Agatha woke up to the Castle whispering in her ear. "Happy birthday, my lady!" it said happily.

Agatha peered at the clock and buried her head in the pillow. "It's early." Oops. Not polite. "But thank you."

"I believe you intended to bathe before your uncle observed you'd been exploring."

"Oh!" That woke her up, and she flung the blanket off. Gil and Tarvek didn't look grubby anymore, so they'd probably washed already. Agatha hurried into the bath and cleaned up, with the Castle's helpful inspections behind her ears and other places it said grown-ups knew to check because children couldn't see them.

By the time Agatha was clean, the boys were up too. The bedcurtains were very useful for dressing in private, although the formal clothes Tarvek had brought turned out to have an awful lot of buttons so he took a little longer. He was just finishing up when Uncle Barry arrived, with Baron Wulfenbach and Donna. Er, Miss DuLac. "Good morning." He held out a hand to Agatha. "Everybody ready to go?"

They seemed to have got away with it. Agatha beamed at him. "Yes!"

They walked down with Agatha holding Barry's hand and the two boys following a little behind, which put them closer to Baron Wulfenbach than either of them quite seemed to know what to do about. As they reached the door Agatha let go of Uncle Barry and grabbed their hands instead, one on each side, pulling them forward excitedly as the doors boomed open ahead of them.

"Announcing the Lady Heterodyne!" the Castle declared at its loudest and there was a deafening cheer. Agatha blinked. Mechanicsburg did have a lot of people in it, but not usually so many you couldn't see the streets. She smiled at them and let go of the boys to wave, prompting another cheer.

A dark haired boy about her own age, dressed in a black suit and wearing a silver trilobite at his neck, stepped forward and smiled at her, even as his eyebrows drew together in concentration. "Lady Heterodyne, it is my honour as your seneschal to welcome you to Mechanicsburg today," he said, very carefully and clearly, before going to one knee in a smooth practised motion. "Welcome home, Lady Heterodyne, and Happy Birthday."

"Thank you!" Agatha said, and everybody cheered again. Under the noise, she added in a whisper, "Vanamonde, right?"

He un-bowed his head. "Yes, my lady."

"You can call me Agatha," she told him. "When we're not being formal. You're gonna be my seneschal?"

He smiled brightly. "I'm Van when we're not being formal. And yeah, Grandfather tried to retire once already."

"Now you say 'Tremble before me!'" the Castle said in her ear, sounding excited about it.

"No, no!" Van looked fleetingly alarmed, then smiled again and added between his teeth as he stood up to wave, "We're not doing the Doom Bell until tonight. Are we?"

"Thank you, Vanamonde," Uncle Barry murmured. "That's right. That way the tourists can enjoy a lot of the celebration and still have time to start their journey this afternoon if they don't want to hear it." He glanced at Miss DuLac. "You can still go if you want..."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Yes," said Baron Wulfenbach. "But it won't actually harm you."

"That's what I thought." She smiled. "I think I'll stay."

"You'll get used to it," said the Castle, dismissively. "Now, I believe the parade is ready."

"I've heard about the Doom Bell," Tarvek said under his breath as they set off. "But how bad is it, really? I mean, what's it like?" He was looking at Gil, not Agatha.

"Sad," Gil said. "It's a weird way to celebrate. It brings up bad memories, but not very interesting ones, and it feels really weird, and everything shakes except the Heterodynes."

"You have boring bad memories?" Tarvek asked, sounding puzzled, but then a big black mechanical horse snorted loudly ahead of them and Uncle Barry swung Agatha up to a high platform at the front of a chariot, his hands steadying her as everybody else climbed in and the clank horses clopped off, stepping high and looking like they wanted to go faster.

Tarvek sat up straight as they went, as if the crowd might be inspecting his posture, looking at the crowd without really looking at them, but clearly not avoiding their gazes either. Gil shrank down, the way he did when he found anyone's attention on him in class, staring out at the crowd with fascination but looking like he wished he was invisible. Agatha squeezed his hand. "They're all pleased to see us," she whispered.

"They're all pleased to see you," Gil whispered back. The cheering got louder, which was impressive.

"They're glad you're here too," Agatha said positively. "I'm really glad you're here." She tried not to look worried, and squeezed his hand again before letting go to wave at another little girl in green. "Only not if you don't like it and you kind of don't look like you like it."

