Marigold tried to imagine the blob of glop oozing down the grand staircase. “I really don’t think he can.”
“This is ridiculous!” Countess Snoot-Harley reached for the doorknob. Marigold stood in front of it. Countess Snoot-Harley tried to go around her. Marigold pressed herself against the door. Countess Snoot-Harley leaned in close. “What’s going on here?” she asked. “What are you trying to hide from me?”
“Hide?” Marigold could smell the expensive perfume on the countess’s wrists, tinged with the faintest hint of swamp mud. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“I don’t believe you for a moment,” the countess said flatly. “Is there a secret Torville’s keeping? I’m very good at coaxing out secrets.” She smiled, as though the thought amused her. Then she squeezed past Marigold, turned the doorknob, and strode into the hall.
“Pettifog!” Marigold shouted, running after her. “Countess Snoot-Harley is here! Inside the fortress!”
Pettifog appeared in the kitchen doorway at once. “Countess,” he said with a bow of his head and a flutter of wings. “It’s an honor to see you again. What can I do for you?”
“You can get out of my way,” the countess said. “It’s Torville I want. Where is he?”
Over Pettifog’s protests, the countess showed herself into the kitchen. Marigold almost admired her determination as she pushed aside the branches of the peach tree. “This isn’t at all how I imagined a wizard’s house to be,” she remarked. “Oh, there you are, Torville!”
Marigold widened her eyes at Pettifog. He nodded toward the kitchen table.
Someone was sitting there — someone about Torville’s height, in Torville’s robes, with his face to the wall and his hood pulled up to keep himself in shadow. In one hand, he clutched a handkerchief embroidered with daisies. He let out a low and miserable moan, and as the countess approached him, he blew his nose with relish. It was clear to Marigold that Collin was enjoying himself.
“You worked quickly,” she murmured to Pettifog.
The imp shrugged. “The robes fit your friend much better than they fit you,” he whispered back, “and I didn’t bother with the vocal powder this time.” He raised his voice to catch the countess’s attention. “Madam, Wizard Torville is ill. That’s why we’re not allowing visitors.”
“I see.” Countess Snoot-Harley paused. “Is it catching?”
“Oh, yes,” said Pettifog. “He’s extremely contagious.”
“We think it’s skin-crawling sickness,” Marigold added, not wanting to be left out.
“But that’s deadly!” The countess backed away as Collin blew his nose again.
“Only most of the time,” said Marigold. “Still, we didn’t want to send him to Whitby in this condition. Was there something you wanted to say to him?”
Countess Snoot-Harley tightened her grip on the little bottle of garlic potion. “No, thank you,” she said. “I really must be going. I’ve got to retrieve my coach, and it’s getting late, and . . .” Without bothering to think up any more excuses, the countess turned and walked to the door. “Let me know if the wizard’s condition improves,” she said to Marigold in a low voice. “I’d planned to hire him to curse the freesias in Duchess Teasewhistle’s garden — though if those rumors of a peace treaty are true, I suppose I won’t be able to.”
In the kitchen, Collin groaned like a rusted hinge. He sneezed six times in a row.
“Goodbye!” said Marigold. Countess Snoot-Harley hurried outside, and Marigold shut the door behind her. Then she bolted it.
“Are all of Torville’s clients so awful?” Marigold asked. She sank into the kitchen chair across from Collin. Queen Amelia and King Godfrey had never had a kind word to spare about the people of Whitby, and if the rest of them were anything like Countess Snoot-Harley, Marigold could understand why.
“Of course all the clients are awful,” Pettifog said. “Who else do you think would hire an evil wizard? At least the countess won’t be returning anytime soon.” He sat down, too, sighing a little. “I do wish you’d gotten Torville’s payment, though. We could have used it.”
Collin pulled down his hood and rolled up his sleeves. “Now that I’m done having skin-crawling sickness,” he said, “would someone please tell me what’s going on with Wizard Torville?”
Pettifog refused to say a word in case the Archdemon might be listening, so Marigold was left to explain the whole calamity herself, skirting around the most embarrassing parts as well as she could. As she talked, Collin chewed his lower lip, trying to follow along. “I think I understand,” he said once she’d finished. “You have to help the Miseries make everyone miserable, or they’ll curse you and get rid of Pettifog?”
“Something like that,” Marigold agreed.
“All right.” Collin leaned forward on his elbows. “What are we going to do?”
Marigold blinked at him. “Pettifog and I have to go to Blumontaine to speak to Queen Hetty,” she said carefully, “because Vivien and Elgin will be furious if we don’t. You are going back to Imbervale.”
Collin’s usual grin faded away. “But I want to come with you!”
“No, you don’t. It’s awful being tangled up in the Miseries’ schemes. And you ought to get back to the palace. Does Cook know where you’ve gone? Will she be angry with you?”
Collin shrugged. “Everyone will be angry with me if I tell them I left you alone to get cursed by a bunch of wizards.”
“Not alone!” said Pettifog. “With an imp!”
Marigold ignored him. “I won’t let you get into any more trouble on my account,” she told Collin. “That’s why you’re always supposed to be the lookout!”
“I’m tired of being the lookout!” Collin protested. “I don’t want to be the lookout! If you’re going to have an adventure, I want to have one, too!”
The expression on Collin’s face now was one that Marigold had never seen before, or at least not that she’d noticed: he looked hurt. She tried not to mind, but her heart still wasn’t as shriveled as she’d hoped — and he had come all the way across the wildwood with her biplane in his bag. Even Torville hadn’t turned her away after that kind of journey.
“Well,” said Marigold, “maybe . . .” She leaned forward, then backward, studying Collin as he shifted uncomfortably in Torville’s robes. Pettifog was right; they did fit him well. And it was true that Marigold could use some help. Collin didn’t have much else in common with Torville, but he’d already fooled Countess Snoot-Harley, and that had been without the particular contraption Marigold had in mind. She could almost hear the real Torville’s voice in her ear, telling her it was the appearance of things that counted.
“Collin,” she said, “do you think you could wear a false mustache?”
The real Wizard Torville was in a terrible mood.
At least that’s what Marigold guessed when she went to the workroom to visit him the next morning. He had smeared himself across the side of the cheese dome and refused to be scraped off, inching away from Marigold’s fingers whenever she tried.
“Don’t you want to see what I’ve brought you?” Marigold asked. She held out the contraption she’d started working on out by the moat: a scale pan that could spin in circles, fitted with a wire pointer. “You can sit inside it on the blackboard,” Marigold explained, “and spin it around so the wire points to the letters you’d like to spell. Then you won’t have to waste so much time squirming.”
