Wiz held up his hand, checking the explosion of spectral wrath behind him.
“Well, since I’m not going to be here for the wedding, I’d better give you your present early.”
The girl flushed again. “Oh My Lord, that is not necessary.”
“Still, I am going to give you this house. As a wedding present, you might say.” Anna’s jaw dropped and her face lit up like a child’s at Christmas. He waved a finger. “Now mind, I am giving this to you personally. Not to the two of you. I’ve arranged it with the council that it shall be yours alone.”
Anna hugged him and started to cry into his shirt pocket. “Hey, it’s okay,” Wiz protested and tried to move her away. “It’s all right.”
“Well, My Lord,” Anna said with a smile and a sniffle. “I’d best go and finish in the kitchen.”
“Yes, do that.” Before Moira catches you hanging all over me and turns us both into toads.
“Smart,” Widder Hackett said at last. “If she owns the house I’ll be able to advise the poor child. And she’ll need it, married to that empty-headed popinjay.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking,” Wiz said. That and I don’t want to find out if the ghost stays with the owner if he leaves the house.
* * *
Malkin was gone for a long time doing Malkin-ish things. The principal one of those things was a visit to her fence to turn the last of her swag into gold. Since One-Eyed Nicolai didn’t open for business until after dark, she took her dinner at a dingy little food stall in the Bog Side. On the way home she was diverted by a couple of opportunities to ply her trade and ended up returning with more loot than she left with, plus the gold from the fence, and coming in quite late to boot.
Thus it was that Malkin was sneaking up the back stairs with her latest acquisitions when a looming shadow blocked her way.
Jerry, who was wide-awake after the day’s nap, had been net surfing on Wiz’s workstation. He had taken a break to stretch his legs-and see if there was anything to eat in the kitchen. He wasn’t expecting to meet anyone on the stairs and he nearly stepped on Malkin before he could stop. As it was he half-stumbled, half-fell into her and they ended up clinging to each other to keep from falling completely downstairs.
“Oh, hello,” Jerry said mildly, releasing his hold on the girl.
“Hello yourself,” said Malkin, looking up at him. Not only was she one stair lower on the stairway, but even on the level Jerry overtopped her by perhaps half a head. “Let’s see, you’re the one called Jerry, right?”
“That’s me.”
“And you’re a wizard too?”
“Well, a programmer but around here it pretty much comes to the same thing.” Between the darkness in the stairwell and Malkin’s dark clothing Jerry couldn’t see much of his new acquaintance, but the combination of dark hair working its way out from under the knit cap, the pale, fair skin and lithe figure he had wrapped his arms around to keep from falling all made a very favorable impression.
“I was just taking a break,” he explained. “From work on the computer, ah, workstation, I mean.” It occurred to Jerry he was babbling, but if he shut up she might just pass him by on the stairs. “I do that a lot. Work, you know. Besides I’m kind of a night person,” he explained. “I do most of my best work then.”
Malkin smiled up at him. “I know just what you mean. I’m that way myself.”
Somehow the big programmer and the tall thief ended up sitting side by side on the stairs, talking. Somehow it was getting light outside before they reached a stopping place in their conversation and went their separate ways.
It is possible they were overheard. But Danny was sleeping in the front parlor and Wiz and Moira were far too occupied to hear anything. If Bal-Simba heard he gave no sign. Widder Hackett didn’t talk about it and Bobo just looked smug.