Klaus was somewhat amused at how well talk to the Jägers had actually worked as a suggestion. Not that he'd ever doubted they'd obey Barry, but Barry seemed much happier about using them and they seemed surprisingly on board with a plan that was going to avoid violence where possible, without it just being because it was their Heterodyne's plan and they'd go along with it regardless. Apparently they were willing to consider saving people as the non-boring option when they got to do it too. Currently there was a small group of them aboard Castle Wulfenbach, to guard Agatha and Barry and, less officially but no less enthusiastically, to visit Punch and Judy.

Getting to Beetleburg would have been faster in a small ship, but with Agatha and Otilia the ones that needed to go there it was easier to bring along the school. They had sent word ahead to Beetle, of course, and also to Punch and Judy.

Beetle's reply had been oddly formal, but arrived fast enough that Klaus tried to hire the courier long-term. (She declined to join his fleet and provide exclusive service, but as she'd docked with them for receipt or delivery twenty-three times between Mechanicsburg and Beetleburg, this was arguably becoming a moot point.) On arrival, they were to meet at the university - Klaus suspected this was partly to avoid the question of why "Adam and Lilith Clay" were getting such interesting visitors.

He quelled a wild impulse to invite Gil along when they collected Otilia and a highly excited Agatha from the school, and they descended on the old familiar campus. The Jägers might have been the only reason they weren't swarmed by curious students. Beetle came out to meet them, looking slightly fretful. "Klaus! Barry! You both look well, you... ah..." He went from anxious to goggle-eyed as Otilia swept off the airship. "You actually brought a Muse."

"I did say that," said Klaus.

"I wasn't sure you were serious," Beetle said, sounding rather dazed. "Enchanté, Madame."

Barry smothered a laugh. Mostly. "It's good to see you too."

"A pleasure," said Otilia. "I'm told you can fix my wings." Her wings were currently skeletal: when she had taken off the rags she had been wearing she had been given a new dress but opted to leave feathers until her wings were fixed. It gave her a slightly spooky look, still, even though she was far closer to looking like the Muse in the murals than she had been at first.

"I believe so." Beetle gave Klaus and Barry a curious look. "I confess, I'm a little surprised these two didn't do it themselves. Won't you come to my laboratory?" He gestured to the nearest building.

"Yes, please," Agatha chirped.

That did make Barry chuckle. "Yes, and we can introduce you to everyone there."

"Would I rob you of the opportunity?" said Klaus, following along as Otilia walked after Beetle.

"I must confess I am very curious about your plans here," Beetle began. But it hadn't taken long to reach his laboratory, and Punch and Judy were there, alive (Klaus had known that, but...) and rising to greet them and converge on Barry.

"Master Barry. We were starting to get worried. And this must be Agatha. Klaus-" Judy, unexpectedly, tore herself away from Barry and Agatha to hug him. "We were definitely worried about you."

"I was worried about you," he told her, hugging back with some embarrassment. "I had no idea you were in Beetleburg, when I got back it seemed as if everyone had vanished."

"Oh dear. I suppose it must have." She stepped back, but kept hold of his shoulders for a moment, looking into his eyes as if searching for something. "What happened?"

Klaus glanced at Beetle. He wasn't sure whether Barry intended to make it known that Lucrezia had been the Other, and while he could tell her part in his disappearance without bringing that up it would probably be better to avoid talking about her. Besides, it was embarrassing. "I'll tell you later," he promised.

"Long story," Barry added, helpfully if only semi-truthfully. Klaus had told him enough about his time in Skifander to qualify, but it could have been summarised briefly. Evidently he didn't want to go into detail either.

"Oh, all right." Judy returned to Punch's side - he was now holding Agatha, who seemed entirely pleased with this arrangement - and regarded both Klaus and Barry with a little bafflement. "You two," she began. "Speaking of - of worrying, and long stories. What on Earth?"

"It started as a way to defend Wulfenbach," Klaus said, trying to suppress the feeling he was about to be scolded for trying to take over Europe.

"It needs doing," Barry said quietly. Klaus tried not to feel relieved. "We are not... any more out of our minds than usual."

Punch raised an eyebrow. "Taking over Europe," Judy said skeptically, "needs doing? Isn't that what nearly everybody's been trying to do since the Other vanished?"

