Barry turned a corner and paused midstep. Granted, he had been away for a while, but he knew the streets of Mechanicsburg rather well. In fact, he'd been on this very street this morning, and it had continued past the Sphere Gears shop then.

"Castle," he said, "again?" Its matchmaking efforts over the past several weeks had taken the form of arranging the town streets into a maze (which really took remarkably little modification) to direct attractive female tourists to him. He must have missed the underfoot rumbles while he was in the factory.

"If you'd be a little more co-operative this wouldn't be necessary," the Castle replied.

"It isn't necessary now," Barry said testily. "And in case you didn't notice, I am working."

"You could always take her with you."

This gave him pause. The factories were hardly as secret as some of the Castle's critical workings, considering their products were actually for sale, but most of them weren't tourist destinations either. "I'm not sure whether to conclude you really like this one or are trying to get her in trouble."

"Perhaps I'm interested to see how she reacts," said the Castle enigmatically.

"Uh-huh," Barry said. He could probably get away if he really tried. Demand the Castle let him (although he wasn't really sure that would work), duck into a shop and ask to leave through the back, climb over a shop. But then he'd feel guilty about leaving some innocent to the Castle's dubious guidance. "Fine," he said, turning back toward the intersection. "Where is- oh." Probably the pretty stranger glancing around like she was looking for somebody. She spotted him, looked twice, and then put her shoulders back and started toward him.

"See," said the Castle. "Old enough you won't complain that she's the wrong generation, probably still fertile, very pretty, good hips..."

Barry was trying not to react to the Castle's commentary, but when the woman's step faltered and her eyes widened, he realised it must have chosen to let her hear that too. He rubbed a hand over his own eyes, feeling himself blush. Was that what it had wanted to see her reaction to? "I am so sorry about that," he said.

She looked down for a moment, mouth working as if she were fighting a smile, and he could just see the blood rising in her cheeks under warm brown skin. "It was pretty straightforward about the whole thing," she admitted. "I hadn't expected a chance to meet you when I came here, but I could hardly turn one down." The smile broke loose. "And I have an aunt who tells me I've wasted my youth, so I sort of appreciated the compliment."

Barry was startled into laughter at that. "Well, I appreciate your being a good sport about it."

"...And she looked like she wanted to take one of the torchmen apart," the Castle concluded.

"What?" Barry looked past her down the street in alarm, as if he might have somehow missed an ongoing crisis. "Why was one of the torchmen even active?"

The tourist looked more embarrassed than she had over the Castle's evaluation. "It wasn't. It just looked like it could be. And I was just looking, really!"

"I could activate one," said the Castle, in the sly tone that meant it knew Barry was about to order it not to and was even angling for it.

"I don't think you actually want her to take one apart," Barry shot back. He regarded her with somewhat greater interest. "Think you could?"

She wrinkled her nose. "At least my hair is tied back, but I'd want more protective gear to take apart a clank if it was actually on fire."

"Fair enough." It was pretty hair. Glossy black. God help him, he was thinking about going along with Castle Heterodyne's attempt to get him a date. "Ah, I should've asked. What's your name?"

"Donna DuLac."

Family from France and India then, probably. And he couldn't quite resist asking, "Lady of the Lake?"

She grinned. "My mother hoped I would be a swordsmith."

"Are you?" He glanced at her hands and wrists, the musculature and the signs of long-healed burns. She might well work at a forge.

"Among other things, yes."

"Why don't you show her the factories," the Castle suggested, innocently. "After all, you are working."

Barry eyed the nearest wall dubiously.

Donna asked politely, "I've interrupted? I can go-" She paused at the sort of grinding noise that frequently preceded the Castle deciding to move a building, and looked warily over her shoulder. "I think."

His lack of confidence in Castle Heterodyne's matchmaking abilities was no reason to be rude to her. Glaring at the walls when it suggested they spend time together probably qualified. "I'm sorry, it's... supervised the past thirty generations of Heterodynes, so to speak, so you can probably imagine on a historical basis why I find its attempts to introduce me to women a little alarming. But you seem very nice and," a smile, "it is right about your being pretty. Would you want to see the factories?"

