Gradok have just asked you to open things? Did he take this other places?"

"His breakthrough caused nineteen explosions, after which he was placed in a cage until the worst of it passed," said the Castle. "A number of Heterodynes in that situation have invented lockpicks, but his solution was probably the most creative if not the most co-operative."

Agatha and Gil blinked at each other. Apparently Baron Wulfenbach hadn't been kidding about resorting to the cages. "What did he make that blew up?" Agatha asked after a moment.

"Wyverns," said the Castle. "His older brother adapted them for use on the battlefield as much larger versions, which only blew up as a last resort rather than accidentally."

"...Do we still have any?" Agatha asked, sounding interested.

"No," said the Castle. "Not the small ones, and I don't think your uncle wants you playing with the big ones."

"What did you mean about it not being cooperative?" asked Gil.

"It got him out of the cage," said the Castle. "But he had to chase it down afterwards."

"So if we woke it up again, it would probably fly away from us?" Gil could see why Agatha hadn't said "run". Its feet weren't really built for that.

"It might unlock any doors you asked it to first," said the Castle. "But probably, yes. I could power it up if you like, it could be entertaining."

"Ooh," Agatha began, then slumped down a little. "Um, but Uncle Barry would probably be really upset if we ran off to chase it. And they're bringing Madame Von Pinn."

"Yeah, she'd probably be really mad," said Gil.

Agatha brightened. "Could you keep it in here?"

"Yes," said the Castle sounding a bit indignant that she'd thought it couldn't. "But that's no fun for me or the dragon."

"Aw." Agatha petted it, even though it was shut down. "I wanted to see it."

"You are no fun at all," the Castle informed her. Apparently it wanted to get them in trouble. (Gil had to admit, to himself anyway, that chasing a lockpicking dragon all over the Castle sounded like fun. But Baron Wulfenbach and Madame Von Pinn... or Otilia... would be really mad.)

"I wanna explore all over you," Agatha told it. She gave the inert dragon clank a final pat and got up to head for one of the shelves. "Just... not and scare Uncle Barry. Maybe when we have all night or something." She pulled down a box and made a satisfied noise. "C'mon, Gil, let's make a generator."

Gil jumped down from his stool and ran over to see what she'd found. Magnets, as it turned out. They made the mistake of setting the box down on a metal table and then couldn't get it off again without prying all the magnets out individually, and the Castle laughed at them the whole time. They found a good one, though, and Agatha was winding the wire while Gil built a crank when there was a knock at the door.

Agatha looked up, confused. "Uh, hi?"

"Lunch, Mistress," a voice called.

Agatha and Gil exchanged a confused look. Agatha went to the door, which probably wasn't necessary, and opened it. "Thank you? Miss...?"

The young woman made to hand her the tray, then stopped with some consternation on realising it was nearly as big as Agatha. "Mirela. Ah, is it safe to step inside, Mistress?"

Agatha looked at Gil and shrugged. "I think so. We're okay. Thank you for lunch?"

Miss Mirela left the tray and retreated. Agatha looked at Gil after the door shut. "I guess she's new."

Gil nodded. "The food looks good," he said, grabbing a large sandwich in both hands.

Agatha gave the generator a longing look, but then her stomach growled. She giggled and plopped down to attack the cheese. "Thanks, Castle. I wasn't thinking about food."

"Your family usually don't," said the Castle.

She glanced up. "I'd've got hungry sometime..."

"Before finishing the generator?" the Castle asked.

"Um..."

"As I thought."

"I did say thank you," said Agatha. "But I hope we can still finish the generator before Uncle Barry gets back."

Gil looked doubtfully at the wire and magnet. "That depends how long they are, I guess."

Agatha chewed her lip. "We could take it with us?"

"The dragon?" Gil looked at it thoughtfully. "We could probably put the little ones in our pockets, but I think they'd notice that one."

Agatha blinked. "I wasn't gonna hide it."

"Oh. You think they'd let us take clanks home with us?" Maybe Gil was a little too used to hiding things he wanted to hang onto. They had got the music box back even though they hadn't been meant to be making it.

Agatha grinned at him. "Why not?"

"They might not want us to pick all the locks on Castle Wulfenbach," said Gil. "Although I'd like to."

"Oh. Hm." Agatha looked at their dragon thoughtfully. "I guess taking those off until later would be too obvious."

"Maybe we could take them out and replace them temporarily?" said Gil. "With normal claws, although then they might wonder what it was for."

Agatha brightened. "Oooh. Then it just looks like a fun toy."

"And this will worry them less than you wandering around me?" asked the Castle.