"Yes, but not very well," said Barry. "Old games and old grudges. We are, at this point, basically back to trying to get people to stop tearing things up and hitting them if they won't, but with as many people as we've lost... we can't just hand the administration back to whoever's in the area anymore and move on. Too many of them are dead or defenseless."

Judy pursed her lips. Beetle looked up from his apparently distracted contemplation of Otilia's wings, and pushed his glasses up his nose. "And what of those of us who are not dead, defenseless, nor a threat to our neighbors, but in your path?" Klaus had just inhaled, starting to feel annoyed that even some of his own friends apparently meant to assume the worst, when Beetle nodded to the Muse and added, "Is she advising you?"

"No," said Otilia. "He is hiring me as a teacher, not an advisor, and I am not obliged to play that role."

Klaus raised his eyebrows, and both Beetle and Barry looked interested. He doubted any of them had ever heard somebody sound quite so emphatically pleased at not being asked for advice before.

"A teacher?" Dr. Beetle asked, looking thoughtful.

"Surely you'd heard about the school aboard Castle Wulfenbach?" Barry returned smoothly. "A few years on, I imagine you'll be seeing some of its pupils here. Hopefully they'll cause you less trouble than we did. Otilia, do you mind terribly if we talk behind your back, here?" At her amused consent, he settled down with Beetle and passed along tools as they spoke. To Klaus's own amusement, Otilia actually started chatting quietly with one of the Jägers in lieu of participating. "We actually hope to make it easier for you to go on as you always have," Barry began, which was true enough - Beetleburg's internal rules were functional, if a little pitiless, and Klaus had been deeply relieved to learn that Dr. Beetle himself, the town, and his old university were still intact. He wondered if that was because Lucrezia had still been sentimental about it as well. "But we have some ideas for collaborative projects..."

As Barry set about infecting Dr. Beetle with his enthusiasm for improved travel, apparently as a gateway to alliance, Klaus noticed Punch was moving off to let Agatha look (without grabbing) at the laboratory equipment, and Judy made a small motion to catch his eye. Klaus nodded slightly in return and went to join her.

"I am sorry about not getting in touch," she said quietly, voice pitched not to carry toward the cheerful efforts at negotiation by the workbenches. "Wulfenbach was actually one of the few places we left any information about our plans, just in case, but..."

"Thank you for trying," Klaus answered. Not much had survived, so it wasn't surprising the information hadn't.

"It must have been a nightmare to come back to."

Klaus nodded, thinking of returning to find most of his town in ruins, and with Gil to protect as well. "I'm glad you were safe. Beetleburg doesn't seem to have been too badly hit."

"No. We only had wasps and revenants approach from outside, no direct hits." Her eyes were a little haunted, all the same. "Adam and I weren't even in Mechanicsburg when everything began."

"Bill and Barry didn't come to you after the Castle was hit?"

She shook her head. "We got letters once in a while from Barry, but as they were fairly sure nobody in Beetleburg was likely to get away with holding Lucrezia hostage..."

"So you had no idea what had happened to them either," said Klaus. Or to him. It seemed as if their entire group must have been worrying about each other.

"Barry's last message said they'd located the Other, but didn't mention where. Then - nothing. At all." She shook her head ruefully. "Dr. Beetle tried to offer to go with them, but as we never really knew where they were until after the fact, and it was usually in the worst places, it's not surprising that they didn't seem to be getting our letters."

"No. I wish I'd been here," said Klaus. They didn't seem to have taken any of their other friends with them, but he thought they might have taken him.

A soft huff. "Everybody wished you were here. Not just for that." She looked at him sideways. "The Masters spent the first year you were gone searching, too. Lucrezia swore you'd been fine the last she saw you, only disappointed - with no trail and no sign of violence, we finally all ran out of ideas."

Klaus sighed. He didn't want everyone to know, but Judy deserved to hear it. "Lucrezia shipped me to Skifander," he said.

"She what?" Judy stared at him for a moment, then muttered, "I can't say I never wondered if it was her fault, but I didn't think of that."

"I suppose Skifander was the farthest place she could think of," said Klaus.