"I don't entirely blame him," Baron Wulfenbach murmured from slightly overhead. "I feel a bit ridiculous myself."

Agatha twisted around briefly to look at him. He didn't look like he felt silly. "But it's fun and everybody's happy."

"It's not that I don't like it, there's just a lot of people," said Gil, and made an effort to look a bit less defensive and smile back at the crowd.

"Well, yes," said Agatha. This was definitely true. "But that's okay if they like you."

"It can be workable even if they don't," said Uncle Barry, "but it isn't as much fun."

"True," said Baron Wulfenbach, sounding about as amused, "but, Barry, how would you know?"

The parade pulled up at a lot of tables covered in white cloth and dishes, just as Agatha was starting to get hungry. Adam and Lilith came up to them; Agatha jumped off the chariot and Adam caught her, grinning and shaking his head.

Breakfast was delicious. There were waffles with almond and marshmallow syrup, which Baron Wulfenbach seemed to like almost as much as she did, and bacon and eggs, and… for some reason a lot of people were eating snails, including Uncle Barry.

Gil gave the snails a deeply suspicious look, as if wondering what they were doing on a breakfast table, and carefully avoided them. Although you didn't have to be very careful not to be accidentally served snails, really.

"I doubt they're poisoned," Tarvek whispered to him, and got a rather alarmed look from Gil who did not become any less suspicious of the snails afterwards.

"And if they were poisonous to start with, they've been prepared so that they're not," said Baron Wulfenbach, helpfully, which made Tarvek look alarmed.

"Were any of these?" Agatha asked, eyeing the snails thoughtfully. Some of their shells did have bright colours, which in natural contexts often meant something was poisonous or trying to attract attention.

Uncle Barry swallowed a snail. "No."

Baron Wulfenbach eyed them doubtfully. "I thought the red ones-"

"They tend to eat poisonous things."

"Oh, that's so much better."

"The blue ones are toxic, but they're out of season," Uncle Barry offered helpfully.

"Oh, yes," said Baron Wulfenbach. "The ones that bite."

Lilith looked away, mouth twitching.

"You were bitten by a toxic snail?" Agatha asked, worried.

"Not that badly," Baron Wulfenbach said, "or Lilith wouldn't be giggling at me that much. Although I'm still not sure why Mechanicsburg decided they're a breakfast food."

Agatha did eat one breakfast snail, to be polite, and then they were off for a longer parade that wound all over town, and at midmorning a Heterodyne play, Race for the West Pole.

"Do we actually want to stay for this one?" she heard Lilith ask, softly enough that she probably wasn't meant to hear.

"I've been over the script for the performance," Uncle Barry said just as quietly. "Of course, the grand romance is still there, but the humour's much better."

So they settled in for what he had explained to Agatha was a very fictionalised account of how her parents realised they were interested in each other. Apparently it was very exciting and their friends teased them about it a lot, so Agatha wasn't quite sure which part was fictional. Aside from the West Pole itself, of course, since that was a contradiction in terms given the nature of planetary rotation. Anyway it was great fun.

Tarvek and Agatha were both looking at the stage, transfixed. Gil squirmed. It wasn't that it wasn't a good play — it was an excellent play — and it wasn't as if he got to see plays very often. He was just restless. He could hear children running and shouting in the fairground behind them and it occurred to him that, unlike Castle Wulfenbach, Mechanicsburg was full of kids who weren't important either. He didn't want to abandon Agatha, of course, but the play was going to go on a while and she wouldn't enjoy it any less if he wasn't here…

He slid forwards out of his seat, holding his breath, and stayed crouched on the floor for a moment. Agatha didn't look around. He grinned and ducked under his seat, slipping through its legs and scurrying on all fours down the aisle behind until he slipped out the side of the seating area. He stood up and dusted himself off, then, more cautiously now, made for the fair. He didn't have any money for the sideshows or the booths, but he stared at everything, no longer in the centre of the crowd the way he had been with Agatha. It was a little scary, being surrounded by so many people, and now that he was out here where he could see them playing together he wasn't sure he dared approach the other kids. He hesitated, scowling, by the wall of a booth selling sausages to watch a game of football being played with a newly won ball and not much regard for the rules.

