Curtsies & Conspiracies

agent for. Queen Victoria and her supernatural advisers seemed safer than the Picklemen or the vampire hives, but were they really any better? If I want to, will I be permitted to make my own arrangements? Can I choose a patron, or do we automatically go to the highest bidder? And if the latter is the case, how is that a fate better than an arranged marriage?

Sophronia wasn’t certain what instinct drove her to drop by the classrooms that night—but she did.

She saw the light on in Professor Lefoux’s lab and climbed outside to peek in, listening with her trumpet pressed to the porthole. There was only one person in the room, and he wasn’t talking. Professor Shrimpdittle was bent over the large metal suitlike object that he and Professor Lefoux had tinkered with earlier that week. He was working in intense silence, and though Sophronia watched him for a quarter of an hour she got no information. She returned to her room, puzzled, but with a certain sense of anticipation. Soon, she felt, all her questions would be answered. They were, after all, in London.

Her bed was lonely and cold without Bumbersnoot’s hot metal body to warm her feet.

The 13th test HIGH FLOATING ABOARD

W hen she first saw Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing School for Young Ladies of Quality, Sophronia had been impressed by the size of the airship. But no one would ever make the mistake of calling it pretty. It was a cumbersome thing that seemed to stay up by will rather than ability, like a potbellied pig. One got the impression it didn’t really want to float but was doing so out of a sense of polite obligation.

The same could not be said of Giffard’s aether-current floater, christened the Puffy Nimbus Eighteen. It was a thing of technological beauty. Its bottom half was still barge shaped, but all sleek and elegant. Its blimp was sleek as well, an elongated almond with no patches from cannon fire and no extraneous ropes or ladders. The balloon was made of silk and oiled to a dark midnight purple. The ship glided in over a jubilant crowd and sank to land at the center of Hyde Park, some distance away from the embarrassingly emblazoned Mademoiselle Geraldine’s.

The girls were permitted to visit the assembly area to watch the landing, along with hundreds of others. They were under strict orders to stick together, paired into two long lines. They dressed in their best walking frocks and bonnets, parasols raised against an overcast sky.

“Pretty as a pineapple,” pronounced Mademoiselle Geraldine, waving them off with a lace handkerchief. Mademoiselle Geraldine never left the airship if she could avoid it. “An Englishwoman’s dirigible is her castle” was one of her favorite sayings.

The girls joined in the cheers of welcome. It was a magical event, for Giffard had managed the journey in under an hour. He’d come all the way from Paris, mostly inside the aetherosphere, higher up that any manned float-craft had ever been before. “He must have used the crystalline prototype guidance valve,” insisted Vieve. “He couldn’t have managed those currents any other way.” Then she vanished into the crowd.

Henri Giffard pranced down the gangplank of his wondrous machine with all the fanfare of a circus ringmaster. He was dressed in a suit of cream check with a turquoise cravat and boasted a mustache the likes of which Sophronia had never seen before. Had he been awake, Professor Braithwope and his sad excuse for a lip curtain would have trembled in humiliation. Henri Giffard’s mustache curled up and out like a corkscrew, waxed to within an inch of its life. It was too theatrical. Sophronia instantly stopped looking at him and looked about the crowd. He must be intentionally drawing attention away from someone?

The gathering was what one might expect of a Hyde Park afternoon. There were toffs in fancy carriages and on horseback. Mademoiselle Geraldine’s young ladies of quality were companioned by a number of other students from surrounding schools, all allowed to walk out for the momentous occasion. There were groups of boffins from the Royal Society, distinguished by slightly rumpled attire and a predilection for spectacles and oddball gadgetry. There were riffraff as well: some chimney sweeps, the occasional shop girl, greasers, and other representatives of the rougher orders. Before she had met Soap, Sophronia would have glanced over them, but now she examined all with interest. Intelligencers could be anyone, after all.

She wasn’t certain exactly what she was looking for—something out of the ordinary, she supposed. She noted a group of extraordinarily well-turned-out dandies to one side. They were a bit out of place. It was early in the day for that sort to be awake, and they were not the kind of men to be interested in dirigibles. She stared at them for a long moment, but then Giffard hailed the young men with a whoop, and they whooped back. Chums from the gambling circuit? Giffard was rumored to be a bounder. Several of the academics looked like they might be too well dressed; perhaps they were in disguise? Then again, they could be French scholars, over to observe the landing.

The Puffy Nimbus was locked down. Giffard gave a speech in broken English and was welcomed with all due honors by the queen’s daylight representatives. That was when Sophronia spotted them.

Off to the far side lurking under a weeping willow were three men, all dressed to the height of fashion, carrying canes and wearing top hats. Around those hats were bands of green. Picklemen. They, like Sophronia, acted aloof from the excitement—watchers. As she looked at them, one spotted her. He tipped his hat with his cane. Sophronia twirled her parasol at him and then turned pointedly to take Felix’s arm, smiling up at the startled boy.

“Are you unwell, Ria, my dove?” Sophronia never took his arm.

Let them guess at our relationship, she thought. Let them wonder. Son of a Pickleman, is he? How much does he know?

Sophronia said sweetly, “A little overstimulated, Lord Mersey, that is all. It’s unseasonably warm, don’t you feel?”

Felix patted her hand on his arm in a condescending way. “Well, little one, you hold on there. I’ll ensure you get back to the ship safely.”

Sophronia couldn’t resist. “That’s my big strong man.”

Felix’s eyes flashed at her suspiciously.

Sophronia only continued to smile, using her lashes to good effect.

Felix couldn’t help but smile back. She was, after all, on his arm. Why question such a sought-after eventuality?

They returned to the school. Surprisingly, no one had tried to escape during the outing. The teachers were delighted with such unexpectedly good behavior. Accordingly, the girls were given the afternoon off to primp and prepare for London, whether or not they would get out into it for Monique’s ball.

The ship was abuzz with the excitement of those who were invited and the disappointed tears of those who were not. Sophronia and her friends pretended titillation. In Dimity’s case it was probably genuine. She fluttered about, suggesting a way Agatha might better do her hair (“Really, darling, it’s such a pretty red”), reprimanding Sidheag for the plainness of her gown (“Add a little lace, please?”), and insisting Sophronia wear more jewelry (“No, the obstructor does not count”).

“It doesn’t look at all like a bangle. Could we dress it up with jewels or something else sparkly?”

“Not without Vieve’s permission. It isn’t mine yet. Dimity, leave it alone! I’m far more concerned with being adequately kitted than fashionable.”

“Oh, Sophronia, don’t say such a horrible thing!” Dimity put her hand to her chest and gasped. One of Lady Linette’s techniques. “As if anything untoward would happen at Monique’s coming-out ball.” Her eyes sparkled at the temerity of her own statement.

Sophronia felt guilty. After all, Dimity and Pillover were headed into certain danger. “Very well, you can sparkle up the hurlie if you must. But not the obstructor.”

Dimity clapped her hands and dove for the device.

Over supper that evening, they were informed that night classes were canceled.

“We will all be leaving the school for several hours. I’m told the airship is required by the government for a