"I suppose it would have to be." Judy grimaced slightly. "I didn't like to say so in front of Agatha, but to be honest, we moved partly because she was getting more irritating. And partly because the tourists were picking up, again, but..."

"What was she doing?" Klaus asked. He intended to tell Judy the whole thing, of course, but the question of why Lucrezia had done the things she did - how she had changed from playfully "evil" Spark into a truly evil and destructive force - was eating at him.

Judy looked a little guilty - of course, Barry wouldn't have put anything truly private into an unencrypted letter, so complaining of someone who'd died was... awkward. "Harassing the Jägers, for one thing. She was subtler with everyone else, but she'd have them do the most ridiculous things, apparently just to make the point that they would. I'm not sure she realised they were humouring her. But they were adamant about not telling Bill."

"Control," said Klaus, mostly to himself. Had she realised? Later, at least, that the race of obedient servants she'd thought she had were actually beings with their own will and opinions of her she couldn't control? Had she decided she needed a race that was that obedient? But he wasn't sure the revenants had even really been under her control, they'd done nothing but mindlessly spread wasps. He looked around to check no one was nearby. "There's something you need to know about Lucrezia," he said.

Judy gave him an uneasy look. "And what's that?"

He dropped his voice further. "She was the Other. Probably still is, in a sense, Barry and I are fairly sure there's a copy of her mind out there."

She went pale and a little green, and her eyes darted to Barry. "She and Bill killed each other, didn't they."

"Something like that. There may have been an explosion, I didn't press for details." Klaus looked at Barry as well. There was a light in his eyes now that there hadn't been when he'd returned, as he worked on talking Beetle around.

Judy closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. "He's doing better than I'd expect, after that. I imagine finding you again was a lot of it." She gave Klaus a searching look. "How have you been? Really."

"Angry. With Lucrezia, with the people who destroyed my home, with… most of Europe, for falling apart so easily after all we did." He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Better for finding people again."

She caught the back of his other hand and squeezed. Possibly still worried about their plan, but emphatically a friend regardless. "I'd imagine. Klaus..." She hesitated for a long moment, then, "What happened in Skifander?"

Klaus's lip twitched. "I got married."

Judy blinked at him as if it was taking her a few seconds to decide he wasn't joking. "Congratulations. I suppose that explains why you didn't hurry back."

"Thank you." He should probably tell her about Gil. Judy could definitely be trusted, and if he could announce Lucrezia was the Other without fearing being overheard he could mention Gil.

"Well?" She was giving him an expectant look. "Who's the lucky girl? And-" A wry look. "What brought you back now, if you didn't know?"

"Zantabraxus," he said, smiling. "I was rather surprised how glad she was to see me again." More soberly he continued. "That really is a long story. I have a son, Gilgamesh. And a daughter too, Zeetha, although she's still in Skifander. Gil's here. I'm keeping his identity secret but he's being educated on Castle Wulfenbach."

"That does sound like things got complicated," she murmured, sounding sympathetic. "Do we still get to meet him?"

"If you'd like to visit Castle Wulfenbach, then yes," he said. "I expect Agatha will introduce you."

Judy glanced over to where Agatha was cheerfully carrying on an extended conversation with Punch, regardless of the lack of verbal response. "Will she, now. We'll look forward to that."

"If you're interested, I'd like to ask you to teach music for us," he said. "Gil and Agatha are both musically inclined. With Agatha's family I suppose it would be surprising if she wasn't."

Judy looked startled and then thoughtful. "I'm honoured," she said, darting a look in Otilia's direction, "especially considering you already have a Muse teaching. Although I suppose that's not exactly Otilia's sphere."

"Not really," said Klaus.

A wry look. "Although we did come here partly to be less conspicuous."

"I'll understand if you want to remain in retirement," Klaus told her. "But the offer stands."

"Thank you." She smiled. "On both counts. We'll think about it. And I do look forward to meeting Gil."

"One thing," said Klaus. "He doesn't know he's my son. It's safer if it stays that way for now."

Judy looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "What? But-"

"Excuse me," Dr. Beetle called, and they both looked over to see that he and Barry were surrounded by a U-shaped collection of chalkboards, all covered in small writing and large diagrams, and an inexplicable wild tangle of silken streamers, as if they had decided to try to build a cocoon instead of feathers and it had gone very poorly. Otilia sat completely expressionless and yet somehow Klaus still thought she looked amused. "Adam? Lilith? Klaus? Could anyone bring over two more blackboards and perhaps a pair of scissors?"