Her eyes lit up. "Wouldn't I! What are you working on?"

"Defense systems for our allies." It was a fairly significant factor in a number of the treaties. "A lot of what Klaus and I are trying to do is make Europe a safer place to live, and Mechanicsburg has actually been exporting military clanks and traps for centuries-"

Donna raised her eyebrows. "That long? Wasn't that a bit counterproductive back when it was raiding?" She paused. "Or, maybe not, but if your armies knew all the weak points, I wouldn't expect a lot of repeat customers." She grimaced. "Am I being rude?"

"How? I'm the one who brought up the family history." Barry snorted. "Anyway, there were definitely some complications, but since I don't plan to resume raiding people, that should eliminate a few. I was on my way to the kraken works, if you have any interest in mechanical squid."

There was another grinding noise and the roads slid back into their normal places with a slightly smug air.

"-And now it will be much easier to get there," Barry finished, gesturing back in the direction he'd intended to go in the first place.

Donna stared down the street. "Your town actually blocked you in to get you to talk to me?"

Barry rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I wasn't avoiding you personally, but... yes?"

Her mouth twitched. "And you're still doing it?"

He grinned. "So far. Kraken?"

"Why not?"

It turned out the kraken works had misplaced a few of the burrowing squid when the Castle was moving things around, which made the visit a little more exciting than planned. Still, reworking them was a pleasant few hours, and Barry had quite lost track of anything else until Donna started slightly at the sound of the clock striking four.

"I am actually supposed to meet some people," she said, pushing her goggles back. "How likely is it I can get back to the inn and across town in an hour?"

"Reasonably good, I think. Castle," said Barry. "Leave the streets where they belong and don't interfere."

"Invalid instruction," said the Castle smugly.

Barry paused. "Or not so good. Castle, what?"

"I can move the streets or leave them where they are, but I cannot leave them where they belong."

Oh, for- "Why are the streets out of place now?"

"Klaus came to visit," said the Castle. "I explained you were on a date, but he was not at all reasonable. I had to make some buildings quite a bit taller before he would stop climbing over them."

Barry considered dropping his face into his hands, but they were covered in grease (and possibly ink) and he wasn't sure he wanted to give the Castle the satisfaction. "Put the streets - and buildings - back where they belong, without trapping or injuring anyone, and then leave them there. And you know, Donna might have liked to meet him too."

"Probably not right now, though," murmured Donna, her expression caught somewhere between horror and humour.

"Well, it's hardly your fault," Barry said, "but perhaps not the best timing. You go find your friend, I'll go placate mine."

"Everything is where it usually is," the Castle told him after a few minutes. "Klaus is waiting for you at the Castle itself."

"Thanks." After showing Donna out of the factory, he took the fastest route back to the Castle. He found Klaus in the green drawing room (had the Castle picked that knowing he missed Zantabraxus?), looking decidedly sour. "I'm sorry," said Barry, before he was all the way through the door. "I didn't know it was blocking you."

"Apparently dating takes priority over politics," said Klaus, glaring at a wall.

"Politics is just a way of assuring there is something to give to future generations. But future generations are required for that," said the Castle. "We have no guarantee the Lady Agatha will survive her breakthrough, and I would sooner not risk all on a single throw of the dice."

"Thank you for that... morbid moment." Barry rubbed his forehead. "And seriously, don't do that again. Klaus, I am sorry about that. And glad to see you. What's the political matter?"

"Aaronev wants to make terms," said Klaus, still looking irritated but with a different focus now. "Very favourable ones. Including outright offering his son as a hostage for his good behaviour. An offer which doesn't seem likely to offer the poor boy a long life if taken literally."

"Well, we knew the Fifty Families would be interested once word got around about Otilia." There were many aspects to the Storm King's history and legend that appealed to different parties. That he had been one of the last royals for whom Sparks had stayed mostly subordinate - aside from the Heterodynes, who were less of an embarrassment due to having ruled nearly as long as the Habsburgs - was part of the fascination for the current ones.

"I know," said Klaus. "But Aaronev? I might have believed he'd roll over for a show of force, or that you could talk him around, but this... I don't like it."