One girl a little younger than him looked up, streaked with mud from a tackle and giggling as she clutched the ball. "Hey, you," she called. "We're one short. Want to play?"

Gil could feel himself beaming at her. "Sure."

It wasn't long before Gil was laughing and muddy as the rest of them, the play forgotten. He was good at this, good enough that someone had teased him about having Jägerblood and got a scathing, "Stupid, you know that doesn't even make a difference," from someone else, starting a good natured and not very serious quarrel. Gil didn't mind. He didn't think he was descended from any Jägers, but the way they said it it hadn't been an insult.

He'd just scored another goal when someone shouted,"Gil!" and he looked up to see Tarvek standing right at the edge of the churned up mud their playing field had become, looking shocked.

Gil waved and dropped the ball. "I've got to go now," he told the other kids. "Thanks for the game! It was great." A few of the kids surprised him by trailing him curiously as he went over to Tarvek. "Hi! Did the play finish already?"

"No. If you come back now they might not notice you left," Tarvek said, glancing back over his shoulder in the direction he'd come before turning to Gil again. "What were you thinking? You can't just disappear like that, and look at you, you're filthy."

"If you don't stop talking like an adult I'll push you in as well," said Gil, guiltily trying to wipe drying mud off his clothes with his hands. "I had fun."

"Hey, Gil, who's your bossy friend?" one of the kids who had followed them called. It got them a slightly flustered and predictably haughty look from Tarvek, which was unlikely to change their opinion.

"Oh, this is Tarvek," said Gil. "He's a Prince. And I really do have to go."

Tarvek reached out as if to grab Gil's arm and then hesitated because he was covered in mud. "You're going to be in trouble," he hissed.

"Iz hokay," said a voice from above them and everyone looked around in complete confusion before spotting the Jäger lounging on top of the sausage booth. "Der Baron said Hy should follow."

"He knew," said Gil, feeling suddenly far more embarrassed and rather chagrined his sneakiness had failed. Tarvek looked mortified even though he hadn't really done anything except try to get Gil out of trouble.

The Jäger jumped down and landed easily. "Der Baron is verra goot at dot. But now iz time for hyu keeds to get beck."

As they walked away the girl who had first invited Gil to the game ran a few paces after them. "Hey! Were you the ones in the parade? Do you know the Lady Heterodyne?"

"Yeah," Gil called back. "I know Agatha."

"Tell her happy birthday from us!"

"I will!"

And then they were outside the fairground, being led by an amused looking Jäger, and Gil probably was going to be in trouble. But it was all worth it.

Agatha greeted Gil, mud caked and deeply embarrassed but unrepentant, with a cheerful, "Looks like you had fun."

Gil responded with a slightly sheepish grin and said the children he'd been playing with had said to tell her Happy Birthday. Then everyone was whisked back to Castle Heterodyne so that Gil could have a bath and change into some clean clothes for lunch. Surprisingly Gil didn't seem to be in trouble. Baron Wulfenbach said something stern about not wandering off, and that they had been going to see the fair after lunch anyway, but that appeared to be it.

Lunch was eaten in the town square as breakfast had been, and around the edges of the white clothed tables people in aprons seemed to always be showing up to replenish the food, or to make more on tables around the edges of the square or in nearby shops. Gil attacked it with a better appetite than he'd had at breakfast, not quite comfortable with the crowds but able to ignore them now. Or maybe just hungry from rolling around in the mud.

Their classmates were taking up a table of their own, near the edge of the square. Otilia, dressed for the occasion in a gown far more like the ones she had in murals, was getting admiring attention from the tourists herself. A lot of the little ones were clutching stuffed animals, while the older ones had balls, frisbees and yo-yos which they were attempting to play with while eating. Otilia's end of the table was acquiring a pile of confiscated ones.

Theo stopped by their table just before the end of lunch to drop a book titled Fairytales of Mechanicsburg next to Agatha. "I saw it in a shop window just now," he explained. "Happy Birthday!"

Agatha picked it up with a sunny smile. "Thank you!" she said, and then put it down to launch out of her chair and hug him.

A moment later Sleipnir was calling for Theo to join the class for a last trip around the fair - they wouldn't be staying for the evening meal or the Doom Bell - and he left Agatha to finish her meal.