"It does look like we'd better, doesn't it?" Judy called back. "Let me guess," she added to Klaus, under her breath, "It's a long story?"

"Yes," he answered as quietly, looking around for some scissors. "I'll tell you and Punch later."

They set that question aside to free Barry, Dr. Beetle, and Otilia from each other, slightly hampered by the mistake of actually bringing the other chalkboards over before they were finished, which distracted all three Sparks. "Did they at least finish the mechanical repair?" Judy asked Otilia, unwinding a streamer from one of her wing struts and taking it over to be efficiently clipped according to the feather pattern.

"Yes, thank you," said Otilia, flexing the freed strut.

Klaus paused at this exchange, then collected all the chalk and took it across the room to eliminate further temptation. He caught Punch trying not to smile.

Judy looked sidelong at Otilia. "You know," she said, "I'm afraid I keep half forgetting we had already met."

"That's understandable," said Otilia. "I wasn't precisely myself at the time."

"No, I suppose not. It must be a relief."

"Very much so," said Otilia. "Organic bodies are just too much trouble, and," she gave the watching Jägers a severe look, "get too much unwanted attention."

Judy's mouth quirked. "Oh dear. I suppose you would have appeared to be the Jägerkin's type." Her glance at the nearest Jäger was distinctly mischievous. "My sympathies."

The Jäger grinned. "Iz not our fault she ken't appreciate quality."

"I didn't realise soon enough that wounding them counts as encouragement," said Otilia.

"Oh, yes, I can see where that would be a problem."

"At least they get the picture now. Just as well, since I'm going to have to live with having them aboard Castle Wulfenbach now."

"Hyu know hyu'd miss uz," another Jäger put in cheerfully.

"You'd certainly be hard to forget," Judy told him.

That got her a proud smile from the Jäger and a small, amused headshake from Otilia.

Judy shrugged slightly. "I imagine you got much more of a reaction than I did. I just ended up teaching them to knit."

Otilia actually looked surprised at that. "How did that come up?"

Barry cast his eyes to the ceiling. "Bill and I regarded it as historically problematic to take them... uh, anywhere, at the time... so they were very bored."

"And this was solved with knitting?" said Otilia incredulously.

"Solved is probably too strong a word," Judy said. "But many of them got quite good at it. I believe most of the tourists always assumed the 'Jäger-knitted' labels were lies..."

Klaus smothered a laugh. Mechanicsburg was a mix of the authentically strange and tall tales told to outsiders, and tourists were usually wrong about which was which.

Barry grinned at him. "Mechanicsburg has some very strange marketing theorists, but they seem to be good at their jobs." He gestured to Dr. Beetle. "And I believe we, incidentally, have a treaty."

They did. Dr. Beetle was almost as cheerful about it as Barry. A section of one of the chalkboards turned out to hold the basics and town-specific terms of the agreement, fighting for elbow room against vaguely rhapsodic diagrams of Van Rijn's handiwork. Eventually, after it was drawn up properly and signed, Dr. Beetle informed them that he had letters to write - Klaus suspected they would be largely about Otilia - and Judy and Punch admitted having appointments in the afternoon, although Judy invited them to stop by Clay Mechanical later.

He and Barry stepped out of the laboratory and found themselves caught up at once in the noontide rush of university students hurrying out for lunch between lessons or experiments. It took him back rather abruptly, by more than twenty years, in a way that simply seeing Beetle's labs again hadn't. It was somehow unsurprising, too, that the press and scurry was so single-minded, very few people seemed to take immediate notice that they were jostling several Jägers and a Muse. Although the Jägers did start gathering a bit more space fairly quickly.

"Ah," said Barry, "this was the point at which we usually decided to go work for another hour until things settled down, wasn't it?"

Klaus snorted. "I don't know about 'usually', but you were frequently trailing enough of a crowd to swamp a restaurant by itself."

"Okay, sometimes. We could always go someplace less convenient to the university, since I don't think any of us are in a hurry..." Barry looked up at Otilia. "Or do you want to go back to the school, or anything? You're welcome to join us, obviously, but if you aren't interested we'll go back to the outflier first."