"It will if they don't know about it," said Gil, unfolding a claw and looking for the screws holding the talons on.

"Yeah," Agatha agreed, bringing over a bit of metal to see if it was about right for turning into a replacement claw. "Like exploring you at night, see?"

After a moment, the Castle said, "You may be slightly more interesting than I thought."

Agatha patted the floor. "Does that mean you'll recharge the dragon for us when we're done?"

"I'll consider it," said the Castle.

Agatha grinned, apparently considering this enough of a victory. They managed to get the claws replaced and finish lunch without getting any crumbs in the mechanisms, and Castle Heterodyne agreed to turn on the dragonfly clanks, which flew around the room in formation. They were still winding wire for the generator, though, when the door opened again to reveal the grown-ups and the Muse.

"How are you doing in here?" Barry asked, looking around at the clutter of dragons. He picked a dragonfly out of the air on its way past and peered at it.

"Uncle Barry!" Agatha abandoned the generator and went to pick up the de-lockpicked dragon clank. "Can we take this one with us?" She stopped, looking up at Otilia. Or Madame Von Pinn. "Um. And... did it work?"

"Yes, child, it worked," said Otilia, bending down to rest a hand on Agatha's shoulder. Gil stared at her. She still looked a bit scary, especially with her clothes and hair in rags and those huge ragged wings, as if she'd been through a fight and hadn't let it stop her, but it was a different kind of scary from Von Pinn.

Agatha was looking up as if a bit enchanted. "What did you do with your other body?" Okay, apparently not enchanted like somebody who'd been reading about the Storm King...

"It was never my body, merely one I was forced to inhabit," said Otilia. "It is in the laboratory."

"Oh." Agatha tilted her head. "What are you gonna do with it?"

Otilia looked back at Klaus and Barry. "I recommend destroying it. It will still be compelled to obey Lucrezia's voice and it has no mind of its own beyond that."

Barry grimaced. "I was thinking of giving it a chance to develop one, but I admit there's probably not a very good foundation."

Gil walked over uncertainly. She was still Von Pinn, but she was also a Muse, and he wasn't quite sure how to react to that. But as soon as he got close enough she surprised him by picking him up and hugging him, the metal of her body cool and vibrating very slightly. "I have not changed that much, Master Gil," she said.

He nodded and hid his face against her shoulder for a moment, despite the faint smell of mildew from the dress. "I'm glad you're in a body you like now," he mumbled.

"And she's decided Klaus already found her dream job," Barry said after a moment, his voice soft and light. "He's always been good at that."

"You're staying?" said Gil, looking up.

"Yes. I am staying," Otilia told him. "I dread to think what trouble all of you would get into without me."

"Good," said Gil. "I'd miss you."

"Me too!" Agatha piped up. "I'm glad you didn't just like us 'cause you had to."

"You are quite likeable enough," said Otilia, ruffling her hair. "Now, what is it you are attempting to bring back with you?" she added, with more severity.

"A dragon clank." Agatha held it up. "It looks like fun. Gil's trying to figure out how to scale one up so it can still fly."

Barry's mouth quirked. "That is a little bit of a problem for Franz..."

Otilia inspected the clank. "It seems harmless enough," she conceded. "If Master Barry and Baron Wulfenbach agree to your bringing things home you may."

The dragonfly clanks had returned to hover over the group, possibly because of their trapped member.

"I think I'd better look at that a bit more closely," Barry put in, releasing his dragonfly back to the swarm and taking the dragon. He peered into its mouth, then opened it up along the spine and took out a small fuel tank. "I could be wrong," he said, giving his friend a wry glance, "but I'd guess Klaus would just as soon you not bring self-propelled flamethrowers onto his airship. Without that, it may be fine."

"Really? A flamethrower?" said the Baron, shaking his head and leaning over to get a look at it himself. "But without that they can bring it along."

"Well, it is a dragon," Barry said reasonably. He gave the dragonflies a thoughtful look, then closed the clank back up and returned it to Agatha. "It may turn out to be pretty lively, flamethrowers aside."

"Castle Heterodyne said Gradok had to chase it sometimes," Agatha admitted. "I'll probably have to hang on to it in open places so it doesn't get lost."

"Just remember to shut the laboratory doors before turning it on," said the Baron.

There was a throat clearing sound from the wall. "If you would proceed to the main doors, the people of Mechanicsburg are gathering to welcome the new heir."

"Thank you, Castle," Barry said. "Agatha..." He trailed off with a strange air of not knowing what to say. "Let's go."

