Madame Lefoux examined Alexia’s face sympathetical y. “You think the Templars can explain how Lord Maccon managed to get you with child?”
“Why don’t you tel me? You once said you managed to read a portion of the Templars’ Amended Rule.”
“You did what?” Professor Lyal was impressed.
Floote looked at the Frenchwoman with renewed suspicion.
“They must know something about this thing.” Alexia poked an accusatory finger at her stil -flat stomach.
Madame Lefoux looked thoughtful but clearly did not want to tempt Alexia with false hope. “I think they might be so intrigued at meeting a female preternatural that they wil be unguarded in their approach. Especial y if they find out you are pregnant. But they are warriors, not intel ectuals. I’m not convinced they can furnish you with what you actually desire.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“The return of your husband’s regard.”
Alexia glared daggers at the Frenchwoman. The very idea! She didn’t want that disloyal fuzz-bal back in love with her. She simply wanted to prove him wrong.
“I think,” said Professor Lyal before Alexia could commence a diatribe, “that you are entering a wasp hive.”
“So long as it is not a ladybug hive, I shal be fine.”
“I think,” said Floote, “that I should come with you ladies.”
Neither of the ladies in question objected.
Alexia raised a finger in the air. “Might I recommend we arrange a regular aethographic transmission date, Professor Lyal ? Although that presupposes the fact that we wil be able to find a public transmitter.”
“They have become more popular recently.” Madame Lefoux clearly approved of the idea.
The Beta nodded. “Keeping a time slot open at BUR headquarters is an excel ent notion. I shal give you a list of al the names and locations of transmitters for whom we have crystal ine valve frequensors, and with whom we can thus transmit. From what I recal , Florence has a good one. You understand, our apparatus is not as sophisticated as Lord Akeldama’s?”
Alexia nodded. Lord Akeldama had recently purchased the latest and greatest in aethographic transmitters, but BUR’s was old and clunky. “I shal need a valve for your transmitter as well , for the Italian end of the business.”
“Of course. I wil send an agent ’round directly. Shal we set the appointment for just after sunset? I wil have my men set ours to receive from Florence and hope something comes through from you at some point on that frequency. If only so that I know you are alive.”
“Oh, that is terribly optimistic of you,” said Alexia in mock umbrage.
Professor Lyal did not apologize.
“So, Italy it is?” Madame Lefoux rubbed her hands together in the manner of one about to embark on an adventure.
Lady Maccon glanced about at the four standing around her. “One should always visit one’s roots once in one’s lifetime, don’t you feel? I expect the carriage with my things has arrived by now.” She turned to leave. The others fol owed. “I shal have to repack.
Better do it quickly, before anything else goes wrong today.”
Madame Lefoux touched her arm before she could dash off. “What else happened to you this morning?”
“Aside from the announcement of my rather embarrassing condition in the public papers and an attack of virulent ladybugs? well , Queen Victoria fired me from the Shadow Council, my family ejected me from their house, and Lord Akeldama vanished, leaving me a very terse message about a cat. Which reminds me.” Lady Maccon took the mysterious metal cat col ar out of her reticule and waved it at Madame Lefoux. “What do you make of this?”
“Magnetic auditory resonance tape.”
“I thought it might be something like.”
Professor Lyal looked on with interest. “Do you have a resonance decoding cavity?”
Madame Lefoux nodded. “Of course, over here somewhere.” She disappeared behind a vast pile of parts that looked to be the dismembered components of a dirigible’s steam engine combined with half a dozen enormous spoons. She returned carrying an object that gave every indication of being a very tal stovepipe-style top hat, with no brim, mounted on a teapot stand with a crank attachment and a trumpet coming out its underside.
Lady Maccon had nothing to say upon seeing such a bizarre-looking contraption.
She handed over the metal tape in mystified silence.
The inventor fed the tape in through a slit in the underside of the hat, turning the crank to run it through the device. As she did so, a pinging sound began to emerge, akin to the noise a piano might make after inhaling helium. She cranked faster and faster. The pings began meshing together, and eventually a high voice came into existence.
“Leave England,” it said in a tinny, mechanical tone. “And beware Italians who embroider.”
“Useful,” was Madame Lefoux’s only comment.
“How on earth did he know I would choose Italy?” Sometimes Lord Akeldama stil managed to surprise Alexia. She pursed her lips. “Embroidery?” Lord Akeldama was never one to prioritize one vital factor, such as murder, over another, such as fashion. “I’m worried about him. Is it safe for him to be away from his house? I mean to say, I understand his being a rove detaches him from the hive, but I was under the impression roves also became part of a place. Tethered, a little like ghosts.”
Professor Lyal tugged on one earlobe thoughtful y. “I wouldn’t concern yourself overly, my lady. Roves have a much larger roaming ability than hive-bound vampires. It takes considerable strength of soul to break the queen dependency to begin with, and the older the rove, the more mobile. It is their very capacity for movement that keeps most roves in favor with a local hive. They are untrustworthy but useful. And since the rove needs the queen to convert his drones, they are vested in each other’s survival. Have you seen Lord Akeldama’s BUR file?”
Lady Maccon shrugged noncommittal y. She was not above poking about her husband’s office, but she did not think Lyal needed to be made aware of that little fact.
“Wel , it is quite substantial. We’ve no record of his original hive, which suggests he has been a rove some considerable time. I should think he could easily travel outside London city limits, perhaps even as far as Oxford, with very few psychological or physiological consequences. He is probably not mobile enough to handle floating the aether or crossing the water out of England, but he is certainly capable of making himself difficult to find.”