After lunch they were no longer the centre of anything official — which didn't mean people no longer stared at Agatha, who continued to wave back whenever she caught them at it, but did mean that they weren't being followed by a crowd when they arrived at the fair. The fair itself was the same as Tarvek's impression of it when he'd come to look for Gil — a boisterous, noisy, slightly dirty place, smelling of burnt sugar, sausages and gingerbread. A mixture of mechanical rides — which he wanted to study far more than he wanted to ride — and games of skill and chance, along with the occasional fortuneteller or sideshow.

"Stay on the fairground," Barry told Agatha, "and remember the tricks in the games are part of the point."

"I know!" Agatha hugged her uncle and then raced off.

Tarvek managed not to yelp and took off after her only slightly later than Gil. "Why are we running? Are we supposed to be running?"

"Other kids are running," Gil pointed out. This was true. Other children weaved in and out of the crowd without apparently concerning anyone very much.

"I want to see everything before I pick something!" Agatha told them.

She changed her mind about that and slowed to a walk about halfway through, before Tarvek was tired at all. Possibly she needed endurance training? Or maybe it was just because she was only just five. Or maybe it was the bright colours at the throwing game.

Agatha's three attempts didn't knock anything over, which wasn't really surprising. Tarvek nudged Gil. "I brought money, do you want to both try?"

"I have some," Gil said, rather to Tarvek's surprise. He realised a moment later that one of the adults had probably made sure not to send Gil off with nothing, which was nice of them. "And yes, let's." He grinned. "I'll beat you."

"You will not!" Tarvek retorted, and they went up to the game.

It was a well rigged game, Tarvek had to admit. The targets wobbled tantalisingly if you didn't hit them just right and hard enough, and even bounced convincingly back up if you threw too hard. It took him four tries to knock one over, whereupon he took the opportunity to present Agatha with an oversized toy mimmoth that looked a little like Andy; Gil took five because it was his fourth that demonstrated the bouncing, and gave her a duck, fighting giggles. Tarvek saw Agatha's eyes go back to the targets and explained how it worked.

"I wanted to figure it out myself," Agatha said, "but thank you."

"Oh," he said, a little crestfallen, "sorry."

"It's okay!" She smiled, lighting up as if she had never been disappointed. "You were being nice and there are lots of games."

"You want to analyse the games, Lady Heterodyne?" It was the same girl who'd called after Gil earlier, still splotched with mud and grinning irrepressibly. "Need any extra minions to take data?"

Agatha tilted her head. "Ooh. Maybe so? Come on!"

The girl called a few other friends over, and Tarvek recognised them from the football game earlier too. So did Gil, who greeted them cheerfully and kept dropping back to talk to them, in between competing with Tarvek. It was a little odd to see Gil like that. It wasn't that he'd never seen Gil cheerful, brilliant, engaged in doing something and doing it well. It was that he'd never seen Gil like that around people who weren't him or Agatha.

That was before Agatha started handing out coins to all her new minions, so they could gather data for her, which led to them competing as well and discovering that he and Gil could throw better than any of them.

"I don't think there's any way you're related to Jägers," observed a slightly older boy, rather to Tarvek's bewilderment. "Whether it makes any difference or not."

"It doesn't," said the first girl, "and he could be, maybe, some of them might have relatives in Sturmhalten."

"Probably not marrying royalty though. Hey, do princes learn to throw javelins?"

"I've been taught to throw lots of things," Tarvek said. "But I think they were holding off on javelins until I'm older."

Between Tarvek, Gil and her minions Agatha was acquiring quite a pile of prizes as she figured out the games, and then acquiring more minions to carry them for her.

Tarvek was having more fun than he'd expected when the children from the football game first turned up. Agatha and Gil were both happy, and getting to show off a little was fun (and had evidently impressed the Mechanicsburg children enough that he was no longer just "Gil's bossy friend").

They whiled away most of the afternoon like this, with snacks in the middle, although everyone looked at Tarvek rather incredulously when he pointed out that Agatha was probably meant to eat dinner in public and shouldn't spoil her appetite too much. He added in a burst of inspiration that it would disappoint the chefs, and Agatha looked thoughtful and consented to eating only a nut-covered apple and some cheese (and feeding every other child in the area - the food vendors definitely liked her) before going back to her analysis of carnival tricks.

