“Nice. Of course, it almost got you fried. Why didn’t you let me know it was you?”
“First of all, I wanted to see if my disguise spell was good enough to fool someone who was watching for it. This is my first time to try to disguise my voice as well as my appearance. Secondly . . . well, I was curious if you had changed your mind about being my apprentice.”
“But why couldn’t you have just asked me … I see. You’re really in trouble, aren’t you? Bad enough that you didn’t want to drag me into an old promise. That’s nice of you, Skeeve. Like I said before, you run a class act.”
“Anybody would have done the same thing,” I argued, trying to hide my embarrassment at her praise.
She snorted loudly.
“If you believed that, you wouldn’t have survived as long as you have. Anyway, apprentice or not, a friend is a friend. Now out with it. What’s happened?”
Sitting on the steps to the throne, I filled her in about the forthcoming wedding and my suspicions about the king’s conveniently scheduled vacation. I tried to sound casual and matter-of-fact about it, but towards the end my tone got rather flat.
When I was done, Massha gave a low whistle of sympathy.
“When you big leaguers get in trouble, you don’t kid around, do you? Now that you’ve filled me in, I’ll admit I’m a little surprised you’re still here.”
I grimaced.
“I’m a little slow from time to time, but you only have to lecture me once. If one day without a king is bad for a kingdom, a permanent disappearance could be disastrous. Anyway, what I need right now is someone to track down the real king and get him back here, while I keep bluffing from the throne.”