"Oh, Your Majesty!" Tina gasped, sounding tinny and distressed on the other end of the line. "I'm so dreadfully sorry! My deepest condolences. Oh, your poor parents! Your poor family! I remember when I lost mine, and it's still as fresh as it was-"

"Me time, Tina, got it?"

"Majesty, how may I serve?"

I puffed a sigh of relief. Some things, in this last crazy week, hadn't changed. Tina had always treated me like a queen, and anyone Sinclair loved, she served with everything she had. In fact, she'd had a bit of a crush on me when we first met, until I took care of the little misunderstanding ("I'm straight as a ruler, honey") and since then our relationship had been kind of complicated: sovereign/servant/friend/assistant. She was still overseas, but at least she was answering her stinking phone.

"How is the king taking it?"

"That's just it. He's not."

"I am sure he will comfort you in his own way," she soothed. "You know as well as I that a taciturn man can be difficult even during the-"

"Tina, did you forget English when you went to France? He's not taking it because he's gone. Vamoosed. Poof. Buh-bye."

"But-where?"

"Like / know? We haven't, um, been getting along lately, and he went off a bit ago-"

"And you've been too proud to call him."

I said nothing. Nothing!

"Majesty? Are you still on the line?"

"You know Goddamned well I am," I snapped, taking evil pleasure in her groan at the G-word.

"I will call him," she said, sounding cheered to have something to do. "I will request he come to your side at once. Whatever. . . difficulties you two are having, surely deaths in the family will supersede other considerations."

"They'd better, if he ever wants to get laid anytime in the next five hundred years," I threatened, but felt better. Tina was here for me (sort of) and on the case. She wouldn't be trapped in France forever.

Sinclair would turn up. Marc would reappear from whatever dimension he had slipped into. Antonia would get over her snit-fit and come home, dragging Garrett behind her on a leash. Jessica's chemo would triumph over the cancer, and she'd sprint home, bossing us around as was her wont. My life (such as it was) would be normal again.

"How is everyone else taking it?"

"Well, that's the thing." I perched on the counter, got comfy, and explained where everyone was. Or where I thought they were, anyway.

Afterward there was a long, awkward silence on Tina's end, which I broke with a faux-cheerful, "Weird, huh?"

"Rat fuck," Tina muttered, and I nearly toppled off the counter. Tina, ancient bloodsucking thing that she was (she'd made Sinclair, and he was, like, seventy!), had the manners of an Elizabethan lady and almost never swore. She was perfectly proper at all nines.

"Mother fuck," she continued. "Conspirational bastard shitstains."

"Uh, Tina, I think someone else just got on the line-

"They're all gone? All of them?"

"Duh, that's what I just-"

"For how long?"

I looked at my watch, which was stupid, as it didn't show the date. "Almost a week now."

"I'm calling the king."

"Right, I got that the first time. Fine, call him, but he'd better not show up without flowers. And possibly diamonds. Or some Beverly Feldmans! Yeah, the red and gold flats would be perfect-"

"My queen, you will not leave that house. You will-"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Long pause. "Tina?"

Nothing. Dead line. Again.

I shrugged and hung up the phone. If the French couldn't get their act together-ever-to win a war, how could they be expected to keep the phone lines open?

A mystery for another day. For now I had to figure out a feeding schedule for my new (groan) son, visit Jess (she'd want all the gory funeral details), and leave yet another message for Marc. A busy evening, and not even nine o'clock yet.