"It is odd," Barry agreed. "But he is practically next door. I suppose he may have decided he'd hear from us before long and would rather make the first move. And let's be fair, he does take pretty good care of Sturmhalten."

"I know. He was always Lucrezia's slave and that bothers me. He can hardly be blamed for anything she did - I have no idea how he'd react to finding out what she did - but it makes me uneasy now." Klaus sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't complain about getting what I wanted too easily."

"No, but you can raise an eyebrow about being offered it by somebody you don't trust," Barry said. "Although I must say, I never found infatuation with Lucrezia to reflect that badly on a man's character."

Klaus shot him an irritated look and then chuckled. "Fair enough," he admitted. "Perhaps we should go and visit, though. Accept his terms in person. And have a look around when we do."

"That does sound like a good idea. Lucrezia aside, the Sturmvorauses have always borne watching. They pride themselves on it." A swift grin. "And that's when we're getting along."

"When are you likely to be free to come?" Klaus asked. "Assuming the Castle will let you leave while your date is still in town."

Barry would have protested, except he wasn't entirely sure that was a safe assumption. "I need four days, I think," he said after a moment to calculate. "If I'm going to retool the factories so they can get started on the new designs. Two and a half if you have the time to stay and help." A sudden, mischievous look. "Might get it under two, if Donna decides it's an improvement on her original plans, but I should probably make sure she isn't secretly planning an attack or anything first."

"I did look for someone who shares your ridiculous worldview," said the Castle.

Barry blinked. "You did?" That was unexpected. "And just how much of an interview did you conduct, anyway?"

"I listened in on her for a while before we spoke," said the Castle.

"It's a wonder you have any tourists," muttered Klaus.

"I often think so myself." Unwillingly fascinated, Barry added, "I'm not sure whether I'm more confused that you determined this based on casual conversation, or that you were trying."

"She came here because she admires what you did in the past," the Castle told him. "Which was not that hard to find out. And if she shares your perspective she's less likely to kill you."

Barry paused. "I - all right, that does actually make sense." And from Castle Heterodyne's admittedly unsettling perspective, his mother and Lucrezia might look more similar than he'd previously considered.

"And this new approach seems to have improved its matchmaking technique enough it's found someone you want to spend time with," said Klaus, raising an eyebrow.

"Apparently," Barry said, bemused. "It's been steering tourists in my direction for weeks, but..."

Klaus rather poorly hid a chuckle at that. "Maybe it was just a matter of probability then. Or testing. I'll look forward to meeting her and promise not to hold the Castle's antics against her."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that."

Klaus couldn't exactly say he was in a tearing hurry to talk to Aaronev, but he was interested both in the mechanical squid and, however exasperating it had made his afternoon, in the astonishing spectacle of Barry allowing Castle Heterodyne to matchmake for him. Naturally he agreed to help retool the squid factory.

At dawn the next morning, he joined Barry, who said, 'You're early. I was going to go meet Donna at the inn first and meet you at the factory.'

"I thought I'd walk over with you." Klaus grinned at him. "I'm curious."

"You're impatient," Barry said, laughing. "It would only have made a few minutes' difference. Come on, then."

"She decided this was a good way to spend her holiday, then?" Not that this was exactly a surprise. Very few Sparks would pass up the chance at a day or so in a Mechanicsburg factory, and very few people in general - none of whom were likely to make a point of touring Mechanicsburg - would pass up the chance at a day spent with Barry Heterodyne. "Did you have a good time inviting her?"

"She had plans for the evening, Klaus," Barry said in tones of mock reproof. "I had the Castle ask her."

Klaus blinked. "You let Castle Heterodyne relay a message to someone you want to see again?"

"Very funny. ...If it's actually trying to be encouraging, it can co-operate." Barry did sound a little worried, though. "If it said anything else appalling to her-"

"What did it say yesterday?" Castle Heterodyne had a wide repertoire of appalling.

"It evaluated her age and hips," Barry said, "in her hearing. Fortunately I think she believes I didn't put it up to this."