"I'd rather return since I can't eat," she said. "Thank you for bringing me here," she added.

"Dr. Beetle was really the best choice we could think of," Barry said. "And, well, we did need to talk to him. Thank you for being patient about it." He looked abruptly sheepish. "And, um, about the tangling."

"You did sort my wings out eventually," said Otilia, sounding rather amused about it. "And my Creator would have been flattered by your assessments, although perhaps it's just as well he couldn't see them."

"Because we don't understand his work yet or to keep from overfeeding his ego?" Barry asked with a grin.

Otilia smiled back. "I was thinking of the second."

"It wouldn't just be ours. He's - you're all pretty much legendary at this point. I don't know how much chance you've had to notice."

"We were legendary from the start," said Otilia, sounding as if she felt this was something to regret. "He was already famous and he made it clear that he considered us his best work, indispensable and unique."

Barry shrugged, opening a hand. "As nobody's been able to match him since..."

"I didn't say his opinion of himself was wrong." She shook her wings out. "Just inconvenient. I suppose it was necessary, if we were to inspire we had to be noticed. But I expect my sisters are long gone as a result."

Barry winced at that. "I'm afraid you're right. I'm sorry."

Otilia's wings drooped and she lowered her head. "It's nothing I didn't expect. I will manage. I have work to do, after all."

Too many lost siblings all around, Klaus thought. It was a dim note on which to part from Otilia, but they hadn't left the airship very far away and even the lunchtime crowd of students could only prolong the trip so much.

When it lifted away with her, he exchanged a rueful look with Barry, who said, "Makes you feel like we should be questing for the other eight, doesn't it?"

"Well, we know where to find two," Klaus said grimly. He didn't really want to tell Otilia that Mawu and Liza - or what remained after various ham-handed attempts at study or reassembly - had been seized and preserved by the exasperated Master of Paris and constituted one of the most prized and closely guarded exhibits in the Louvre. If she didn't know, she'd probably find out eventually. "But if Voltaire hasn't tried putting them back together, I don't think he'll let us try it."

"He should give you a chance. If anybody can make sense of another Spark's work it's normally you." Barry grimaced. "But I don't know if I could talk him into it."

"I'm not sure I'm that much better than everyone who's tried over two centuries, but I wouldn't say no to the opportunity," said Klaus. "Especially if I did have a chance of getting Otilia her family back."

"I know," Barry said. Then, a little more brightly, "And honestly, you probably are. Not least because you'd actually ask her things and listen. Plus I imagine she'd let you look at her brain if she thought it would help."

"Now that's entirely too tempting a thought," said Klaus. "Come on, let's go and find somewhere to have lunch that isn't swamped with students."

"Food!" Agatha put in gleefully. "Can we go somewhere with cheese?"

"I'm not sure we could avoid it," Barry told her.

They found somewhere that did indeed do cheese - a restaurant they remembered fondly from their student days that was far enough from the university to have avoided the worst of the rush. The Jägers were getting nervous looks, but they were hungry too and hadn't actually done anything, and the restaurant proprietor didn't dare say anything when they followed Klaus and Barry into the restaurant.

She came over, looking uneasy, and Barry gave her one of his best sunny everything-is-perfectly-fine smiles. "Mistress Nicoletta," he said, and Klaus nearly did a double-take. She'd been thirteen last time they visited together, but it was the same girl. "I remember when your mother brought you here in a basket. I didn't realise I'd been gone so long you had time to grow up and run the place yourself."

Nicoletta smiled back hesitantly, looking between the two of them and not quite able to focus for glancing at the Jägers. "Grandfather was getting tired and my father never did want to take it himself, so I got to be the apprentice for a while and now, well - ah, what would you like?"

"Ah-" Barry paused and glanced around the table. "Before any of the Jägers order, does Beetle still forbid restaurants from selling raw meat?"

She looked unsettled. "Uh, yes, I'm afraid so."

"Iz hokay, ve dun mind it cooked," said one of the Jägers, with a grin that was probably not going to make her less nervous.

