Agatha H. and the Airship City

him.”

The light dawned. “Oh!” He then turned back to the stairway. “No, I don’t think so.”

Agatha raced around him and pointed at the door, where the noise had grown even more frenzied. “Can’t you hear that?”

The young man looked at her patiently. “That’s what I mean,” he explained. “It’s taking much too long. If she really wanted to kill him, it would be over very quickly. She’s just warning him off.” A pained squeal rose through the air and was cut off with a sharp wet sound. “Ah, Minsc. I should’ve guessed.”

Agatha stared at him. “Oh.” She leaned wearily against the wall. “This is a very strange place,” she observed.

The young man considered this. “You think so? I don’t get out much.” He awkwardly shifted his load of bottles so that he could stick out a hand. “I’m Hezekiah Donewitz.” Agatha gingerly shook his hand. “You must be Agatha,” he continued. “You should come to Theo’s room. Gil is here! He’s telling us about Paris.”

Agatha scowled. “I wouldn’t—”

Hezekiah interrupted her. “Aw, come on!” He jiggled the load of bottles. “We’re going to reinvent the corkscrew. You can help! I hear you’re brilliant at systems analysis.”

Agatha blinked. “What?”

“Sure. Gilgamesh said you really improved his flying machine.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. He says you’re really smart.” He leaned forward: “I think he really likes you.”

Agatha looked closely at Hezekiah’s face, but could detect no trace of irony. Her head felt funny and she desperately wanted to sit down, and the last thing she wanted to do was face Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. “I’m afraid I’m so tired that I don’t think I could stay awake if he was telling you about his trip to… to America by way of the moon. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it tomorrow.”

Hezekiah shrugged with a clink. “Fair enough, from what I’d heard, you’ve had a busy day. Good night.”

Agatha realized that it had been a busy day, and as she climbed the short stairway to her room, felt weariness drop onto her like a blanket.

On the wall next to each of the bedroom doors, Agatha had noticed a set of thin metal pockets mounted to the wall, labeled with the occupant’s name. As she approached her door, she saw that the second pocket had been labeled with her name, and that there was an envelope within. She unfolded it and found a notification that in the morning, she was to report to Minor Mechanical Workshop Number 311. There was a map showing the way from the dormitory. She studied it a moment and then realized that she was swaying slightly.

She pushed open the door and was startled to see a large white cat eating off of a tray of food that had been left on the desk of the room’s other occupant. In a flurry of white, the cat leapt down and vanished under the other bed.

Agatha got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. Two large glowing green eyes stared back. “Hiya, cat,” she said. The cat scrunched itself further back into the corner.

Agatha sat back on her knees. “How many cats do they have running around here anyway? Well, you don’t want to come out? Suit yourself.”

The door opened and a tall, aristocratic-looking young lady walked in. She had a long, thin face, pale skin, and an elegant mass of long auburn curls. Her outfit was a standard Wulfenbach overall, but it had been tailored to fit, and shiny brass buttons replaced the regular issue. From the state of her outfit, it was apparent that she had been engaged in heavy labor. Upon seeing Agatha, she stopped dead. In an eyeblink her tiredness had vanished and was replaced by an air of graciousness. “Ah, you are awake. You may rise.”

Agatha realized that she was still on her knees and hastily scrambled to her feet.

“I am Her Highness, Zulenna Luzhakna, a princess of HofnungBorzoi. We are to be roommates, it appears.” She extended a hand. “And you are?”

“Agatha Clay.”

A faint frown flitted across Zulenna’s face and the hand was smoothly withdrawn. “Clay,” she mused. “Not a… noble house. Which member of your family possesses the Spark?”

“Ah, none of them. My father’s a blacksmith,” she offered hopefully.

“A blacksmith. How utilitarian.” Zulenna sat down on her bed and surveyed Agatha. “So, why are you here?”

“Baron Wulfenbach captured my… my boyfriend. He’s a Spark.”

“A captured…” Zulenna’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean Moloch von Zinzer?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“I keep tabs on all of the Sparks aboard Castle Wulfenbach. So you are Herr von Zinzer’s bed warmer.” She jumped up, obviously greatly annoyed, and leaned into Agatha. “I have heard about you, and I trust there will be no nonsense within this room.”

Agatha found that she was so tired that her outrage barely flickered. “Look,” she said evenly, “there seems to be a mistaken impression that I’m some sort of—”

“How dare you!” Zulenna interrupted furiously. Startled, Agatha saw that she was holding the tray she’d seen the cat eating from. “This was my dinner. I work the late shift. The kitchen is closed! It was on my desk! How dare you touch it! And how dare you make such a mess!” Indeed, food was scattered across the desktop.

“Oh, now wait a minute!” Agatha objected hotly, “I didn’t touch your stuff. The cat was up on the desk eating it when I came in!”

Zulenna cocked an eyebrow. “What cat?”

“I thought it was yours. It’s a big white cat. It’s under your bed.”

Zulenna looked at Agatha for a moment, a look of uncertainty passed over her face, and she gracefully dropped to her knees and raised the coverlet to peer under the bed. When her head came back up, she was glaring furiously. “You can’t even lie competently.”

“What?” Agatha looked under the bed. No cat. Hurriedly she looked under her bed. No cat. A quick look around the small room showed that there was certainly no place a cat could hide, and she knew it hadn’t left when Zulenna opened the door…

“But it was there!” Agatha looked under Zulenna’s bed again. A small, flat underbed chest, which would have to be removed to be opened, and a ventilation grate were all that were to be seen.

“There’s a ventilation grate here, maybe it—”

Zulenna’s hand snapped down and whipped the coverlet out of Agatha’s hand. Her voice was icy with disdain. “That vent cover is held in place with two snaps. I doubt that any cat, even one as fabulous as the one you saw, could open them. Therefore I must conclude that in addition to being a person of low moral character, you are a liar as well as a thief. I expect nothing less from the lower classes, but I’ll be damned if I will sleep in the same room with you. I imagine your parents expected you to sleep in the foundry; I suggest—”

The smack to her face caught Zulenna by surprise. The force of it spun her around causing her to slam into the wall. Before she could recover, she found herself hoisted up off the floor by an Agatha who was radiating rage.

Agatha felt the fury roaring through her body like a lightning storm. A part of her realized that she had never been allowed to be this angry before. Whenever she got mad, a headache seemed to come along to snuff out the rage. But not this time. For the first time in her life, Agatha could vent all the fury that she was capable of feeling, and a part of her reveled in it. She screamed as years of pent-up emotions found voice.

Zulenna had been about to deliver a solid kick to Agatha’s stomach, but an older part of her brain looked into Agatha’s face, overrode her conscious mind, and she stopped struggling and went limp.

“One thing my parents taught me,” Agatha said in a voice that set off fresh alarms, “was that nobody gets to badmouth my family. I will tell you this one last time. I didn’t eat your dinner. There was a cat. I have had a very long day. And I am not—” this was emphasized with another slam into the wall—”von Zinzer’s… like that.” The embarrassment she felt over this last admission seemed to sap her strength. Zulenna felt her feet touch the ground. She eyed Agatha warily.

Agatha was fading fast now. She felt a great weariness roaring over her, and merely stood there, her hands