Most of the game proprietors took the whole thing in stride, but some seemed a little unsettled by having Agatha observe them intently or send swarms of children around to take measurements and report observations from different angles. Tarvek supposed they weren't local. They didn't seem to mind too much, though, since Agatha's interest gave them pretty steady business - especially toward the late afternoon, when the crowds started to thin.

"I didn't think they'd be clearing out this early," he remarked, a little puzzled.

"Ve're losing tourists," said a young woman leaning over her booth and watching them all rather fondly. Tarvek looked at her twice, but she wasn't a Jäger, she just had a stronger accent than most of the other Mechanicsburgers he'd heard talk. "Not everybody vants to hear the Doom Bell."

"Oh, of course," Tarvek said. "Thanks, I forgot."

"Hyu von't afterwards!"

Tarvek tried not to wince. "I'm sure I won't," he said politely. He just hoped he wouldn't embarrass himself. Still... even if he did, the day would probably have been worth it.

The sun looked red and bigger than at noon, squatting just at the top of Mechanicsburg's western wall, and Agatha was considering the effect when one of the Jägers came looking for them again. "Hyu oncle vants hyu back for dinner, Mistress. Hyu vants to go - smells goot." He winked at her.

"Aww!" Johan, one of the littler boys (even younger than Agatha, he'd turned four yesterday) sounded disappointed. His sister shushed him.

Agatha looked around and handed him a soft toy octopus, which either pleased him or startled him into silence. "I do have to go," she said, at which point all the children carrying things for her crowded around and tried to hand them to her (or Gil or Tarvek) at once. "Ack! Stop!" When she had room to breathe again, she said hastily, "I think you should keep these. Most of these."

"But they were for you," objected Anja, who had first offered her minions.

"And you all won them," Agatha countered. "Anyway, I can't take them all to Castle Wulfenbach and Castle Heterodyne is full of weird things nobody's using anyway. Please?"

"Isn't that how it traditionally goes?" Tarvek asked. "You win things or... you know, when you work directly for your Heterodyne she makes sure you get your share."

To Agatha's relief, the other children accepted the argument and the toys. She kept Gil's duck and Tarvek's mimmoth, because those were special, and they followed the Jäger through the shadows to Uncle Barry. She got presents then too. Uncle Barry gave her a little trilobite necklace and a kit full of interesting specialised tools.

"You can actually do most things with a good standard set, of course," he said, "and it's best to be able to improvise, but it's nice to have the exact one when you can. I'll tell you what they're all for later."

Lilith and Adam gave her a soft toy clank that Lilith had sewn her own self. Agatha looked at it and then looked up at Lilith, astonished. "You were sewing this when I was there! I remember the brass-coloured fabric!"

Lilith chuckled and kissed her forehead. "So I was. It wasn't recognisable until a week or two ago."

"Her name is Princess Stompy Boots," Agatha announced, and Adam grinned.

"Are you naming ours?" Gil asked.

Agatha thought for a minute. "Mister Quackers," she said. "And Nosey." And then she let Mirela take the toys and toolkit up to her room so they wouldn't get messy, and Uncle Barry led them all to the dinner table.

Dinner was set out on the same long tables as lunch, but there was a different feeling about it now. More Jägers at the tables, rough accents and rougher laughter carrying in the slightly colder evening air, and less tourists. The tables weren't covered with white tablecloths and ribbons, now, either, but simply bare wood. Bonfires had sprung up around the edges of the square, huge platters of hot food being lifted straight off them and onto the tables to be served. To one side someone was making six-foot sandwiches and carefully stacking them in a scrubbed alleyway. There was music, folk music Uncle Barry had said, fast and lively making Agatha's toes tap before suddenly giving way to something high and plangent, tugging at her heart without her knowing why. Everything was shadows and red washed light, monster eyes gleaming suddenly red or green, laughter from the darkness.

People came over to where she and Uncle Barry were more now, too, to ask them to try a special type of food they'd cooked, to congratulate Agatha, to wink at Miss DuLac and say cheerful things to her in an undertone. It felt adult to be out here, now, even with people talking over her head. It felt exciting and it felt right.

Gil and Tarvek, one on either side of her, were tense and alert, bright eyed with the same excitement. Gil, oddly, seemed less nervous than he had earlier when the crowds were purely human, perhaps because he knew some of the children darting, giggling, around the square. He was half kneeling on his seat, eyes red in the firelight, taking everything in unselfconsciously. Tarvek, in the smoke and shadows of the evening, had dropped at least some of his formality and was watching an oven on legs walk around distributing hot chestnuts with delight.

