Etiquette & Espionage (21 page)

“So you’re Professor Lefoux’s niece?”

“That’s what she tells me.”

Sophronia sat back on the settee and tried to look casual. “Know anything about this
prototype
?”

“Now, miss, why would you think that?”

“You like mechanics and inventions, and so far as I can gather, the prototype is both.”

The girl looked up and smiled, looking far more her age than when she was concentrating on Bumbersnoot. “It’s for a special communication machine.”

“A what?”

“Ever since the telegraph failed, stymied by the aether currents, they’ve been working on this new idea for communication over long distances—one station to another. Unfortunately, there seems to be some difficulty making them transmit back and forth. The researchers at the Royal Society in London came up with a new prototype to fix this. They made two: one for London, and one to come here, to Bunson’s.”

“Why Bunson’s?”

“Well, that’s where the other communication machine is located, of course. Anyway, something happened to that prototype.”

“Monique hid it.”

Vieve looked impressed. “Really? How do you know that?”

“I was with her at the time. That’s when I was recruited.”

“It was her finishing assignment?”

“Yes. And she failed.”

“That explains why she’s bunking down with debuts. And why she wasn’t allowed to attend the play either.” Vieve’s dimples disappeared and she once more looked unnaturally serious for a nine-year-old.

That little bit of information was news to Sophronia. She’d sent Dimity off with strict instructions to keep a very close eye on Monique. Instructions that Dimity would find very hard to follow. “Monique didn’t go? Why isn’t she here in quarters?”

“Skulking about the teachers’ section, ain’t she? Nasty piece of work, t cce on hat one. And gets away with it, what’s worse.”

Sophronia pursed her lips. She didn’t have time for Monique’s tomfoolery at the moment. “So do you know where it is?”

“The prototype?”

“No, the communication machine at Bunson’s.”
If I could get a look at it, I might learn why everyone thinks it’s so important. Besides, I’d like to see inside Bunson’s, where girls aren’t supposed to go, on principle.

Vieve looked up at that, her green eyes narrowed. “I can see why you keep getting into trouble. Are you sure you’re a girl?”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“You don’t act like a girl.” Vieve cocked her head. “You want to go after it?”

Sophronia nodded. “See what all the fuss is about.”

This didn’t appear strange to Vieve. “We’re going to need help. Can’t get on and off this airship that easily.”

“Good thing we’re friendly with the sooties, then, isn’t it?”

Genevieve Lefoux dimpled down at her work. “Good point. Right.” She put Bumbersnoot back on his feet. “That should do it.”

The mechanimal shook himself, like a wet dog might, and trotted about the room. His tail wagged excitedly,
ticktockticktock
!

Sophronia watched him. “He’s moving much easier, and he doesn’t seem to be squeaking. You do good work.”

Vieve blushed. “I try. He might… oh, there he goes.”

Bumbersnoot crouched down in one corner of the parlor and deposited a pile of ash in a small mound.

“Oh, dear. Bad mechanimal!”

Vieve defended the dog. “He
is
a tiny steam engine. There’re bound to be a few deposits.”

“What about his capacity as a storage device?”

Vieve said, “About the size of your fist. Any larger and it might get stuck.”

Sophronia nodded, hoarding the information away for future use. “So are you any good at climbing?”

“Yes, but fortunately, we don’t have to.” The girl held out her wrist. On it she had strapped a wide leather band with what looked like a small brass jewelry case affixed to it. She flipped open the lid and held up the gadget for Sophronia to see.

At first Sophronia thought it might be a music box, but when she looked closer, she saw there were all sorts of dials and wheels and small knobs.

“What is it?”

Vieve grinned. “I call it my anti-mechanical mobility and magnetic disruption emission switch. Soap calls it
the obstructor
.”

It took only five minutes for Sophronia to badly want an obstructor of her own.