“Difficult to find? We are talking about the same Lord Akeldama?” The vampire in question had many sterling qualities—admirable taste in waistcoats and an acerbic wit to name but a few—but subtlety was not among them.
Professor Lyal grinned. “I should rest easy if I were you, Lady Maccon. Lord Akeldama can take care of himself.”
“Somehow I do not find a werewolf’s reassurances on behalf of a vampire al that heartening.”
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about your own problems?”
“What enjoyment is there in that? Other people’s are always far more entertaining.”
With that, Lady Maccon led the way back into the hal way, up in the ascension room, through the hat shop, and out into the street. There she supervised the removal of her luggage and sent the waiting coachman off. He was clearly pleased to be heading back toward the comparative sanity of the Loontwil household, where excitable members of the aristocracy did not hurl mechanical beetles at him.
Professor Lyal hailed a hansom and directed it to BUR headquarters to continue on with what looked to be a most demanding day. Floote used the Woolsey carriage to return to the castle and col ect his own meager belongings. He arranged to meet the ladies back at the Chapeau de Poupe in under four hours. They agreed that they should depart as quickly as possible, thus traveling under the comparative protection of daylight. Madame Lefoux, of course, was already packed.
Lady Maccon immediately began upending her many suitcases, with Tunstel ’s assistance, right there in the midst of the forest of hats. The bags had been hastily and rather upsettingly packed by the petulant Swilkins, and Alexia couldn’t seem to find anything she might require for a trip to Italy. Mindful of Lord Akeldama’s message, she eliminated al articles of clothing afflicted by the presence of embroidery.
Madame Lefoux contented herself with puttering about with her hats, putting them in order in anticipation of their abandonment. They were al thus agreeably occupied when an enthusiastic rat-tat-tatting at the door interrupted them. Alexia looked up to see Ivy Tunstel , black curls bouncing in her eagerness, waving madly from the other side of the glass.
Madame Lefoux went to let her in.
Ivy had taken to both married life and a considerable fal in social station with unexpected gusto. She seemed to genuinely enjoy her new role as wife to an actor of middling reputation and denizen of—gasp— rented apartments in Soho. She spoke with pride of entertaining poets on a regular basis. Poets, of al things! She even made murmurs about treading the boards herself. Alexia thought this might be a good plan, for Ivy had just the right kind of pleasant, animated face and inordinately melodramatic temperament to suit life as a thespian. She certainly needed little help in the wardrobe department. Always one for the outrageous hat in her unmarried state, her taste, cut free of her mother’s apron strings, now extended to the rest of her attire. Today’s offering was a bright apple green, pink, and white striped visiting gown, with a matching hat that boasted feathers of such epic proportions that Ivy actual y had to duck slightly upon entering the shop.
“There you are, you wretched man,” she said affectionately to her husband.
“Hel o, magpie,” was his equal y warm response.
“In my favorite hat shop.” Ivy tapped Tunstel coquettishly on the arm with her fan. “I wonder what could ever have brought you here. ”
Tunstel looked desperately at Lady Maccon, who flashed him an unhelpful smirk.
“Wel ”—he cleared his throat—“I thought you might want to pick out some new frippery or another, on the occasion of our”—he scrabbled wildly—“month anniversary?”
Alexia gave him a slight nod, and he let out a sigh of relief.
Trust Ivy to see nothing but the hats and not notice Lady Maccon’s copious luggage strewn about the place, or, for a few moments, Lady Maccon herself. When Ivy final y did, she was quite forward in her questioning.
“Alexia, good gracious me! What are you doing here?”
Alexia looked up. “Oh, hel o, Ivy. How are you? Thank you kindly for the hat you sent over this morning. It was very, um, uplifting.”
“Yes, well , never mind that now. Pray tel , what are you about?”
“I should think that was perfectly obvious, even to you, my dear. I am packing.”
Ivy shook her head, plumage swaying back and forth. “In the middle of a hat shop?
There is something amiss with such a situation.”
“Needs must, Ivy. Needs must.”
“Yes, I can see that, but what one must need to know at this juncture is, not to put too fine a point on it, why?”
“I should think that, too, would be perfectly obvious. I am in imminent danger of traveling.”
“Not because of this upsetting business with the morning papers?”
“Precisely so.” Alexia figured it was as good an excuse as any. It went against her nature to be seen fleeing London because she was thought adulterous, but it was better than having the real reason known to the general public. Just imagine what the gossipmongers would say if they knew vampires were intent on assassinating her—so embarrassing. Look at her, they would say. Oh, la, multiple assassination attempts, indeed! Who does she think she is, the Queen of Sheba?
And real y, wasn’t that what al disreputable ladies did in the end—escape to Europe?
Ivy knew nothing of Alexia’s soul ess state. She did not even know what preternatural meant. Lady Maccon’s affliction was a not-very-wel -kept secret, what with BUR and al the local werewolves, ghosts, and vampires in on it, but the majority of the daylight folk were ignorant of the fact that there was a preternatural in residence in London. It was general y felt, by Alexia and those intimate with her, that if Ivy knew of this, al attempts at anonymity would be nul and void within several hours. Ivy was a dear friend, loyal and entertaining, but circumspection could not be listed among her more sterling qualities.
Even Tunstel acknowledged this flaw in his wife’s nature and had refrained from informing the new Mrs. Tunstel of her old friend’s real eccentricity.
“Yes, well , I suppose I can understand the need to absent yourself from town. But where are you going, Alexia? To the country?”