After dinner the cake was brought out, seven layers and as big around as Agatha's arms, and probably still not big enough for everyone to have a slice. Each layer had windows etched into the icing, as if people might be living inside the cake, and torchmen with candles paraded around them in circles. "That's a lot more candles than my age," she said, awed and trying to count them.

"For effry year to come, too," said the woman serving the cake.

"…That's still a lot of years," said Agatha, attempting to count again and just winding up slightly dizzy.

"Ve can hope."

"Oh! Thank you, then," said Agatha, grinning up at her.

"Can you actually blow all of those out?" Gil asked. "Are you even supposed to?"

"I hope not!"

Uncle Barry leaned over to her. "Just tell them to stand down."

"...That sounds physiologically difficult," said Agatha, after trying to figure out how that related to standing up exactly.

The grown-ups all looked at each other, apparently trying not to laugh, and Agatha folded her arms and huffed at them a little, waiting for them to explain. She was a little startled when General Goomblast leaned over her shoulder. "Dot iz a military term," he said. "Chust try it."

Agatha shrugged and said "Stand down!" to the torchmen candles, as commandingly as she could, and watched in delight as they lowered their candles, the flames on their heads and shoulders dimming, and marched around each layer and down off the cake. General Goomblast hastily reached out and turned the big wheel it was sitting on so she could see the ramps between layers, which made the candles wind up in two different groups.

Miss DuLac reached out and picked up the nearest, holding it carefully below the fiery part and peering at it. When she saw Agatha looking she ducked her head sheepishly and set it back down.

"I don't mind," Agatha said, giggling at her. Uncle Barry had said she got the Castle's attention by inspecting one of the real torchmen. "You can have one if you want it."

"It doesn't work quite the same way as the real ones," Uncle Barry added, teasingly, "although closer than some." He got up to cut the cake, giving Agatha the first piece and a bigger one than she was expecting. She looked around in some concern and then spotted other cakes, less fancy but probably just as tasty, on other tables and relaxed. He kissed her on top of her head. "Generous girl," he said quietly. "Happy birthday, Sweetheart." He'd been talking to people from Mechanicsburg enough all day that it came out almost like "Sveethot."

Agatha leaned into him happily and then started eating, because apparently everybody else was supposed to wait for her. It was delicious cake, with lots of vanilla and several kinds of nuts, and she was halfway through her slice when Gil looked up and said, "Hey, the dragonflies!"

Agatha blinked and looked up as well. Gradok's little dragonfly clanks were now dragonfireflies, lit up and making patterns in the air, hearts and gears and things. Uncle Barry whistled softly, and they swarmed down over a pile of sparklers that lit up all together, and zipped off to distribute them. Agatha grabbed her sparkler right before the clank could plant it in her cake.

Gil swished his sparkler though the air like a fencing foil, still eating cake with the other hand. Tarvek was doodling with his, swirling letters, spirals, flowers, all fading before he could complete them so that they were half afterimage and half light.

The sparklers were just the start. After they'd had time to burn about halfway down and everybody had a good start on the cake, there were fireworks. People started running around bringing out displays, and Agatha clapped and nearly dropped her sparkler.

They were really pretty, sparkly ones and ones that looked like flowers, pictures and electrical ones and ones with actual fire. Agatha finished her cake in a hurry so she could pay more attention. The displays got bigger and more elaborate until they all stopped, for just a little bit - it felt like everybody held their breath - and then Castle Heterodyne itself let off a great big one that went on for whole minutes. At the end of it lightning crackled across the sky, followed by billows of white smoke and a bright multicoloured glow that made the whole sky look like sunrise.

The light died all at once, and then came up again with black-red flames burning at the very tips of all the towers and a rather hot-looking glow somehow coming up from the stones below her and Uncle Barry. "By order of the Lord Heterodyne," the Castle announced, sounding a bit sulky, "I advise all newcomers to the town to find seats immediately."

Uncle Barry stood up instead. He reached down for Agatha and hoisted her up to stand on his shoulder, and everybody started cheering, the Jägers loudest of all.

