As soon as the dancing resumed, Gregory whispered to Gwynyfer, “Let’s try to find the bug.”
“What bug?” she asked.
“The microphone that’s picking up everything you say in here,” he explained. He made his way toward the throne room. “It’s probably in here,” he said. “When we turned on the radio at first, the talking was kind of muffled. That’s probably because people were standing out in the Grand Hall, a little ways from the transmitter.”
The heavy curtains into the throne room were open, and people stood by the Stub, drinking tea and eating biscuits. A beautiful nanny knelt by the throne, holding up a series of plastic letters and whispering their names to the one-eyed plug.
Gregory and Gwynyfer stood near the Stub’s chair, inspecting it for suspicious hardware. It was a wooden armchair, painted gold.
“Whoops,” said Gregory, and dropped a Triscuit on the floor. He stooped to pick it up and stow it in his napkin. While he was down on his knees, he looked under the seat.
Nothing.
He stood, glancing around at the pastel drawings Randall and Elspeth Fendritch had done on the walls.
“Are you going to eat that?” said Gwynyfer, pointing to the Triscuit.
“What do you mean?”
“Five-second rule. You can still eat it.”
“I was checking under the throne.”
“Ahhhh.”
“Let’s look at the walls.”
They moved along the walls, scanning them for irregularities.
Behind them, the Court danced and gossiped, talking of the awful Thusser and the chubby human kid and the boring manns.
And then, Gregory found it. High up on the wall, in the center of a huge, painted sunflower, there was a disc.
“Right there,” he said. “See?”
Gwynyfer squinted. “It’s raised.”
“Something’s attached to the middle of that flower.”
“You’re right.”
“How are we going to get it? It’s too high. You think I can drag the throne over here and climb up?”
“A better idea: dance.”
“Come on. Don’t you want to see if that’s the Thusser’s bug?”
“I said I have a plan. Let’s dance.”
Gregory and Gwynyfer spun around a few times. Then she said, “Now you’re going to lift me up as part of the dance and spin me. Sit me on your shoulder. Spin around. I’ll put my arms out and grab the disc.”
Now this was a plan Gregory liked. Bold, flirty, and stupid. He was liking Gwynyfer more every minute.
He lifted her up, swayed around. She screamed laughter like she was having a great time — maybe she was — and held her arms up in the air. He spun them in a circle, staggering with her weight. He ran into the wall, and she slid down.
Adults were glaring.
But as Gregory and Gwynyfer resumed their foxtrot position, Gwynyfer slipped the disc from her hand into his.
Their fingers clasped around it.
Brian crept along through dark, deep places in the palace, following the Earl of Munderplast. At this depth, the walls were uneven — huge hunks of dried muscle larger than courthouses, stacked and slanted above Brian’s head. Torches were lit along the walls. Great, angular shadows sputtered. Brian followed the old man through chasms and defiles.
He did not see the earl look backward and notice him. He did not see the earl draw a knife.
The Thusser listening device was a disc with a hole in the middle and something like an earlobe.
Gregory said, “I have an idea. Let’s go up to Dr. Brundish’s lair and get the radio. Then we can show everyone how it works.”
Quietly, they removed themselves from the dance.
Now Brian saw that others were arriving through passages in the huge slabs of tissue. They were wearing black robes. They walked through the broken cavernscape, all congregating on one point: a ramshackle amphitheater of jutting rock and uneven slope. The earl beckoned for them to pass him, whispering to each of them as they walked toward the rough-hewn stage. The earl himself hung back, surveying the meeting of this society in gloom.
Brian hid behind a boulder, twitching with excitement.
Gregory and Gwynyfer stood in the chirurgeon’s office.
“Now,” said Gregory. “For the demonstration. I bet this gadget is broadcasting to the radio. So …”
He flicked a switch on the radio. He held the disc near his mouth.
The sound of talking and music came out of the speakers.
Gregory and Gwynyfer exchanged confused looks.
Gregory tapped the disc. “Testing,” he said. “Testing, one two three.”
No trace of his voice reached the radio.
“I don’t get it,” he said. Into the disc, he said, “This is a test. Broadcast. Hey. Yoo-hoo. YOO-HOO!”
Nothing. The radio picked up the band, the mutter of people socializing.
“It’s still picking up the throne room,” Gwynyfer said.
“Which means,” Gregory concluded, “that we’ve made a stupid mistake.”
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t the Thusser’s listening device. This is someone else’s listening device. Two people had the throne room bugged. We picked off the wrong bug. And the Thusser can still hear everything that’s going on down there.”
Brian crouched, watching six robed figures meet below. The Earl of Munderplast stood quite near him, looking down toward the others, arms crossed. He now wore a robe of black satin, too, and a hood.
Below, the six figures talked quietly amongst themselves. Brian could make out no words. Syllables thwapped like bats around the broken chamber. Echoes muttered in all the dead, muscled corridors.
And suddenly, the Earl of Munderplast and one other moved back toward Brian. The boy instinctively cowered, trying to push himself into a crevice. But they weren’t just walking past him — they were walking right at him.
He panicked. He didn’t know if he should run or keep hidden.
They were looking directly at him. Time to run. He got up. He scampered.
They ran after him. The earl had a knife.
Brian hurtled down the uneven hallway, hands out, pushing off against the fallen walls.
The two figures rushed after him.
He didn’t know the way back. He skipped over a crevasse. He looked behind him. They were gaining. Their hoods had fallen off: the earl and a young knight Brian had seen but did not know.
He turned a corner, hoped for stairs. No such luck.
He hurled himself along over an obsidian expanse of dried heart that felt like stone.
The hands grabbed him.
He was hauled backward.
The knight gripped him. The Earl of Munderplast put his knife to Brian’s throat.
They pulled him back toward the amphitheater.
The others were waiting.
“Brethren!” the earl announced. “We have a spy in our midst.” He and the knight gestured that Brian should walk down the ragged slope to the others. He stumbled and tripped, barely caught himself. The hands on his arms were firm. They bruised him.
He was thrust into the middle of the ring.
They stared at him.
“Brian Thatz,” hissed the Earl of Munderplast. “Welcome to the final meeting of the Guild of Regicide Assassins.”