At which point, much to Klaus's surprise, the pepper grinder on their table unfolded itself somehow and launched at the speaker's face in a flurry of blades, shedding a cloud of pepper from the mechanism. "Hoy!" The Jäger blocked it, despite a sneeze, but it started trying to grind his hand. Nicoletta took a step back in alarm; Barry grabbed at the pepper grinder and smashed it on the table, scattering peppercorns; and motion from the kitchen caught Klaus's eye.

"Down!" he bellowed, dragging Nicoletta out of the way as a roasting jack hurtled at them from behind her, wielding its spit like a spear and dripping ham and partially toasted cheese along the way. Barry, looking incredulous, thrust Agatha under the table and told her to stay there.

The Jägers, more prepared this time, jumped on the new attacker, taking down a table in the process. One of them drew a sword and wedged it into the clockwork while a couple held the struggling roasting jack down. One of the Jägers doing the holding was, Klaus noticed with some amusement, tearing off half cooked ham to eat with his free hand.

Barry looked around warily, in case anything else jumped them, and then joined the Jägers on the floor and disassembled the motor. "Nicoletta," he said when he stood up, eyes unusually steely, "What the hell?"

"I didn't know they were going to do that," she said, shakily, as Klaus let her out from under the edge of the table. She looked back under it for Agatha, but Agatha went the other way, looking grumpy. "I, I - Grandfather said once there were craftsmen in the towns that used to get raided a lot who could build almost anything to recognise a Jäger, but I didn't know we had any."

The Jägers were sitting on the floor around the ham they'd apparently claimed as spoils of war. After a quick glance over to see Agatha emerging, wide-eyed but unhurt, from under the table they seemed fairly relaxed about the whole thing. One of them licked at a bleeding hand and then pulled a face and muttered about it tasting of pepper, but it didn't look like a serious injury and aside from that none of them were hurt.

"That's a hazard of bringing Jägers places I hadn't thought of," said Klaus in an undertone. "I'll have to take it into account in future."

"I hadn't either," Barry said sourly. "They exaggerate it a little, but they sound like people from Mechanicsburg, because they are."

Klaus winced. Mechanicsburg was a very insular place; it was quite rare for people from it to travel much let alone move away. But this was a university town, and one not that far from Mechanicsburg itself. Barry was probably lucky his own accent wasn't strong enough to set it off.

"I'm sorry," Nicoletta said miserably. She straightened and dusted pepper off her apron. "I - you'll all eat free today, of course, if you want to stay at all, and I-"

"Oh for God's sake-" Barry cut her off, then cut himself off, and inhaled sharply. "I don't actually think it's your fault, and that's a fair offer, but trust me, a little more extravagant than I want to take you up on. Just..."

After Barry trailed off crossly into a brief, awkward silence, Nicoletta suggested, "Would you like to move to different tables?"

Barry closed his eyes. "Let's start with that. And get me a first aid kit."

"A lot of people with anti-Jäger things probably don't know what they've got," Klaus said, deliberately calmly, as they moved to another table. "Although using Spark creations without finding out what the extra bits do is risky enough in itself. Maybe we could pay some of the University students to help check, people would probably bring things for the reward of being told what extra functions their appliances have. It wouldn't help with the people who do know what they've got, though."

"Indeed." Barry glanced around at the Jägers. "Do you want to stay and eat here?"

One of them was bringing the remains of the roasting jack. After a moment, he volunteered, "Iz goot ham," holding up a handful in illustration.

"What about you?" Klaus asked Agatha. "We didn't plan for your lunch to be this exciting."

Agatha made a face. "I'm mad at her. They didn't do anything!"

"She didn't know what those things would do," Klaus told her. "At worst she's guilty of being foolish enough to use technology she didn't fully know the purpose of. Be angry with the people who made such imprecise weapons and left them looking like normal appliances."

"They were her grandfather's, I think," Barry said with a sigh. "Probably in the family longer than that." The pepper, smeared ham, and broken table were being rapidly and quietly cleared away.

"Goot ting about staying here, Mistress," offered Dimo, "iz effryting else already heard us tokk. I vant to eat before ve haff any more fun."

Agatha looked a little doubtful about this definition of fun, but climbed into a new chair anyway. Then she appropriated the first aid kit and instructed the injured Jäger, "Give me your hand."

The Jäger knelt down by her chair and presented a bleeding and slightly peppery hand with some amusement.

