Sidheag said, gruffly, “Unfortunately, she’s also had all the same lessons we have. So she knows all our tricks, just as we know all hers.”
Sophronia said, “Except that she doesn’t know we’re on board. Unfortunately, she also knows our faces. There’s no disguising ourselves from Monique.”
“When we stop, will she come check this coach, do you think?” wondered Dimity, glancing frantically around the interior. There was nowhere to hide.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell if there are any other drones on board. There’s a man asleep with the transmitter. Good looking enough to be a drone. Perhaps this mission is one of such secrecy they could only entrust it to the two.”
“Vampires always muck everything up,” grumbled Felix.
“You mean, just like the Picklemen do? Everyone has their own agenda, Lord Mersey. The key is to manipulate motivations without being sucked into them.” Sophronia looked hard at Felix, hoping he might take her words as a lesson, think about his own position for a change.
Unfortunately, he seemed mainly annoyed at her tone of voice.
“So much for our grand escape to Scotland,” said Sidheag, slumping onto a bench. The lack of sleep was catching up to her.
“Of course it’s the vampires.” Felix didn’t seem surprised enough by Sophronia’s revelation. And she was pretty darn certain it wasn’t simply his bigotry talking.
Sophronia gave him a hard stare. “Felix, do you know something you’re not telling us?”
The young lord shrugged. “It’s only that I thought I recognized the writing on the freight carriage as we approached, but I couldn’t understand what it implied until now.”
“You didn’t think that might be relevant?”
“Not until I knew there was a vampire drone on board.”
“That’s not the point; the point is, you might have said something sooner if you had suspicions! What did it say?” Sophronia demanded. Blast his Pickleman secrecy. What had they landed themselves in?
Felix was sullen. “Well, I couldn’t tell at the time. I didn’t see much of it. But now, I believe it was the brand of the East India Company.”
“Bloody Jack?” Dimity was intrigued. She had a fancy to someday visit exotic lands. Most girls wanted to tour Europe after their weddings. Dimity had plans to visit places with more color. After she caught herself a sensible, tour-minded husband, of course.
“Indeed,” acknowledged Felix. “My father has always suspected they had vampire ties.”
Sophronia nibbled her lip in consideration. “Has the East India Company, by any chance, put in an order for crystalline valves recently?”
Felix sneered outright at that question. “How should I know?”
“Your father is a Pickleman,” pointed out Sophronia mildly, again, trying to make him understand his own bias.
“He’s also a peer of the realm, and would never deal in trade! That’s Cultivator rank responsibility.”
“Picklemen have a ranking system?” This was news to Sophronia. She altered her attitude to one of inquiry rather than instruction.
Felix winced. “I shouldn’t have said that.” After which he clamped his mouth shut despite Sophronia’s big, pleading eyes.
She inched closer and tilted her head, looking at him from under her eyelashes. Perhaps if I’m winsome enough, he’ll tell me more and realize how misguided the Picklemen are.
Sidheag interrupted her tactics by asking, “Would Picklemen sell valves to the East India Company?”
Felix nodded. “Of course. We haven’t any proof of vampire backing.”
Another slip-up, he said “we.” Sophronia genuinely liked Lord Mersey. He was, frankly, adorable. But if Piston membership really was a means for recruiting Picklemen, she and Felix were ill matched. Sophronia bit her lip, looking disappointed.
Felix tilted his head at her, inquiring, the corner of his mouth tilted up in a “forgive me?” smile.
Why does he have to be so pretty? “You know, Lord Mersey, so far as I can tell, supernatural creatures come some good and some bad. Just like everyone else.”
Felix bristled. “And the fact that they hunt humans for food doesn’t bother you at all?”
“On occasion. But I’m not one to judge anyone’s character based on diet. I myself have an unacceptable love of mincemeat.”
Felix couldn’t seem to help but smile at that. Sophronia could be awfully charming when she was self-effacing. “And the fact that we are apparently stuck on a vampire train doesn’t trouble you?”
“Of course, but we aren’t supposed to be here. Anyone would be in their rights to get annoyed.”
“And the fact that the hive kidnapped Dimity?”
Dimity looked up, startled at being suddenly dragged into an argument. “Oh, now, see here.”
“To counter a Pickleman monopoly. Frankly, it struck me as something the Picklemen themselves might do, were circumstances reversed.”
“This is ridiculous. No matter what I say, you will always give them the benefit of the doubt. Even now!” Felix was losing much of his simulated boredom under Sophronia’s pointed remarks, but he didn’t seem to be losing his opinions.
“Just as you will always see them as less than human and unworthy of trust, or even decency.”
“They are monsters,” hissed Lord Mersey through gritted teeth.
That raised Sidheag’s hackles because of the implied slur on werewolves.
Fortunately, a voice interrupted them before it could descend into an all-out fight. “Um, pardon me?”
“Soap?” Sophronia was grateful for the distraction.
“It’s not that I don’t find this conversation fascinating, miss. I most assuredly do. I never seen you tongue-lash a lordling afore.”
“Soap!”
“It’s the clouds, they’s lifting a bit, and up and ahead of us there’s a ruddy airship.”
“What?”
“Midsized, kinda disreputable looking.”
“Is it attacking?” asked Sidheag.
“No, I think we may be following them.”
“What?” Sophronia and the others rushed to the window and forced it open, craning their heads to look up.
Just as Soap said, there was a dirigible. It was a bit scruffy, like a fur muff left too long in the attic. If the train hadn’t been on tracks, Sophronia would have agreed that they were following it. They chugged along in its wake until the tracks inevitably steered them one way and the dirigible drifted in another.