Vieve simply marched out into the hallway, and when a maid came trundling threateningly in their direction, the girl pointed her wrist at the mechanical and clicked a switch with her free hand.

The maid froze in place. Steam stopped emanating from the base of its carapace, and the gears and dials where its face ought to be stopped moving. It was as though the mechanical had seen something scandalous and been seized by a fainting fit.
Ingenious!

“Come o c-1"thin!” Vieve grabbed Sophronia by the hand and dragged her past the mechanical. “The effect wears off in six seconds. I’m trying to figure out how to extend it, but that’s the best we’ve got at the moment.”

They ran past the maid, pausing at a bend in the hallway and peeking around the corner in case there was another mechanical, or possibly one of the students who was being punished by confinement and had similar escapist tendencies.

So they proceeded through the sections and levels of the airship, engaging in a kind of transdirigible hopscotch. Anytime they happened upon a mechanical, Vieve froze the poor thing for six seconds while they dashed past and continued on.

They crossed the midpoint of the school and immediately headed down toward the lower levels. As Vieve explained, “There are still two teachers aboard.”

“Professor Braithwope?” Sophronia said, hazarding a guess. “He can’t leave the ship. And”—she paused to think—“your aunt?”

“Because she doesn’t care for anything fun or entertaining,” explained Vieve without rancor.

Eventually, they found themselves at the entrance to the boiler room. Sophronia felt odd approaching that room from above rather than below. They pushed aside two massive brass doors emblazoned with images of fire and all sorts of symbols of
danger. Sophronia squinted. One of the symbols looked to be a badger with his tail in flames. Another was a skull like that on a pirate’s flag, but with its mouth open and long vampire fangs.
If that’s a vampire, perhaps the badger on fire is meant to be a werewolf?
Another, Sophronia could swear, was a robin in a bowler.
What
, she wondered,
is dangerous about a robin in a bowler?

They climbed down a small flight of stairs out onto an internal balcony that overlooked the engine chamber. It was like being in a box at the theater. From that vantage, Sophronia and Vieve could see the entirety of the boiler room spread out below them: the four huge boilers with orange mouths agape, the mountain of coal over to one side, and smaller piles near the boilers. There were giant pumps and pistons, and rotary gears and belts, some cycling round, others moving up and down, and some utterly still. Lit by the flickering of the boilers, the colossal machinery glowed. Even all the coal dust and steam in the air had not dulled the shine. Sophronia wondered if they polished the metal regularly. Threading through and around and within the machines were the sooties, like ants. The larger forms of the greasers, mechanics, and firemen stood as points of stillness within this movement; fulcrums to which the sooties would periodically gather for instructions, as if those selfsame ants had discovered a nice crumb of cheese.

“Impressive, from this angle,” said Sophronia.

“Beautiful.” Vieve’s eyes gleamed. “Someday I want a whole massive laboratory exactly like this all to myself.”

“Oh?”

“I shall name it my contrivance chamber.” She had clearly given this a great deal of thought.

“Excellent name. Perhaps we should move on before we’re noticed by an engineer?”

“Well put.” Vieve led Sophronia over to a set of steep stairs that spiraled to the boiler room floor. Vieve scuttled down. Sophronia, who was in a dark blue visiting dress with multiple petticoats, followed as nimbly as those petticoats would allow.

Vieve knew the way once they got down. She moved with purpose through the machines and around the coal hea c th

Sophronia, on the other hand, felt self-conscious. She stuck out like a puff pastry among meat pies in her prim dress. She was glad that when they stopped it was behind a massive rotary engine to one side of the room, mostly out of sight.

Vieve grabbed an impish towheaded boy by one elbow. “Rafe, fetch Soap, would ya?”

“Do it yourself, Trouble.”

“Can’t. I got important
company
. Couldn’t leave a lady alone in this dangerous place, now could I?”

“Her?” The blond boy squinted into the shadows where Sophronia stood. “What’s one of
them
doing down ’ere?”