In the middle of it all the Doom Bell cut through the noise. Just like the first time, it seemed to open up a space all around and inside her, empty but like she could fill it up with anything she wanted, and everything around her trembled. It occurred to Agatha that the Castle hadn't reminded her to say anything about that, and then she saw Tarvek topple over in his chair and Gil grab him.

Miss DuLac was holding Uncle Barry's hand, but as Agatha started to scramble down she heard her say, "That's interesting," and she looked around her uncle just as Miss DuLac let go and then fell over too.

What he should have done, Barry thought resignedly, was arrange for Donna and Tarvek to be on the same side of him so he could keep an eye on both of them at once. Although on reflection he wasn't entirely sure that would have helped since he'd been bracing Agatha on his shoulder until she started trying to squirm free. He caught Donna before she could slide out of her chair, swung Agatha down to see to her friend, and exchanged a rueful look with Klaus who was getting up to go around to his students.

Gkika stepped out of the shadows and scooped Tarvek into her arms with a practiced motion, settling him against her shoulder, and then taking Gil's arm with her free hand. "Ve go inside zo hyu ken recover," she said.

Barry blinked. "Ah. Good idea." They'd probably appreciate a little privacy; for that matter, so would Klaus.

Agatha, he noticed, had somehow managed to seize Gil's free hand and one of Klaus's. Franz thumped into the square and waved before heading for the alley with his sandwiches. Barry lifted Donna into his arms and followed Gkika, only stopping to think once they were already walking in amidst cheerful Jägers that he had just agreed to take his girlfriend, his five-year-old niece, and two of her classmates into a Jäger bar that doubled as a brothel.

On the bright side, it was indoors, warm, and if not exactly private then full of people who actually liked everyone involved. (Although Barry had to admit that this was still a fairly new way for him to think of the Jägers.) He decided to go with it and took the chair he was offered, settling Donna on his lap while Klaus and Lilith mother-henned the children as soon as Gkika had let go of them.

Agatha followed Gkika over to the bar. "Do you make cocoa here?"

"For hyu, sveetie, ve do," she said, briskly setting some milk on to boil.

"Thank you. I think everybody needs some." Agatha clambered onto a stool with a slight assist from Vali and stood on it to watch the progress of the cocoa.

Tarvek started to stir in Lilith's lap, and Klaus got up from one knee and sat down before the boy opened his eyes. "The things Heterodynes do to our friends," Barry said apologetically.

He was actually more than half talking to Klaus, but Tarvek glanced up at him, looking miserably embarrassed and guilty, and then around. "Where's-"

Klaus looked around at that too in sharp alarm, as if Agatha could have actually gone missing while surrounded by Jägers, and Barry shook his head. "At the bar, getting-"

"Cocoa for effrybody," Gkika finished for him, deftly setting down several mugs as Agatha trotted up after her. By the colour and scent Klaus's and Donna's had been dosed with brandy.

Tarvek picked his up in both hands, gripping it tightly and still looking rather woozy. "Thanks. Sorry." He looked at Gil. "You didn't...?"

Gil shook his head before picking up his own cocoa, not meeting Tarvek's eyes.

Agatha leaned against the side of Tarvek's chair. "I'm sorry."

"Nearly everyone does pass out the first time," Barry said, hoping it would help at least a little.

Donna inhaled and shifted against his shoulder. "You don't say. Ugh. Is holding on to one of you supposed to help?"

Barry blinked. "Er, is it helping?"

"Not now, then! Not that it was a bad way to wake up." She sat up a bit more, then looked around, taking in the Jägers, the decor, and probably Mamma's girls. "Um... where are we?"

"Hyu iz at Mamma Gkika's, dollink," said Gkika, patting her on the shoulder. "Now drink op."

Donna looked up at her, blinking, and obediently picked up her cocoa. "That's very good, thank you," she said, sounding a little steadier after a swallow. "You must be General Gkika. It's nice to meet you."

Gkika gave her a dazzling grin. "Iz goot to meet hyu, too. My boyz haff been saying goot tings about hyu." She squeezed Donna's shoulder, claws lifted slightly away from it. "Now hyu chust stay here und relax for a leedle."

"They have excellent taste in weaponry," Donna said, with a glint in her eye that said the brag in the compliment was intentional and probably meant she was feeling better. She snuggled down against Barry's shoulder all the same. "Relaxing sounds like a good idea. So that's how you celebrate here, is it?"

