Sandy saw Shizune Morrell out. Lipwitch were happy with the feature. Saturday was not a massive disaster after all. Sandy even smiled.

"Well done everyone!" He congratulated the team. They did Witch Weekly proud. He had got here straight from the hospital. The account was important to him. Important to the magazine. He did not want any idiots ruining it. Thinking about Saturday made him anxious. He maybe would allow Genny to get a security wizard.

He had not spoke to Koko. He walked by her desk. "Koko c-can, can we have a word?" Sandy asked. "Five minutes. In my office." He walked away. He went to his office. He opened last issue. Open at the pages. He sat at his desk. If Genevieve did not want to say this. He had to.

She hadn't been into work yesterday, and the whole incident with Balfour Spectre was only one that Koko had heard about secondhand. Relying on the veracity of her colleagues was doubtful: some of them wildly exaggerated and others didn't think it was a big deal. Wizards hexing each other happened all the time, so she didn't think much of it.

Marching into their HQ to do it, though? A huge deal. Such flair for drama!

            "Five minutes. In my office."

Uh oh. Big boss wanted a word. In her oversized t-shirt and black jeans, she was feeling pretty relaxed today - ready to get started on copy for a new scandal. But work was work. Koko put on her enchanted hat before leaving the bullpen for Misslethorpe's office. Spectre's face winked at her from its place on the bulletin board as she passed it; darts had only been half-heartedly thrown at him, mostly because nobody wanted to ruin a pretty face.

"What's up?" she strolled in blithely, shutting the door behind her. "Is this about Lipwitch or Saturday?"

"Saturday. Sit down." Sandy sounded weary. It was Monday. But it was like he had not had a break for weeks. He did not like to get too involved. Not at Witch Weekly. He was doing more at the hospital. Deputy Head Healer and now research. He was so tired. So anxious. He was running miles. He had lost six pounds this month. "You know what happened?" Sandy asked. "Did you ask him for comment?"

He asked her to sit, so she sat and crossed her arms. Saturday. Spectre related. Why was everyone being so touchy about this? The kid would live if he was anything like his Almasy relatives, against whom Witch Weekly scandal seemed to glance off like nothing. People needed to take a chill pill. Light up with some gillyweed.

"I heard what happened." Koko raised her eyebrows, as if to say: obviously. "Did I ask him for comment before the article, or did I asked him for comment about why he hexed you?"

Balfour Spectre had suffered a lot of gossip in silence, she was actually surprised he had come all the way here in his anger. And more surprised that nobody stopped him!

"Either way the answer is no," she shrugged. "He'd have hexed me if I asked him when I was writing. Or gotten a gag order before we could publish!"

Sandy had a headache. Koko did not care. It was not her eyeballs. Not her meeting that got interrupted. "About a mystery son." Sandy said. "Nicely." Koko did not do nice. He was kidding himself.

"Would you write about my kid?" He asked. He did not approve the articles. Gen did. He just made money decisions. "Or Genny's?"

She stared at the co-owner of Witch Weekly as if though he'd grown a second, slightly less becoming head. What was he going on about?? Of course she didn't ask Spectre to comment, she had actual facts from Moscow and the public was going to eat it all up. They loved a devil child to hiss at.

"Of course not," Koko rolled her eyes and crossed her legs. "If you weren't my bosses.... maybe. If it would make good copy. Are you growing a conscience? Does it just take being hexed, to do that?"

If it did, she should have grown one years and years ago. People like them, people like Spectre and Miranda and Woolfolk and Gamp, they could afford to be the subject of scandal.

There wasn't anything really wrong about milking them for all it was worth.

"Just curious." Sandy said. He leaned back. Sandy's daughter was off limits. His personal life not allowed. He was funder. Witch Weekly was a business. Koko's stories sold copies. That made him money. Eventually. Being a healer did too of course.

"I am going to pursue charges." Sandy said. "I can not have people coming in here cursing us." He crossed his arms. "It could have been you." Deserved. Maybe. "It could have been worse than swivel eyeballs."

Sandy understood. He was a businessman. People underestimated him sometimes but Koko knew that he was shrewder than he let on, and didn't enjoy being walked over. Still, she raised her sharply drawn eyebrows at him as he informed her that charges were going to be pursued.

"If you want to stop people from cursing us then you should hire a real security service," she thought about security trolls and pulled a face. "But you're going to make us look like villains if you press charges."

Koko knew there was a fine line between not giving a shit about Spectre, and letting the public know they don't give a shit. Overprotective father with a temper? That sold her stories. Witch Weekly court trials? Less so.