Klaus managed to stop laughing before they reached the inn, where it turned out Donna had not been deceived, misrepresented, or imprisoned in some sort of improvised labyrinth for the Castle's notion of Barry's convenience. She was discussing the day's plan animatedly with her travel companions, who ranged from equally excited to insisting it wasn't actually possible.

She had a lot of travel companions. At this early hour, they were the only customers in the inn's common room, and despite filling three tables they were clearly either all together or had made friends rather quickly. Barry started toward them and said, "Good morning, Donna. A lot of early risers, aren't you?" and all of them, predictably, lit up.

Klaus identified Donna initially because she was the one who jumped up and at whom Barry smiled the most warmly. "Everyone wanted to meet you," she said. "I'm not sure half of them believed me until I thought to ask the Castle to speak so they could hear it..."

"I'm not sure that should have been convincing," Barry said wryly, "but I've strictly forbidden it to prank the tourists."

"Guiding them to you doesn't count?" asked an older woman with twinkling eyes. "Or is that pranking you? Either way, we're honoured to meet you."

Donna took this as her cue to introduce everyone, starting with her great-aunt and proceeding through two sisters; a brother and sister-in-law; another sister-in-law whose husband hated to travel and had stayed home; an aunt and uncle from the opposite side of the family from the previous aunt; three cousins of varying degree on both sides, one of whom was male and travelling with his wife; and a half-dozen friends of these assorted relatives. Klaus was a little intrigued. Of course travel was generally considered safer in large groups, despite his recent efforts at getting main routes cleaned up, and probably always would be - but this eclectic selection of friends and relations struck him as unusual, and more so in that Donna seemed to be the only Spark of the lot but was neither alarming the rest of the party nor turning them into an entourage.

"And this is my friend Klaus Wulfenbach," Barry said, once everyone else had been identified.

"Oh." Donna sounded rather startled. "Herr Baron."

"Miss DuLac," Klaus returned, a little drily. "-Klaus, please. This is not a state occasion." Spending the day collaborating with Barry and his new girlfriend was one thing. Doing so while on unreasonably formal terms with said girlfriend was just ridiculous.

"Klaus," Donna repeated, sounding not entirely comfortable about it.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you all," Barry was saying to the rest of the party, "but we do have a lot to get done. I hope you won't begrudge my depriving you of Donna's company for a day or two of your trip." (Klaus rather thought that on balance they'd be more likely to envy Donna.)

"Are you joking?" asked the great-aunt. "She spent all evening talking about her afternoon with you. It was obviously good for her." She regarded Donna with obvious affection before smiling at Barry again. "Now get you gone with her, before she decides the table knives need reforging."

"I would not-!" Donna began indignantly, then stopped and sighed.

Barry laughed. "All right, then. And perhaps you could all join us for dinner."

"We would, again, be honoured. But are you likely to stop and have it before midnight?" Clearly, Donna's relatives had enough experience of Sparks to recognise a pattern.

"I'll remind them," said the Castle, sounding sufficiently pleased with itself to make Barry look slightly worried.

They settled on eight o'clock, enough time for a long workday without being ridiculously late, and set out for the factory. After a few moments of small talk that was rather more stilted than anybody had hoped, Donna said to Klaus, "I am sorry about yesterday."

He looked at her blankly before realising what she meant and then burst out laughing. "You really shouldn't apologise for Castle Heterodyne's behaviour. If you start, it may never end. I only occasionally hold Barry responsible for it."

"Yesterday, admittedly, being one such occasion," Barry said. "But it certainly wasn't your fault. Is that what's been bothering you?"

She made a face. "Sorry. This is a little overwhelming." She glanced at Klaus. "You've been running my home town for about a year now."

"It sounded like you were fine yesterday," said Klaus. "Don't tell me you can manage a date with Barry Heterodyne and take the Castle's commentary with aplomb, and I overwhelm you." At her slightly sheepish look, he added, "Would it help to think 'goofy sidekick' instead of 'conquering tyrant'?"

That surprised her into laughter. "I'm not sure, but your suggesting it does." A wry look. "I wasn't exactly thinking 'conquering tyrant' either. I'm from Jibou. We have a fair number of Sparks, but my swords are about as practically military as we get. We weren't prepared to mount the kind of defence we've needed the past several years."