"Ho yez," said Gkika, with far too much enthusiasm.

"Afraid so," Barry said.

Donna glanced at Gkika over the rim of her mug. "Hmm. You're being too nice to me for this to have disqualified me from dating your Heterodyne."

"Ho! If ve made dot a requirement ve'd be very short ov pipple dey could date. Ennyvay, iz not like he asked our permission."

"That would have just confused everybody," Barry said, amused. "I didn't know they were going to start visiting you, either."

"I make sharp things," Donna said. "It's the perfect excuse. Although I might have to try bellfounding again now."

Barry blinked at her. "You found that inspiring?"

Donna sat up a bit, one arm still around his neck, and waved her other hand - with the mug in it, which Barry hastily took away and set down before the cocoa could go flying. "It was interesting, anyway. For one thing I think you were damping it somehow, even though I'm pretty sure you weren't humming?" She waited just long enough for him to shake his head, bemused. "Anyway, I wouldn't want to duplicate the particular effect - I think it's reached its epitome there anyway - but it should be possible to induce other moods by the same harmonic principles." She came down from the lower reaches of the madness place to add mischievously, "Possibly even ones other people would find celebratory."

Agatha was watching her wide-eyed. "I was worried about the rest of you," she said. "It felt good to me, though. Like I could do anything."

"That might explain quite a bit," Klaus murmured.

"Maybe next time you should hold on to Tarvek," Gil suggested, thoughtlessly, making Tarvek look even more like he wanted to vanish.

"I was going to hold on to you," Barry told Donna, mock-severely. "I didn't know you were going to let go."

"I was investigating," Donna said primly, then pressed a hand to her forehead and picked up the cocoa again. "I'll know better next time. Seriously... all occasions?"

"Oh, yes," Barry said wryly. "It's widely agreed that Bill and I never have used it nearly enough. Formal and informal; births, deaths, victories, birthdays, weddings, really good moods..."

"Weddings!" Donna snorted into her mug. "Of course. If my reaction's normal, that must be fun for the bride."

"I'd cheer you up afterward," said Barry, before realising just what he'd said and where, as one of the Jägers at a nearby table hooted encouragement.

Donna raised her head from the cocoa and locked eyes with him. "Why, Barry. Was that a proposal?"

Barry stared at her for a moment, then pulled her close to rest her forehead against his. "That was not exactly how I meant to ask," he said. "Would you like to answer now or wait and I'll try again later?"

Donna blinked at him once, at very close range, and then set down her mug and collapsed against him again, laughing. "I'll wait if you had your heart set on a specific plan-"

"No specifics, sorry," Barry said, suddenly unable to stop grinning. "Just that this wasn't it."

"Then I'll go ahead and say yes." Donna quelled her laughter long enough to kiss him.

There was cheering, klepping and whistling from all around them. Klaus managed to stifle his own laughter long enough to say, "Congratulations."

Then the Castle's voice rang out, in the booming reverberations that meant it was speaking all over the town. "I am delighted to announce that the Lord Heterodyne is engaged!"

Now there was muffled cheering from outside the bar.

"Don't ring the bell again!" Barry said quickly, just in case the Castle was getting any further ideas.

Donna mostly smothered another laugh. "Thanks."

He smiled at her. "Anyway, I already feel like I could do anything."

Klaus stood up, giving Barry a fond and unguarded smile that Tarvek appeared to be recovered enough to notice, and still out of it enough to spend several moments visibly stunned by. "I think it's time the children were in bed," he said. "Lilith?"

"Yes, I think so." Lilith smiled at all of them and stood, bending far enough to keep Tarvek's hand.

Agatha dodged Adam to run up and kiss both Barry and Donna on the cheek. "This was the best birthday," she said. "And I get an aunt!"

Barry chuckled and hugged her close. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. Sleep well, Agatha."

"Good night!" She let herself be herded off after that, latched firmly to Tarvek and Gil as if she could retroactively ease the effects of the Doom Bell. She'd probably fling herself on Klaus at some point, and Barry smiled faintly at the thought.

For all Barry knew they actually could. Donna seemed to be making a pretty good recovery for the first time. He wrapped an arm around her waist and let the Jägers crowd around with congratulations.