“Same as everybody else: minding her own business. Now get Soap, would ya?”

The blond sniffed, but ambled off.

“Pleasant young man,” commented Sophronia.

“They can’t all be as charming as me,” Vieve replied with a smile.

“Or as adorable as me,” added Soap, coming up behind Vieve and nicking her cap. “Good evening, Miss Temminnick; Vieve. To what do we owe this honor? Shouldn’t you be watching a play or something highfalutin in town?”

“Give it back!” Vieve made a grab for her hat, but Soap held it out of reach. “Can’t stand the theater.”

“And I’m not allowed,” Sophronia added. “But Soap, Vieve and I were wondering if you could help us get out?”

“Out?”

“We want to pay a visit to Bunson’s.”

“But why? No one will be there.”

“Exactly,” crowed Vieve.

“They’ve got something we want to see.”

Soap was suspicious. “What
kind
of something?”

“A communication machine,” Sophronia explained.

Vieve nodded, grinning.

Soap looked back and forth between them. He ended with Sophronia. “Not you as well? Gone barmy over mechanics, have you? I should never have introduced you two. It’ll all end in tears and oil.”

“Not really. I’m more intrigued by this one’s desirability.”

“What?”

“Flywaymen want it, or parts of it. Monique failed because of it. I’ve seen two air battles so far over stray bits of it.”

Soap latched on to the last part of her statement. “You saw what happened with the mid-balloon?”

“Yes, and I saw you repairing it.”

“No joke. I was squeaking for nigh on an hour because of all that helium. Funniest thing, repairs up top. So?”

“Someone fired a cannon at us.”

“Because of this communication machine?”

“Not exactly. Because of a piece that might make the communication machines actually communicate with each other.”

Soap looked confused but willing to play along. “Well, very good, then, but I better come with you. Can cwitp widt’t have you two scrabbling about groundside unsupervised.”

Sophronia arched her eyebrows. “I assure you, I have been sneaking around with impunity for years.”

Soap glowered at her.

“Oh, very well,” said Sophronia, unwilling to waste any more time.

Soap enlisted a few off-duty sooties so that a small, dirty herd escorted Sophronia and Vieve over to yet another hatch in the boiler room floor. This was one Sophronia hadn’t noticed before, in a corner behind what she assumed was a hot water pump for the school’s serpentine room-heating system. Up top, in the residential rooms, the heating contraptions looked like grates in the walls, and they kicked in at night if it got icy, which it often did up high. The one in Dimity and Sophronia’s room made such a rumbling and growling that Dimity named it “Boris the Indigestive.” This, then, was Boris’s origin.

There was a coiled rope ladder resting nearby. When the hatch flipped open, it became clear the airship was floating very low to the ground, perhaps only two stories up. They were also at the edge of the moor. Swiffle-on-Exe became visible after they let down the ladder and began to climb.

The school had stopped above a knoll off a goat path above the town, but it was far enough outside the village for Sophronia
to be nervous that, should the moor mists rise up, they would not be able to find their way back. The moon was full, which explained both the revels in the town and the absence of Captain Niall. He would be a true monster tonight, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Sidheag had explained that Captain Niall took himself off several days before the moon, far into the moor, away from civilization, so that his moon-mad werewolf self wouldn’t be a danger to anyone. Sophronia thought this sad. Werewolves supposedly loved the theater.

They dropped down to the grass, Sophronia first, then Vieve, and then Soap. Soap saluted the sooties above and the ladder was pulled up. They would lower it again in exactly two hours, right before the performance was supposed to let out. Sophronia worried about the time constraint, but Vieve was confident that two hours was enough.

Under the bright moon, the path into town was well-lit. Swiffle-on-Exe was a silvery hodgepodge of thatched roofs, church steeples, and the looming monstrosity of Bunson’s to the left. They moved at a swift trot and arrived at the gates to the boys’ school in a little under a quarter of an hour.