The bandage probably wasn't strictly necessary, although the pepper grinder had done a surprising amount of damage. Barry peered over Agatha's shoulder, talking her through the process of correctly cleaning the injuries and finding a way to bandage them that wouldn't interfere unnecessarily with the use of the hand while it finished healing. Klaus was trying not to watch too overtly - this couldn't possibly fall under the heading of proprietary information, but it might annoy them if he were openly nosy - but he was fairly sure the cuts had shrunk measurably during the process.

Agatha secured the last bandage, quite deftly for a small child, and completed the treatment with a careful and rather maternal kiss.

The Jäger grinned up at Agatha, who managed to look totally unperturbed by the amount of teeth on display. "Thenk hyu, Mistress. Hyu done a goot job," he said, and then stood up and went to take his own chair.

They managed to order food with no further incident. Nicoletta waited on them herself as much as possible, although this might have been mainly to spare her unnerved employees. Seeing that Barry wasn't cheerily trying to smooth things over, several of the Jägers apparently decided to fill in and assure Nicoletta there were no hard feelings by flirting outrageously with her.

Big smiles... unselfconscious enthusiasm... a certain intentional goofiness... Klaus suppressed the abrupt urge to laugh at the parallel with a large bite of bread.

He didn't tease Barry about it much, but he did manage to get an uncalculated smile before lunch was over. Dimo, somewhat astonishingly, managed to make a date for a late dinner with Nicoletta. (Apparently he had better manners than some of the student customers. Klaus and Barry looked at each other once and mutually decided not to ask.)

Barry remained mostly pensive, however, all the way back to the university, where Dr. Beetle hospitably offered them the use of a laboratory (the Jägers sensibly stationed themselves outside it) in which he was storing several projects with unsolved problems. "You're still brooding," Klaus said, after these had failed to cheer Barry up for several minutes.

Barry sighed a little explosively. "I suppose most of the people who made those really were from places that never heard a Mechanicsburg accent unless they were being raided."

"Mostly," said Klaus. "It's not as if you don't know your town's history, and Mechanicsburg has never encouraged people to regard it fondly. But that kind of reaction probably doesn't encourage them to regard the rest of the world with much fondness either."

"It's certainly not conducive to switching to any other type of relationship." Barry rolled his eyes. "I suppose not every town can be Sturmhalten... all right, that may be just as well..."

"God save us from more Sturmvorauses," Klaus muttered, rather unfairly. They revelled in politics as much as he loathed it, and it made it rather hard to see their good side. Even if Aaronev had been a sort of friend several years ago.

Barry's mouth twitched. "So, I should take that negotiation too, shouldn't I?"

"Please," said Klaus.

Barry grinned. Of all things to cheer him up. "If necessary I'll even let them propose more new architecture."

"I never did understand that bet." It didn't help that he'd heard the story of the Red Cathedral's origin from Jägers, who seemed to think no action too extreme in pursuit of making someone eat a hat.

"I'm not sure I can really explain."

"I really don't expect you to explain the things your ancestors did," said Klaus, amused in his turn.

"A lot of them make sense from a certain perspective," Barry said. "Granted, that is not necessarily a perspective I want to practice thinking in."

"It might help when it comes to dealing with the Castle," Klaus teased.

Barry snorted. "That doesn't explain your talent for it."

"Are you implying I think like an evil overlord?"

"Here and there. Just a touch. You did build a flying city from which to conquer Europe, you know. And then got me to go along with it." Klaus was briefly worried that this was the prelude to a more alarming bout of brooding, but the thoughtful look Barry gave him had a different tone to it. "I think you may be the only person in history to have decided to take over Europe on the grounds that it needed looking after."

"And why are you helping?"

That got a smile. "You had a point."

Gratifying, but Klaus couldn't resist adding, "And you wanted me to do it your way."

"Are you really complaining?"

"No. Everything seems to be working nicely," Klaus said. He poked at a clock and the cuckoo inside it poked its head out and gave him a funny look. "Is there a working clock around here? We should probably be heading for Clay Mechanical soon."