"A lot of people weren't," Barry said rather grimly.

"So we were mostly relieved when you came back," Donna finished. "Even if we had to leave my great-uncle out of the agreement."

The awkwardness was mainly gratitude, then, not resentment. Some days it was all too easy to forget the areas that had actually been glad to see him before Barry showed up... which wasn't really fair to anyone involved. "Relatively speaking, you weren't doing that badly on your own," Klaus said. "Were the portable walls your making?"

"Yes, actually..."

"I've been trying to adapt those for air-dropping."

Barry blinked. "Wouldn't they fall over if you don't drop them somewhere perfectly level? You can't adjust the base to the terrain. Or is that the adaptation?"

"Frankly, that was always a problem." Donna frowned. "Bracing them would be even harder if you're going to drop them. Or are you making the base sharp, and dropping it into the ground?"

"Maybe some of the time." Klaus made a mental note to try that. "But the bracing is solvable."

The introduction of a technical problem improved the conversation substantially, which was encouraging, and on arriving at the kraken works they shifted smoothly enough to discussing the plans for the squid clanks and how the factory would implement them without Barry's direct involvement. (One of the things Klaus liked about Mechanicsburg - and was busily trying to duplicate - was the frequency with which they managed this.)

Later in the day, while they rebuilt and Barry directed gleeful workers and Klaus sketched revisions and Donna decided to forge and grind a sample blade for the squid's drilling attachment, they eventually drifted back to the possibility of dropwalls, which involved quizzing Donna on the implementation of the groundbound version and shouting over the sound of their tools when necessary. After the fifth different cousin who came up, Barry said, "It's starting to sound like you're related to the entire town. How many relatives do you have?"

Donna started laughing. "I'd have to think about that. Do you want just the ones in Jibou or the branches back in India or France? Blood relatives only or in-laws and cousins-of-cousins?" She adjusted her goggles and moved to the blade grinder. "I don't know that it's really that many objectively speaking, but we do try to keep track of each other."

"You're certainly spread out," Barry said, sounding - to Klaus's amusement - a little dazed.

"Six of my eight great-grandparents had wanderlust," Donna said cheerfully, "and a seventh had a father who sent every Spark in the family out to find or found or conquer their own new homes." A pause. "It didn't go well for most of them. But one met a pretty blacksmith's daughter in Jibou and apprenticed himself to her father."

"Wise of him," Klaus said. "And you inherited both the Spark and the sense to make yourself useful to your neighbours?"

"Oh, the Spark skipped a couple of generations before it got to me," Donna said. "We're not as consistent about it as the Heterodynes. In the past few generations I guess it's maybe... one out of five or seven of us? Depending on how you count."

"You have enough siblings and cousins to have statistics?" Barry asked.

She shrugged. "Well, we're also a bit more prolific than the Heterodynes, apparently-"

The Castle made an interested noise.

"-I don't know about your mother's family."

Silence fell and Klaus tried not to glance uneasily at the walls. Nobody talked about Bill and Barry's mother much in Mechanicsburg, and when one of them mentioned her there had always tended to be an air of challenge to it. Donna went still for a moment, herself, and then Barry said, "I'm afraid I don't know much about them either. It always seemed a little awkward to approach them, but maybe I should find out."

"Maybe." Donna dropped the subject and focussed on her work for a while before breaking into the conversation again with the now-quenched blade. "Here - it could be better with a less accelerated tempering process, but this should give you the idea."

It was a lovely blade, actually, with curves and angles ideal for the spinning attachment, but it was astonishingly thin. There was a different kind of awkward pause before Barry said, "It looks amazing, but it might be a little delicate for a burrowing squid."

Donna blinked at him. "I didn't forget it had to go through earth and rock," she said. The irritation in her voice was strong enough to set off alarms anywhere else - she sounded like a challenged Spark now - and because it was Mechanicsburg, everyone in the room looked up with mildly eager interest. Donna flicked the blade downward with the tongs, and it disappeared into the floor at Barry's feet.