"Okay!" Agatha gave a small skip and took his hand, but then looked back at Gil with a faintly worried expression. "So... this is the Doom Bell? With the bad memories?"

"Yes." Barry squeezed her hand slightly. "You'll be all right. And so will Gil."

"It's okay," said Gil, as Otilia set him down and took his hand. He was feeling at least as much anticipation as fear, if it brought up memories then could it bring up those he'd lost? Even if it was only the bad ones it would be something.

Agatha smiled at him, just a little, and they left Gradok's laboratory. The dragonflies tried to follow them. "Castle," Barry said, "I actually do like those, but this is not the best time to appear with an escort of bugs."

"Try a two-note whistle," suggested the Castle.

Barry blinked, then whistled. The dragonflies formed up and hovered in front of him, waiting. He regarded them for a moment, then reached out to let the largest sit on his finger and very carefully took it back inside to set it down on a table. The rest of them swooped down to rest behind it. "Stay," he said, in a tone somewhat more experimental than commanding.

"They take only very limited verbal commands," said the Castle, sounding amused.

Barry took a step back; they didn't move. "I might come back and work out the control panel later."

"It's a bit of a strange one," said the Castle. "Gradok was very young and used what was to hand - a control panel based on the height of a number of tiny screws isn't the most efficient to set."

"Interesting, though," Barry said, as they set off again (this time without the dragonflies). "What was he up to?"

"Attempting to catch his sister kissing Ogglespoon," said the Castle. Gil thought that sounded like a rather odd reason to invent anything, if he had a sister he couldn't imagine he'd want to see her kissing people.

Barry gave a surprised snort of laughter. "Oh, of course."

They reached the doors without adding anyone else to the party, and they swung open on an even bigger crowd than Gil was expecting. Barry picked Agatha up and held her high, and everybody cheered loudly enough that even Castle Heterodyne had to raise its voice.

"I present the Lady Heterodyne, heir to Mechanicsburg," boomed the Castle. As the cheer afterwards died away the Doom Bell began to toll. Gil clutched at Otilia as memories welled up. Confusion, misery, all the times he'd felt broken and useless for knowing so little of himself, all the times he'd been picked on. And a dark feeling, deeper and darker than he'd felt at the time, seeming to vibrate through him with each chime. He clutched at Otilia's leg, burying his face against her hip as she held him. It was only after the sound faded that he realised none of the memories had been new, none of them going back to before his time at the school, and even shaking with the aftereffects he had time to be disappointed.

When he looked around it seemed like everything was shaking for a moment, Otilia and the stones of the Castle and all the people, even the Baron, everything except Barry and Agatha. A few people in the crowd had fallen all the way over and were being picked up by the vibrating people next to them.

Barry let Agatha down and she ran over to Gil. "That was weird," she whispered. "Are you okay?"

Gil shook his head without thinking and then said quickly, "It's okay now it's over." He added, more quietly, "I thought I might remember something, but I didn't."

Agatha went a little wide-eyed and then hugged him, apparently unconcerned with the fact that everybody was watching them. (And cheering again, mostly. Probably not about the hug.) Gil hugged her back and tried not to look embarrassed. It was just... a bunch of people he didn't know. And Otilia, but she was Von Pinn. And Barry Heterodyne. And - ack - Baron Wulfenbach, who looked tired and like the bell hadn't felt very good to him either.

"Back inside, I think," Barry said, quietly but somehow easy to hear over the noise anyway. The great doors closed, shutting them away from the crowd and the open sky, which was sort of a relief at the moment. Castle Wulfenbach was big, and it had windows, but it was still weird being on the ground... the horizon was closer but the walls didn't wrap around. "You kids both handled that really well."

"It didn't feel like Baron Wulfenbach said," Agatha told him, then glanced at Gil. "At least to me."

"I wasn't sure how it would feel to you," Barry admitted. "Heterodynes usually seem to take it a little differently. And people from Mechanicsburg mostly get used to it."

"It was very strange," said Gil. "Why was it being rung? Um. It doesn't seem like it would make people feel very happy about a new heir."

Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "Yes, well... We are traditionally a little ominous."

"You're not," said Gil. He didn't think it explained why everyone had been so happy, either. Apparently they enjoyed bells that made you feel sad and ominous leaders.

"Thanks." Barry smiled at him a little wryly. "I'm serious about your taking it well, by the way. Most people from out of town pass out the first time they hear it. Anyway-" He looked up to meet the Baron's eyes instead, looking amused for some reason. "I thought we should all go have cocoa."

Maybe he hadn't passed out because he didn't have as many memories as most people, Gil thought. He smiled at Barry. "Cocoa would be nice."