Barry looked around the laboratory, which featured at least three stopped clocks and four that were moving at different rates, and produced a watch. "Quite right." He exercised his persuasive talents to part Agatha from the glockenspiel and retaliated for Klaus's suppressed amusement by handing her to him. Klaus failed to dodge and found himself thinking of his daughter for the entire walk. He couldn't decide if he was relieved or reluctant to transfer Agatha to a smiling Punch when they arrived.

"We've been discussing your invitation," Judy said, leading them into a lovingly kept kitchen. Klaus's first thought was that it was a pleasant place, his second that the care put into it might reflect a desire to stay, his third that Judy and Punch used to set campsites with similar pride and affection, and his fourth Why in the world do they have that many canned goods? They wouldn't prepare for a siege with glass jars... Barry, who hadn't been in on that part of the conversation, interrupted his musings with a questioning noise. Judy added, "To teach at his school."

"Oh, of course. He mentioned wanting to ask, I just didn't know he had."

"Mm." She brought tea and settled at the table with them. "There is a... little problem with leaving."

Klaus quirked an eyebrow at her. "A problem?" He'd thought they might not want to leave, he hadn't thought there would be anything they couldn't leave.

She exhaled, looking troubled. Klaus exchanged a glance with Barry and felt they had probably both identified the mannerisms as belonging to secondhand embarrassment, a reluctance to discuss other people's problems. A delicacy to which Barry had always been largely immune, but his creations weren't. "Some - many of our friends here," Judy began, confirming the impression, "are likewise constructs who came to Beetleburg to be less remarkable." Or remarked on. "And safer. That doesn't necessarily make it easy for them to make a living, although Dr. Beetle does hire some in inconspicuous positions. We've been... helping. It's not that they can't manage their lives without us, but..."

Klaus glanced at the jars and jars of preserves. That wasn't the kind of help offered to people who could get by without you, that meant a lot of them probably didn't know where their next meal was coming from. "Constructs that look too strange to be hired," he said, considering. Castle Wulfenbach was already home to quite a high proportion of constructs (about to get higher once the Jägers were on board) compared to the general population. "Is it just appearance?" He realised pretty much immediately he could have phrased that better.

"Just?" Judy gave him a wry look, but she did know him. "Not in all cases, but..." A brief pause and her gaze turned thoughtful. "Nobody you wouldn't have invited to Wulfenbach, once."

"That hasn't changed. Castle Wulfenbach is just more mobile now," Klaus answered. "Also still under construction and hiring everything from construction workers to secretaries."

Her expression lightened. "I'm not sure how much time you have for interviews..."

"If you're vouching for them, I'm willing to extend the offer to come now and sort out who's doing what later."

A smile bloomed on Judy's face. "We'll talk to them. We might have to ask you back for introductions at some point, though. We're vouching for you, too, but they haven't known us as long."

"We wouldn't expect you to pack up and leave overnight even if it was just you," Klaus assured her. "Assuming you do want to come, with that problem solved. I won't rescind the offer to your friends either way."

"I didn't think you would." She smiled at both of them. "And I do think we'll come. We've made a good life here, by any measure, and yet..." She sipped her tea, considering. "You've always been hard to say no to, really."

"Me?" Klaus asked, looking at Barry. But Barry had actually been remarkably quiet so far. Klaus was used to the Heterodyne Boys being the persuasive ones, though.

Barry looked amused. "Should I comment on your talking me into things lately or just point out that she likes you?"

"All right," said Klaus, still a little startled and oddly flattered. He'd been thinking of himself as someone who had to force people into things - until Barry had arrived to do the persuading. Maybe he didn't need to carry a big stick quite as much as he'd felt like he had. "Do you want to set a date for when you'll be ready?" he added to Judy. "Or send a message to us when you are?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it, eyebrows drawing together in an oddly puzzled expression. "I know exactly how fast we could leave if we had to, under a few different conditions of emergency," she said, "but I'm honestly not sure how long it will take normally." A wry glance at Barry. "Even though we did it once."

"Well," Barry said reasonably, "Mechanicsburg was different. More travel preparations and less recruiting."

"Send a message then," said Klaus. "I've set it up so we get mail pretty reliably wherever we are, and Beetle's going to have a way to be in touch."

"We'll do that." They'd mostly finished the tea by this point, even lingering, and Judy stood up. "For now, let's go tell Adam."