Barry stepped back, looking more startled by the small slit in the floor than he had by her throwing a blade in his general direction. "Okay," he said, sounding understandably impressed. There was a small cheer from other quarters of the kraken works. "Point taken."

"Not by you," said Castle Heterodyne.

Donna looked abruptly sheepish. "Ah, sorry. I didn't think of you feeling that."

"I am not hurt." The Castle sounded amused. "But how did you intend to get it back?"

"Aah... I didn't really think of that either." She cleared her throat. "Can you get it out? Gently? And if so, would you please?"

"It probably can," Barry said, kneeling down. "And if not, it won't hurt it to take the floor apart any more than it does the machinery."

"I can give it back," said the Castle. "But I want more of these. They needn't all be attached to the mechanical squid, either." The floor vibrated, and the blade rose halfway out of it.

Barry tapped it with a finger, evidently found it sufficiently cooled to touch, and pulled it the rest of the way free. "This could be better?"

"I rushed the example. This one will dull fairly quickly, but I can recommend a process that should keep them in service for years."

Barry smiled at her and she smiled back as inevitably as the moon reflected light. "Then by all means," he said, "tell us what to do with the blademaking section."

"So," said the Castle, as Donna started toward the tempering ovens, "if you should have the average number of children for your family, how many would that be? Roughly?"

"Ah-" She glanced at Barry, who covered his eyes a little overdramatically, and turned away from him with a hand clamped over her mouth. "I'm off to a bit of a late start, I'm afraid," she said, when she'd composed herself again. "So I doubt it would be more than four."

"Now I'm not sure whether to apologise for the Castle or ask you to stop teasing it," said Barry, trying not to laugh as well.

"No need to apologise. I have relatives like that."

There was a somewhat bewildered pause, this time, before Klaus asked what everybody had to be thinking. "You have relatives like Castle Heterodyne?"

"Well, not in the sense of animating a building," Donna said. "But old warlords who think their descendents should be out conquering something, and any number who are intensely interested in my love life..."

Barry paused and asked cautiously, "Are any of them in your current travel party?"

Donna grinned. "Not the really pushy ones."

"And how would they feel about your marrying into the Heterodynes?" the Castle purred.

"Do you really have to ask?"

"You'd better not invite them here until you've had a chance to get to know each other without them," Klaus said, thoroughly entertained by this point. "I think the Castle provides about all the encouragement Barry can handle."

After two days - right on schedule - they were wrapping up the retooling of the factory and preparing to leave for Sturmhalten, and somewhat to Castle Heterodyne's disappointment Barry was so far not engaged.

He was, however, interested enough to arrange to see Donna again even though her visit was also about to end. They had just agreed to write (Donna had in fact also agreed along the way to exchange letters with Klaus and Adam on a more professional basis, so she was going to be a rather busy correspondent) when Barry added, "You know, you should come back to trade at the Vermin Fair."

Donna blinked at him. "The what?"

"Mechanicsburg has a very peculiar relationship with its rats, mice, and spiders," said Klaus.

"Some of the spiders. And pigeons. And - the point is, by now a lot of them use tools and are smart enough to trade," Barry explained.

Donna regarded them both skeptically. "They trade."

"We keep them supplied and armed, they keep the town mostly free of, ah, normal vermin. They're more hygienic than the unaltered wild-types. And the spiders, well, we never did get the mulberries established but Mechanicsburg doesn't have to import silk from China."

"Really." Donna was still looking between them dubiously. "What do they trade for?"

"Among other things," Barry said, "cutlery. They're smart enough to appreciate your knives."

"That doesn't take much," Donna said, then shook her head. "I am not sure you aren't pulling my leg but I don't think there's anybody I could ask who wouldn't play along, so I will too. Send me suggested measurements and I'll come."

Barry grinned at her. "You won't be sorry."

Donna smiled and only said, "No, I don't think I will."

After they parted, Klaus shook his head. "I'm amazed we're actually done, with all your antics."

"You like her," Barry said, sounding happy and about halfway to a question.

"You don't need my opinion!" Klaus laughed and clapped Barry on the shoulder. "But maybe you should try meeting up with her outside Mechanicsburg."