wake him?”
“Ivy,
“Oh. Oh, yes, of course. Just there.” Ivy gestured with her chin. When Alexia still looked about frantically, she said, “Here, hold Tidwinkle,” and passed Primrose off to her.
Alexia adjusted the little girl in her arms, and Primrose became fascinated by the white ruffles on the hem of her parasol. Alexia gave it to her obligingly to hold.
One arm now free, Ivy pointed into the crowd to the very front, where Alexia could just make out her daughter, sitting cross-legged and hatless in the dust of the road, exactly like the Antari, absorbing the story with great interest.
“Oh, really, has she no decorum at all?” wondered her mother, relieved beyond measure, but also back to frantic rushing, in the hopes that she might make it to the hotel in time to stop Conall from reading that letter.
Alexia was making her way back to the nursemaid to deposit Primrose so she could go scoop up her own daughter when something unpleasant happened. A group of white-clad, turbaned men descended upon her and surrounded her. Their faces were all veiled like those of Egyptian females, and their intent was clearly hostile. They were grabbing and pulling at her, trying to separate her from Primrose, or perhaps from her purse or parasol; it was difficult to tell.
Primrose set up a thin wail of discouragement and wrapped her chubby arms more firmly around Alexia’s parasol like a good little assistant accessory guardian. Alexia used her free hand to beat off their attackers, exclaiming in anger and whirling about as much as possible, making it difficult for any to find purchase on her or the baby. It was not good odds, and she seemed to have no free moment at all to grab the parasol and bring the full capacity of its arsenal into the fray.
Help came from a most unlikely quarter. Perhaps it was motherly instinct, or perhaps being an actress had somehow expanded her gumption over the intervening years, or perhaps she felt it more appropriate as a member of the Parasol Protectorate, but Ivy Tunstell waded into the fray. Clutching Percy with one arm, she screamed her version of obscenities. “How dare you? You ruffians!” And, “Cads! Unhand my friend.” And, “Can’t you see there is a child involved? Behave!”
The nursemaid, donkey in tow, also joined the kerfuffle. She was wielding Ivy’s parasol with a skill Alexia quite admired, bashing at the men and also yelling.
The storyteller paused in her recitation when it became clear that a pair of foreign ladies with children were under assault. No decent person, not even a native of this wild land, would condone such a thing in the middle of the street.
Their entertainment curtailed, the crowd pressed back against the men. The street was alive with flying limbs and staccato Arabic shouting. Alexia, fist flying, elbows prodding, did her best to keep herself and Primrose from being injured or separated, but there were many men all constantly grasping at her with brutal intent.
Suddenly she found herself seized by the shoulders and dragged out of the milling throng into the comparative safety of an alleyway. She looked up, panting slightly from the exertion, to thank her rescuer, only to find she was face-to-face with the balloon nomad from the bazaar. She would recognize that handsome face with its neatly trimmed beard anywhere. He nodded at her once, in a friendly manner.
Alexia took stock of her situation. She seemed to have only a few bruises to show for the battle. Primrose was still crying but was safe in her arms, parasol firmly clasped to her little breast.
Alexia felt a weight against her legs and looked down to see that Prudence had glommed on to her skirts and was looking up at her with wide, frightened eyes. “Whoa, Mama,” she said.
“Indeed.”
The Drifter dove back into the crowd, robe flapping behind him, while Alexia extracted her parasol from Primrose and armed the tip. One of the white-clad men broke away and made for her, murder in his eyes, and Alexia shot him in the chest without compunction. The numbing dart was only partly effective on supernatural creatures, but it brought that daylight thug down before he took even one more step in their direction. He crumpled in a heap of white fabric to the dirty street. Then her mysterious savior reappeared, dragging behind him a screaming and thrashing Ivy Tunstell.
“He seems to be on our side, Ivy. Do stop fussing.”
“Oh, oh, dear, Alexia. Can you believe? Why I never, in all life’s flutterings!”
Ivy looked a little worse for wear. Her hat was gone, her hair loose, and her dress torn. Percival was red- faced and crying like his sister, but otherwise both seemed unbowed. The nursemaid, still with donkey—remarkably placid and undisturbed by the ruckus—came behind them.
Ivy plunked her squalling child into one of the panniers and Alexia did the same with Primrose. The twins continued their thin treble wails of distress but remained inside their respective baskets.
Alexia bent and lifted Prudence up. Her daughter was sobered by the experience, although much less overset by the excitement than the two younger infants. Not a tear tracked down the dust covering her face. In fact, her eyes glittered with hidden excitement.
“Oh-ah Eeegypt!” she said as a kind of commentary.
“Yes, dear,” agreed her mother.
Ivy leaned back against the donkey, fanning herself with one gloved hand. “Alexia, I am quite overset. Do you realize we were attacked! Right here, in a public thoroughfare. Really, I feel quite faint.”
“Well, can it wait? We must make for safety.”
“Oh, my, yes, of course. And I could hardly faint with a bare head in a foreign country! I might catch something,” Ivy exclaimed.
“Exactly.”
Their bearded savior gestured. “This way, lady.”
With no other options—Ivy having dropped her guidebook in the excitement—they followed.
The Drifter set a brisk pace through hidden streets and alleys, up small sets of stone steps in a direction Alexia could only hope was toward their hotel. She was beginning to worry that they might have gone from boiler to steam engine, trading one danger for another. She shifted so that her parasol pointed at the man’s unprotected back, wary that she still did not recognize the city around them.
Then at long last, they burst out onto a familiar square and saw the front entrance to Hotel des Voyageurs sitting in peaceful serenity before them across a bustling bazaar. Alexia glanced over to thank their guide, but the man had melted off into the crowd, leaving the ladies to make their way this last little bit without escort.
“What a mysterious gentleman,” commented Alexia.
“He probably had to make it back to his balloon.”
“Oh?”
“Baedeker says that the balloons heat during the early part of the day and rise up. Most Drifters allow them to sink back down at night as they cool, wherever they are in the desert, until the morning heat again. He said that once the balloon is up, a Drifter will never allow it back down again until evening,” Ivy explained as they pushed their way through the milling throng.
“How very ingenious.”
“So, you see, his home is probably sinking. He has to go meet it or he wouldn’t know where it landed.”
“Oh, Ivy, I hardly think…” Alexia trailed off.
Lord Conall Maccon stood in the doorway to the hotel, holding a letter in one hand, and he did not look pleased.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In Which Idle Letters Waste Lives
Alexia Maccon adored her husband and she should never wish to cause him any pain. He was a sensitive werewolf type, unfortunately, for all her efforts, prone to extremes in emotion and with a particular, perhaps even obsessive, regard for such noble concepts as honor, loyalty, and trust.
“Wife.”
“Good evening, husband. How was your repose?” Alexia paused at the threshold to the hotel, trying to angle