There was also the one tiny, itty bitty little fact that Koko didn't actually know Feliks Spectre's full story. Her contacts on level two seemed sympathetic for the boy. If he had a really sad story, her article was going to look even worse should Sandy go to court. They didn't need that.

"Drop the charges and it's just about him attacking us for telling people the truth," Koko shrugged.

"I asked Gen to get quotes already." Sandy interrupted. Then she said to drop charges.

"Damned if I do. Damned if I do not." He huffed. On Sunday he had run eight miles. He had decided to sell his share. Then give up healing. Then apologize to Balfour Spectre. Then at mile seven he got a second wind. Decided he would see Spectre in court.

"Do you have a follow up article then?"

Whatever Sandy decided, she supposed it wasn't her pen name being dragged through the mud. She had already given him her two cents based on how well she could read their audience. "If you do press charges, just remember we might not have been kind to the judges and jurors of the Wizengamot."

They wouldn't be unfair, obviously. But she had a feeling that they wouldn't exactly go easy on him either.

            "Do you have a follow up article then?"

"If you want me to have one," she tilted her head to the side as a few phrases ran through her mind. "Just a straightforward one about him barging in and hexing an unsuspecting wizard?" Koko didn't know if Sandy wanted his name in the article. "Could ask Gen if she'd rather cover it, if Lil Snigger needs to lay low."

Pressing charges might interrupt the research too. But he could not say that out loud. In truth Sandy did not know what to do. Sometimes he felt very alone. He could ask Harper. But that would be like her asking healing advice. You did not take people to romantic dinner.

"I expect you to have one Koko. Maybe not written. Maybe in the back of your mind. You are meant to be one of the best here." He nearly said my best but Koko had a big head already. "Readers can object. They can disagree. But you wrote no lies in that article right?"

"I always have something in the back of my mind," she rolled her eyes at Sandy as if though he didn't understand the first thing about how her mind worked - which, Koko guessed, was probably the truth. "Just tell me the angle you want."

They didn't understand all the scandalous little connections she had fun pulling together, the leaps of logic she loved to make that made her good at this. She could make the most innocent of creatures look like the devil incarnate and wasn't that something to brag about, in this business?

            "But you wrote no lies in that article right?"

"Nope." Koko tilted her chin up, and then hesitated. "I mean... there are some things I didn't put in the article. Just stupid stuff my contacts on level two would say -" she shrugged, "- about the kid being from some weird orphanage, but I couldn't trace the place so I left it out."

Which was to say, she knew that if she tried to trace or mention the place, she would find herself dead in a ditch somewhere between Moscow and London. The Almasys there didn't play nice like the Ministry here.

Koko took off her hat, setting it down on her lap as she continued. "It's more or less the truth, I just asked questions that our readers would answer themselves."

Sandy groaned. He knew the answer. He had wanted to hear it from Koko.
"90% truth then." He said. Not enough to make Spectre sue them. If they told the truth it was good.

"He cannot just walk in and hex us for telling the truth." Sandy said. "It is our freedom. If it does not suit him then..." Sandy shrugged. "If I do not ask Level 2 to do something... like you want... then we shrug it off." Sandy weighed one hand. "Or we post an apology. For breaking the eleven-year-old baby announcement for free." He weighed other hand.

She played with the rim of her hat as Misslethorpe mused about this and that, literally weighing his options in his hands. Sometimes Koko was glad that Sandy and Gen were the bosses around here. They had to make much bigger decisions: most importantly, they always had a final say, which was a great scapegoat for her.

"Our freedom of speech is from the Ministry, not private individuals -" she pointed out with an arch in her brow, "- so it goes to trial as a private dispute."

Especially because Spectre, that moron, hadn't even hexed the right person! It worried her. Koko didn't put it past a good defence lawyer to bring up the part of the story she didn't publish, currying favour with the Wizengamot or jurors. They'd eat it up like her readers ate up a gossip column.

There had to be a way out of this that didn't make them look monstrous or guilty, which was what Sandy's options indicated to her.

"Shrug it off." Koko narrowed her eyes, suddenly focused. "Pretend it didn't happen. If it gets out on the grapevine, we look gracious for not shitting on Spectre's assault, right?" she paused. "If it doesn't get out, the only thing that's been hurt is your pride. Are we going to get a security troll?"

When did Koko become a lawyer? Sandy was irritated with her. Irritated with Balfour Spectre. Irritated with everyone! He was doing the most important work at the hospital. He did not have space in head for this stupidity.

"I told you already I sent Gen to get quotes!" snapped Sandy. Uglier the better. They did not need any more distractions. Sandy frowned. "That will be all Koko." The magazine on the desk closed. The other papers went straight.